by Dennis Foley
Hill pointed at the map with the eraser end of a pencil. “No, sir. They stopped there about an hour and a half ago.”
The map pin showed the team to be almost six hundred meters from the trail.
“Okay. I’ll see if we can spot something out there in the morning. If anyone is driving in there to gas up, we ought to be able to see the tracks from the air.”
The squelch broke on the tactical radio, and everyone in operations froze, straining to hear the whisper.
“This is One-Four. We have movement. Two-two-five degrees, five to six hundred meters. Over.”
Loomis picked up the pork-chop mike and repeated the message. “This is Killer Three Oscar. Roger One-Four, movement two-two-five at five to six hundred mikes. Standing by.” Loomis turned to Hollister for guidance.
Hollister poked his thumb at Lieutenant Hill. “Ask the duty officer.”
Hill half looked at Hollister and spoke to Loomis. “You let Lieutenant Fass know he has a team with movement. I’ll call the Cav hootch to alert them and then call the pilots’ shack so they can alert the standby crew.”
“Who’s the team leader?”
Loomis started to answer, and Hollister held up his hand, waiting for Hill to answer. Hill searched his memory for the name.
“Corporal Greenwood. You have to know these names, Nate. You need to know every soldier in this company. And they need to know you. Got it?”
“Yes, sir,” Hill said. “I’ll do it.”
“Now get on to what you have to do.”
Hill picked up the field phone marked Cav and cranked the ringer. He asked for the troop XO and explained the situation.
At the same time, Loomis used the other phone to call Greenwood’s platoon leader.
Before everyone was alerted, Greenwood called in more movement, closer to his location.
Fass came through the door still in his trousers, T-shirt, and shower shoes. He stood by and watched.
“Have we heard from the other three teams?” Hollister asked.
Loomis scanned the radio log. “The others all called in routine commo checks within the last hour and a half.”
“Anyone still moving?”
“No, sir.”
“Get Lieutenant Gannon out of the sack,” Hollister said.
Loomis called the officers’ hootch to get the new artillery forward observer, assigned after Donaldson’s death.
“And tell him to bring his traveling gear. He may get some night flying hours in tonight.”
Loomis nodded and added the information to his message.
“Contact! Contact! Contact! This is One-Four. We have contact.” Greenwood’s voice boomed through the small speaker mounted above the operations radios.
Lieutenant Hill reached up and threw the switch setting off a piercing siren mounted outside operations. Everyone in the compound immediately knew there was a team under fire. All those who had been alerted swung into action.
Inside, Hollister grabbed the mike. “This is Six. Okay, Ranger. What have you got?”
Everyone in operations could hear the shooting in the background each time Greenwood keyed his mike. “Grenades. Maybe a half dozen landed in our position all at once. I’ve got two Whiskey India Alpha, and we’re taking close-in small-arms fire.”
“Can you use arty?”
“Affirmative. I have a fire mission,” Greenwood said, his voice compensating for the noise around him.
“Tell him to send it,” Lieutenant Gannon said.
Hollister turned to find the artillery officer standing in the doorway with a pencil and pad in hand, his map tucked under his arm, and his boots unlaced.
“Send it,” Hollister said to Greenwood.
While Greenwood recited the identifying target numbers that would allow Gannon to get artillery on its way, Hollister grabbed his web gear and weapon. “I’ll be in the C & C. Tell Greenwood we’re on the way.”
The cold morning air crept into the C & C chopper. “Jungle fatigues were not made for night flying,” Hollister said.
“Got my long johns on. I’ll be sweating my ass off come noon. But for now, I’m snug and warm,” Dale Tennant said, throwing a smile at Hollister.
“You can bet we’re going to spend some time out in the AO today,” Hollister said. “We’ve already got two wounded, and I have no idea how bad yet. But the team’s gotta come out.”
Greenwood’s voice came in clearer over the chopper headsets. “Killer Six, this is One-Four. Over.”
Hollister stepped on the mike button on the floor near the pedals. “Six, go.”
