by Robert Mason
“Well?”
“Yes, sir,” I said quickly, “we’re going.”
I spit out blood. I had quit smoking and was taking it out on the inside of my cheeks. I sat behind a table in the mess tent trying to figure out how to make sense of a tall pile of papers that made up an accident report. My job, since I had caught a bad cold, was to be the scribe on the accident board. The company was out working the local area, but the word was in that we were going to go to the Turkey Farm in a few days.
I had mixed feelings. The job kept me behind in the safety of the camp, but being left behind for any reason was hard to bear. What a stupid emotion! I’d rather do a mountain of paperwork than be out flying. So why did I feel so rotten? What am I? A lemming? Relax and take it easy while you’ve got the chance.
“Aircraft commander says he did not realize that the LZ was filled with hidden stumps,” the report read. “Aircraft was pinned to a large sharpened stump, causing the aircraft to be abandoned.” Who cares? Why do we have to document every accident in this goddamn war? How can a pilot be expected to know everything? What do they expect, X-ray vision?
“Can I sit here, sir?” Sergeant Riles sauntered to my table.
“Sure.”
He pushed a file folder aside and put his canteen cup on the spot. “Got to take a break from the fuckin’ supply tent,” announced Riles.
“Yeah. Gets tough in there.” I hated myself for being cynical with one of the stay-behinds. And this one was the company’s genuine loser. Riles kept himself drunk by stealing whiskey from the crews’ stashes while they were out. He had been a master sergeant once, but because of his drinking he was now a pfc. We called him “Sergeant” because he grew very depressed with the word “Private.”
“Well, not that tough.” He laughed.
If Riles is a stay-behind and a loser, what does that make me? A feeling of revulsion came over me.
“Like to talk, Sergeant, but I got all this shit to do.”
“Right. Don’t mind me. Gotta get back anyway. Got this order today that we got to get ready for an IG inspection.”
“Uh-huh.” I barely glanced over a form.
“Hate that shit. Ever do an IG?”
“Never. Never will, either.”
Riles stood up and waited for me to say something. The silence spoke and he finally slumped off. I wanted to call him back and apologize for my thoughts. But I didn’t.
While the convoy crawled along Route 19, I thought about the British marching resolutely into American ambushes. The cook had lent me his M-16, which now lay across my lap as I sat in the Jeep. I thought of my rank insignia as the equivalent to the British Redcoat, and turned my collar under. By virtue of my being grounded, I was the officer in charge of our first road convoy to Pleiku.
“Group Mobile 100 ran from An Khe to Pleiku once,” said Wendall.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
“They were French equivalent to the First Cav,” said Wendall. “They ran around these same roads in long caravans trying to beat the Vietminh. Group 100 was wiped out near the Mang Yang pass.”
“Thanks, Wendall. Great news.”
“Well, it’s history. You can learn from history, you know.”
“How’s that supposed to help me now?”
“Well, if I were you, I wouldn’t go to sleep on the trip. Have fun.”
The big difference, of course, was that we had patrols along the entire route. Knowing this did not suppress my fears. I had become very skeptical of secure LZs, roads, bridges, and camps. During the entire fifty-mile drive I watched the elephant grass along the road, braced for explosions at every narrow pass, and sat lightly on the seat when we crossed each bridge. When we drove into the Turkey Farm, I immediately found the flight surgeon and asked to get back on flight status.
“Sorry, you’re totally blocked up. If I let you fly, it’ll only get worse. Check back in a couple of days.”
In a damp mist a hundred men pulled the bulky GPs from the trucks and began setting them up while the ships were out on a mission. In less than an hour, the flat, grassy field outside Camp Holloway was transformed into a tent city. Water bags, called “lister bags,” were set up on tripods; the mess tent was put together; and while the men stacked C-ration boxes around the sides, the cooks started the evening meal.
While all this was going on, I wandered around and made sure that the baggage for our company got put in the appropriate tents. Then I had nothing to do but deal with my thoughts. I sat on my cot alone in the dank GP and drank coffee and smoked cigarettes. I was tortured by conflicting feelings. The Bobbsey Creeps were the only other pilots on the ground, reinforcing my misery.
