by Ted Russ
There are never letters from guys breaking up with female cadets on the board. The average civilian guy doesn’t have the confidence to be in a relationship with a female cadet. They break up before the new female cadet departs. Plebes who post their letters on the bulletin board get a week of big bites at meals and are relieved of all duties like mail carrier or minute caller. Upperclassmen then take a red pen to the letter to correct the English, point out common phrases and clichés, and question the chastity of the writer. In less than a day, each letter has been savagely edited and is nearly illegible for all of the comments scrawled over it. The dumped plebe always feels better.
“Avery. Come here!”
I snapped out of my self-pitying trance. It was the Guru. He was typically the only upperclassman around on Friday nights, because being on the area curtailed his privileges.
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you have any shoe polish?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Go get it,” he ordered as he stepped back into his room.
I retrieved the shoe polish, crossed the hall, and knocked three times on the Guru’s door.
“Enter!”
I stepped into his room. Music played softly from his stereo. His dress uniform was arranged neatly on his bed, and his hat brass lay on top of a polishing rag on his desk. He sat by the open windows with his dress shoes at his feet. He was in blue jeans and his robe. I got a good look at it as I approached with the shoe polish.
High on his right shoulder was an Eighth Army Air Force patch, which I had heard was his grandfather’s unit in the Second World War. The First Cavalry Division patch underneath it must have been his father’s unit in Vietnam. Over the breast pocket, which bore the standard academy crest, a large armor insignia had been embroidered in gold thread. Beneath the academy crest he had sewn a yin-yang patch. There were a dozen other patches that I did not recognize and a cigar poking out of his breast pocket. A half-smoked cigar smoldered on the windowsill. A thin finger of smoke threaded its way out the window and up the mountain behind the barracks.
Smoking in the barracks was against regulations, of course. If an officer caught the Guru, he’d get another twenty hours piled on the punishment tours he was walking off for his spirit mission.
“Thanks, Avery. Put it over there on my bed. I’ll return it in the morning.”
“Yes, sir.” I hesitated.
“What do you want?”
“Nothing, sir. It’s just that I heard what you did at Air Assault School. That was ballsy, sir.”
“Do you know why I did it?”
“No, sir.”
“The NCO cadre at that course were simply talking too much shit about West Point.”
I chuckled. The Guru looked at me harshly. I froze.
“I’m serious, Avery. You’re going to find that West Point is an easy target out there.” He gestured out the window at the world. “Don’t stand for it.”
“Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir. I won’t.”
“You should have seen their faces. They were so pissed. It was totally worth it. I probably would have gotten off much lighter if I hadn’t argued with them so effectively when I was caught.” He smiled. “To hell with ’em. I still qualified and got my wings.”
“Must be weird to walk hours for defending West Point, sir. Are you angry?”
“Nope. Before any spirit mission, you must ask yourself if you are man enough for the punishment. I had just heard enough shit about West Point ‘kaydets.’ It had to be done.”
He leaned back in his chair and looked at me for a moment, sizing me up.
“‘Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.’”
“Sir?”
“Marcus Aurelius.”
“Sir, I do not understand.”
“Decide who you will be. Then be him.”
I just stood there.
“Listen, Avery, right now for you it’s all about survival, but soon, sooner than you think, you’re going to have to decide what kind of cadet you’re going to be.” He looked at me patiently.
“Sir … I want to be a good cadet.”
“Everybody wants to be a good cadet.”
I just blinked.
He shook his head.
“What does being a good cadet mean to you?”
I had no idea what he was talking about.
“Let me give you an example. You are pinging to class. You’re going to make it just in time, but then you remember that your roommate is probably asleep. He told you he was going to sneak a nap after lunch, before class. Tough luck for him, I guess. A good cadet always gets to class on time, right?”
“Um…”
He shook his head and waved his hand at me so that I would not answer wrong. “Bullshit. I go back every time. A good cadet goes back for his roommate and makes sure he gets to class. Always. You save him from a major slug. You’re both late and get minor quill, but you go back for your buddy. Fuck being on time.” He realized his voice was rising and stopped talking.
“It sucks, Avery. But it will happen. And be glad when it does. You’ll know you are being prepared for something.”
“Yes, sir.”
He got up and walked to his stereo. As he did, I saw that on the back of his robe he had sewn a large Grateful Dead symbol. About six inches in diameter and sitting high on his back, the skull seemed to be his rear guard. “Say, Avery, do you like the Grateful Dead?”
“Not really that familiar with their music, sir.”
He looked out the window. “Thanks for the shoe polish. Leave the door to your room open.”
“Yes, sir. Go naked, sir.”
“Go naked, Avery.”
“What are you doing now?” asked Turtle when I returned and propped the door open.
“He said leave our door open.”
The guys looked at me with “what the hell is coming next” faces. I shrugged.
Just then the Guru turned up his stereo. Jerry Garcia was singing “Eyes of the World.”
