Rolling Thunder
Page 20
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
0930 Hours Local, 25 January 1966
UH-1H en route to Bien Hoa Air Base
Republic of Vietnam
The Huey slick touched down at the Snake Pit helicopter pad next to the Bien Hoa runway. As the jet engine unwound and blade rotation slowed, Wolf Lochert jumped out holding his green beret on his head with one hand while reaching back with the other to get his battered mountain rucksack (left over from his days with the 10th SFG in Germany) and an M-2 Carbine (left over from his more recent days as an ARVN advisor in the Delta, where M-16s and ammo were hard to come by). When he stepped out from under the blades he returned the salute of Captain Tom Myers, the leader of the III Corps Mike Force, who, in addition to his green beret, wore a thin red, white, and blue cotton scarf knotted at his neck. Both men wore the striped camouflage pants and jackets known as tiger suits. They climbed into a battered black jeep with no top, and Myers drove them to the main gate of the sprawling air base. Once out the gate, they turned left skirting the edge of the town of Bien Hoa.
"You want to go to the C Team first, Major?" Myers asked.
"No. Take me to your team house, I don't have anything to talk about with the guys at C Team. They know why I'm here." Myers knew better than to chide the Wolf for not making a courtesy call on the lieutenant colonel who ran the Bien Hoa C Team, the team that had command responsibility for Detachment A-302, his team. They drove down a narrow dirt road toward the team house. After driving through an open area, they passed through the board-and- barbed wire gate guarded by two Chinese Nung mercenaries. Bare feet shoved into open rubber sandals, the Nungs carried M-16s and wore combat harnesses with hand grenades. As with all the men in the compound, the Nungs wore tiger suits, but only the Americans wore green berets. The Nungs wore floppy jungle hats.
Past the gate, the black jeep putted down the sandy road and pulled up by the long one-story team house. The walls were built of a close approximation of cinder blocks, the ceilings were vaulted corrugated tin over two-by-fours attached to steel beams. The interior was cooled by giant floor fans. Being less than a half mile north of the Bien Hoa runway, they heard the sound of roaring jet engines. The team was used to the sound and liked the "music," as they called it, of the birds they worked with so often and so successfully.
The two officers entered the front door that opened directly into a room made into a bar. Beyond the barroom, along the left wall, were 14 sleeping cubicles; 12 for the team members, and two for guests. An area to the right with stove and refrigerator had been set aside for eating and lounging. It also doubled as the team briefing room. One other large room housed weapons and other field gear. A smaller room was designated as the team leader's office. Beside the battered wooden desk was a heavy safe from which the Nung and Cambodian fighters were paid.
Captain Myers directed the Wolf to their bar and handed him a Coke. It was common knowledge why the Wolf didn’t drink alchohol… he became a wild man.
The hardwood bar was well built and included amenities that belied its primitive location. It had a real brass rail, comfortable bar stools, a high fidelity sound system, running water, coolers, and scores of bottles of booze. Painted on the long mirror behind the bar was a replica of the Mike Force patch, a black on white Jolly Roger skull and cross bones. Hanging in the place of honor at the center of the wall facing the bar, midst VC flags and captured Chicom SKS rifles, AK 47s, and other weapons, was a larger-than-life picture of film actress Martha Raye, known as Maggie to her beloved SF troops. Maggie, a registered nurse and lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, had made many trips to Vietnam to be with her boys at her own expense. She was acknowledged as the SF's one true love, somewhat like Piaf and her songs for La Legion Etrangé. Wolf tipped his Coke toward the picture, "To Maggie," he said. "To Maggie," the Captain echoed. They drank. Wolf noticed some words painted in gold on the wall near the door. He walked over and read:
I see as the eagle, clear and from afar
I listen as the deer, head cocked and alert
I think as the snake, silent and unblinking
I walk as the panther, lithe and sinuous
I crouch as the lion, muscled and ready
I kill as the mongoose, swift and silent
I die like a man
I am Mike Force.
Underneath was the author's dedication to the III Corps Mike Force and his name, Court Bannister, Fighter Pilot.
"Hey, I know this guy," the Wolf said, “he went through jump school at Bad Tolz. He's an F-100 pilot here?"
"That's right," Myers said, "first one we've gotten to know personally. He linked up with Jim Taylor and Frenchy Marquis one night in Saigon. Since then we've logged a lot of time together in the air and on the ground. He went out on patrol with Lopez and Leon near Tay Ninh once. Kind of a hard nose."
"Yeah, I know," the Wolf said, “me and Medaris and Fafek were his instructors at Bad T. He was the only Air Force guy in the class. We ran his ass off, had him retching and barfing because he was always answering "I'm a fighter pilot, sergeant" whenever Fafek would holler at the class and ask what they were. Everybody else did as they were told and yelled back they were straight legs." The Wolf chuckled in approval and finished his Coke. He absently crumpled the can in one hand, tossed it in the trash, and said he was ready to be briefed.
Myers took him to a table in the dining area and pulled the cover off an acetate-covered 1:50,000 map. It was set up with force positions and strengths drawn on it with grease pencil; blue for friendly and red for enemy. Taped to the top of the map was the Mike Force lineup in which he was listed as the team leader, then the XO (Executive Officer), a lieutenant, and ten NCOs whose specialties ranged from medical and weapons to intelligence, demolition, engineering, and communications.
The twelve Americans commanded two companies of Nungs and one company of Cambodians. The mission of the Mike Force was purely reconnaissance and rapid reaction to help SF camps in trouble by augmenting their firepower. They had successfully fought off MACV colonels from J-3 Operations who, on occasion, wanted to use them as conventional infantry units.