At the first sound of the returning ships, I went outside and watched. The Hueys snaked out of the mist and with increasing noise gathered on the field west of the camp. Huey after Huey hovered to a landing. The field became a complicated, dance of whirling rotor blades, swinging fuselages, and swirling mist. The roaring rush of the turbines died, and the rotors swung lazily as the ships shut down. The crew wandered up to the camp. They all had come back.
I felt like an abandoned child seeing his family again. Soon the tent was filled with the usual sounds.
“Hey, Nate, the next time you cut me out like that, I‘ll—”
“Fuck you, Connors. If you’d been watching what you were doing, you’d have kept your distance.
“Jesus Christ! I don’t know who’s worse, you or the Cong.”
It was nice to hear.
My ten days on the ground seemed interminable. Our battalion spent two more days at the Turkey Farm before packing up to go north to Kontum. Again I rode in the convoy.
We found an old French barracks that the Vietnamese had been using as stables and chicken coops. After a lot of cleaning up, this became our Kontum camp. I saw the flight surgeon each morning, and each morning he continued my treatment of drugs and no flying.
Finally, after two days at Kontum, I was put back on flight status. Riker and I were assigned to fly together. As I walked out to the flight line, I felt weightless with joy. My work had become my home, and I was glad to be back.
The ships were shadows in the early-morning mist. We took off singly to join up out of the fog. Climbing over vague trees, we saw the earth disappear. Riker, who knew where we were going, told me to turn left. Just as I did we saw the phantom of a Huey cross immediately in front of us. I lurched back on the controls, but that was not what saved us from a midair collision. Luck had been with us.
The mission was to resupply the searching patrols. We followed three other ships thirty miles up to Dak To, separated, and flew west to one of our patrols.
We shut down while the grunts dragged out insulated cases of hot food. A sergeant came over and invited us to join them for breakfast. We did. Hot reconstituted scrambled eggs, bacon, white toast, and coffee. We sat on the Huey’s deck and ate silently. The mist was beginning to burn off, and the dark shadows around us grew taller, revealing themselves as mountains.
The platoon leader, a skinny second lieutenant, came over and shot the shit for a while.
“Find anything?” Riker asked.
“Just some old campsites.” The lieutenant patted his blouse for cigarettes. I offered him a Pall Mall. “Thanks.”
“We hear that the VC don’t want to fight the Cav.”
“Can’t blame them, can you?” said the lieutenant. “Every time they do, we clobber the shit out of them.”
Yeah, as long as we have helicopters, Phantoms, and B-52 bombers, I thought. I said, “Maybe the war is almost over.”
“Maybe. They keep talking about peace negotiations all the time. Johnson’s got ‘em in a bind up north, and we’re putting the squeeze on ’em down here. They might just see that it’s impossible to win.”
“Yeah,” said Riker. “I don’t see how the little fucks can go on much longer. McNamara says we’re due out of here in less than a year. Some people say that we might not even serve a complete tour
, could end that quick.”
“Might be,” said the lieutenant. “At least we know we own Dak To.”
“We have a guy in our company, named Wendall, says that that’s what they did with the French,” I said.
“Did what?” said the lieutenant.
“Made them think they’re winning, let them set up camps and stuff, and then bam!”
“Totally different war now.” The lieutenant flipped his cigarette out to the dew-covered ground. “The French couldn’t get around like we can.” He patted the Huey’s deck. “Machines like this make all the difference. How’d you like to be a guerrilla trying to fight an army that can be anywhere, anytime?”
“You got a point there, all right,” I said. “Wendall’s a flake anyway.”
“Sounds like it,” the lieutenant said.
“Yep,” said Riker, “I can see it now. Get home early, get laid, and then put the baggage down.”
“Well, I’m back to work. Take it easy.” The lieutenant smiled and walked back over to his men. “Phillips. Get some men to load those food boxes on the Huey.”
“What’s next?” I asked Riker.
“We’re supposed to go back and drop this shit off and then we fly some refugees somewhere.”
