by Tom Wilson
So what did all of that tell Buster? He'd better learn B.J.'s secret to success, then cut the losses. Would that be possible? he wondered.
There were two junior officers and an NCO on the aircraft with Buster, hitching rides back to Takhli from Saigon, and he waited until they'd deplaned before hefting his bag and moving toward the door.
A sergeant poked his head inside. "Help you with that, Colonel?"
"Careful, there's breakables inside." He referred to the bottle of Chivas Regal, placed there by Carolyn, who knew how to pack a fighter jock's bags.
The sergeant took the B-4 bag and stood out of Buster's way so he could get out and down the steps. When he was on firm ground, he saluted Parker. B.J. was still wingco, which made him the man in charge and the ranking colonel on base, regardless of dates of rank.
Parker returned the salute and smiled as he stepped forward to grasp his hand. "Good to have you aboard, Colonel."
"Buster. Call me Buster," Leska said, eyeing the banner.
"I remembered"—Parker smiled—"but General Moss called last night and said he wanted it like that. Something about keeping you in your place. We'd already put one up reading S. T. 'Buster' Leska, so the guys had to take it down and make a new one."
Buster grimaced. Moss had a strange sense of humor. "It worked. I'm in my place. Now do me a favor and have them take it down, okay?"
Parker called over a colonel he introduced as the base commander and told him to remove the banner.
"Better get a move on, Mike," he told him brusquely. "Colonel Leska's been known to get downright mean when his people don't listen up, and as of tomorrow your ass belongs to him."
Leska frowned. Although Parker was joking, Buster treated subordinates differently.
"How about a ride around the base?" asked Parker. "Show you what you're stuck with."
"I'd like that," said Buster as Parker led him toward a waiting staff car.
The staff sergeant had placed his B-4 bag in the back of a pickup and was giving instructions to an airman. B.J. gestured. "He'll take it to your temporary quarters. I've got you set up in the trailer next door until they've got my things out of the commander's trailer. Tomorrow it's yours."
"Long as there's a bed of some description, I'll be grateful. My body thinks it's the middle of the night."
"Takes a week to acclimatize."
The sergeant returned from the pickup to open B.J.'s door, then hurried around to get Buster's. They waited in the backseat of the air-conditioned Ford sedan as he slipped into the driver's seat and turned to B.J. for instructions.
The base tour took two hours, for they stopped at every construction site, and there were a dozen building and paving projects under way. Parker showed him two new barracks for the enlisted men, then those for noncommissioned officers, staff officers, and finally the windowless sixteen-man quarters for company-grade combat pilots.
"They call 'em Ponderosas, like on the television show."
"How come?" asked Buster.
Parker opened his mouth to answer, then furrowed his brow. "Got me," he finally answered.
"Where do the field-grade officers live?" he asked.
"In trailers adjacent to the Officers' Club," responded Parker, still pondering the previous question.
"How about the WAFs?" asked Buster.
"We've got no suitable facilities on base for women. It's an all-male society. Except, of course, for Thai women who work on base."
"What do the guys do for entertainment?"
"There's the bowling alley, recreation center, and base theater I showed you, all new. Then there's a new service club for the airmen, and of course the officers and NCO clubs."
"Female companionship?"
"The town of Ta Khli's only a couple miles from the main gate. They pronounce it as two distinct words like that. It was a sleepy little place before we got here. Now the west side's been turned into a sin city with a couple dozen cheap clubs, bathhouses, and such, and a bunch of farm girls eager to earn the family fortune. Our flight surgeons check 'em for diseases and issue the girls cards to show they're clean."
"You have any trouble with the people there?" Less than desirable entrepreneurs were drawn like magnets to military installations to prey on service men.
Parker shrugged. "Once in a while a club owner gets uncooperative. That's when you take it to the Thai base commander, and he straightens it out. Usually sends 'em packing back to Bangkok."
"Thai base commander?"
"We're a tenant unit, Buster. Takhli's a real, no-shit Royal Thai Air Force Base. They built the original runway back during the Second World War. They were on the Japanese side, by the way. Flew Zeros out of here to attack our transports flying the Burma Hump. When it became apparent the Japanese were losing and started to pull out, they switched loyalties."
"I'll be damned."
"The Thais fly a squadron of F-86's located on the other side of the base. Not a bad organization, but they have to work like hell to keep the old birds flying."
"They get along okay with our guys?'
"One thing you'll find about Thailand, the people here really like Americans. Very different culture, but they think we're okay and they treat us with respect. They know that if we leave without finishing the job, the communists are going to end up next door in Laos and Cambodia and cause a lot of trouble. There are already bands of communist terrorists—they call them CTs—operating in some areas of Thailand. Not many around here, thank God."
Buster nodded.
"Tonight we're having dinner with the Thai base commander, if that's all right with you. Thought you should get to know him right away."
"Sounds like the thing to do." Buster had wanted to spend the evening talking with a longtime friend, Mack MacLendon, who was stationed here. Now he'd have to delay it until after dinner, which he'd leave a little early.
"Watch out for the Thai base commander."
"Oh?"
