by Matt Jackson
“Aren’t warrant officers officers too?”
“Yeah, but they aren’t considered real live officers. They are—how did Mr. Fairweather put it?—technical officers, and the RLOs are tactical officers. Think of warrant officers as specialists in their field, flying the helicopter, and the RLO as a jack of all trades, master of none. You’ll see in the aircraft that the AC may be and most likely is a warrant officer because we have so few RLOs in the company. What the AC says goes. He’s the commander of the ship regardless of rank,” Jonesy added.
“Jonesy, what’s that stench?” asked Dorsey, wrinkling his nose.
“That’s shit-burning detail. Screw up and you’ll be on that detail. Each day, someone, whoever’s on the First Sergeants shit-burning detail, pulls the cans that are under the latrines out and sets them on fire to burn off the shit. While it’s burning, you get to stand there and stir the shit until it’s all burned off. We use fifty-five-gallon drums that are left over from the Agent Orange missions, cut them in half and stick them under the latrines.10 Line them with old newspapers, pour in diesel fuel with just a touch of JP4, and the next day, pull them out and burn it off,” Jonesy explained.
“What’s Agent Orange?” asked Dorsey.
“Some chemical shit that we spray over the jungle and it kills the vegetation. We use one aircraft for that mission and only that one as that stuff is oily and really makes a mess in the aircraft and all under the aircraft where the spray nozzles are. Fortunately I’ve never gotten stuck with that mission.”
They arrived at another hooch. The sign above the door read Supply. It was fairly dark inside due to poor lighting and shelving up the side of the interior walls as well as down the middle of the interior. A wood counter spanned the entire front, preventing anyone from wandering through the shelves. Behind the counter was a desk with a staff sergeant sitting there reading the Stars and Stripes newspaper. He barely looked up.
“Whatcha want?” Staff Sergeant Gibson asked.
“Newbie here needs flight gear. He’s been assigned as my door gunner,” Jonesy responded.
Slowly standing and folding his paper before he laid it on this desk, Staff Sergeant Gibson reached out and said, “Give me your clothing records.” Dorsey handed them over. Gibson opened the file and started looking through it. “You’re an 11B according to your clothing records. You aren’t entitled to flight gear.”
“I was an 11B but was reclassified to a 67A1F, door gunner,” Dorsey replied.
“Who says?” Gibson asked.
“Hey, Sarge, the first sergeant told me he’s my door gunner. If you don’t believe us, call the first sergeant. Jesus,” Jonesy sounded off with disgust in his voice.
“Watch ya mouth there. I got to be sure about this stuff,” Gibson snapped back. He continued to look over Dorsey’s clothing records. Finally, he asked, “Okay, what size shirt and pants?”
“Thirty-two long in the pants and medium in the shirt,” Dorsey guessed. Gibson grabbed what appeared to be a grocery shopping cart and started moving to the back of this hooch. Jonesy and Dorsey could hear Gibson mumbling to himself and hear items being tossed into the basket. Finally Gibson reappeared out of the darkness and began placing items on the countertop.
“Two sets of Nomex flight suits, one pair leather gloves, one flight helmet, one chicken plate size medium. One M16 rifle with two magazines. What size boots do you wear?” Gibson asked.
“Ah, size eleven, but I have two pair of boots,” Dorsey responded.
“Yeah, but they’re jungle boots and you can’t wear them when flying. Come back next week and sign for two pair of all-leather boots,” Gibson instructed.
“Why can’t I wear my jungle boots?” Dorsey questioned.
Frustrated, Gibson gave Dorsey the evil eye and said, “Look, Private, I don’t make the rules. I just follow them. If you want your jungle boots to melt in a fire and fuse to your legs, that’s your business, but the Army says you will have two pair of leather boots to fly with and you will sign for two pair. Sign here for this stuff. You lose it, you buy it,” Gibson said, and Dorsey signed his clothing record, indicating he had received his flight gear. Gathering it up, Jonesy and Dorsey headed back to their hooch.
“What’s his problem?” Dorsey asked as they were walking back. “Is he always such a prick?”