Sometimes we live no particular way but our own,
And sometimes we visit your country and live in your home,
Sometimes we ride on your horses, sometimes we walk alone,
Sometimes the songs that we hear are just songs of our own.
We were transfixed. No one spoke. Plebes were not allowed to listen to music in their rooms until after Christmas, when we were authorized to have stereos. Those caught with a Walkman or similar contraband in their possession got an automatic twenty hours on the area. Though we had been only a few months without it, music now had a special power over us. It was exotic and beautiful.
We studied for another two hours, listening to the music from across the hall. Creighton and Zack left at about 2230 hours. The moment they were gone, the music quit.
SEVEN
0012 HOURS, 8 JANUARY 2002
Every weapon on Raven 21 opened fire: miniguns, M60s, grenade launchers, AR-15s, and even sidearms. Sitting on the ground broadsided by the enemy, Raven 21 became a lead-spitting porcupine.
Another crew chief grabbed my shoulder, and I gave him the M60 position.
Bullets struck the aircraft like thrown hammers as I ran forward to the cockpit.
“What’s the status back there?” yelled Pete.
“Almost done, sir!”
Hammer 22 opened up from above with its 40mm cannon. At David’s direction, the gunship pounded the enemy with well-placed high-explosive rounds. The detonations came systematically, about five seconds apart. Each detonation killed enemy. Finally, the inbound gunfire began to wane.
“That’s it, sir! Passengers secure. Rear is ready! Go! Go! Go!”
“Roger that. We’re out of here,” Pete said as he rapidly increased power. The engines screamed as they tried to suck in the thin air. The aircraft got light on its gear and began to slide forward in the snow. Raven 21 rose a couple of feet as she gained momentum. The aircraft ran off the small plateau, and Pete nosed her over aggr
essively. We dove down the mountain into dark. The green enemy tracer rounds flew farther and farther above us as we descended beneath the crest of the mountain.
Red warning lights flashed in the cockpit.
“We’ve lost the number one flight hydraulics!” Kevin announced.
“Roger that, sir. Levels and pressures are zero on the number one back here,” responded the crew chief. “Number two is normal and holding, though.”
Flying a Chinook without flight hydraulics is impossible. The aircraft becomes uncontrollable. That is why there are two independent and redundant systems. Flying on one flight hydraulic system is considered an emergency situation, and the crew is supposed to land the helicopter as soon as they can. For us, that night, that meant more than an hour getting back down to Bagram.
We flew in and out of small clouds as we descended. They were definitely thicker now.
“What’s our status?” I asked over the intercom.
“We got five wounded, sir. Including the three critical we picked up. We need to hurry.”
I keyed my mike to transmit. “Ramses 03, this is Raven 21, we are off Argos. Five wounded on board. Three critical. ETA is approximately sixty minutes.”
“Raven 21, Ramses, roger. We’ll be ready.”
I exhaled deeply. Pete had us descending rapidly down the mountain. It had been hairy. But we were headed for home.
We still had one of the FM radios tuned to the ground commander’s frequency and our VHF monitoring Hammer 22. Though it had receded into the background, we monitored the battle with one ear. Hammer 22 had continued to tear up the enemy. That made us smile as we dropped into the valley and steered toward base.
We were twenty minutes into the flight down the mountain to Bagram when we overheard the call on the satcom radio.
“Ramses 03, this is Dragon 45, we’ve got another wounded. Surgical urgent. Request immediate medevac.” Satcom was the only way to communicate with stations that were not line of sight. It was the ground elements’, and often our own, only reliable link to headquarters.
I saw Pete sit up straight. He looked over his shoulder at me, then at Kevin. I listened intently.
“Ramses 03, this is Dragon 45, Outlaw 01 is down. It’s bad. Rounds to the lower abdomen. Need to get him off the mountain ASAP.” The firefight raged in the background of Dragon 45’s transmission.
I sagged in my chair as my blood ran cold.
“I’ve got the controls.” Pete reached forward and took the aircraft’s controls.
Kevin lifted his hands in the air. “You’ve got the controls.”
“What are you doing, Pete?” I asked.
“I’m turning us around.”
“Hold on. Let me get some more information.”
“Outlaw is down. What else do you need to know?”
“We’ve got three surgical urgent on board, shitty weather, one hydraulic flight-control system, and a contested LZ, from which we are halfway down the damn mountain. How about you give me a few fucking minutes to do my job?”
From my vantage point, the back of Pete’s helmet was expressionless. But his shoulders were stiff with rage.
At times like this, the dynamic between the pilot in command and air mission commander could get sticky. Pete commanded the aircraft and everyone in it, but I commanded the flight of the two helicopters. Truthfully, I did not give a shit whose call it was. I pictured David lying in the snow almost ten thousand feet above us, blood seeping out of him. A creeping dread welled up within me. To say that “Leave no man behind” is a code we lived by doesn’t say it well enough. It was an ethic, edict, aspiration, and minimum.
But it did not have the power to change the laws of physics, weather, aerodynamics, or mathematics. And it had to be balanced with the principle “Don’t make a shitty situation worse through a bad decision.”