Black pajamas, conical hats, pigs trussed in baskets, chickens that watched with upright heads on upside-down bodies, wide-eyed kids, crying babies, rolled-up rice mats, staffs, bundled firewood, and warped metal-clad boxes that stayed together by faith alone were packed into the Huey.
“What a menagerie,” grumbled Riker. A pig squealed as the turbine whined. I turned around and saw a young mother with a baby’s face pressed to her breast as she watched us with saucer eyes. I nodded to her and smiled. She nodded quickly and smiled back. God, they are scared, I thought. How would I feel if foreigners made me and my family get on a strange contraption to fly me from my home to who knows where?
“Winning their hearts and minds,” I said.
“Ain’t that a crock,” said Riker.
We flew north, past Dak To and the border junction of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. The mountains were the tallest I had ever seen. Misty clouds blanketed this wet, green world.
We were in our slot, one of ten ships, as the flight followed valleys to stay out of the clouds. Past a dark peak that lost its top in the whiteness, a red, freshly cut airstrip appeared in the valley below. New huts with tin roofs were clustered defensively within a sandbagged, wire-topped compound wall. Welcome home, I thought. Eyes in the back watched intently as the flight drifted out of the misty sky to land on the red earth.
Little ARVN soldiers with slung rifles urged them out of the ship. A frightened mother looked back inside to two small kids. A soldier grabbed a pig and tossed it to a pile of rope-trussed belongings. It screamed noiselessly in our hissing, and squirmed like a living sausage. One of the kids screamed tearfully. His frantic mom snatched him quickly off the deck to sit on her hip. He grabbed her blouse tightly as she ducked our rotors and stumbled to her things.
I watched her as we left. She grew smaller as we climbed. Soon she was only a memory, confused and frightened, alone and far away from her family’s ancient home. At that moment I hated Communists and was ashamed to be an American. But then I had often been accused of being too sensitive.
We continued relocating refugees all the next day. We were supposed to finish our sweep at this end of the Ia Drang valley and then go home to the Golf Course. By dusk, though, we were landing the last load of people at one of the new villages. The old man decided to stay out and head back in the morning.
Twenty ships landed on a grassy ridge in the gathering dark. The ridge was the site of a temporary ARVN camp. Two large tents were set up for us.
Riker and I carried our sleeping gear over to the tents. We blew up air mattresses in the light of army flashlights.
Dinner was C’s eaten down by the ships. Riker and Resler sat on the deck eating from cans while I twisted the opener around a tin of chicken. I was pulling the ragged lid away from the chicken meat when the silence was shattered. Whomp! and then ringing. The ringing came from my ears. Nobody announced the obvious: mortars. Cans clanked on the deck and shadows scattered. I dropped my can and ran toward a shallow hole I had seen when we landed. It was only twenty feet away. Whoomm! I saw the bright flash of the round as it exploded a hundred yards away. Dropping to the grass, I low-crawled the rest of the way to the hole. Whoomml It was occupied by two crew members from the ship in front of us. Whoom-whoom! Goddamn! Where am I supposed to go? Whoom! Damn! Real close! I got up and ran back to the ship. The ship was my security. It always got me out of trouble. Whoommm! My shadow flashed against the black u.s. ARMY on the tail boom. I dropped and rolled under the deck. My shoulder caught on the fuel drain spigot and I tore it loose. My mind had long since left, and I was blindly scrambling toward the front of the ship away from the fuel bladder. Whoom! I reached the cross tube up front and stopped. “Goddamn it!” I screamed “Mother fuckers!” Then I realized that the Huey was just thin aluminum and magnesium and Plexiglas and jet fuel, and that if a round hit, I would go up in smoke with it. “Get away from the ship, you stupid shit!” I yelled to myself. I crawled in the foot-deep grass, pressing my nose in the dampness, my nose the runner, my head the sled. Ten feet away I stopped. Whoom! Off to the right. No hard hat. No weapon. I cursed my stupidity and swallowed sobs. Silence! A bug crawled on my cheek. I heard a muffled whoompf and a pop. A flare dazzled and swung in the sky. Whoompf, pop, whoompf, pop. Huey shadows intersected and swayed wildly across the grass. A flare dimmed, then disappeared as it dropped below the ridge. Gray smoke made lazy trails in the light of the flares above. Silence. They stopped? After ten more minutes of lying in the grass, I heard voices. “All over.”
