by Tom Wilson
His instructors at the Fort Benning jump school would have been proud of their student's parachute landing fall that morning. Phillips lay quietly where he had landed for a few seconds, allowing the chute to collapse before him, increasingly apprehensive about disturbing the broken leg. When he finally moved, it was to remove his helmet and suck gulps of sweet air and to reassure himself that he had made it thus far. A numb leg, but at least he was alive, more or less functioning properly.
I'm in shock, he realized. The pain was about to come.
Bear Stewart
The Bear warily released the parachute straps, stood and looked, cautiously approached the inflated raft. He pulled his Buck knife with its eight-inch blade from the sheath on the g-suit leg and stabbed the raft several times. Then he dragged it, still hissing and deflating, behind a sprawling bush. Moving faster, he performed rough surgery on the parachute to remove a single panel of fabric, then cut off several strands of nylon parachute cord. He emptied the contents of the survival kit onto the panel, quickly deciding what was essential. With his knife and hands he dug a hole in the soft earth behind the bush, burying the excess with the flattened raft and remainder of the chute. He accomplished it all in a trancelike state, constantly fighting the urge to cough. It took less than fifteen minutes, but it seemed forever.
The Bear wrapped his treasures into the parachute panel, tossed the sack over his shoulder, and carefully looked around.
"Malcom old buddy, you're one hell of a long way from McAlester, Oklahoma," he said to himself, just so he could hear his voice. It did not give him confidence. Cautiously, and looking about as he went, he began to jog toward where he had last seen his pilot descending in his chute.
Glenn Phillips
He lay in tall grass, the parachute collapsed in a heap in front of him. The survival kit in its gray, fiberglass shell, had dangled a few feet beneath him during his descent and now lay at his feet. The bright yellow raft was propped upright in the elephant grass fifteen feet away.
The grass was good cover, he thought, but the damned raft was like a beacon. He had to do something about it.
His leg was beginning to throb with the first spasms of sharp pain. He remembered the syringe of morphine packed in the kit and hauled in the lanyard connecting him to the survival kit—with great urgency.
He heard the rumble of jet engines. The sound of hope. He switched on the emergency beacon so they could home on it with their direction-finding equipment. With the pain becoming so severe, he was surprised at his lucidity.
I must continue to think clearly! Can't allow the pain to take over. Got to stay in control.
The survival kit was now in his grasp. He fumbled with the catches, opened the lid, and after a moment found the syringe marked with a warning. He screwed the needle into place, hands shaking, then jabbed it into the muscle of his forearm. He squeezed half the contents into his system.
That should handle the pain.
The morphine effect was immediate. He moved as if in a dream, floating happily yet panting with exertion. Sweat ran down his face in tiny rivers as he pulled at the rubber raft's lanyard. He yanked hard and the raft flopped down flat. He continued to pull. When it was within reach he stabbed it with his knife until it was deflated.
He was exhausted.
The sounds of the jet engines grew louder. As he listened more intently, he could also hear chopping sounds and shrill, distant voices.
Bear Stewart
Dense forest was slowing his progress and every several minutes he'd have to stop to gag. It was frustrating, not being able to make better time.
He heard excited voices off to his left, moving parallel to his route, and knew they were coming for him. Cursing inwardly, he steeled his nerves, as he did when he flew into a heavy combat area. He burrowed into the protection of a thicket of bushes then he carefully placed the sack on the ground at his side, pulling his revolver from its shoulder-holster.
Should he fight or surrender? He mulled it over in his mind, then decided to be judicious and act according to the situation. The fits of coughing had robbed him of a great deal of spirit.
The voices were close when he felt the familiar heaving of his chest and realized he was about to vomit again. He did so as silently as possible, and when the stream of black puke abated, he buried his teeth into the nylon parachute fabric and bit hard to keep from coughing. He convulsed and choked, but remained quiet. He had to. His life depended on it.
The villagers passed by, their voices growing faint. The rush of exhilaration was followed by dark shame: they were headed toward Phillips. The Bear edged back, farther from their trail, and hefted the sack. He scrambled for ten minutes through particularly dense jungle, directly away from the path of the villagers.
