Letters from Becca: A Contemporary Romance Fiction Novel (8 page)

John looked at the picture in his hand.  Becca had convinced the guys to stage a picture with David taking a swing at John and John holding his jaw for effect.  He remembered how his jaw had hurt for a week.  He also remembered that he and David were still friends, but from that point forward, it felt different.  The four of them had all remained close through the years.  Whenever they visited one another, he and David would go out to the bar and shoot pool.  When David and Becca visited him in Texas, he and David would steal away for a day to fish or hunt.  John continued seeing Marissa, and sometimes the four of them would double date while some neighbor’s teenage daughter would watch David and Becca’s ever-growing brood.

Marissa was very independent and very smart.  Over the years she had gone from being the plain, shy wallflower to a very self-confident, passionate, uninhibited woman.  Not to mention, she was a knockout.  Marissa was the first woman he’d ever slept with, and other than Becca, the only woman that he ever truly loved.  Had he asked her to marry him, or had he just
suggested
they get married?  He didn’t remember anymore, another sign of his age.  He did remember that every time they talked about marriage they would start drifting apart.  He also recalled that his heart ached like it hadn’t in years when Marissa was out of his life.  He was sad for that.

He reached into the box and picked up another picture, a picture of a very pregnant Becca.  She looked good.  David stood behind her, with his arms around her extended belly.  A second picture was of her holding their new son.  He turned the picture over.  1968.  David Ray, Jr.  and in parentheses “D.R.” was all it read on the back.  He slid both pictures into the envelope, took his glasses from his pocket, and began to read.

I hope this letter finds you alive and well since we haven’t heard from you in months.  I’ll forgive your lack of correspondence, as I know you’ve been busy with saving the world, two souls at a time.  Praying that God keeps you safe and brings you home safely to us.  Love and miss you, Always Yours, Becca xxo.”

He smiled sadly, refolded the letter and placed it back into the envelope next to the pictures, and slipped the envelope back in its place in the box.  Beside the envelopes, there were a few loose pictures he had taken when they were all together.  John picked them up and smiled.  He hadn’t looked in the box in almost twenty years and forgotten many of the photos were in there.  He held up a picture of himself holding little D.R. when he had visited David and Becca that Christmas, after he returned from his first tour.  And a picture of him holding his namesake two years later, Johnny Dale—that was such a proud moment for him.

John slowly lifted a scratched and worn picture.  It was a perfect picture of Becca holding their first son.  He was going to be fair-haired like his father.  John touched the photo.  It still felt of sand and grit and smelled of smoke.  The loudspeaker announced the boarding of his bus.  He slid the picture into his shirt pocket and put the box back into his bag.  Deep in thought, he stood in line until his turn to board.

The bus was nice—nicer than he expected.  He hadn’t been on a bus since being in the Army, so this—to him at least—was plush.  He thought he would have a row to himself, until the Hispanic family sat across the aisle and wanted to put their young son in the seat next to him.  He hadn’t learned Spanish, and they didn’t know English, but between motioning and a few words spoken that were understood, he indicated it was not a problem.

The little boy must have been about Amanda’s age.  He had a small backpack and a handheld video game.  John looked over the little boy’s shoulder, intrigued at how a six-year-old could maneuver the characters in the device.  He watched how the small child moved his body as he made his characters move.  It was comical.  John couldn’t understand the fascination with video games; the media said it helped to increase eye-to-hand motor skills, but he simply didn’t see it.  He remembered how, when he was younger, all the girls were always reading, and the guys were always doing something athletic.  Now, everyone was on his or her phone or computer.  Even on his street, he rarely saw a child on a bicycle, or playing stickball or kickball, like he used to.

