Call to Duty

by Richard Herman

  “Rascal One departing holding now,” Gillespie radioed.

  “Continue,” Mallard answered. Lacking firm direction from Mado, he had no choice but to allow the mission to continue.

  Gillespie eased down the collective stick on his left, applied slight forward pressure on the cyclic stick between his legs, squeezed in a little right pedal for trim, and made an easy, coordinated, descending turn onto his run-in heading. With an innate skill and finesse that few pilots possess, the captain made all ten thousand cantankerous parts bend to his will as he kept the aircraft within the tight control parameters that coaxed the MH-53 to perform as its designers dreamed of on good nights. In reality, it was a balancing act much like trying to make love in a hammock.

  The captain sitting in the left seat as copilot and the flight engineer exchanged glances. The captain gave a reassuring nod for Gillespie had “the touch.” Now they were skimming along the treetops, rushing toward their LZ at two and a half miles a minute, on time, on course, but very much alone.

  Near Ban Muang Dok, Thailand

  Joey and his partner were the first of the six-man road team to move into position. Both men were puffing from the long run from where the team’s four-wheel-drive truck had broken down. They had pushed the vehicle past its limits on the last forty-five miles of dirt road and it had overheated. The engine had finally frozen as they approached the bridge, still two miles from the site of the intended roadblock. The men had quickly stripped their arms and equipment out of the useless truck, crossed the bridge, and run down the road, fully aware the clock was running out on them.

  The spot they were making for was perfect for a roadblock. The road made a sharp bend around a large outcropping of rock and then narrowed, making a tight S curve through a heavy stand of trees on the side of a steep slope. Joey could hear a truck laboring up to the rocks when he reached the spot. He dumped his heavy rucksack and ripped it open, pulling out a ribbon charge of C4 explosive. He quickly wrapped it around the base of a tree and attached a fuse. Now he could hear the truck slowing to work its way past the rock outcropping. He pulled the igniter, grabbed his rucksack and MP5 submachine gun and dove into a small fold in the terrain. He wished the underbrush had been thicker to give him more cover, but the heavy stand of trees had shaded out much of the jungle foliage. A sharp crack rewarded his efforts and the tree fell across the road. His partner gave him a thumbs-up and pointed to a second tree. Joey popped his head up and dropped right back to the ground. The tree had fallen across the road but could be easily pushed aside by a truck.

  He had to do it again. But judging by the sound, the truck was less than a hundred meters and one bend away. He didn’t hesitate and ran to the tree that he calculated would do the job. One part of his mind registered that the truck had stopped and he could hear shouted commands, not in English, as he set the charge. He pulled the igniter and ran for cover. A burst of machine-gun fire chased him into the thickest part of the trees and he felt a sting across his left buttock. He ignored the pain as his team returned fire, giving him the cover he needed to reach safety.

  The Americans quickly pulled farther back into the trees and re-formed, moving into defensive positions where they could now see two trucks backed up behind the trees blocking the road. Men were jumping out of the trucks and running for cover while an officer tried to get them working on pulling the two trees aside.

  The man leading the Americans motioned two shooters to a forward flanking position on his right and pointed at the other pair to pull back and to his left. While the men were moving into position, he keyed his radio and transmitted in the blind, telling Hammer the trucks were early and hostile. Then he and his partner opened fire on the trucks, exploiting the confusion. His partner’s M-249 SAW, Squad Automatic Weapon, sent a hail of 5.56-millimeter bullets into the trucks while he raked the soldiers with his MP5 submachine gun.

  The nose of another truck appeared around the outcropping of rocks and stopped. Between bursts, they could hear shouted commands and see more men in the trees now moving directly toward them. The team leader’s partner jammed a fresh “assault pack” of two hundred rounds into his M-249 and squeezed off a short burst to drive the opposition to cover. The two men quickly fell back, leapfrogging into a position behind the other shooters. The two forward shooters waited until the soldiers started chasing the first pair and then opened fire. They cut down six of the attackers from the flank before they withdrew, again exploiting the confusion to leapfrog to a position behind the others. The Americans rapidly gave ground, moving out from under the heavy growth of trees and into the heavier jungle but still paralleling the road that led to the village. The leader radioed for help. “Hammer, this is Pogo Two,” he transmitted. Now he could hear the sounds of a helicopter. Whose was it?