The rumble of jet fighters grew loud.
Glenn Phillips
Despite the drug's effect, Phillips was filled with dread. The voices were getting closer. His rescuers had damn well better hurry. He lifted the hand-held emergency radio and switched off the emergency beeper. He carefully turned down the volume on the radio, lifted it to his ear, and switched to RECEIVE ONLY.
"Bee flight, check in!" he heard.
"Two!"
"Three!"
"Four!"
The sound amplified from his survival radio was loud. He was fumbling to turn down the volume when he heard another call.
"Stinger lead, this is Hornet. Do you read me?"
Phillips's emotions rebounded from despair to happiness. He turned the wafer switch to TRANS/REC.
"Hornet, Stinger Alpha reads you," he answered. "I'm at the edge of a field of elephant grass. I can see you now. I'm at your eleven o'clock, four or five miles out."
"I read you loud and clear, Stinger Alpha," came Colonel Mack's reply. "We've got Sandies and Jolly Greens standing by to pull you out of there, partner."
Phillips heard the Vietnamese voices again, more strident now. He pulled the issue .38 Special revolver from his vest holster and laid it beside the survival kit before raising the radio to his lips again.
He spoke his next words apprehensively, knowing they would call off the rescue if there was the potential for danger to the vulnerable Sandies and Jolly Green rescue helicopters. "I've got company, Stinger. I can hear them coming."
"How close are they, Stinger Alpha?"
Phillips tried to judge. "Probably a couple hundred yards away and moving toward me, Hornet."
The roar of the jets grew louder. He saw a formation of Thuds in the distance.
"You think they've got a fix on your location, Alpha?"
"Yeah," Glenn said. "They probably saw me coming down."
"Okay, Alpha, let's try something. Give me smoke . . . orange smoke."
Phillips hastily searched through the contents of the survival kit and lifted out a smoke flare. He pulled the initiator ring, waved the sputtering flare in the air until it spewed a steady steam of bright orange smoke, then held it as high as his arm would reach. The smoke billowed as the excited voices drew closer.
The two flights of Thuds changed to trail formation, one behind the other, and descended toward Phillips's smoke. The lead aircraft rolled into a slight bank while Colonel Mack adjusted course, then headed directly at the advancing Vietnamese at 300 feet above the ground.
Just as he passed over the Vietnamese, a loud B-R-R-A-A-A-A-T sounded as Colonel Mack fired his Gatling gun.
The second fighter imitated its leader, followed by the third, fourth, and so forth, each Thud flying low and firing a short, loud burst with the gun as it passed directly overhead. The roar of the engines and belching sounds of the Gatling guns were so loud that the earth seemed to vibrate. Nine aircraft each made one pass, flying the same racetrack pattern they would on a gunnery range. One aircraft's gunnery pass followed the the other in a noisy merry-go-round.
The aircraft finally pulled off high, forming back into individual flights. Tiny Bechler had joined them, for five aircraft were in one flight.
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br /> You'll do, Lieutenant, he thought.
Phillips listened carefully for sounds of the villagers and heard them crashing wildly in the distance, their sounds receding.
Glenn exulted. "Hornet, Stinger Alpha. I can hear the gomers traveling away from my position."
"Roger, Stinger Alpha, I hoped that might get their attention. The Sandies are inbound now." Colonel Mack paused. "Stinger Bravo, can you hear me?"
The Bear responded immediately. "Bravo reads you five-by-five."
The transmission was loud. The Bear had to be close by.
"Stinger Bravo, were you close enough to see Alpha's smoke?"
"Negative. I'm in a dense growth of brush. I was close enough to hear the voices though. The people are from a village southeast of my position. Alpha's west of the village. I was moving toward him when I heard the gomers going for him."
"I've got the village in sight. You're correct about Alpha's position," said Colonel Mack. "How close are you to the village, Bravo?"
"Maybe a mile." Bear Stewart ended the transmission with a fit of coughing.
"How about working your way a mile or two farther from the village, Bravo. Let's say northwest, directly away from them. That's pretty heavy jungle area, but there's a few small clearings there. The farther you are from the village, the better the Jolly Greens will feel about attempting a pickup."
