by Dennis Foley
The operational decision was to try to insert teams before first light to reduce the likelihood of discovery, but still allow them to use the coming daylight to support extractions if the team made contact.
The big worry was Could they find the LZs in the dark? The morning before the first insert, Hollister and the aircraft commanders took all the choppers out to an area similar to the AO, but forty miles south of it, and practiced flying to selected LZs in the dark.
Hawk Six, Captain Edmonds, was proud to boast that they didn’t miss a single LZ except for one that had been misplotted by a pilot in Operations. Though they got to the LZ he had the coordinates for, it was not the LZ that Operations had intended. The object lesson was not lost on a single pilot in the debriefing held after the practice flights.
The night before the first insert, Hollister couldn’t sleep. He got up twice and went back to Operations to recheck details that kept his mind running when he should have been sleeping.
At three A.M. he finally gave up. The liftoff time for the first insert was zero four one five hours. They would insert two teams that morning and two each day until they had ten on the ground. On the sixth day they would pull out the first two teams and insert two new teams somewhere else in the AO.
The plan would put a maximum of ten teams on the ground at once. But Hollister, Sangean, and the other old hands knew it was very unlikely that that many teams would stay in the full five days. Compromises, contacts, injuries, illnesses, and bad locations would reduce the number of teams on the ground.
The first policy was that a team stayed in unless compromised or in contact. If the team stayed in for five days, it would go to the bottom of the roster for a new mission.
If a team was pulled because it was compromised, or made minor contact, it would be reinserted the same day in an alternate LZ with an alternate mission. The policy seemed harsh, but it was a way to handle the human nature involved in thinking that a team was in more trouble than it was actually in.
Hollister and Sangean knew that if a team was considering declaring itself compromised, it would keep in mind that that would mean it would be extracted and reinserted into another possibly hot LZ. The policy would reduce the tendency to call wolf that had been so prevalent in LRP outfits that only worked recon missions.
The insert choppers stood ready at the pad. Sangean insisted on taking the first two teams in himself and wanted Hollister nailed to the radios in Operations in case anything went wrong.
He just couldn’t do it. Hollister took a spare PRC-77 from Operations and walked out to the staging area. As the two teams were getting final inspections and the chopper crews were running through the ends of their checklists, Hollister rechecked every detail he could.
He talked to each team leader and the aircraft commanders just to make sure they had everything they needed and the last-minute things were right. While he stood on the pad, one of the choppers developed a problem with one of its FM radios, but was able to swap it for a spare without a delay in takeoff time.
Hollister watched the first team walk to the choppers under the heavy loads of their rucksacks. He stood by the waiting team and listened to the radio cross talk between the team leader and the Operations radio operator.
The team had a mission of moving to a small mangrove field and setting up an ambush on a very narrow trail that appeared to have been used in recent days.
Sergeant Rose crossed in front of Hollister and caught his eye. He walked over to one of the members of the waiting team, pulled open the neck of his shirt, and shined a flashlight on him. There, on his bare chest in indelible-marker ink, was the notation B POS/NO PEN.
This was evidence that the training was working. Rose had convinced the team medics to mark every man with his blood type and any allergy information so that any attending medic could save time when it was most needed. It felt good. Things were going well, and the insert ship was winding up from flight idle to full power for takeoff.
Hollister walked to a point where he could see Sangean in the pink glow of the chopper’s panel lights. He knew Sangean couldn’t see him, but he saluted the lifting chopper just the same.
Turning his back on the rotor wash to shield his eyes from the debris that swirled around the pad, Hollister allowed the buffeting of the wind to push him off a bit as he walked toward Operations.
The flight time to the first LZ was twenty-one minutes. During that time Hollister paced the stained and worn plywood floor of Operations just behind the radio consoles and listened to the five small speakers on different frequencies and nets.
They occasionally popped or crackled with a kind of static peculiar only to FM radios, and some limited cross talk took place between the pilots on the aviation frequency.