The bus began moving, and he watched as people were making their way back to their seats.  He looked around for a lever or button on his seat, found it, and leaned back.  John smiled.  Now, this was traveling.  Let someone else do the driving while you sleep!  The rumbling of the engine was even relaxing.  It was loud enough to cover the sound of people talking and the sounds of the video game being played next to him.  John closed his eyes.  The air was comfortable, although it had a musty smell.  He relaxed even more as the miles passed, until he finally fell asleep.  The rumbling vibration that had lulled him to sleep was suddenly louder.  The deeper he slept, the louder it became.  Suddenly he felt and heard and saw the explosion.

The explosion was so bright that it blinded John momentarily.  If not for his aviator sunglasses, it would have been longer; longer could have brought his chopper down.  That wouldn’t have fared well for anyone onboard or on the ground. 

“Saluga, do you have eyes on where that came from?” John yelled.

His crew chief answered, “Negative sir, do not have a visual.”

John looked up at the two gunships from the division’s air assault battalion.  They were there to cover the Bell UH-1 Huey ambulance that he lovingly referred to as Mabel.  They were first up on the duty roster to respond to a casualty call; one seriously injured.  They were flying into what was already a month-long battle that would last until the end of his first tour later that year.  They were about to lift the injured off the top of a mountain that was still heavily occupied by the North Vietnamese.  Mountains and tree lines were always bad pickup spots, since Charlie could hide there just as well as the allies could, only Charlie knew the terrain better. 

They were flying to Nui Coto, a horseshoe-shaped mountain just south of the Cambodian border, that was surrounded by allied forces, but heavily occupied by an enemy force that wasn’t about to let it go.  The pilot called for marking smoke and specified the color.  Not confirming the right color could only end badly for a distracted crew.  Many times, the enemy matched the action to confuse the rescue crews and lure them to the wrong landing zone.  Nothing worse than lifting well-armed enemy combatants from a decoy LZ into your Huey when you were instructed not to carry weapons.

There were three enemy nests on top of the mountain—one behind a boulder that was as tall as his chopper—blocking their firing range.  John elected to fly in on the other side of the boulder.  Better to be shot at from two nests than three.  John knew this had to be a high-ranking extract, or they wouldn’t be called in under heavy fire, and have the luxury of gunship protection.  There simply weren’t enough gunships in the delta to go around.  He knew in his gut this was going to be a tough lift - for the soldiers who carried the litter up a sixty-degree slope to the LZ under fire, and for his crew, because they had to use a hoist with a Stokes litter, meaning the injured wasn’t mobile. 

There were sudden, repeated pings of machine gun fire.  John pulled to the right as the gunships lined up their sights on the terrain to their left.

“Bulldog?  You got this?” he called, looking up at the C model gunships.

“Got your back, Dustoff 86,” was his response over the radio, as they continued firing along the crest of the mountain just below.

“Saluga?” John called over the intercom.  “Hoist ready? 

“Roger,” came his reply.

“Mr. T?” John’s eyes searched the horizon.  All his attention was needed to keep them in the air.  He had no intention of being the next medevac casualty.

“Got smoke twenty yards south of the crest.”

“Roger that,” John replied.  “Bravo, we have your smoke.  We’re taking fire, so need in and out.”  No airlift was always better, versus hovering and lowering a hoist for extraction, but circumstances were far from optimal.

“Roger,” came the response over the static.  “Ready when you are.”

As the aircraft descended toward the smoke, Saluga leaned from the right cargo door, moving the hoist into position for extraction.  Doolittle prepared the litter hangers and cabin’s medical gear for receiving the casualty.  The crew worked together as a well-oiled machine in preparation for the lift, as they felt the final descent of the helicopter to the LZ.  They were about to become a stationary mid-air target.  It took longer and put them all at more risk, but in many situations, such as this, it just couldn’t be avoided. 

“Roger that,” Saluga called back, hanging out of the right cargo bay door. 

Doolittle nodded nervously.  He was a new medic with the 82nd Medical Detachment, and this was his first mission.  He was white as a ghost.

