Chapter 28
Psychic

W hen one extended for an additional six months in-country, a free thirty-day leave was granted, to include a plane ticket to wherever in the world you wanted to go. Most guys that extended chose to go back to the States, but some went to Europe. Mom was a student at the University of Maryland in College Park. I thought I would just go home and hang with her for the duration of my leave. I would be leaving on my birthday in January, and the CO asked me to get one more pilot signed off as aircraft commander. I had three days before I was to leave. The night before, I had spoken with Roy about the upcoming mission.

“Roy, you good for tomorrow? I asked that we get a log mission and possibly an air assault as well.”

“Yeah, I’m good.” Roy was a man of few words, or maybe just a typical helicopter pilot, always brooding because you knew something was going to happen.

“We’ll be taking my aircraft, and Specialist Linam is the crew chief if you want to go over anything with him tonight.”

“Did maintenance get it back up today?”

“Yeah, they replaced the push-pull housing, two bolts, patched the hole, replaced the blades. That was all they had to do. Pretty amazing that one bullet could have done so much damage. I’m going to turn in.” And I headed for my hooch.

As usual, at 0500 hours, the ops clerk came and woke me up. Something wasn’t right. I had that feeling of a weight on my shoulders. I shrugged it off as just being tired. I met Roy in Flight Ops, where we got the mission brief and headed for the aircraft. Specialist Linam was already there waiting for us along with Specialist Underwood. Seemed Private Diedrich was on sick call that morning, so Specialist Underwood was filling in for him. Underwood was a good kid who I had flown with on a couple of occasions over the past six months.

“Hey, guys, Mr. Blevins is the aircraft commander on this one today. It’s his AC check ride. I’ll be flying right seat. What he says goes today.” I was pretty confident in Roy, so I was looking forward to a day of not being in charge for a change.

Mounting the guns, Specialist Underwood asked, “How you feeling today, Mr. Cory?”

“I feel good,” I lied. “Why?”

“Well, sir, no disrespect meant, but word is that you’re psychic—that you get these feelings and then your aircraft takes hits, like the other day and the day Johnson was hit.”

“Well, to be truthful, I do have some feelings about today, but hey…” And I left it at that.

Linam and Underwood exchanged looks and started brushing off their guns again as Roy conducted and supervised the preflight. Once all was ready, we strapped in and headed north to Song Be. On the flight up, I quizzed Roy on flight procedures and what-if situations. He was nailing the answers, as I had known he would. I would have really been surprised if I’d tripped him up on anything and really wasn’t trying to do that. He was a solid pilot.

When we reached Song Be, we refueled the aircraft and Roy went into the TOC and got with the S-3 air for a mission brief, as we were scheduled to work for the brigade, which meant we would be resupplying a couple of units. One was a Vietnamese airborne brigade that had recently been attached to the division and was operating in the area.

The S-3 air saw me walk in and asked, “Mr. Cory, they have you back in the air already?” He had been in the TOC when my ship was downed.

“Morning, sir. Yeah, and my aircraft is back up flying. Had to replace the blades, but that was about it. Mr. Blevins is aircraft commander today. I’m just along for the ride.”

“I thought you were going home soon.”

“I am. Three days and a wakeup, but I’ll be back. I extended for another six months,” I added.

“You’re nuts!” And the S-3 air turned to Roy and commenced the brief.

Back at the aircraft, Roy laid the mission out to the crew.

“We’re going to this firebase on the Song Be River to pick up an American advisor and a Vietnamese officer and fly east to this location, where the Vietnamese airborne unit is setting up a firebase. From there, we’ll be doing some resupply missions. Any questions?”

There were none, and we cranked the aircraft and headed to the first stop. LZ Liz was set up on a small hill overlooking open areas and a view of the Song Be River, as well as the LZ where Johnson had been shot. Across the river was flat open ground for the most part for a quarter of a mile, then the hills started again. The sky was clear. Roy made contact with the TOC and I landed the aircraft. My concentration was momently broken when the 105 mm howitzer battery opened fire. Five guns going off at once tends to get one’s attention. They were shooting towards the east, the direction we were going to go when we left. The TOC asked us to shut down the aircraft as someone wasn’t ready to go. “Hurry up and wait” is a standing order for helicopter pilots and crews.

