by Robert Mason
Meanwhile, the Prospectors laughed. But Gary and I knew better.
That evening Gary and I sat on our bunker, quietly talking about going home. We were now short-timers with less than seventy days to go.
“They say they’re going to use short-timers only on noncombat missions during their last month.” Gary sipped his daily Budweiser.
“I heard. I think a great plan would be to take a leave ten days before that; when you come back, you’re finished fighting. Just fly rice and stuff around back at Phan Rang.”
“You going to?”
“Yeah, why not? We could both get a leave together. I found some great places in Taipei.”
“I heard it’s better in Hong Kong.”
“It is, eh? Okay, Hong Kong. I’ve never been there. You wanna take a leave there?”
“Yeah.”
By the end of the first week, we had lifted companies of grunts from the 101st into positions at the north end of the valley. They were getting into firefights, but nothing big. We also established an artillery position in the foothills, placed so that it controlled the semicircle in which the 101st fanned out. Intelligence had reported that there was at least a battalion-sized NVA unit out there, and the 101st was eager to make contact.
My schedule was always blank in the afternoons, and I continued flying the ice runs. After a few days, Sky King and I had worked out a procedure in which the one of us who stayed with Bricklin could drink, while the one who went for the ice stayed dry—so that there would be at least one sober pilot to fly back. This made the daily flights more enjoyable. I was beginning to like being a Prospector. They might be eccentric, but they got the job done, and had a good time doing it. And except for the six casualties we experienced on that first day, no one had been hurt. It was, almost, pleasant.
Things seemed to be going well with the Prospectors. Joviality reigned among them while the action lulled. But something was different about us when compared to the outside world, as we demonstrated the next day.
Most people were in camp when a Chinook landed from Saigon. Ringknocker went out to greet four Red Cross girls as they stepped out of the back of the ship. Deacon joined Ringknocker, and the two of them escorted the girls back toward the camp. I was sitting on my cot, watching the party coming our way. Looking down the tent row, I noticed that everybody had disappeared. The place had suddenly become a ghost town. Gary peered out at the women and announced, “Doughnut Dollies,” but stayed inside. As Ringknocker walked the girls down the company street, obviously looking for someone to introduce them to, he could find no one. The girls began to look nervous as they peered into the dark tents, occasionally seeing a shadowed face peering silently back. They walked down the line of tents and back. Ringknocker and Deacon escorted them back to the Chinook. Meanwhile, the crew of the Chinook had deposited a pile of cardboard boxes on the airstrip. We watched Ringknocker nodding as someone explained them. The worried girls shook Ringknocker’s hand, looked quizzically around the deserted camp, and boarded their ship. Minutes later they were gone. When the ship was safely away, the Prospectors reappeared as if nothing had happened.
“Why did they do that?” I asked Gary.
“Why did you do that?”
“I don’t know. I just couldn’t go out and meet them. We all must be nuttier than we think. I mean, round-eyes. Everybody talks about seeing round-eyes again, and here they were five minutes ago, and we all hid?”
“Gratuitous issue.” Deacon pointed to the boxes.
“What’s that?” asked Gary.
“Free stuff from the Red Cross.”
We walked over and drew gifts of soap, combs, toothpaste, and cartons of cigarettes. And everyone looked guilty. They came bearing gifts and we shunned them. Sky King ran out to the airstrip and cupped his hands to his mouth. “Come back!” he yelled. “Come back!”
———
I watched the sagging top of my mosquito bar from inside. Resler kept a light on and wrote letters. Lying on my back, I noticed that I would have to find another place to put my electric shaver and assorted junk that I kept on top of the mosquito netting. It sagged too much.
Stoopy was buried under his blankets, asleep. One nice thing about the highlands, it was cool at night. Gary turned off his flashlight and for a while I heard him wrestling with his cot and blankets as he tucked in the mosquito netting. Then it was quiet. From far away, I could hear the occasional noises of battle. The 101st was getting more action every day.
