by Dennis Foley
The first sergeant nodded. “I could use some better chow myself.”
“It’s not for you, Top,” Browning said.
“It never is, Cap’n. It never is. A first sergeant’s life is a hard one.”
The officers all looked at Easy in mock pity.
“Okay, okay. Don’t worry about me. I’ll get along fine. I’m used to the sacrifices senior NCOs have to make to do their jobs.”
Thomas rolled his eyes.
They all laughed, breaking some of the tension.
“Okay,” Hollister said. “Enough grab ass. We’ve got some serious work to do, and we’re already late.”
The others calmed down, and the two captains pulled out notebooks.
Hollister looked at Browning. “I want you to call the aviation battalion and see if we can have Mister Moody assigned to us while he’s on the mend. He’s a terrific slick driver, and I’d like to have him give our troops some of his experience.”
“Borrowin’ a body from the slick drivers is going to be tough,” Browning said.
“He’s grounded anyway. If we don’t rescue him, he’ll be stuck with doing shitty little details around his outfit. So, let’s set up a room for him over at the BOQ and make him feel at home.”
Hollister took a long sip of his coffee and then pulled out his own notebook. He looked up at Thomas.
Thomas nodded. “Where do we start?”
“I want to see the training schedule you’ve got worked out now, and we’ll see how we can pack it.”
“It’s pretty tight now.”
“It’s gonna be one hell of a lot tighter. Training is life insurance. Can’t have too much of it.”
No one argued with Hollister.
He decided to sign the morning report first because it had to get over to field force, and then proofread the awards recommendations for Moody and the others.
Easy walked in and dropped two letters, two bills, and a copy of the field force daily bulletin on Hollister’s desk.
“Thought you might like to see how the headquarters pukes are living.” Easy pointed out a paragraph in the daily bulletin announcing the swimming pool would be closed for two days for repairs.
“Too bad,” Hollister said sarcastically. “You suppose there’ll be something else for them to do?”
“Ah, yes, sir. They’re adding on extra weekend passes to Vung Tau for the troops to hit the beaches. That’s on the next page.”
“Wouldn’t want them to lose their tans.”
The two of them laughed, and Easy turned to walk out.
“Top, you did a good job out there picking us up yesterday.”
“Nothing to it, sir.”
“How’s that leg?”
Easy smiled. “It’s gone. Didn’t I tell you?”
“If you are going to be a smart-ass, I’m not going to ask.”
“You don’t have to worry about me. You got enough to worry about.”
“Thanks, Top,” was all Hollister could think to say to him. But he meant Thanks for being there for me for all these years. Thanks for making me understand what soldiering is about. Thanks for caring so much and making it look so easy. Thanks for being the kind of NCO who makes it all work
“No sweat, sir.”
The morning report signed, the awards recommendations finished, and another cup of coffee later, Easy interrupted.
“Cap’n?”
Hollister looked up and saw Easy standing in the doorway, again.
“There’s a doctor here who wants to see the CO. And he’s not happy.”
Hollister could guess who the doctor was. “Send him in.”
The doctor came through the door talking. “My name’s Captain Plummer, and I …”
“No. Your name is Plummer, and your rank is captain,” Hollister said calmly, enjoying the surprise on Plummer’s face.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m the CO around this lash-up. Hollister’s still my name. Now pull up a chair and let’s have a talk, Doctor.”
“Listen, you son of a—”
Hollister raised his hands to calm him. “Wait a sec.” He turned and yelled out the doorway, “Top, can you get the doctor and me some coffee? I’m sure the doctor takes it black.”
He turned back to Plummer. “Now let’s get off on the right foot. Good morning, Doctor.”
“You are the most arrogant, the most self-important, the most, ah, ah …”
“I’m all those things. And if I’m not, I’m the wrong guy to command a Ranger Company. You know anything about a Ranger Company, Doctor Plummer?”