Saluga turned to him and read the fear in his face.  “We’ll be in and out in ten.  No sweat,” he winked.  Doolittle nodded again, not looking convinced.  It was the last place on earth he wanted to be. 

John slowly hovered into position, his rotor blades just a foot from the boulder as they lowered the hoist.  His co-pilot, Bruce Terry, affectionately known as Mr. T, was as good as they came.  He was also relatively new to the crew, fresh from assignment at Fort Meade.  Bruce was part of the infusion of new pilots.  When new ones arrived, half were sent to established units, who sent the same number to the new units.  That way there were experienced pilots in both detachments.  Bruce was new, but he was good.  He, like John had gone through Warrant Officer Flying School and graduated top in his class.  John had flown with dozens of pilots during training missions, and Bruce was by far one of the best.

They took on more fire.  John held the chopper steady on the controls as the hoist was lowered.  Within ten minutes, they were pulling their casualty into the cargo compartment.

Doolittle turned to Saluga.  “That wasn’t so bad,” he breathed a sigh of relief.

“We’re not out of here yet,” Saluga stated.

The radio crackled to life as another call came in.  There were three additional soldiers at the base of the mountain that needed to be airlifted out.  John turned to Bruce, who nodded.  They could easily pick-up the injured before the second up helicopter crew could even lift off.

“Copy.  Dustoff will respond,” John replied.

“Copy.”

John looked up at the gunships.  “Bulldog?  Care to join us?”

“You betcha’,” the gunship lead aircraft answered.

“Are we good, Saluga?” John asked.

His crew chief carefully secured the hoist and said, “Ready in the back,” over the intercom. 

“Comin’ up,” John said, letting them know that he was ready to depart.

Doolittle assessed his patient’s condition, knowing they just added an extra twenty minutes to his flight.  He looked over his shoulder and nodded at John.

“Okay, boys, we’ve been invited to another dance.  Let’s go.”

Within seven minutes, they were closing in on the new LZ.  A second smoke bloom rose a few hundred feet away, both the same color.  Bruce hovered in place.

“Bulldog, do you have eyes on smoke?”

“Roger,” came his response.

“Need confirmation on LZ.”

There was chatter all over the radio.

“Need confirmation on LZ,” he repeated.

Suddenly they were fired upon from the second landing zone.

“Guess that’s our answer,” Bruce said with a wry smile.

In a moment, the gunships broke off from the Huey and fired upon the second smoke sent.  The perpetrators went from being decoys to sitting ducks for two completely outfitted gunships with nothing better to do.

“Thanks, Bulldog,” John said.

“We’ve got your back, boys.”

Bruce steered toward the true LZ and hovered within a hundred feet.  Then he slowly lowered the Huey.  He rarely landed.  The idea was to get in and out fast before it hit the fan, which usually didn’t happen.  The rotor wash blew the tall elephant grass all around them flat, as they hovered just a foot from the ground.  Just walking through the grass was risky enough.  It was so sharp that many of the locals didn’t even use it for their huts.  Sending it flying at high speeds from the rotor blades would make the trek to and from the landing zone extremely complicated.  Not to mention painful. 

John looked over his shoulder.

“Go,” Saluga yelled, as he and Doolittle jumped from the skid into the tall reeds. 

Bruce kept the chopper steady, his eyes darting about for any sign of the enemy. 

Saluga and Doolittle arrived at the cluster of soldiers that had readied their comrades for transport to the Army field hospital, surrounding them, guarding them.

Saluga yelled, “Someone here called for a lift?”

The only wounded American soldier on a litter raised his hand.  “That would be me.”

“Where can we take you?” Saluga asked as he carried the end of the litter.

“I hear Florida’s nice this time of year,” he answered with a weak smile.

Saluga laughed.  “I’ll talk to my pilot and see what we can do.”  They reached the chopper and the unit’s medic helped lift up the American.