I could not sleep. I stared into the darkness and thought about how it would feel to be out of the combat assaults. Gary and I had requested leave to start in two weeks. If all went as planned, we would both be into our last thirty days when we got back. A barrage of artillery sounded in the distance. I felt tense. After nearly a year of unconscious listening I could instantly tell incoming rounds from outgoing, even if I was sleeping next to the artillery or mortar positions. There was something ominous about the noise from the north end of the valley.
The electric razor above me sparked. My throat tightened in fear. The booby trap? The sparks grew to a white blaze. From the intensity of a Fourth of July sparkler, it suddenly blazed to a blinding white flame. I rolled out of the cot onto the ground and stood up. Flickering shadows were cast by the intense blaze. The inside of the tent was brighter than daylight. “Gary! Fire!” I shouted as I backed into a tent rope. The dazzling light flickered green through the canvas of the tent. When Gary said, “What’s the matter?” the light flicked off. I stood out in the cool night, in my underwear, sweating and shivering. Gary was beside me.
“What’s the matter?” His voice was calm.
“You didn’t see a fire?”
“What fire?”
“In the tent. My razor blew up. You didn’t see it?”
“I didn’t see anything.”
“Come on, I’ll show you.” I walked cautiously back into the tent. Stoddard was still asleep. I used Gary’s flashlight and shined it on the top of the mosquito bar. My razor gleamed in the light—intact. I touched it cautiously, then picked it up. It was cold.
“How can that be? It was burning, as bright as a magnesium flare. I saw it!”
“Bob, nothing burned.”
“Look, I’ve got spots from looking at it in my eyes right now.”
“No one can see another person’s spots.”
“They’re the proof. That razor burned.” I stopped when I understood the words that I spoke. I had never seen anything more clearly in my life, but here I stood with Gary, in the tent, holding the razor. The razor had not burned and blazed and blinded me, at least not so that anybody else could see.
I walked over to DaVinci, who stood by our bunker. I told him exactly what I had seen, in detail. He nodded as I explained.
“Here.” He handed me a small pill.
“What’s this?”
“It’ll help you sleep. I’ll give you another one tomorrow night, too. Try to relax.”
“I am relaxed—or I was.”
“Try harder.”
The next night we watched the sky over the north end of the valley fill with tracer tongues of fire from Puff. The NVA were overrunning the artillery position. Four ships from Daring’s gun platoon were in the middle of it, flying back and forth in front of the artillery piece under attack. Of the four cannon there, that one was now separated from the others as the NVA concentrated on it. Puff, the DC-3 with the Gattlings, blasted unbroken tongues of fire from the black sky. Flares popped white, dazzling and swinging over the battle. The NVA kept closing in. The tube was depressed for point-blank fire. One of the gunship pilots told us that when the NVA swarmed into the gun position the men were so mixed that they had to stop firing. The gun was taken.
We were on alert all night. By three in the morning, when we still hadn’t been called to do a night assault, I went to bed. Another little magic pill and I slept.
By dawn the next morning, the tube had been recaptured by the 101st, with the considera
ble help of our gunships.
Capt. John Niven came by early and said that he and I were going out. We were going to try to get some ammo to a trapped company.
Niven said in a friendly way that I was a better pilot than he. As the aircraft commander, he chose to handle the radios and let me do the flying. Our first stop was the trapped company’s HQ area at the 101st’s camp. We landed there to get the exact coordinates and to wait. The company was under fire, too heavy for us to get in. We shut down next to a small rifle range, inside the wire-strewn, mined perimeter, and waited.
At noon, we were still waiting. We could hear the company commander, Delta Six, calling on the radio in a nearby tent. He had seven fighting men left; thirty-eight more were either dead or wounded. He sounded bad, kept telling his HQ the names of the people he knew were dead, and also kept saying, “It’s still too hot for that ship. We may have to wait till dark.”
