Authors: Thom Nicholson
“Wilco, Captain.” Slowly, he climbed back inside the Plexiglas cockpit of his Huey and started the whining, turbojet engine. The choppers lifted off, heading for their pad, where the maintenance crews would spend the night working on them. Like most of the soldiers in Vietnam, the hard-working men who kept the “iron birds” flying didn’t get anywhere near the recognition and praise they deserved.
The old WO was as good as his word, and the next morning, we had twenty men in four choppers racing the rising sun to the spot where the BDA team had disappeared.
While I got on the radio, calling for the missing team, the choppers swooped down into the chewed-up jungle. Every man strained to catch some sign of the missing men. The pilot motioned me to put on the headphones hanging by my seat. Coming over the air was the welcome sound of the team leader’s voice. “This is Charlie Brown Two. Come in, Eagle flight.”
I grabbed the microphone. “Charlie Brown Two, this is Sneaky Six. Are you okay?”
“Roger, Six. We’re poppin’ yellow smoke. Do you identify?” I saw the bright yellow cloud of smoke rising into the sunshine about three hundred meters in front of us.
“Roger, Charlie Brown Two. You’re at our two o’clock. We’re on our way. What the hell happened to you anyway?”
“This is Charlie Brown Two. It’s a long story. I’ll tell you when we’re outta here. Now hurry up. Charlie has been all over this area all night.”
“Heads up,” I warned the pilot. “Could be a hot LZ.”
He nodded and spoke into the mike clipped to his flight
helmet. The four choppers fanned out, and two went into an orbit over the other two, which spiraled down to an area where a bomb blast had knocked over all the vegetation.
As soon as we touched dirt, two men darted toward us, each carrying another man, fireman-style, across his back. They threw the wounded men into the doorway of the chopper and scrambled in the door. The pilots were watching the men run toward the waiting chopper, and as soon as their butts touched the floor, we were airborne. Not a shot was fired at us, and we were well on the way back to the FOB and safety.
I grabbed the team leader, Will Turin, and shook his hand. “Good job, Will. What the hell happened to you all?”
Lieutenant Turin wearily shook his dark-haired head. He was covered with dirt, dried sweat streaks down his cheeks. The dark circles under his eyes and the exhausted expression on his face revealed a long night, spent very much awake and plenty uptight.
“They hit us just about halfway down the lane. We had just started a new leg and got split up. The two Yards went one way, and my One-one and I went the other.” He paused and took a swig of water from the canteen I gave him. “All night, we laid low in a pile of knocked-down debris while the VC crawled all over the area looking for us. Then, this morning, they moved out and we found the two Yards, both wounded, hiding out and waiting to see if we showed up.”
I nodded. “Of course, one of the Montagnards was carrying the radio, wasn’t he?” I’d seen the One-one climb into the chopper. He didn’t have the all-important radio on his back.
My crestfallen ell-tee nodded, a little sheepishly. “Sorry,
Dai Uy
. We’d just switched off, taking turns. It’s damned hard to run the whole way with that heavy SOB of a radio on your back.”
I nodded. He was right, the damned thing was heavy. And carrying it while running was like having twenty-five pounds
of sharp-angled steel strapped to your back, digging in painfully at every step.
“You were lucky, Lieutenant. That’s why we tell you to always have an American toting the radio. Live and learn, right?”
I smiled at the worn-out young officer. I doubt he ever let his Yards carry a radio again. At the same time, word would get out to the other Americans in my command, reinforcing my standing orders that only the Americans on the recon teams carry the radio on operations. I didn’t carry mine, of course, but then when I was out, there was always more than just one radio along.
We shipped the wounded men off to CCN and our hospital for indigenous personnel. I sent the rest of the Charlie Brown Two back as well. The team would not be fit for combat work for the rest of that mission anyway.
I still had four teams available, and the BDA mission was winding down. In fact, I started plotting how I could make a run, just to see what it was like. On the last day of the bombing raids against the area, I got my chance.