  “Pogo Two, this is Hammer,” Trimler replied, his transmission weak and scratchy, “read you two-by.” As ground commander, Trimler controlled the teams on the ground.

  “We’re in contact, withdrawing toward the primary objective. I hear a helicopter in the area, can it give us cover?”

  “Helicopter is unknown, not ours. Spectre is on the way. Say position.”

  “A hundred meters west of the road, moving south, away from trucks currently blocked on road.”

  Another voice came on the radio. It was the Beezer in the AC-130 gunship. “Roger, Pogo Two. Spectre copies all. Will be over your position in six minutes. Stay up this frequency.”

  Joey materialized out of the heavy underbrush and silently dropped beside his leader. He rolled over onto his back and jammed a fresh clip into his MP5. “We’re in deep shit.” He pointed in the direction they were moving. “A deep ravine.”

  “Can we get across?”

  “Negatory, not with these bastards breathing down our tails. Got to cross at the bridge.” Pogo Two’s leader grunted and started his team moving toward the bridge, hoping they would cross and blow it down before the soldiers moving down the road reached them. That would solve their problems. The Americans could hear crashing sounds behind them and realized they were being deliberately herded, driven up against the ravine. “Those fuckers are good,” Joey grudgingly conceded. “Real good.”

  “Yeah,” the leader conceded. “We should have blown the fucking bridge to begin with and none of this fancy stuffy.” He mashed his radio transmit button. “Spectre, Pogo Two,” he radioed, “moving towards road bridge. Will attempt to cross. The opposition needs some discouragement.”

  The sounds of the helicopters grew louder as the Americans neared the road. They were a hundred meters short of the bridge when they saw the helicopter touch down on the bridge’s approach and three men jump out and run for cover. Before the team could move into position and fire, the helicopter lifted off and flew right over them. They could see a gunner in the door and started firing at the helicopter. A short burst of machine-gun fire from the helicopter cut into Joey and he collapsed as the helicopter passed over. One of the Americans ran for his fallen buddy as the helicopter disappeared. The sounds of trucks moving on the road echoed over the five men.

  Simon Mado’s face numbed as the reports filtered in over the radio. He closed the operations plan he had been consulting and stared at the title. His jaw moved, grinding his teeth. Events had overtaken him and he was no longer in control. He calculated what other options were now open to him.

  The leader of Pogo One in the village heard faint explosions and gunfire coming from the north. “Trouble,” he said to the three men crouched in the shadows behind him. He dropped to the ground and inched his head around the corner of the dilapidated storage shed they had parked behind. Through the deepening shadows, he could clearly see the raised bungalow on stilts and the low wall that surrounded it. The loud wail of a TV set reached out and blended with four or five others in the village, masking the distant gunfire that was growing in intensity. He crawled back into the shadows. “As advertised,” he told the men. Then he keyed his radio. “Lee, you in position?”
/>   “Affirmative,” came the answer from the other half of his team.

  “Going in now,” the leader said.

  “Roger.”

  The leader raised a clenched fist, snapped his hand open, fingers rigidly extended, counted to three, made a fist, and jerked his hand down—the signal to “go.” The four men moved silently out from behind the shed and spread out, running for the low wall that surrounded their objective. They drifted over the wall like ghosts and kept moving for the raised bungalow. A lone pig grunted and moved out of the way. Now they were among the stilts that raised the bungalow off the ground. The sound man stood up and attached a small microphone to the overhead. He moved to a second position and attached another microphone. He repeated the drill two more times. Then they waited while he listened, monitoring the movement in the rooms above him.