"Will do, Hornet."
"What's your condition, Bravo?"
"I'm fine." He coughed. "Swallowed some smoke and shit in the aircraft, but otherwise okay."
"How about you, Alpha?"
Phillips looked dreamily at the bone sticking through the g-suit. "I got a ticket home, Colonel. A bad fracture of the leg."
"Are you able to move around?"
"No, sir."
"Stick tight and we'll get you out of there."
"Roger."
"Hornet, this is Bravo. I'm ready to move out now. You won't hear from me for a while."
Phillips listened to the radio conversation as if he were a nonparticipant. Like he was watching a movie—or having a very bad dream. The morphine had put him into a euphoric state that scared him almost as much as the situation.
Bear Stewart
As the Bear walked northwest, stopping periodically to stifle the nasty fits of coughing, he had very pleasant visions of this being a short-term stay in North Vietnam. He thought up lines like, Sorry, folks, but I just have to go. Got a lunch date with No Hab at the Club.
Glenn Phillips
Phillips was startled awake by the angry, buzzing sounds of a propeller-driven airplane. He'd dropped off to sleep. An A-1H Sandy aircraft hove into view, banking over the clearing. He noticed then that his survival radio was crackling with sounds.
"Stinger Alpha, this is Sandy lead, change to channel delta on your radio. I repeat, change to channel delta." The stubby, tough little airplane flew around the periphery of Phillips's view.
Glenn selected D with a wafer switch on front of the hand-held radio. Woozy from the drug, he examined his work.
"This is Stinger Alpha on channel delta," he said into the radio. His voice sounded like he had a mouth full of soggy crackers.
"Good. I'm reading you five-by-five, Alpha. How bad is the leg?" Phillips saw a second A-1H holding in a nearby orbit. They made sounds like swarming bees.
Phillips looked down, mused, and cocked his head. "Pretty bad. The bone's sticking through the side of the g-suit." The leg was throbbing again.
"I think I've got you in sight, Stinger Alpha. Are you connected to the deflated raft down there?"
"Yes."
"Okay, I can see the raft with you stretched out beside it. Any company at the present time?"
Phillips listened hard. "Nope," he said.
"What's your mother's maiden name, Alpha?"
Phillips thought, then said, "Peters!"
"And your favorite football team?"
"College or pro?" Phillips asked warily.
"Pro."
"Well it's certainly not the Browns."
"What is it, Alpha? What's your favorite pro football team?" The Sandy pilot sounded patient, not angry at him. He had a list of questions relayed to him by Red Crown. The downed pilots had to answer the questions correctly or the search could be called off.
"Go Dolphins!" Phillips chuckled at his cleverness, then grimaced in pain. The leg was beginning to really trouble him. "My leg hurts," he whimpered.
"I understand, Stinger Alpha. Hang in there a little longer."
"I'm going to use the rest of the morphine," Phillips announced.
"Not yet, Stinger Alpha! The paramedics in the Jolly Green will take care of you. That'll be in about half an hour or so. You can handle it until then. We gotta keep you alert for the party, you know."
"Party?"
"We'll have a whing-ding party when we return to base. Three in one morning is a good score."
Phillips grimaced, fighting the growing pain in his leg. He looked up then and felt a moment of confused panic.
"Where's the F-105's?" he asked the Sandy driver.
"Hornet had to depart for the tanker, Stinger Alpha. They depleted their fuel running off your gomers down there. The other two Thud flights have refueled and are on their way back. Soon as they get here we'll get the show on the road and get you outta there. Don't fret, Stinger Alpha. We Sandies will take care of you. These old Spads may be slow, but they're tough."
"I see." Glenn thought about Benny Lewis. "You say you got Kingfish out?"
"Safe and sound. Old Jolly Green's got him almost back home by now."
"That's great!" Benny Lewis was out! Even with the pain Glenn felt good about that.
"Yeah. Stand by, Alpha."
Five minutes later Sandy lead came back on the air and reestablished contact. "The choppers are just twenty minutes out, holding for fighter support. It won't be long."