"He's got four daughters by his number-one wife, and a couple more by his number two. Buddhists are polygamous, you know. Anyway, so far he's only gotten one daughter married off. His goal is to get them all happily wed, and American airmen are considered good catches."
They completed their look at the base by slow-driving the perimeter of the flight line. First Parker showed him row upon row of sleek F-105 Thunderchiefs.
"We've got eighty birds assigned right now. Seventy-one D-models for the strike pilots, and nine two-seat F-models for the Wild Weasels. Got two shipments flown in from the States last week. Since they shut down the production line at the locomotive factory, Thuds are becoming a limited resource, Buster. We've lost two hundred and fifty in combat so far. We keep taking losses like that, we're going to run out of airplanes."
That was true. The Thunderchiefs in Europe had been replaced by F-4's and shipped to the war zone. Besides the ones at the Thai bases at Takhli and Korat, there were only those at the training bases in Kansas and Nevada, and the few in the logistics-and-repair facilities.
"A hell of a lot of fine pilots have been lost," murmured B. J. Parker. "The month I got here, a single squadron lost twenty-four aircraft." He stared out the window with an expression that Buster could not readily identify as sadness, guilt, or nostalgia. Perhaps it was a mixture of all three.
He gave him his moment before asking another question. "How's the morale?"
"The crew chiefs and most of the support people reflect the attitudes of the combat pilots, and I'd guess you'd say their feelings are mixed. They're pros, so they'll keep flying and fighting as long as they're told to. The biggest problem is they can't see an end to it. They fly up there and see the good targets, but they're not allowed to bomb them. They watch MiGs taxi out at Phuc Yen and can't attack them. Instead they're sent to penny-ante targets in the middle of the world's toughest defenses. If they get shot down, they don't know if they'll ever get out of prison, so when they're hit, they try like hell to make it back far enough to have a chance of being rescu
ed."
B. J. Parker stared at the F-105's without expression.
"Considering all that, how's their morale?"
"Like I said, they're pros. They want to get on with it, go out and kick ass and win, but if they're told to shut up and keep bleeding on two-bit targets, they will."
"How many quitters?"
"Three in the year I've been here. One during the raids on the Thai Nguyen steel mill, one during the bridges campaign, and another with a questionable medical problem. Two were experienced fighter jocks, and one was a retread from SAC. Every time it's a surprise. A guy'll be a tiger one day, and the next he'll refuse to fly."
"Three's not bad."
"No. We had as many or more in World War II and Korea."
They drove by the tanker operation. Ten KC-135's were assigned to refuel the fighters on tracks designated by colors, such as green, orange, and red anchor routes. Parker explained there were also brown and tan routes, located out over the Gulf of Tonkin, mostly used by the F-4's flying to North Vietnam out of Danang.
They were across the base now, and Buster viewed the Thai F-86F Sabres with a smile.
"I've got eleven hundred hours in those," he said, "including ninety and a half missions out of Osan in 1953." The half mission was the one on which he'd lost his engine and been forced to bail out over hostile territory.
"I was at the Koon," said Parker, meaning Kunsan Air Base in South Korea, "in F-84's."
A Thai pilot was at one of the Sabre's boarding ladders, reading over a form on a clipboard as he prepared for flight. He erupted into a heated argument with a maintenance man and ended the discussion by raising the clipboard and chasing him around the aircraft, swinging it at him and shouting.
Buster and Parker both chuckled.
The pilot began pointing at the aircraft, jabbing his finger and screaming, and the maintenance man was scurrying frantically about to do his bidding.
"Like to try that with one of our crusty old line chiefs?" asked Parker.
"No way," said Buster, and he saw the staff-sergeant driver grinning to himself.
"What's over there?" asked Buster, pointing at a motley collection of C-123's and C-130's.
"C-123's are Air America. C-130's are Bird and Son Company. CIA contractors. They do their covert thing. Their operation's controlled by MAC-SOG, which is directly under MAC-V, another name for Westmoreland's bunch. They also get inputs from the spooks at the various embassies. They're supposed to work with our Special Operations, Army Special Forces, and the Navy SEALs on their unconventional wars, but from what I hear, they're pretty independent. They've got their own hierarchies and lines of support and generally keep to themselves, but they can do good work when it comes to helping get a downed pilot out of Laos, things like that."
"I'll keep that in mind."
"The Air America people also maintain and keep Channel Ninety-seven on the air. That's a TACAN navigation station on the border between Laos and North Vietnam. We use it for a checkpoint and to update our Doppler nav equipment when we go up to pack six." B.J. drew back and looked at Buster. "You know about the different route packs?"
"We were briefed on them daily at the Pentagon. Pack one's at the southern extremity of North Vietnam, along the DMZ, and they keep going up in number until you get to pack six at the northeast end. Pack six is getting a reputation among the pilots. Good place to avoid, they say."