“Jesus H. Christ! How lucky can you get!” I got up. My shoulder hurt where I had hit the drain valve. I believe in God. Really. I walked back to my ship, dropped to my knees, and searched the grass for an already opened can of boned chicken.
The mist was so thick I could barely see the Huey from the tent. The distant mountains from the day before had disappeared. Resler had got up before me, and I could see a friendly orange flicker from his tin-can stove next to our ship. I shivered. It had been a cold and sleepless night.
Nobody had been hurt during the attack. No one could understand why the VC or the NVA or whoever they were had stopped when they did. Certainly it had not been because of any counterattack on our part. They probably just ran out of ammunition. Thank God for VC shortages. We had been sitting ducks.
“Wanna use the stove?” Resler smiled from his hunker. He stirred in sugar from a paper packet. The coffee smelled like life.
“Yeah, thanks.” I leaned in against the edge of the deck and dragged the C-ration case over.
“Let me guess. Scrambled eggs and bacon?”
“Of course. It’s breakfast time, isn’t it?”
“I think you’re the only one in the company who eats that shit.”
“All the more for me.” I got a can from the box and a coffee packet. I poured some water into Resler’s cookie can and set it on his stove. While the flame seared the wetness on the outside of the can, I opened the eggs. Inside was the familiar yellow-green egg loaf with small bits of brownish bacon. I spooned it out cold. Resler made an expression of revulsion as I munched. I spooned another chunk out and held it toward him. “Want some?”
“I don’t eat puke.” He grimaced.
We went through this routine often. It was our morning ritual.
“I’ve never seen fog this thick before.”
“I know.” He checked his watch. “It’s already seven and it looks like five.”
I nodded. The Huey in front of us was a pale shadow, and the one I knew existed in front of it was totally obscured.
“ITO?”
“Probably. When was the last time you did an instrument takeoff?”
“Flight school.”
“Me, too.”
Farris came swirling out of the fog carrying a steaming cup of coffee. “Just talked to an air-force pilot. Says our valley is filled up with this fog, but it’s clear at the peaks.” We nodded. “We’ll wait an hour to see if it burns off.” He continued walking and disappeared behind us.
“Where’d you go last night?” I asked.
“Over there.” Resler pointed toward the GP.
“The tent?”
“No. See that kind of ditch up there?”
“Oh, yeah. Man, if they had kept it up—”
“I know. One of these days, they won’t stop.”
An hour later Farris told us to put our gear inside the ships. He and Riker were going to take off with some other ships, and he wanted us to listen in on the radio. He’d tell us how high up the fog went.
As I followed Resler down the slope, carrying my flight bag, I veered off to the left—nothing very unusual, except that I was trying to walk straight. When I leaned to the right to change course, I kept going to the left. I didn’t feel dizzy, just strange. I stopped for a minute and tried it again. I felt myself being tugged off track again but was able to ignore it. When I reached the ship, the feeling had gone. I shook my head. I’m coming apart.
I strapped in while Resler tuned the channel Farris would be on. We listened while Farris called the ships going with him. He asked if we were on the net.
“Roger,” Gary answered. Six more ships waiting with us rogered in turn.
“There’s no hurry,” Farris radioed. “We’re going back to Kontum to pick up some troops. You guys can meet us anywhere along that valley we followed yesterday. We should be back through in an hour.” We rogered down the line.
While Farris talked, I noticed something in the corner of my eye. Ten feet to the right of our ship, a gray mortar round stuck out of the grass. I punched Gary. He followed my finger and nodded. His eyes rose in surprise.
“I’ll be damned!”
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” said Farris. “The fog ends about five or six hundred feet up. Just make sure you take off due west when you leave. Remember, there’s mountains on both sides of you.”