"Roger." Phillips felt heady with excitement. Very soon the terrible pain would be alleviated.
"Also, Sandy two just got a fix on Stinger Bravo."
The second A-1H Sandy was talking to the Bear on another rescue frequency. Glenn grunted his response from between clenched teeth.
Something in the distance drew his attention. He glanced at the Sandy buzzing about over the area and at the second A-1H circling to their north. He then peered hard at the sky. A glint of sunlight flashed off something to the east. He shaded his eyes, swatting at an incessant swarm of insects. He could just make out the shapes.
He scrambled for the radio.
"Sandy lead, you've got MiG-17's."
"Say again?" called the Sandy pilot, his voice still conversational. "I was talking on my other radio."
The lead MiG was descending directly toward Sandy lead.
"You've got a MiG at your five o'clock, Sandy lead!" cried Glenn.
The silver MiG opened fire at 3,000 feet. The A-1H immediately nosed over and slammed into the side of a hill.
The second Sandy saw his leader crash, watched a silver MiG-17 flash by, and transmitted a panic call on Guard channel.
"Mayday! They've just shot down Sandy lead! Mayday!"
"Damn, damn, damn," Phillips whispered. He turned his channel selector to emergency frequency, gritted his teeth with the pain, and transmitted, "Get down in the weeds and turn, Sandy two. They can't hit you if you keep turning!"
He watched as the Sandy fled, heeding Phillips's advice as he jinked and turned and hugged the hills. MiG's swarmed everywhere, making gunnery passes on the elusive, slow bird. Another formation of MiG's held high above.
The shooting gallery moved west and then it grew quiet. Glenn realized he was parched and remembered the drinking water in the plastic bottles sewn into his survival vest. The water was hot and tasted of plastic. He drained both bottles, trying not to think.
Bear Stewart
The Bear stared with disbelief as two silver MiG-17's flew directly over his position at 1,000 feet.
"Assholes," he ranted. "Fucking
rotten, commie bastards!"
For the moment the rescue attempt was done for. There was no way they'd bring the Sandy back and without him the Jolly Greens wouldn't come. With trembling fingers he began to fashion a backpack from the parachute fabric and riser cord. Emotion gnawed as he prepared to leave behind his friend, close as a brother, to face the humiliated gomers. The Bear paused before strapping on the makeshift pack to head northwest toward the mountains he'd seen earlier.
Glenn Phillips
Phillips sighed mightily. He picked up the half-empty syringe, set it on his chest, and quietly lay back. He would not be able to think clearly after a second morphine shot, so he decided to get any heavy pondering over with now. He tried to relax, but couldn't with the pain shooting through the leg, spreading through his body.
He thought of his parents in Florida, how he should write more often and how badly he wanted to see them. He'd get his blue and white '62 Corvette out of storage in Las Vegas and drive east on Route 66. Take his time traveling across the South. Call his old girlfriend in San Antonio. If she wasn't tied up maybe they'd go out for a couple of drinks and a good time. Then on to Fort Pierce to surprise the folks. They'd like that.
Human sounds. Shouting and rustling from the field. Not much idle chatter this time. They knew exactly where they'd find him.
He gathered the survival radios together—four of them in all—and one by one smashed them on a rock until they were useless. He didn't worry about the noise.
The people were drawing nearer, moving cautiously as they closed in.
Perhaps they would be friendly. He couldn't remember a bombing raid near this area. No reason for them to hate Americans.
Sure, he chided himself, a pocket of Democrats right here in North Vietnam. Tears of pain coursed down his face.
He lifted the revolver, wondering if he should use it on either them or himself. He hesitated. Bullshit! he decided, drawing back. He threw it as far as possible into the tall grass.
Phillips waited until he felt their presence, then pushed the needle into his forearm, slowly depressing the plunger. He tossed the empty syringe aside.
Come on dope! he thought, gnashing his teeth in agony.
A villager wearing a coolie hat and loincloth emerged from the wall of grass, gripping a nasty-looking machete, staring inquisitively. A woman appeared at his side carrying a short, three-pronged pitchfork. The man spoke in a low tone and motioned abruptly at Phillips. The woman glared.