"Hanoi and Haiphong are both in route pack six. That's the real badlands. Never been anything like it, Buster. I saw flak over Germany and Korea, but nothing like you'll see here. We can handle triple-A if we keep jinking and fly above the majority of the stuff. The MiGs are tough, but they're also manageable. Then you add the SAMs, which they've got by the bushel. Things come at you fast, and the SAM operators are damned good. We're briefed the gomers are better operators than the Soviets, and that makes sense because they get a lot of practice."
"Gomers?"
"That's what the guys call the enemy."
"Like we called the North Koreans slopes and gooks."
"Something like that. Doesn't mean anything ethnic, just a name for the bad guys. Anyway, individually we can handle everything the gomers shoot at us, but when you put it all together, you've got SAMs when you fly up high and AAA when you get down low, and MiGs trying to do their thing everywhere in between, and it gets damned hairy. Our losses have dropped since last spring, because we're learning. I just hope we learn enough before . . ." Parker grew silent again, slipping into the odd reverie.
"Who owns the big hangar over there?" Buster pointed.
"More of the spook operation. Every few days a U-2 lands and they park 'em in there to keep 'em out of sight."
B.J. directed the driver to return to his office.
"I've got a few guys waiting to give you a rundown on combat operations. You up to it?"
"Sure." Buster was determined to stay awake until the normal bedtime and not give in to his body's confused clock.
When they arrived at the wing commander's office, they were greeted by a burly chief master sergeant who gave Parker a rundown on what had happened during his absence. The briefers were waiting for them, he said.
Buster looked about the outer office, which was sterile and militarily correct, and made up his mind about something. He'd give civilian personnel at Seventh Air Force a call and see if they couldn't help rectify the male-only situation. Perhaps Lieutenant Colonel Pearly Gates could help raise the priority to send a few female secretaries their way.
When they entered the briefing room adjacent to the commander's office, a group of waiting officers sprang to attention.
The first speaker was Major Max Foley, the lanky, scarecrow wing weapons officer. Foley's credentials were complete. Before coming to Takhli he'd been an instructor at the elite Fighter Weapons School at Nellis, and after he'd arrived, he'd killed two MiGs. He'd already been awarded a Silver Star Medal, and Parker said he'd been put in for a second.
Buster knew Max Foley relatively well. He, like Leska and several others, was a member of the group who called themselves Moss's mafia. They could call upon one another, discuss sensitive matters, and gain support when the going got tough on a worthwhile project. General Moss kept track of them all and tried to help out in their promotions and assignments. Max was known as the brashest among the group.
"I'll need your expertise, Max," Buster said at the start of the presentation.
"Sorry to let you down, Colonel, but I'm flying my hundredth mission tomorrow."
"Good for you. Where are you being reassigned?"
"Fighter ops at TAC headquarters."
"You'll like Langley Air Force Base and the area. Nice place to live."
"My wife's from Virginia. She's pawing the dirt to get back home."
Parker motioned restlessly. "Go ahead with your briefing, Max. We've got a lot to tell the colonel and not much time to do it."
Foley gave a pitch about their standard combat munitions loads, the formations they flew, and the tactics they used. Buster listened intently, keen to pick up every possible nugget. He had Max go over the SAM evasive maneuver several times, to make sure he had it down.
When Foley was finished and started to leave the room to make room for the next briefer, Buster held him back. "What's the biggest problem you see flying up there? By that I mean something we should be working on."
Foley didn't hesitate. "Our radio chatter. We've got the worst radio discipline in the world when we get up there. We brief the guys repeatedly about staying off the air unless it's necessary, and about using clear and concise words, but when the shooting begins and the SAMs start flying and they start to see bogeys, the guys chatter like magpies. I find myself doing it. Somehow we've got to change that."
"Anything else?"
"Getting the guys over the twenty-mission hump."
Buster was puzzled.
"Fifty percent of our losses are new guys, and I don't mean low-time pilots or guys who haven't been in combat. I mean
the pilots who don't know this kind of combat. By the time they've flown twenty missions, they've generally learned the ropes. They know how to jink, how to spot SAMs and judge their distance, how to bomb a target, all of that, because they've done it."
"So what's the answer?"
"Same as the solution to the radio-discipline problem. We're giving 'em the wrong kind of training before they arrive. We've got to improve things so they won't come here as cannon fodder."
Max Foley was in high gear, obviously angry.
"We're not fighting World War II or Korea. We're not even fighting the same war we were six months ago, because the threat keeps changing. Somehow we've got to prepare them."
Parker remained silent through the harangue, and Buster let it soak in.
Major Foley started to leave, but again Buster held him up. "I'm going to need a tactics expert to replace you as weapons officer. Someone who can take what you've learned and work with it. Do you have any suggestions?"
Max thought on that for a moment. "There's Major Lucky Anderson. He's damned good."
B.J. interrupted. "Not Lucky. General Moss wants him to take over a squadron when he gets back from Hawaii."
Buster smiled. "He made that suggestion to me too."
Max was still looking at Buster. "Does my replacement have to be a major?"
"I don't care if he's a colonel or a second lieutenant. If he's good, I want him in charge of tactics."
"We've got several pilots here who graduated from the fighter-weapons school. Most of them would be good. There's one guy who helped me on a few projects here before he got into some legal trouble."