As I listened to this and waited, I wandered into the tent and got a case of .45-caliber ammunition from a sergeant. I took the five hundred rounds back out to the rifle range and proceeded to kill the rest of the afternoon by firing hundreds of rounds at beer cans. By three o‘clock, even I was impressed by my accuracy. I was regularly hitting beer cans at a hundred yards. By four o’clock, some grunts had joined me, and I borrowed an M-16 and shot a few clips with it. Another grunt let me try my luck with an M-79 grenade launcher. As I shot, I became calmer. I realized how much I needed to shoot. Shoot something, anything.
Niven came out of the tent as I blasted a beer can again. “We’re going to try for it,” he said. I slid the hot .45 into my shoulder holster and went to the ship.
“I think I’ll make a takeoff,” said Niven. “I could use the practice.”
“Sure, help yourself.”
Two grunts climbed inside with us after loading the ship full of ammo cases.
Niven cranked up, did a power check at a hover, which revealed that we were just able to hover. He nosed over, a little too much, and took off over the concertina wire. Unfortunately, the ship was too heavy for the amount of angle he had set for the takeoff, so the ship stayed low. We felt something tugging as we crossed the minefield. I looked out my window and saw barbed wire caught on the skid, trailing back, dragging in the other wire.
“We’re caught in some wire!” I yelled. He realized what was up as soon as I yelled, and reared back to level. What he did next caught me completely by surprise. Instead of staying at a hover over the minefield and backing out, he set the ship down. I lifted myself off the seat, against the straps, bracing myself for the explosion.
Niven forgot the mined perimeter. He remembered as soon as we were down. I looked at him as the ship idled. The sun shone through the Plexiglas. Sweat dripped over his face. He looked as scared as I felt. There was no explosion.
The grunts told us to stay put. Men who knew the layout of the mines came daintily stepping out to us with wire cutters and cut us free.
Niven was so shaken he had me fly.
As we drew near the trapped company, we saw gunships working the facing hill. Their efforts were frustrated by the exceedingly deep and dense foliage. In fact, the company itself was under a seventy-five-foot canopy of trees.
“Too hot, Prospector. Wait till dark,” said Delta Six.
“Roger,” replied Niven.
We turned back, frustrated. The tension was building to a high peak. I had looked the spot over, and I could not see a safe approach. The company was trapped on a low, tree-covered knoll surrounded by higher ground. If the NVA were still there when we came back, we’d be sitting ducks.
I landed back at the company’s HQ and shut down. It was two hours till dark. We had chow and waited.
There was no moon when we took off, and the sky was very dark. After a ten-minute flight up the valley, I switched off the position lights and began to descend. As we sank, the tops of the mountains, blacker than the sky, rose above us. I used the contours of the valley and the hills that I had come to know in two weeks of flying over and around them. It’s possible to see ground contour from low level even on the darkest night. Even if there’s no moon. Even if there is an overcast. There are always enough clues to construct an image. I had learned not to stare at what I wanted to see, but to see it with my peripheral vision.
So, as I moved slowly toward the knoll, I knew its treetops were lighter than the back hill behind them. Delta Six radioed that we sounded like we were on course. I had picked the right shadow.
“You’re close,” said Delta Six. “Keep coming, slowly.”
As the ship dropped out of flight and into hover, the load became evident. The dim instrument lights showed that I was using maximum power in the hover. We drifted forward, six feet above the trees, at Delta Six’s beckoning.
Delta Six said, “We hear some shooting.” I saw muzzle flashes from the hill facing us.
“I think that’s about right… wait… I can hear you right over us, but I can’t see you. We have wounded lying all around here, and I don’t want them hit by the ammo crates.”
I hovered, not looking at anything in particular, just noticing the different shades of black. Muzzle flashes began to twinkle from the hillside.
The low-rpm warning siren blared. I glanced at the dial and saw the needle dropping fast. The ship was sinking into the trees. If we didn’t drop that ammo we’d go down.
“We’ve got to drop that ammo,” said Niven.