“Dragon 45, this is Ramses 03, what is the weather at your position?”
“It’s getting worse, Ramses. Visibility less than two hundred feet.”
“Roger that, Dragon. Stand by. We are working on something here for you.”
Pete shook his head. I knew what was coming.
“Sir, we need to go back,” he said.
I didn’t respond. I was not able to say it yet. I stared at the clock. I estimated that David had had bullets in his gut for over ten minutes now.
“Sir, we are the closest asset. We can be there in about thirty minutes. I am going to turn us around and we are going to extract Outlaw.”
I wanted to vomit.
Pete increased power slowly, arresting our descent. The helicopter mushed through the thin air as the rotor blades clawed harder for lift. We leveled off, flying away from the mountain. He was setting the aircraft up to climb back to Argos.
I could not say it yet. So I said other words to the flight engineer. “What is the medical status back there?”
While I waited for the update, I watched Pete as he leaned forward and called up Argos’s coordinates on his navigation display. He was plotting a course back.
“Two of these guys are fine. No factor,” reported the flight engineer. “One is still critical but stable. But two of the surgical urgents have worsened. One is a femoral artery job. Altogether, they’ve gone through at least four IV bags since they’ve been on board. We’re probably going to have to let them use ours before we get there. Other one is a head trauma. Medic says they are going to have to crack him open as soon as possible to relieve the pressure on his brain.”
Pete banked the aircraft slowly to the left to pick up the course back to Argos.
I still didn’t want to say it yet.
“What’s our maintenance status?” I asked instead.
“Zero pressure on the number one flight hydraulics,” said the flight engineer from the rear. “Levels on the number two are within limits but are decreasing slowly. I’ve got one of the crew chiefs back here looking for a leak. Numerous holes in the aircraft and one of the guys back here said he thought he smelled something burning. But I don’t smell shit.”
Halfway through the turn, Pete increased power to get the aircraft into a climb.
“Dragon 45, this is Raven 21, request weather status,” I transmitted.
Pete rolled the aircraft out of the turn. We were now heading back up the mountain.
“Raven 21, this is Dragon 45. Weather deteriorating. Visibility now between a hundred and a hundred and fifty feet.” An explosion rang out in the background as Dragon spoke. Hammer 22 was still giving them hell.
“Roger that, Dragon,” I said.
The dread was lodged in my throat. I pictured David.
The aircraft was churning up the mountain again as the blood ran out of one soldier’s leg and the brain of another pressed against his skull as it swelled. At the same time blood seeped out of David’s gut. I couldn’t swallow.
I waited thirty more seconds, hoping Pete would make the decision himself. But then I had to say it. “Pete, turn us around. We’re going back to base.”
“Negative, sir. We are going back to Argos.”
“Pete. You know I’m right. We’ve got three critical on board that need to be in surgery ASAP, our aircraft is shot up and is down to one flight hydraulics system, the weather is shit, and I haven’t asked you to confirm our fuel status but I’m sure we don’t have enough for this. I hate it, too, but we need to return to base.”
“It’s Major West, sir. One of us.” Still climbing the mountain.
“I’m aware.”
“Doesn’t seem like it.” That made me mad.
“Okay, Pete. Should I go back there and throw the three criticals out of the aircraft? We might as well. It will lighten the load and decrease our fuel burn. You’re killing them anyway.”
His head fell slightly forward at that. He knew I was right.
A few rotor beats later, Pete turned the aircraft back down the mountain. I almost cried out at him to stop, to head back up. “I’m sorry, David,” I muttered to myself.
The enemy harassed Dragon 45 all night. They made a few more radio calls requesting extraction for David. But the weather on top of the mountain quickly worsened; there was zero visibility by the time we landed. Ramses was out of tricks.
Our wounded were downloaded as soon as we landed and went directly into surgery. The head wound never recovered consciousness. The leg wound made a full recovery.
David died on the mountain before we even landed.
Pete and I did not talk about that night much afterward. When we did, he never said I made the right call. He never said I made the wrong one, though.
EIGHT
OCTOBER 1987
The next morning’s math class was a grind. Our instructor, Major Winslow, gave the command “Take boards!” within the first ten minutes of class. We spent the next eighty minutes at the chalkboards doing problems as he circled the room looking for mistakes and making sure that we were not peeking at our neighbor’s work. After the bell rang, he held us there to emphasize his expectations for neatness and honor code compliance.
“What am I going to become here?” said Zack dejectedly as he, Bill, and I walked through the bowels of Thayer Hall toward the barracks.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what do all this trivia and bullshit reindeer games do to a guy after four years?”
“It’s a game, Zack. Suck it up.”
There was bad news when we returned to the company area. In his Saturday morning inspection sweep of E4, Captain Eifer had written up 99 of 121 cadets and had dispensed 498 demerits. This became the norm for our Saturdays.
* * *
The weeks passed slowly. Long days of grinding academics and inspections heightened the nerves in the company. Soon it was mid-October and parade season was in full swing.