I’d sent out teams 1 and 3 the day before, and decided to schedule teams 4 and 5 for the final two runs, the last day. I could tell Sergeant Fischer wasn’t any too thrilled with my announcement of the schedule, but he was the consummate professional soldier and swallowed his resentment. He briefed the rest of us on what we would be doing. Since I was taking Pham and another of my bodyguards, Fischer was the only one who’d ever run a BDA before, and that had been during an earlier tour.
The key to the run is to make a zigzag sweep from side to side of the bomb zone, always moving toward the waiting helicopters at the far end of the run. You could never forget that the helicopter could only stay so long, and then it was gone, with you on board or not.
At two
P.M
. we were in the choppers, lazily circling about ten klicks south of the intended bomb drop zone.
“Here they come,” the air-control relay warned us. We couldn’t see or hear the high-flying bombers but I watched out the door of the chopper, eagerly awaiting the impact of the bombs.
Suddenly, the entire world turned to hell along the long axis of the bomb run. Explosion after explosion chased one another down the line. The three bombers were laying a carpet of 150 or more five-hundred-pound bombs into the drop zone. White shock waves rippled away from the blast, and trees and dirt rocketed into the sky as our choppers shuddered and rocked in the concussion of the bombs. The noise permeated our senses, overwhelming the racket of the helicopters.
It seemed to go on and on, yet in less than a minute, it was over, and a pall of dirty gray smoke and dust obscured the area of the bomb drop. Our choppers turned toward the melee, and the pucker factor kicked in. Hurriedly we checked our weapons and gear. In another moment, we would be on the ground.
Too soon, we hammered in,
whap, whap, whap
, jumped out, and received the thumbs-up salute from the pilot, who was watching to insure we got away from his whirling blades, and then
whop, whop, whop
, our ride was gone. We were alone, on the ground, with who knows how many nasty VC anxious for our heads. Suddenly, for whatever foolish reason imaginable, I thought of how different the sounds are that a helicopter makes when it’s coming for you as opposed to when it’s leaving you behind in harm’s way again.
I immediately felt very lonely and very vulnerable. Fischer pulled out his compass and took a quick look at the azimuth he wanted to take for the first leg of our zigzag.
“Come on, Captain,” he growled, letting me know just how much he appreciated me cutting him in on my little party. “Let’s get the fuck outta here before we get our asses shot off. Head for that big tree blown down over there.” He pointed at a
150-foot tree that had been blasted off at ground level and was sticking upside down at the edge of a big bomb crater.
The area was stirred, as if a giant tornado had swooped across the land. Trees and brush were piled up in giant clumps, like the aftermath of a careless job of raking by some monstrous gardener. Holes were blasted out of the ground about every hundred feet or so, the dirt piled around the edge like a humongous mole’s hole. And the area was quiet, too quiet. I didn’t hear a sound except for the rasping of my breath.
We started the first leg, skirting downed trees, shattered limbs and trunks that had been tossed about like used match-sticks. At the end of the first leg, I was gasping for breath. The going was anything but easy, and we had a long, long way to go. The four of us spread out a bit, and we pushed off on the second leg.
For the next half hour, it was a marathon of fighting our way through the debris of the bombing, trying to stay on line, and worrying with every step that the next thing we saw would be a thousand nasty-tempered NVA soldiers.
Our survey legs were nice, crisp forty-five-degree offsets at the start. By halfway through, they were widening out, and by three-quarters of the way down, we were hi-diddle-diddle, straight down the middle. Even so, I was sweating out the concern that we might not reach the end of the run before the choppers had to leave.
When we finally reached the waiting choppers, I was so tired I could barely drag myself on board. I was afraid I’d need to have someone get out and push on my butt as I crawled on for the ride home.
I was soaked in sweat, emotionally drained, and dirty as a pig. And I hadn’t seem a damn thing except dirt, brush, and splintered wood. One of the Yards said he spotted some damaged supplies from a destroyed bunker so that’s what we turned in. “Numerous bunkers destroyed, with associated
supplies.” A million-dollar bomb run was in the books. Only ten thousand more to go.
Everyone was happy, and I had my fling at being a BDA hero. I had my only “Run for your life, Charlie Brown,” experience of the war. That was fine with me.
“New toy’s a-comin’.”