  The team’s leader riveted his eyes on his wristwatch, counting down the seconds. After an agonizing wait of less than a minute, the sound man held up two fingers and pointed toward the back room, his thumb down—two enemy. Then he pointed with one finger to the front room and held his hand open, palm up—one unknown. He pointed to an area halfway between the two rooms and repeated the gesture—another unknown. The team leader raised a clenched fist and repeated the go sign. The two inside men went up the steps, silent and dark phantoms, while the outside man moved under an open window. The sound man moved under the back room, readied his MP5 and concentrated on the sounds coming through his headset. When he heard a tap followed by two quick raps, he hit the off switch of his headset, mashed the trigger on his MP5, and sprayed the ceiling above him, aiming for the center of the sounds he had last heard.

  At the same time, the outside man threw a flash-bang grenade through the open window. Then the two inside men on the steps were through the door while the outside man moved into a covering position at the front steps. Two shots rang out. Now silence. The sound man heard a “We got her” and gave the high sign to the outside man. Then he keyed the radio clipped to his belt and spoke into the whisper mike on his shoulder. “Lee, we’re coming out.” Instantly, he heard the low rev of an engine and a car drove into the compound as the two inside men came down the steps, carrying an inert body between them.

  “As advertised,” Pogo One’s leader said. Nikki Anderson was pushed into the backseat and the car drove off, heading for the LZ. The four men sprinted for their car.

  “Pogo Two,” the Beezer transmitted from his AC-130. “Say position.” He was on the same radio frequency as the two colonels and the trapped team.

  The voice that answered was low and filled with strain. “On the edge of the ravine, one hundred meters to the east of the road bridge and moving east, away from the bridge.”

  “Say number,” the Beezer said as he wrapped his gunship into a firing orbit.

  “Five,” came the answer. “One KIA.”

  “I’ve got ’em,” the sensor operator in the booth on the gun deck said.

  “All others are hostile,” the Beezer told his crew. “Time to rock and roll.” The fourteen men aboard the gunship went through a well-rehearsed routine.

  “TV and IR have targets,” the sensor operator called.

  “Take IR guidance,” the fire control operator answered.

  “Give me twenties,” the Beezer ordered. The two 20-millimeter Vulcan cannons the AC-130 sported could each fire twenty-five hundred rounds per minute. The six-barreled gatling gun was the best weapon he had for discouraging the soldiers advancing on Pogo Two.

  “Guns ready,” came from the gun deck.

  The Beezer looked through the Heads-Up gunsight mounted to his left and saw at least a dozen soldiers inside the lighted diamond symbol—the targets the sensor operator had found using the infrared detection system. He jockeyed the AC-130 and moved the circle that showed where any round he fired would impact the ground over the target diamond and mashed the trigger button. The two Vulcan cannons spewed a torrent of fire at the men and he could see targets fall to the ground. He would never be sure, but he was relatively certain that he had killed at least half of the men he had hosed down. He slid the big plane into another orbit to the north and selected another target. Again, he mashed the trigger and the Vulcans gave out with their loud buzzing sound, not the sharp staccato normally associated with a machine gun.

  Now the Beezer could see the lead truck moving through the roadblock. “Give me the forty,” he ordered. The crew repeated their deadly routine and this time the forty-millimeter Bofors cannon that could fire up to a hundred rounds a minute gave out a heavy thumping sound as Beasely worked the trucks over.

  “Break right!” The illuminator operator at the rear of the cargo ramp shouted. “Flares! Flares!” He had just seen the flash of what looked like a shoulder-held surface-to-air missile. It was a Soviet-made SA-7 Grail and only his early warning call saved them. The Beezer honored the threat and skidded the big plane into a hard right turn as decoy flares popped out behind them in a long string. Then he nosed over, unloading and accelerating before he reversed his turn and pulled up, loading them with almost two g’s. The maneuver worked and the missile’s seeker head was captured by one of the flares. But another missile was coming at them. Again, Spectre outmaneuvered the missile.