About ten minutes out, Sergeant Lopaka, the stocky little Hawaiian team leader of Team 3-1, called Operations for a commo check. The call was answered by PFC Cathcart, who was temporarily assigned to the Operations section as an RTO until he could get to and through Recondo School.
Cathcart calmly took the call and responded, letting Lopaka know he could hear him loud and clear.
Lopaka’s voice was replaced by Sangean’s in the C&C. “Houston Three, this is Six. We are five out of the LZ. Over.”
Cathcart looked over to Kurzikowski for guidance—Did anyone want to say anything to Sangean?
Kurzikowski nodded. “Tell him you got it.”
Cathcart put the pork-chop mike back to his lips and pressed the transmit button. “Six, this is Houston. Good copy.”
The minutes ticked off slowly, and Hollister felt anxious. He walked over to the Operations map filling most of the wall next to the radio bench and looked at the spot that the team was approaching.
The radios were still silent.
He looked up at the flap of manila folder that had been pasted over a section of the map. It read: TODAY’S CHALLENGE AND PASSWORD. He lifted the flap, knowing he hadn’t checked it out earlier. Underneath, in grease pencil, were the words GUEST/HEROIC.
Chapter 18
THE RADIO BROKE THE silence after a long pause. “Short final,” the insert ship pilot said.
The announcement was made for the benefit of all those on the radio net who could not see what was going on. That included the entire staff of Operations.
Knowing what was happening didn’t make it any easier for Hollister to wait it out. He mentally clicked off the time it was taking for the insert ship to descend over the leading edge of the landing zone he and the team leader had picked and get to the optimum touchdown point near the bamboo stand that bordered their initial rally point once off the LZ.
“They’re down,” Sangean said flatly over the radio.
Several more seconds went by, and Hollister spent them lighting a cigarette. He blew the smoke toward the ceiling and squared his Zippo up on top of the pack of Pall Malls he had placed on the edge of the radio bench.
“Coming up,” the insert pilot said.
The silence before and after that was an indication that the insert was going uncontested and that they were not taking any fire or having any aircraft difficulties.
“So far, so good. Let’s hope they’re all like this,” Kurzikowski said.
Nonetheless, it was taking too long for Lopaka to report that he was in and that the LZ was cold.
Hollister walked over to the map again and looked at the LZ. It was in the middle of an unusual cluster of vegetation in what was otherwise a flat, reed-covered wetland. The choppers landing there in the dark were probably not going to confuse anyone with the fake insert the chase ship had made only moments before and a thousand meters away. After the real insert, the insert chopper would make another fake one about two thousand meters north of the first fake one. Still, of the three touchdowns, the second, near all the wild growth of small trees and bamboo, was the most likely to end up holding Americans.
“Six, this is Three-one,” Lopaka whispered into his handset, somewhere in the dense bamboo.
“Six, go.”
“Lima Zulu cold. Over.”
“Roger. Charlie Mike. Out,” Sangean responded phonetically, telling Lopaka to continue the mission.
The transmission triggered a relaxation in Hollister’s chest. He put out his cigarette and picked up the cup that held the remains of the coffee he had brought from the mess hall. Raising it to his lips, he realized it was cold and stopped just short of drinking.
Sangean called to let Operations know what they already knew. Lopaka’s team was in, unopposed, the choppers were out of the LZ, they were moving to the last fake insert, and the insert package was then on the way back to Cu Chi to pick up the second team.
The minute hand on Hollister’s watch was just touching the straight up—five A.M. There was enough time to get the second team in and get them to their rally point before first light.
The team—4-4, led by Sergeant Scott Decker, a bespectacled ex-fireman from Louisiana—would be going in near an abandoned ARVN outpost, which had been in use up until the end of 1966, when Saigon began relocating hamlets it couldn’t protect. Once the hamlets in the vicinity were gone, there was no need for the two-hundred-man outpost.