“No! You’re right over the wounded.” Delta Six’s broadcast was filled with the crackling noise of rifle fire.
Were we or weren’t we going to drop the fucking ammo? I moved a little farther to the right. The crew chief and the grunts had the boxes poised at the edge of the deck, but it was still wrong. A treetop rose up, brushing the nose. That was it. If we didn’t go now, we’d be joining the men below us as pieces.
The shuddering Huey resisted as I tried to move forward. The warning siren blared. It was on the verge of quitting; moving forward was real effort. I heard a loud slap as the rotor hit a treetop. I couldn’t climb. If anything, I had to descend, to get the rotor speed back to normal. I turned to the right, getting a little power bonus that way, and dragged the skids across the treetops. Within a few feet I was able to drop down the side of the knoll into a black ravine. ,
“Now what?” asked Niven.
“I’m going down to the end of the ravine, circle back, and try it again.” .
“We’re too heavily loaded.”
“Yeah, but I think I know where he wants it now.”
Niven called Delta Six.
“Thank you,” said the grateful voice.
As I cruised slowly toward the knoll, the muzzle flashes began. Then a tongue of tracers flitted off to our left. Apparently we were hard to see, because we hadn’t been hit yet. From the conversation during the first attempt, I had a feeling where Delta Six was and where he wanted us to drop the ammo.
“That’s it!” he yelled. “Hold it right there.”
I stopped the ship. As she sank toward the trees, Delta Six called, “Okay, dump ‘em.”
With much scraping and bumping, the boxes were shoved from the ship. They dropped seventy-five feet through the branches and leaves. The ship gained power as it lightened.
“Great job!” yelled Delta Six. “Nobody was hit. Great job. Thank you, Prospector.”
I hit one more treetop on the way out, bounced toward the ravine, and accelerated. Ten minutes later we were back at HQ being credited with saving their lives. Delta Six and his men had fired the last of their ammo to cover us.
The next morning, Delta Six had managed to push back the NVA—or the latter pulled back—and a Chinook hovered over the spot and hoisted out the wounded. Another Chinook pulled out the last of the living along with the dead.
———
The 101st was getting the action they had craved. Unfortunately, the territory was the enemy’s home field. In some of the LZs the grunts had cut on hilltops, the stumps were so close
together that it was difficult to get the skids to fit between them. The American patrols hacked through the brush, struggling toward objectives, only to become hopelessly lost. Commanders constantly reported men missing in action who were in fact lost—you couldn’t see a man ten feet away. While they fought the jungle, the NVA harrassed them, attacked them, and sometimes overran them. When platoons and companies came under heavy attack, rescue units sent out to help them became lost, scattered, and surrounded. For days, the 101st had lost units looking for lost units looking for lost units. It was total confusion. In that confusion, many men died.
In these conditions our helicopters were the least effective in helping the grunts. We were constantly out trying to find men who cried for help on the radio but who were totally hidden in the jungle. One company we tried to save was completely wiped out as we flew above the canopy trying to find them. Their radio went dead, and they were gone.
Another company—led by a West Point football player, Bud Carpenter—became famous because Carpenter called in an airstrike on his position as he was being overrun.
Sky King and I were in the air, orbiting Carpenter’s position. Carpenter was trying to get to an old LZ to be extracted. We listened on the radio and watched the LZ, waiting for him to show up.
“We can’t make it to the LZ,” radioed Carpenter. “They’re all around us.”
“What’s your position?” implored Gunfighter Six, Carpenter’s CO.
“I’m one hundred meters east of the LZ,” said Carpenter calmly. Gunfire crackled with his voice. “I see only six men around me,” he lamented. “They’re moving closer. I want an airstrike here, now.”
“On your own position?” asked Gunfighter Six.
“Yes. Hurry.”
Two A1-E’s were already on station. They got their instructions in seconds and began to hit the coordinates. They dropped napalm, bombs, and then strafed. Carpenter’s position was covered in smoke. A long silence followed.