“Well, I, ah, think I remember something about them from a briefing I had at Fort Sam Houston.”
“The only Rangers you find at Fort Sam were medevacked. I doubt if any of them were in any shape to give you a briefing.
“You ever talk to a Ranger? Got any real idea what they do every fucking night in this shithole? You ever seen a Ranger who is overweight? Sloppy? A druggie? A problem child? I don’t think so,” Hollister asked and answered his own questions.
A runner from the mess hall brought in the two cups of coffee and placed them between the two captains and left.
“Well, it’s not important. What is important is I am particularly pissed off at the crap you gave me yesterday.”
“You don’t know much about leadership, do you? It runs off of loyalty and looking out for the troops. You fuck with my Rangers, and I’ll tear your head off and shit down your neck. That’s what they expect of me, and that’s what they get. That boy didn’t need you bad-mouthing him while he lay there scared shitless of what you were going to tell him about his wounds.”
“But you insulted me, and I want to let your commanding officer know it.”
“Good. I’m sure he’d be thrilled to hear all about it. You do know my boss, don’t you? The field force commanding general?”
“He’s your boss?”
“Sure is. So you better give his aide a call; get on his calendar. But before you do, why don’t you come with me?”
“Where?” Plummer watched, puzzled, while Hollister stood and put his shirt on. He seemed to be quietly impressed with the credentials sewn on Hollister’s fatigue shirt. Even at the Medical Field Service School, Plummer learned to recognize master parachutist’s wings, the Ranger tab, the jungle warfare patch, and the pathfinder patch sewn on Hollister’s shirt. Hollister topped off his ensemble with his Ranger black beret, centering his shiny captain’s bars over his left eye.
Plummer put on his stupid-looking, GI-issue baseball hat with the duck-billed brim that made any soldier look less like one.
Hollister took Plummer across the company street to the first team hootch—Team 3-1’s. “You working today, Doctor?”
“Working?”
“Yeah, whatever you call it. Do you have to be back at the clearing station right away?”
“No. I’m off ’til noon tomorrow. We work shifts.”
“Good.”
They entered the hootch, and six Rangers and their platoon sergeant snapped to attention.
The sergeant spoke up without waiting. “Good morning, sirs. Platoon Sergeant DeSantis. Can I be of some assistance?”
“Please, carry on,” Hollister said. “This is Doctor Plummer. He patched up Estlin and Chief Moody yesterday, and he wanted to come by here to see what Rangers are all about.”
Smiles suddenly appeared on the camouflaged faces of the team and DeSantis.
“Estlin gonna be okay, Doc?” one of the Rangers asked.
Plummer was almost speechless. Every Ranger was in full combat gear with camouflage, weapons, and equipment. It was new to him. He had only seen Rangers stripped of their gear, nearly naked, bleeding, or dying. “Ah, yeah. Yes, he’ll be fine. Couple of weeks of mending, and he’ll be good as new.”
“Tell Doctor Plummer what you all are doing today,” Hollister said to DeSantis.
“Sir, this is Sergeant Iverson. He’s the team leader of Team 3-1. His tea
m is preparing for a full day of training on immediate-action drills, McGuire rigs, and first aid.” He turned to Iverson. “Tell the captain what you’ve got planned.”
“We’ll alternate the physical stuff with the sit-on-your-ass stuff so we can get a full day in. But everything we do, we do in full gear—ready for hunting bear. We’ll start with immediate-action drills, and when the chopper gets here, we’ll practice string rides.”
Doctor Plummer looked at the young sergeant, puzzled as much by what he was talking about as what he looked like. “What’s in your hair?”
“Kiwi.”
“Kiwi?”
“Yes, sir. Shoe polish. All us Iversons are towheads. You can see my hair for two thousand meters in the bush if I don’t knock it down with shoe polish. It’s not pretty. But I’m still around at the end of a patrol.”
The others laughed at the baby-faced sergeant, clumps of shoe polish stuck to the blond stubble on his head.