“Yeah, just about all the time. Probably because he’s all alone living in that hooch by himself. You didn’t see it, but in the back he has a CONEX container that’s surrounded by and covered with sandbags. He lives in there. He’s terrified of the rockets and mortars. Comes out for meals and then scurries back into his hole. Has a real shit fit when he’s sergeant of the guard.”
“We pull guard duty too?” Dorsey was surprised.
“Yeah. Ain’t no one else around here that’s going to pull it for us. No infantry to speak of except a company of Vietnamese. There’s a roving guard mount in jeeps, but we have to pull guard around the flight line at night and in the company area. First Sergeant keeps a guard roster and is pretty good about balancing crew time with guard duty.”
“Do the officers pull guard duty too?”
“Are you kidding?” Jonesy responded with some surprise. “They do not pull guard duty. Well, each night, one officer is the duty officer and he checks the guards throughout the night, riding around in the CO’s jeep. And you’ll see the maintenance officers in the Chicken Pen at night pulling test flights, but that’s about it. One night we got hit with mortars and the duty officer, Mr. Cory, drove the CO’s jeep into one of the trenches on the flight line. The jeep tips over a second before a round lands right next to it, spraying the underside of the jeep with shrapnel. If it hadn’t rolled over, that officer would have been killed. Talk about luck.” As they arrived back at their hooch, some flight crews were landing at the Chicken Pen.
“Drop your gear on your bunk and let’s go out to the flight line. I’ll show you where our aircraft is and where the guns are so you can get them and the ammo in the morning.”
“You mean I’ll be flying in the morning?” Dorsey asked, a bit surprised.
“Well, yeah. Did ya think we were going out tomorrow without ya?”
“No, I just thought that I would have some training time and a chance to get accustomed to this.”
“Training will be OJT, on-the-job training. As far as getting accustomed to this, ya have until about oh five hundred hours to do that. Let’s go.” And they walked out towards the maintenance area. Approaching them with his flight gear was Jonesy’s usual aircraft commander.
“Here comes Mr. Fairweather. Grampa is his nickname, but you better think twice about calling him that until you get to know him real well, and never in front of an RLO.”
Approaching Mr. Fairweather, Jonesy asked, “How was your flight, sir?”
“Good—I came back in one piece and the aircraft is flyable for tomorrow. Is our aircraft going to be up in the morning?” Fairweather asked.
“I believe it will be, sir. Sir, this is PFC Dorsey, our new gunner.”
Fairweather shook Dorsey’s hand. “Glad to meet you, Dorsey. How much flight time have you got?”
“Ah, none, sir. I’ve never been in a helicopter before except to fly over here from Phuoc Vinh.”
With one of his dark, bushy eyebrows going up and the other down, Mr. Fairweather asked, “Soooo, you’ve never fired an M60 from an aircraft? Is that what you’re telling me?” A sideways look was on Grampa’s face.
“Sir, the only time I fired an M60 was in AIT.”
“How long have you been in-country?” Grampa asked.
“About two weeks now, sir.”
“Oh shit,” Grampa said, rolling his eyes. “Dorsey, get him over to the armament bunker and make sure he knows how to put the guns together without putting the gas plugs in backwards. Then show him how to set them on the aircraft. You can do it tonight or first thing in the morning, but have it done before we take off tomorrow. Also, walk him through how to shoot at a ta
rget from a moving aircraft. I need a damn beer.” And he walked off to find that cold beer.
Waiting a few minutes, Jonesy looked towards the armament bunker, then at the mess hall, then at the enlisted men’s club. After some deep consideration, he said, “Let’s get a beer, then some dinner, in that order. We can mess with the guns in the morning.” A command decision had been made.
Chapter 7
First Time Out
“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty,” Jonesy said as he kicked the side of Dorsey’s bed. “We have a mission today and launch at zero six hundred.”
“What time is it?” Dorsey asked, half-awake.
“It’s 0500. Let’s go get some chow and then out to the aircraft. Let’s go, let’s go. You don’t want to piss off Mr. Fairweather on your first mission,” Jonesy prodded.
Raising himself up and rolling out of his bed, Dorsey started reaching for his pants and boots, which he’d left on the floor. As he began to slide a foot into his pants, Jonesy spoke up. “Hey, did you leave your pants laying on the floor last night?”
“Yeah, why?”