“How’s that?” I asked the operations officer, or S-3, Major Skelton, who stopped by my chair on his way out of the mess hall. I was just finishing up my breakfast, canned tomato juice heavily laced with Tabasco and Worcestershire sauce, which disguised the tinny aftertaste of the tomato juice to the point that it was almost bearable. Normally, I love tomato juice, but in Vietnam it took half a bottle of hot stuff to make it palatable.
All the canned beverages we got in Vietnam tasted, well, metallic. Perhaps it was the long ride on rolling ships, or the fierce Vietnamese sun that beat down on the pallets of soda, beer, and juice back at the distribution centers while they awaited transport to the numerous camps. Whatever the reason, what we finally drank was a disgrace to the manufacturer’s efforts.
I finished my glass with a shudder and looked up at the bemused face of our S-3, who had the unenviable responsibility of telling those of us who
did
, what it was that those who
didn’t
, wanted us to do next.
“I just got a message from MAC-SOG in Saigon.” Major Skelton watched as I gulped down the last of the fiery red breakfast drink. “They’ve come up with a new gadget, and they want us to try it out in the field. You’re elected. Put a couple of recon teams on alert, and a security detail.”
“How big a security?” I hoped he would say the whole
company. I needed to get everyone in the bush for a spell. The soldiers had had it too soft for the previous few weeks.
The seasoned S-3 hemmed and hawed for a second. “I don’t suppose you’ll need more than a squad. This thing won’t last more than four or five days, and I’m gonna put you in Area 92. It’s been quiet there for the last month, so you’ll most likely not have any problems with the pie plate.”
“What the hell is a pie plate?” I supposed it was some new type of land mine or movement sensor.
“Nick, you’ll never believe it. Be at the heliport at 1600, and you’ll see. Come by the TOC at 1300, and I’ll give you your AO briefing. Your people better plan on insertion around the day after tomorrow.”
Major Skelton turned to leave and then turned back. “Oh, yeah. You’d better go in with them. We’ll want a senior field commander’s evaluation of the gizmo to send back to Saigon.”
“Christ fire, Major. I just got back in camp. ’Sides, I sure get nervous with less than a company of soldiers around me in Injun country.”
“TS, soldier. What do you think the taxpayer’s spending all that money on you for? He wants full value for his buck. That takes some sacrifice by us poor mud-eaters.”
Major Skelton moved away, pleased with his attempt at humor at my expense. As a rule, majors are notoriously grim. They’re too busy scheming to become lieutenant colonels to enjoy the nuances of a good joke. Major Skelton didn’t hear my acerbic reply, which was intentionally very quiet: “What’s this ‘us’ crap? You got a bird in your pocket?” We captains have a talent for the witty repartée. Comes with our natural good looks and superior brainpower.
I really liked Major Skelton and didn’t want to put him down, so I grabbed a foil pack of dried prunes and headed back to the company orderly room to put the necessary people on mission alert. I would take my two newest recon teams, and ten men from the platoon who had been in camp
the longest. It wasn’t long before they were scattered to the four winds assembling the myriad of items needed before they could go into the badlands.
If the previous month was any indication, the AO was a relatively safe place to go. The periodic recon patrols in the area found very little sign of enemy activity, and contacts were few and far between. Since I had been struggling with a touch of upset stomach, I really wasn’t too anxious to charge all over hell’s half-acre fighting bad guys.
One part of the briefing had stressed that we were to take a five-gallon can of water for every two men. That meant we weren’t going to be moving around much and that we were going to be someplace without water close by. I was a bit uneasy about that, but when I started to question the reasoning, Major Skelton just said to wait until 1600 hours at the heliport and all would be clear. By then, my curiosity was piqued, so I was on time for the surprise that was coming by helicopter.
Sure enough, at 1600 hours, the faint
fump, fump, fump
indicated the approach of an incoming helicopter, and shortly, I saw a big chopper headed our way. As it got nearer, I could make out that it was a CH-47, the army’s big transport helicopter. The twin rotors were carving great chunks of air as the olive-drab aircraft worked its way toward the tarmac where I waited with Major Skelton and several interested onlookers.
Slung underneath the chopper, spinning like a bicycle wheel laid on its side, was a weird object. Even from a distance it looked big. The nearer the chopper got, the bigger it became.