“I’ve got another Whiskey India Alpha. That’s now one walking and two stretchers.”
“Shit,” Hollister said over the intercom. “This is not good at all.” He keyed the mike again to reply to Greenwood. “You still taking fire?”
“Negative. The artillery has ’em hunkered down for now. I think I can hear you coming. Come in out of the northeast. They are still on my Sierra Whiskey.”
“Okay. Hold what you’ve got. How far to a PZ?”
“Two hundred meters. Don’t think I can move to it and carry my WIA without hanging my ass out,” Greenwood said.
“Okay. Let us get you out of there. Guns should be over you in less than a minute, and you can put ’em wherever you think you need them. Ammo’s cheap. Use it.”
Even before Greenwood replied, Hollister could see the smoke from the artillery Gannon and Greenwood had fired in.
“Guns are there,” Tennant said.
Hollister looked down to confirm they had just flown over the invisible line separating Vietnam from Cambodia. Looking back up from his map, Hollister could see the two prowling Cobras circling Greenwood’s position at treetop level.
The lead gunship nosed over and began a firing run; 40mm grenades belched from the stubby chin gun as the gunner zeroed in on the enemy positions.
“Good! Good! Right there!” Greenwood yelled into the handset over the noise of the impacting grenades.
From the orbiting chopper, Hollister could see outgoing red tracers from Greenwood’s team. “Come around again, Dale. I want to see if I can spot the incoming fire.”
Tennant leaned the chopper over into a hard left turn. After only a few seconds, he reversed the bank and brought the chopper over into a hard right turn, allowing the team’s position to be seen out of Hollister’s door.
“Good,” Hollister said. “Anyone spot any enemy firing positions, yet?”
“Out our right door—due east of you,” a gun pilot said. “Let me mark.”
“Roger,” Dale said.
“How’s the clearing just east of the team look to you?” Hollister asked Tennant.
Below them a small clearing not much bigger than a basketball court stood guarded by trees fifty feet high.
“Woo doggie!” Dale said. “We’re gonna have to grease one up to slip it in there.”
“But can we do it?”
“We got wounded—we can do it.”
The gunship pulled out of its high orbit and nosed over into a maximum dive at nearly two hundred miles an hour. Just a few hundred feet above the ground and the team, the pilot pulled up the nose and squirted a short burst of minigun tracer fire.
The snakelike rope of red phosphorous found its mark and the pilot made a hard recovery, causing condensation to form at the tips of his straining rotor disk. “That’s it. Five meters south of my impact.”
“Roger your mark,” Hollister said. “You taking any fire?”
“Negative. After our first run, they stopped shooting at us.”
“One-Four, this is Six. You had any more incoming?”
“This is One-Four. Negative. Not in the last one zero. Over.”
“Okay. We’re going to have a look at a possible PZ to your east about eighty meters. Don’t move anybody yet. Wait ’til we check it out. But get ready to move.”
“Roger,” Greenwood said. “Could you hose down the area between me and the PZ if I’m gonna use it? I’m not sure
where they are now. Don’t want to find them on the way out while we’re carrying wounded Rangers.”
“Will do. Hold on.” Hollister turned to Tennant. “You feel like testing the water?”
“I’d rather no one do it. But if it has to be done—better us than one of my younger pilots,” Tennant said.
“Hold on back there,” Hollister turned and said to Gannon and Fass in the back of the C & C. “We’re going to look at a possible PZ.”
Gannon waved, while Fass nodded and pulled the charging handle on his M-16—chambering a round.
The radios went silent. Everyone in the air and the Rangers on the ground watched as Tennant pulled the C & C into a high hover over the PZ and settled into it, his tail as close to one end as he could get it.
The door gunners gripped the dual handles on their machine guns, waiting to return fire at the first sight of incoming.
The tops of the trees came level with Hollister’s eyeline over the instrument panel. He stiffened his back against the armor-plated seat and steeled himself for the worst.