“You best turn them pant legs inside out to make sure no scorpions crawled in them. They’ll sting your ass. Worse yet, if one stings your dick, it’ll fall off,” Jonesy added with a straight face. Dorsey withdrew his foot and cautiously pulled the pant legs inside out.
“Shit, hurry up. I’ll meet you at the mess hall, but we have to get going.” Jonesy headed for the door, leaving Dorsey to stand there and inspect his pants.
A couple of other crew chiefs had heard this exchange. “Hey, Dorsey, don’t let him bullshit you. Your dick will not fall off if stung by a scorpion. It will hurt like hell, but it won’t fall off. That only happens if you get Black VD, and then they ship your ass out to that island off the coast. Dickless Island, it’s called,” one of the other crew chiefs told him. At this point, Dorsey didn’t know what to believe.
Finally he got to the mess hall and met Jonesy, who was finishing up his breakfast.
“Let’s go—grab something and take it with you. We’re late.”
With a bacon sandwich in hand, Dorsey found himself trying to keep up with Jonesy as they headed for the Chicken Pen by way of their hooch to grab their flight gear. They arrived at a CONEX container encased in sandbags except for the front double doors, where a sergeant was passing out M60 machine guns to crew members.
Jonesy stepped up. “Sergeant Stevens, this is Dorsey, my new gunner. He don’t know shit.”
“Well, I suggest you get him trained. He’s your problem, not mine. Hi, Dorsey, sign here for two M60 machine guns. Fail to bring them back and you pay for them. Ammo is over in that CONEX over there. You don’t have to sign for that, so use all you want. I recommend at least three thousand rounds per gun per day. Load them on the mule and we’ll deliver to your aircraft.”
“Yes, Sergeant” was all Dorsey could say. Things were just moving too fast for him.
“Come on, Dorsey. You load the ammo on the mule and meet me at the aircraft,” Jonesy instructed him.
“Wait one, where’s the aircraft at, and what’s a mule?” Dorsey pleaded. “This is all too confusing for the first day.”
“Shit, you see that cart-looking thing over there? Four tires, seat in the left front with a steering wheel?” Jonesy pointed out.
“Yeah.”
“That’s a mule. It has a VW engine and hauls stuff around the flight line. Grab two ammo cans and load them quickly. Now move it.” Jonesy was getting a bit testy. Probably should have walked Dorsey through this last night.
Grabbing an ammo can, Dorsey quickly realized that they weighed in the neighborhood of fifty pounds. One at a time he loaded them onto the mule and then chased after Jonesy. Catching up, he took one of the guns from Jonesy.
“Tomorrow morning, this is all on you, understand?” Jonesy stated. Dorsey said nothing. I’m not so sure about this flying stuff, he was thinking.
Arriving at the aircraft, Jonesy showed Dorsey how to mount the guns, which was a no-brainer. However, Dorsey looked confused by the C-ration can that was mounted to the feed side of the gun. “What is this for?” he asked.
“That’s so your ammo will feed properly. Without that can there to straighten out the ammo and feed it to the gun, you would be having a lot of jams. You don’t have an assistant gunner to help feed the weapon, so that C-ration can takes the place.”
“Who dreamed this up?” Dorsey asked.
“Some guy named Schlaudraff back in sixty-five. He should have patented it—he would have made a fortune. The entire Army uses it today.” As Jonesy continued briefing Dorsey on his duties as a door gunner, Mr. Fairweather approached the aircraft with his copilot for the day. First Lieutenant Alston Gore had been in the unit for a month, so he was pretty much up to speed on what his duties and responsibilities were. Lieutenant Gore was the Distinguished ROTC Graduate of Clemson University for 1969. Hailing from Columbia, South Carolina, he was a typical young officer, being twenty-three and single, doing his time and looking forward to returning home.
“Good morning, ladies. How y’all doing this fine day?” Mr. Fairweather asked in his Southern drawl.
“Good morning, sir,” Dorsey responded, not yet sure how to act around an officer.
“Doin’ good, sir, and you?” Jonesy came back.