“String rides?” the doctor asked.
Hollister interrupted. “How’d you like to see just what it is they do and how they get ready?”
“That’d be great, Doc,” Iverson said.
The others agreed and tried to encourage an affirmative answer out of the surgeon.
“Ah, okay. I guess I can do that.”
Hollister and DeSantis made eye contact, and DeSantis figured out what Hollister was up to. “We’ll take good care of you.”
“Great,” Hollister said. “I’ll leave you with these young men, Doc, and check in on you a little later.”
Entering the headquarters atmosphere at Long Binh had never been a pleasant experience for Hollister. He always felt as if he was surrounded by people who knew very little about what he did and what his people needed. They seemed to be caught up in their own little world of headquarters politics and headquarters mentality.
“Good morning, Ranger,” Lieutenant Colonel Michaelson’s voice boomed out. “What brings you out of the snake pit?”
“I got word there was a meeting needing my presence,” Hollister kidded. “How ya doing, sir?”
“Better than you, I understand. You took a little fire out there on ambush?”
“Yeah. A little. But we got away without any real serious damage. My WIAs are going to be okay.”
“I’m already hearing the whining from the aviation section. If you left it to them, they’d only take the choppers out when the weather was good and the VC were sleeping.”
“I’ll try to stay away from Colonel Reed.”
“I heard that,” Reed, the aviation officer, said, entering the staff section.
“Sorry about the scratches we put on your chopper,” Hollister said.
“Scratches?” Reed said, mocking Hollister’s words. “We damn near had to peel that one off its skids and mount a whole new chopper on top of ’em.”
“They just don’t make choppers like they used to,” Hollister said.
“You keep dinging them up, and you’ll be walking to work, young captain,” Reed replied with a smile.
“I’ll try to remember that, sir.”
“Well, we have a meeting in the conference room, folks,” Michaelson said as he waved toward the door.
The briefing room was filled with representatives from every staff section and command to hear the first comments of the newly assigned deputy commanding general, William J. Quinn.
After Colonel Terry introduced him, Quinn took the podium.
“Thank you. Gentlemen, it’s a pleasure to be here. There are fewer and fewer jobs over here for a buck brigadier, and most of them are shitty.”
The general’s comment drew a laugh from the room.
He furrowed his brow and took on a more serious tone. “We have got a tough job ahead of us over here, even though the world is acting like we’re packing up and pulling out in mass numbers.
“We’ve turned the corner from our highest troop strength, but the other side is still pouring troops into South Vietnam.
“Our biggest problem? Saigon. While the Americans draw down and the South Vietnamese take to the countryside, there is more and more concern about the safety of the capital. It would be a really tough break if we had another Tet-like invasion with more success than last time. So we have to guard against the complacency that comes with a going home attitude, and we have to take the fight to the enemy. Enemy forces have regained their footing in a large number of villages and hamlets, and they’re operating freely at night in even more.
“Over the past ten months, our grip on the western provinces has slipped. We have to go where he lives and take back the night from its new owners.”
General Quinn smiled, changed his serious tone, and tried to make eye contact with his audience.
“With the changes going on, I think I can get out of this headquarters enough to visit each of you in the field and often. I want you to lean on me for what you need.”
CHAPTER 16
“NEW MISSIONS,” MICHAELSON SAID.
“New?” Hollister asked.
“New to you guys. We haven’t spent any time targeting the other side of the fence. Sure, we’ve sent teams into Cambodia on occasion and for very specific reasons.
“We used to be able to interdict much of the reinforcements and the resupplies as they tried to work their way through the Twenty-fifth Division, the One Ninety-ninth Brigade, and parts of the Big Red One. Things are different with the drawdown. So we’re going to try to get them at the end of the trail. And if they slip through, we have time to catch them on the way to Saigon.”
“That means cross-border ops?”