“The team is at our ten o’clock. Don’t anyone get squirrelly. They’re less than a hundred meters away,” Hollister said. “Anybody see anything wrong?”
In turn, five voices came up on the intercom with negatives.
“Can we get a full load out of here?” Hollister asked Tennant.
“I think so. We’ll hold the chase close and bum a donut around the clearing with the gunships.” Tennant stopped his descent fifteen feet above the PZ and powered straight up and out.
“Good. Let’s get ’em out of there,” Hollister said to all in the C & C. He then pressed the transmit button and told Greenwood, “Okay, partner. Soon as you can, blow your claymores and get to the PZ eight-zero to your east.”
“Will do,” Greenwood replied.
Getting Greenwood to the PZ was a difficult part of the extraction. He had to carry two of his wounded while covering his own movement. Hollister instructed the pilots to cover the move and instructed Greenwood to put the emphasis on getting his people out without taking any more casualties. He wasn’t concerned about how long it would take.
After almost forty minutes of shuttling the wounded from their contact position to the edge of the pickup zone—they were ready to come out.
Hollister punched the mike button with his boot. “Don’t everybody watch the pickup. Keep an eye on the perimeter. Look out! Keep your eyes moving,” he cautioned the crews of the choppers circling over the pickup ship.
He counted the long seconds it took for the pickup chopper to come to a stop over the landing zone and settle in. It descended rapidly at first and then gradually slowed as it neared the ground. Hollister could see the skid on his side of the chopper was still off the ground when the other one made contact with something.
The chopper jerked and then settled down on the near skid. Hollister heard his own voice counting the seconds off as the chopper sat there, light on its skids, a little bit of pitch pulled into the blades.
Greenwood was the first one to break out of the tree line. He waved the others on with his rifle while carrying a wounded Ranger across his shoulders. Behind him, another Ranger stumbled over something as he ran, carrying his own gear and two other Rangers’ combat loads.
The second Ranger stopped, spun around, and took up a kneeling ready position to cover two more team members who were carrying the second seriously wounded soldier.
Greenwood stopped short of the chopper and also took up security—guarding the backs of the others. As soon as they passed him and dropped the first wounded man on the cargo deck of the chopper, Greenwood motioned for the solo Ranger with the extra gear to get in the chopper. He made the ten-meter sprint to the chopper and threw his load in on top of the others.
Hollister could almost hear himself whispering, “Come on. Move! Move! You’re taking too long.”
Greenwood took two more long strides and collapsed under the load he was carrying. At first Hollister thought he had been hit by enemy fire. Until he heard the pickup chopper pilot announce: “He just got tripped up. We’re still good.”
The last Hollister saw was the four boots belonging to Greenwood and the soldier he carried being pulled into the chopper. At the same instant, he heard the aircraft commander announce: “Comin’ out. Comin’ up. Watch me.”
The back ends of the skids came off the ground first and the chopper began to hop on the toes of the skids as it began forward movement. The tail came high and torqued to the left and then overcompensated to the right as the bird picked up momentum and a little altitude.
Quickly, the chopper began to run out of clearing and approached the tree line at the far end. From Hollister’s vantage point it appeared as if the chopper would not have enough altitude to clear the trees.
The radio net was silent. Everyone watched the chopper strain to gain enough altitude to avoid running head-on into the trees. The pilot was unswayed by the risky maneuver. He continued on his course, avoiding any maneuver that would cost him altitude.
At the last possible minute, the bulk of the chopper clawed its way to an angle sharp enough to clear the trees. But the skids didn’t.
Tree branches grabbed for the skids, and leaves ripped from them scattered into the air. The chopper yawed a few degrees left and right as it powered through the branches to clear air.
Once the chopper cleared the trees, Hollister looked around at the other aircraft and the ground. The area where the team had repulsed the small enemy probe was scarred from the fragmentation of the rockets, the miniguns, and the claymore mines. But he couldn’t see any sign of enemy presence.