“I’m doin’ mighty fine this day, Jonesy. I didn’t see my name in any obituaries this morning, so it must be a fine day,” Mr. Fairweather joked as he examined the rotor head from the ground before he started climbing up top. Damn, the Stars and Stripes has guys’ names in the obituaries, Dorsey was thinking. That’s cold.11 The crew continued with the preflight of the aircraft, each crew member covering specific tasks. First Lieutenant Gore conducted a walk-around inspection of the body while Fairweather took a hard look at the rotor head. Those that had flown with Lieutenant Gore were impressed with his ability as a pilot. When everyone was satisfied the aircraft was ready, they began donning their flight gear. The pilots climbed into their seats and fastened seat belts over their chicken plate chest protectors. Dorsey took note that the pilots’ seats were armor-plated, but his was not. What the…? he was thinking.
As the pilots completed their preflight checks, Alston called out, “Clear,” and engaged the turbine engine. The engine began to turn over slowly and rapidly built up revolutions. When it hit so many revolutions, Alston rolled the throttle, slowly opening the engine and increasing the fuel flow. The main rotor, which had started to turn slowly, was now turning at three hundred and twenty-four revolutions per minute and was just a blur above the aircraft. The tail rotor was turning so fast it was no longer visible.
Dorsey and Jonesy moved up on opposite sides of the aircraft, placed the fire extinguishers in their proper holders and slid the armor slide panels next to the pilots into place before closing and securing the pilots’ doors. Both returned to their respective seats, Dorsey on the right side, Jonesy on the left. As Dorsey climbed into his seat, he noticed there was no seat belt. What the—first no armored seat and now no seat belt?
“Excuse me, but where are the seat belts for back here?” Dorsey asked on the intercom, which Jonesy had just shown him how to operate. Unfortunately, instead of being on the intercom switch, Dorsey was transmitting on FM radio 1, the company operations frequency.
“Ah, someone has a hot mike” came across the radio.
“Oh, we must have a newbie in the back,” someone stated.
“Who has the newbie door gunner?” another asked.
“Jonesy, get him off the radio,” Mr. Fairweather said with a bit of annoyance. Jonesy quickly moved from his position across the cargo area to Dorsey’s control box and switched it to intercom. “We went over this already. You only talk when this dial is on INT. Understood? You listen to everything when these little tiny toggle switches are in the up position. Number 1 is FM 1, number 2 is FM 2, number 3 is VHF, number 4 is UHF, and this last one is to listen to AFN radio. But you do not do anything with
the dial. Only INT. Got it?”
“Got it. Sorry, Mr. Fairweather.”
“Hey, Dorsey, learn from mistakes. We all make them—that’s called learning. All is forgiven, this time.” Dorsey got the message—Don’t let it happen again. Forget about asking about the seat belt.
“Are we cleared up?” asked Fairweather.
“Clear left,” Jonesy said.
“Clear right,” Dorsey answered with some hesitation.
“Clear back” came the response from Jonesy. Almost immediately, the aircraft was at a three-foot hover. Dorsey was grabbing at anything and everything to keep from falling out of the aircraft, which he wasn’t doing except in his mind. No seat belt and he was floating above the ground inside the revetments, which appeared to be very close. But aside from coming up, the aircraft wasn’t moving side to side but slowly backing up. How could the pilots see behind them and back up? Dorsey took a peek forward, looking for a rearview mirror. He didn’t see one. As the aircraft centered on the taxiway, a pedal turn was executed, turning the nose of the aircraft. Dorsey was not thrilled about floating a few feet above the ground. Once turned, the aircraft hovered towards the flight line and runway. Dorsey didn’t hear anyone talking, so it must be a good time to ask the question.
“Hey, Jonesy, where’s the seat belts? Jonesy…?” he called out.
Suddenly Jonesy was sitting right next to him, holding his finger to his lips. Reaching up, Jonesy flipped the number one toggle switch to the up position.
“Flight, this will be a long day, so let’s make it a safe day. Yellow One out.”
“Everyone get the mission brief?” Mr. Fairweather asked, knowing full well that Dorsey had not. Recognizing that Mr. Fairweather had just asked a rhetorical question for Dorsey’s benefit, no one responded.
“Dorsey, put all your switches in the up position. That way you’ll hear everything and know when to talk on the intercom. Oh, and your seat belts are connected to your ammo can—they hold the ammo can on the aircraft. Any questions?” Mr. Fairweather asked.