Operating near an old outpost always had its problems. The minute one was abandoned, the VC would move in and strip it of all the usable military items that had been left behind. That always meant the minefield around the encampment had been dug up and the mines were probably replanted in areas that would protect the VC in the area, not the old outpost.
As he looked at the outpost—marked ABANDONED on the map—Hollister wondered again about its airstrip. Was it mined? If they needed to use it for reinforcement or for a medevac, would they find that the VC had mined the runway to prevent the Americans or the South Vietnamese from ever using it again?
When he stepped out to check the status of the waiting second team, he noticed that someone had repaired the broken screen door and attached a spring to it. He stopped at the bottom step and turned to look at the screen.
“Somethin’ wrong?” Kurzikowski asked Hollister as he, too, stepped out to cross to the mess hall.
“How long has that door been like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like—fixed.”
“Coupla days, sir.”
Hollister stood there, bothered because he hadn’t noticed it. He wondered what it meant.
“Something wrong with it?” Kurzikowski asked.
“No, I just didn’t notice it,” Hollister said, trying to play down how much it bothered him. Hell, he thought, if he could miss something that obvious, what else could he be missing?
“They’re finished with the third LZ and are eleven minutes out for pickup,” Cathcart said through the door for Kurzikowski and Hollister to hear.
Kurzikowski grunted something to Cathcart and turned toward the direction of the pad. Team 4-4 was there, somewhere in the dark. He put two fingers in his mouth and whistled once. “Decker? They’re eleven mikes out. Stand by.”
The only response was one word: “Airborne!”
It was still very dark when the slicks came back to pick up Decker’s team. Hollister stood just outside the choppers’ flight path and watched the team load and leave.
He wasn’t sure what he was looking for while he watched Decker’s team—maybe a small detail that could make a difference. It didn’t escape him that he was as anxious as he would be if he were getting on the chopper himself.
But they were gone. He couldn’t change fate, and he couldn’t do anything more to protect them other than head back to Operations to be there if they needed anything. He knew he had to start drafting the contents of the daily operations summary to go to IIFFV. Somehow he had missed the paperwork end of the LRP business when he was a LRP platoon leader. But it wasn’t giving him any slack in Juliet Company.
Staying behind and watching things unfold from Operations was very uncomfortable for Hollister. He was finding himself getting critical of every little detail. He wanted to know more than he could find out from the reports being radioed back. It was all he could do to keep from picking up a mike and asking for more details.
The only thing that stopped him was his dislike of higher headquarters bothering the hell out of troops in the field. He had experienced it as a platoon leader and as a LRP patrol leader. He had always promised himself to leave the troops alone. But now he was finding it very hard to do.
The second insert went as smoothly as the first, except Decker lost a handset to the paddy water in the first few minutes. He hauled out the spare and was up and back in commo in a minute or two.
It was almost seven A.M. before the choppers had refueled and returned to the Old Warrior Pad. Once they were all tied down, Hollister assembled everyone, including Sangean, in the makeshift classroom that doubled as their briefing room.
Each pilot, each door gunner, the FAC, the artillery FO, and Major Sangean took turns explaining what worked and what needed work from his point of view. Everyone had the same complaint—it seemed to take too long for the teams to get out and the insert choppers to get airborne again. They all admitted that the time complaint was only the product of not being able to see what was happening. In reality both inserts took less time than the dozens they had practiced in the daylight.
The conclusion was that the pilots would be better able to judge what was expected of them next if they had more information about the progress of the inserts. Sangean agreed to call out more progress reports as they happened.
First Lieutenant Lambert, the artillery FO assigned to Juliet Company, brought up the difficulty of being prepared to fire supporting artillery with the complete package of six aircraft circling the team. His concern was that if called upon to adjust fire for the team, he would need to designate a holding area for the aircraft so he could clear the area for the fire-direction center.
They had discussed it and even simulated it on the training inserts, but Lambert explained that he wasn’t sure a holding area good for him would necessarily be good for the pilots and the C&C ship. It was all a matter of proximity.