During the trip back to the Vietnamese side of the border, Hollister tried to find out about the wounded in the pickup chopper. There was a serious belly wound, another soldier had a gunshot wound through his lower leg, and the third casualty was multiple fragmentation wounds, but ambulatory.
The medic with the team recommended the WIAs go directly to the evacuation hospital in Cu Chi. Hollister agreed and radioed operations that he planned to follow the wounded.
CHAPTER 22
HOLLISTER WAS ABLE TO get off of the C & C and over to the pickup chopper before the medics moved the casualties to the triage area. He looked at the lieutenant shutting down the chopper and gave him a wave—letting him know he thought he’d done a good job getting the team out.
The medics and two Rangers pulled out the wounded and laid them out on the two gurneys the medics had brought out to the pad.
Hollister moved to the side of the chopper and found Greenwood. He was very bloody. His face, hands, and most of his uniform were darkened with blood.
“Hey, you okay?” Hollister said, thinking the blood was from the soldier who Greenwood had carried from the contact position to the chopper. But Hollister soon realized he had guessed wrong.
Greenwood was propped up against the bulkhead, bleeding from a slice made by an enemy bullet along his jawline. Two fingers were badly damaged by some trauma—nearly ripped from his hand and bent back at an extreme angle. It was clear to Hollister there were at least a couple of broken bones.
The Ranger’s right leg was a mass of small fragmentation wounds, many with bits of trouser fabric embedded in them.
Greenwood’s eyes filled with tears, and his lip quivered as he spoke. “Captain. I’m so sorry. I did the best I could. I don’t know what went wrong. They just about killed all of us.” He dropped his head, his chin resting on his chest, and the tears ran red as they mixed with the blood from his wounds. “I didn’t mean to get anybody hurt.”
Hollister climbed up into the chopper to help Greenwood out—to the medical attention he badly needed. “Ranger, you did right. You got ’em all out, and you didn’t cause this. Now let’s get you to some help.”
“Airborne, sir,” Greenwood said, hardly getting the words out before running out of strength.
Hollister stood out of the treatment area and paced while the medical teams treated the
wounded Rangers. He stopped long enough to put a call through to Juliet Company to report the condition of the wounded.
After more than two hours, one of the doctors came looking for Hollister. “I understand you’re their CO?” the doctor said. “That’s right. Hollister, Jim Hollister. How they doing?” The doctor ran down a laundry list of wounds and resulting damage. His prognosis for each Ranger was more reassuring than the last. Hollister relaxed a little, hearing the news.
Tennant came into the hospital and found Hollister sitting in a folding chair, holding his head with the heels of his hands.
“You okay?”
Hollister looked up. “Yeah, frustrated, but okay.”
“How are they?”
“The doc tells me they’re all going to make it. Two are going home, and Greenwood will probably go to Japan or Hawaii for a while. He might not come back just because of the return policy—not because of wounds. Greenwood’s been hit in several places, but he’s going to be okay. They’re worried he might lose some of the use of a couple of fingers. He’s one lucky Ranger.”
“Which one’s Greenwood?” Tennant asked.
“He’s the one who carried one of the wounded over his shoulder.”
“With all those wounds? You shitting me? What in hell do you feed these guys?”
“Don’t know. But he’s one hell of a Ranger. If you only knew where he’s been before he got here. I’m putting him in for the Distinguished Service Cross. I just hope the classified location of the contact won’t screw him out of it.”
It was midafternoon by the time Hollister was able to get back to the launch site in Tay Ninh. The lift package of choppers was still out inserting teams.
He thanked Tennant for his efforts and jumped out of the C & C.
Inside operations, he found Browning bent over the small map on the radio bench. “Any new brush fires?”
Browning stood and spun around. “No, sir. We’re clicking now. I hope it stays that way. When you get a minute, I’ll bring you up-to-date with our status. Okay?”
“Right. Let me see what has landed on my desk, and I’ll be back here in fifteen, and we can recalibrate.”
Hollister walked into the much darker orderly room from the brilliant afternoon sun.