  They never saw the third Grail that hit their number four engine. But Spectre had been built to take battle damage and survive. The Beezer headed south as they sorted out the emergency. After feathering the engine and hitting the fire extinguisher, he ran a controllability check. Not good. “Hammer,” he transmitted, “Spectre disengaging with battle damage. Looks like we took a hit on the right outboard wing. Number four feathered. Some control problems. Best guess is a Grail missile got us. Say the word and we’ll go back in.”

  Now the monkey was on Mallard’s back. Would he risk the AC-130 and its fourteen crewmembers to support Pogo Two on the ground? Experience had taught him what the AC-130 crew was up against. He talked to his ground commander, Bob Trimler. “Can Pogo Two get clear for an extraction?”

  Trimler keyed his radio and spoke briefly to Pogo Two’s leader. Then he turned to Mallard. “Can do. Spectre worked the Gomers over good and Pogo Two is clear and withdrawing to the east.”

  The decision was made. “Spectre,” Mallard radioed, “return to holding. Repeat, return to holding.”

  “Roger,” the Beezer answered. They could hear the disappointment in his voice.

  Gillespie had the LZ in sight through his night vision goggles when Spectre reported in with battle damage. He filed the information away for later use and concentrated on the problem at hand. He slowed the helicopter and it shuddered through the translational lift as his forward airspeed decreased to the point where the rotor blades lost the extra lift generated by the helicopter’s forward motion. Gillespie adjusted automatically to the change in lift and brought the big MH-53 in. Since he was looking outside and his copilot was reading out the instruments, it was a masterful combination of seat of the pants and instrument flying. For a moment, the helicopter hung gently in the air. Then it touched down.

  The landing zone team exploded into action and ran down the rear ramp. “My God!” one of the gunners said over the intercom, “you oughta see that big guy move!” The gunner was watching Victor Kamigami lead the way and he could not credit the speed of the man.

  The Army lieutenant colonel in command of the LZ team stayed on board the helicopter and moved forward to monitor the radios with Gillespie. “Nice landing,” he told the pilot when he was on headset.

  “Thanks, Colonel,” Gillespie said. “Just goes with the territory.”

  The copilot smiled. “Being humble when you don’t have to is very becoming in junior captains. But it was one shit hot approach and landing.” The flight engineer nodded in agreement.

  Gillespie did not take off his night vision goggles and kept looking outside to maintain his night vision. He watched as the landing zone team established a perimeter in a well-rehearsed routine. Then he saw the headlights of
two cars approach. He turned his head away so the sensitive night vision goggles would not pick up the headlights and momentarily blind him. “Looks like we got some action, sir,” he told the lieutenant colonel. “Two vehicles approaching.”

  The lieutenant colonel glanced at his watch. “They’re early.”

  Before he could say more, Kamigami’s voice came over the radio. “The package has arrived, the delivery team is right behind, in sight.”

  “Start pulling in,” the lieutenant colonel ordered. He could not believe their good luck.

  Two minutes later, Nikki Anderson was on board and the four men who had rescued her were piling out of their car. The helicopter rocked as the landing zone team ran on board. “All accounted for!” the gunner responsible for the first head count shouted over the intercom.

  But nothing happened as Kamigami and another sergeant ran their independent head counts. When they both agreed that everyone was aboard, Gillespie gently applied left pedal as he pulled the collective up, increasing pitch in all six rotor blades to get the lift needed for takeoff. As the helicopter broke away from the ground, he squeezed the cyclic forward and to the left for a smooth climbing turn away from the LZ.

  Gillespie’s copilot radioed Hammer, telling the colonels that Nikki Anderson was on board and Rascal One was launching from the LZ. Mallard acknowledged and continued to work the most pressing problem—extracting the five remaining men of Pogo Two.

  “Rascal Three is airborne and will be on station in sixty-eight minutes,” Mallard told Trimler. “Can you get Pogo Two into position for a pickup?” The maintenance crew from the 1st SOW had worked a minor miracle in fixing the backup Pave Low helicopter and getting it launched. The other helicopter, Rascal Two, had never made it back to base and had made an emergency landing at Uttaradit. Mallard decided to let General Mado worry about explaining the presence of that helicopter with its twelve heavily armed passengers to the local authorities.