“Roger that. The White House is very goosey about this. Every time Nixon’s taken limited incursions into Cambodia, he’s taken shit from the press and public reaction. But we have to use whatever economy of force we can generate with the loss of U.S. troop strength.”
“So we cross the fence.”
“But you’ll make life easier on all of us if you play this down. Avoid making Juliet Company a household word. If your name comes out of Cronkite’s mouth, we’ve got problems.”
“When?” Hollister asked.
“You should be getting the op plan by close of business tomorrow, and your first teams will go in in ten days.”
Hollister made a face.
“You still got lots of work to do. Don’t you?”
“You bet. I have training and personnel problems I might not get worked out for a month.”
“You haven’t got a month.”
“Ten days, huh?”
“Use them wisely,” Michaelson said.
“Launch site?”
“You can stage out of Tay Ninh. There’s a lot of shuffling going on up there with U.S. units pulling out and ARVNs moving in. But I’m sure you can find something that will give you shorter flight time to the border. You might be there for a while.”
Hollister shrugged.
“I’d get an advance party out there by tonight to get things started,” Michaelson said.
“Will do.”
“Oh, and you might go a little easy on the profile. Keep it as low as you can. The area will be damn near void of any American units, and the ARVNs and the few remaining advisers will be flexing their muscles,” Michaelson said.
“How am I a problem?”
“You haven’t worked in an all-adviser neighborhood yet. It’s a world filled with Americans jealous of your job and your resources. So be warned and stay low.”
“I got it. But I’ll still need more blade time to shuttle the troops,” Hollister said.
“Count on it. Just try not to break any more choppers.”
Hollister looked at Michaelson and caught the smile on his face. He rarely kidded with Hollister, but the chopper comment was one of those moments.
“Cap’n?” Easy said as he got to his feet.
“Yeah. I’m back. What’s happened while I was gone?”
“Nothing worth putting in the daily bulletin. So where we goin’?”
“Tay Ninh. Get Captain Thomas over here, and I’ll give you both the details. Browning around?”
“I called him over at the motor pool when I heard you drive up. He’s gonna be one unhappy XO when he finds out we’re moving.”
“Well, he better live with it. ’Cause we’re going whether he’s happy about it or not.
“We got any coffee in here?” Hollister asked, anxiously looking at his watch.
Browning, Thomas, the first sergeant, and Hollister spent the next two hours putting together a plan to move the company and to continue very intensive training while making the move in increments.
Hollister was most concerned about training. Browning was worried about making the move, and Thomas was concerned they might not be able to train and supervise operational needs while the company split between Bien Hoa and Tay Ninh. The war wasn’t going to stop just because they were moving.
Hollister reassured Thomas that they’d set up a working company operations section in Tay Ninh before they closed down at Bien Hoa. And he calmed Browning’s worries by letting him know there were extra air resources laid on to help them make the move while still remaining operational.
The first sergeant began the tedious job of determining what people and things would have to go to Tay Ninh by road—a convoy. Their cavalry troop reaction force would be the ideal security element for the convoy.
“I’ll go with the advance party to get things set up right,” Easy said. “Last time I let someone else do this, I lived to regret it.”
“What’s it mean?” Captain Thomas asked.
Easy grinned. “It means you don’t have to be miserable just because you’re in Vietnam.”
“I’ll go along with that,” Captain Browning said.
“I will, too—to a degree,” Hollister said, giving Easy a warning look.
Easy avoided further scrutiny by getting up and excusing himself. “I got to go put the fear of God in some young Rangers.”
In only a matter of seconds he returned laughing. “Cap’n H. You got to see this. Come outside.”
Hollister and the other two captains followed Easy out to the steps of the orderly room.
There, hovering over the chopper pad, was a Huey slick holding steady at three hundred feet. Dangling below the chopper on climbing ropes were two Rangers and Doctor Plummer, complete with field gear, weapon, and camouflaged hands, neck, and face.