This point spawned a lengthy debate about artillery and aviation needs. Hollister listened and occasionally made a note about something he wanted to follow up on. Suddenly, he looked up through the screening and noticed Sergeant Rose, across the company street, running fullbore from the Company Aid Station to the Orderly Room. Was it a contact? A team under fire? No, Hollister calmed himself, they hadn’t tripped the contact siren mounted on the Operations roof.
Still, something was wrong. Coots exploded out of the Orderly Room door and ran to Operations. He stuck his head inside, then pulled it back out, not finding whom he wanted. Hollister watched him race toward the classroom.
He burst into the building, half out of breath, half apologetic. “Ah … I’m sorry. But Sergeant Rose sent me.” He gasped for a second breath. “The first sergeant had a heart attack. He’s in bad shape.”
Dewey and Rose were carrying First Sergeant Morrison to the jeep when Sangean and Hollister got there. Rose fired off a couple of short phrases between attending to Morrison and getting him into the jeep. From what he said, Hollister thought he understood they were going to the Division Hospital. What he knew was that there was nothing he or Sangean could do to help the first sergeant.
As Dewey and Rose drove off with the still-huge hulk of First Sergeant Morrison lying in the back, pale, sweating, and gasping for air, Hollister felt helpless. He had never felt so unable to influence things. His tools—weapons, choppers, manpower—were all useless. They couldn’t push back the threat of death that hovered over the forty-three-year-old NCO. He was every bit as close to death as a soldier under enemy fire.
As the jeep turned the corner and faded out of sight, Hollister knew it was the last day for Morrison. Even if he lived, his days in Juliet Company ended when the pain crushed his chest.
By noon the teams due to go in five days hence had been briefed and the team leaders were out conducting a
erial recons of possible LZs. Decker’s and Lopaka’s teams were laying up until dark to be able to make what moves they needed, and Rose had returned with the news: He found Vance, Sangean, and Hollister in the Orderly Room trying to figure out how to divide up Morrison’s work.
“Well?”
“He’s in intensive care. He’s stable, and he’s probably going to make it. The doctor thinks this is not his first one,” Rose said.
“Not his first one? Heart attack? How can that be?” Sangean asked.
“He’s been killing himself trying to lose weight, and he started having chest pains over three weeks ago. The doc thinks he had a smaller one a couple of weeks ago, and this one tried to eat him.”
“Can we see him?” Sangean asked.
“Tomorrow, at the earliest, would be my guess. He’s so doped up now he wouldn’t know if Ann-Margret walked in naked.”
“What’ll they do with him?” Vance asked.
“They’ll make sure the heart attack has passed, put him on some stuff to try to keep it from happening again, and ship him off to CONUS.”
Hearing all this felt like a hot knife in Hollister’s gut. He wanted to hear more about Morrison, but couldn’t even find words to ask. He had seen men killed and crippled in war, but with Morrison it was somehow a different loss. He was an especially good man—a man who tried. He loved the troops and only had a problem with himself. Hollister knew he would miss Morrison and would remember that he had learned something about first impressions from him. At that moment he hated the army. He hated loss. He hated being angry.
The day got away from Hollister. He was involved in a blur of planning for upcoming teams, finding and recording grid coordinates in plans, reports, and notes. He talked at length with Kurzikowski and two of the platoon leaders about training and spent some time going over details that Dewey had inherited from First Sergeant Morrison. And during all that, he never stopped listening to the radios.
He had tried to work in the back end of the L-shaped building that housed Operations, but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t concentrate on what he was doing without wondering what was happening at the radios out in the AO. He finished the afternoon and announced that some of the other bodies who normally worked in Operations would be moved to his old space. The assistant operations sergeant, Quinn, got the word and moved that evening. After all, his job was ninety percent paperwork, reports and classified documents. He didn’t need to be near the radios to do his job.