Saluga climbed in to adjust the litter as Doolittle helped one of the Vietnamese soldiers with a field dressing on his head into the chopper beside him.  The third wounded friendly was carried by two of his compatriots who had created a litter with their arms.  He was in great pain, but alert, considering his right leg had a tourniquet just above where his foot used to be.  He had lost it and his best friend, Hoang, who had thrown himself on a grenade to save his friend’s life.

The crew chief turned to John and signaled to lift off.  The helo slowly rose.  Within seconds, they were hit by a burst of fire as dozens of bullets from a machine gun turned paint chips and bits of aluminum from the bird into more shrapnel.  Everyone hunched and ducked in different directions, not knowing from where the shots were coming.  Debris blew around the flight deck and cabin.  Doolittle threw himself over the injured to protect them.  Bruce moved the stick between his knees as he pitched right while watching the gunships, making sure he didn’t hit one of them and send them all crashing to the ground.  He reached for the radio, but it was dead.

“Jesus Christ!” Doolittle yelled.  “Can’t they see we’re medevac?  We’ve got red crosses painted all over us!”

“May as well be a bulls-eye,” Bruce yelled back.

“They’re just letting us know they’re here,” John added.  “Give ‘em a sec to rethink their position,” he said, nodding toward the gunships.  “They’re not here for window dressing.” 

The gunships moved warily around the medevac helicopter, darting about, searching the trees at the base of the mountain for things to kill, their rotor wash beating the treetops back and forth.

“They’re about to finish what the bully on the street started,” John said, over his shoulder.  He turned to Bruce, who was steadying the chopper.

The gunships simply turned from one end of the tree line for about two hundred yards and mowed down everything within its range, including the nest of ambushers.

“And they don’t let us carry guns, why?” Doolittle asked, eyebrows raised.

“Because they’ve been told not to shoot at us,” John smiled back.

“Charlie don’t speak American, son,” Bruce added.  He nodded toward the gunships.  “That’s why they’re here, in case we need an interpreter.”

“If you’ll excuse me for saying, sir, next time I’m getting on the birds with the big guns.”

Suddenly there was a substantial vibration.  Bruce and John both looked at each other.  “Damn!”  Bruce exclaimed.  He had to think fast on the stick.  If the vibration increased they could have separation of the rotor blades, rotor head, mast and even the transmission from the rest of the airframe.  He turned to John who nodded.  He was going to have to take old Mabel down.  “Brace for it boys.  We’re going down,” Bruce called out. 

The chopper faltered and they began to go down but not so fast that they could tip over.  They were just a few hundred yards from the LZ and the soldiers, who saw they were in trouble, were already on their way to render aid.  Mabel landed hard a few hundred yards from the LZ, throwing Doolittle onto the deck. 

“Saluga?” John called, jumping from his seat.  “How we doin?”

“We’ve crashed, sir,” he said seriously as he started to gather their survival gear and medical equipment.

John smiled.  “Well, if it’s okay with you, I’ll call that a hard landing in the report.”  He turned to Doolittle, who was still lying on the deck.  “Doolittle?”

Slowly Doolittle rose, a little dazed from the impact.  But he shook it off, and crawled to the injured, checking each of them.  “Everyone okay, sir.”

The gunships hovered overhead, assuring that nothing threatened to hinder the retreat from the downed chopper.  The Vietnamese soldiers arrived at that moment and helped unload the injured they had just loaded minutes before.  The American on the litter looked up at Saluga.  “Are we there yet?”

John arrived at the bay door.  “Anyone hurt?”

“Before or after you crashed us, sir?” the injured soldier asked, with a weak smile.

“C’mon buddy,” John said, lifting the litter.  “We’re humpin’ it from here.”

“You go ahead,” the comedian said.  “I think I’ll wait for the next flight.”

Bruce smirked.  “Oh, but then you’d miss the best part of the ride.”

“Next time I’m taking a different airline,” the soldier said firmly.  He lay his head back down and closed his eyes as they carried him to the safety of their fold.