Sitting there, I also noticed that across the river on the edge of the LZ where Johnson had been shot, there was a small fire putting off white smoke. Must be a unit over there , I thought. Coming off the Razorbacks out of Tay Ninh one day, I had seen a small campfire putting up white smoke on the edge of a clearing. As I thought I knew the location of each unit in that area, I came in low and had the door gunners open fire. As soon as they did, green smoke grenades came flying out of the tree line. Shit! A US unit was there. I’d screwed up. Gaining altitude, we started to get out of there but decided to go back and see if we’d hurt anyone. Returning to the clearing and dropping in altitude, I made a slow pass. Out of the tree line came a soldier who gave us a thumbs-up. Everyone was okay. Lesson learned: don’t shoot at campfires.

Finally a US captain with a MACV shoulder patch came out of the TOC and gave the start it up signal. MACV stood for Military Advisor Corps, Vietnam. He was wearing a soft cap, starched fatigues and spit-shined boots. Trailing behind him was a Vietnamese captain about half the US captain’s size, wearing Ray-Ban sunglasses and starched fatigues as well. I was thinking these guys were Saigon warriors, and that was not a term of endearment or respect.

“Hey, guys, check out the perfume princess.” I indicated with a flick of my head as I started the aircraft. Linam looked over his shoulder at them.

“Which one you talking about?” asked Underwood.

“Both, come to think of it,” I responded.

Roy took the controls once everyone was strapped in. The artillery was still shooting in the direction we were going, so a decision had to be made. Would we take a flight that put us on the gun target line, or change our course and stay off the gun target line?

“We’re going to go contour out of here, down to the river, and cross at treetop level. That’ll keep us below the gun target line. Once across the river, we’ll turn slightly south and get off the gun target line and climb out,” he said. I said nothing. He was in charge and it sounded reasonable to me. You didn’t want to be flying an artillery gun target line.

He pulled in power and we came up. Once we were airborne and heading for the river, the small fire was right along our flight path. We were eighty knots and right down on the deck. As we passed over the fire, I looked through the chin bubble and stopped breathing. Five guys in khaki uniforms were standing up in slow motion. Time had just stopped in my mind. They were raising five AK-47s. I thought they were going to shoot at me and only me as I was the only thing they saw. They didn’t see the aircraft, but me passing over them. That was when the center console and all our radios exploded into pieces, just as Roy jerked the aircraft to the right. The sound of gunfire was deafening.

“I’m hit!” yelled Underwood. Roy was banking the aircraft towards Song Be.

“How bad?” asked Roy.

“Through my leg. The captain’s looking at it.” Suddenly my shoulder straps were being pulled and Linam was standing over me.

“Are you hit, Mr. C?” he screamed while patting my chest and shoulders. He had a first aid kit in his hand.

“What makes you think I’m hit?” Now I started checking myself out, thinking I might be in shock. Roy was attempting to make a radio call, but the radios were shot to pieces. The master caution light was on and the master caution warning was sounding, indicating some electrical problems. Engine and transmission oil pressure and temperatures were good, so no fear of the aircraft falling out of the sky.

“Sir, the way you were bouncing around in your seat, I thought for sure you were hit by several rounds,” Linam said, backing up a bit.

“Shit, I was trying to swat those rounds away from me.” I really felt stupid. I was attempting out of reflex to bat the incoming rounds away as if they were attacking bees. That had been close.

“Linam, are we trailing smoke?” asked Roy. He was about as cool as I had ever seen anyone under fire.

Hanging out of the aircraft, Linam said, “Sir, we have about four holes in the engine cowling that I can see, but there’s no smoke. How long before we get to Song Be?”

“We’re five out.”

“In that case, we should be okay. Do we still have oil pressure? How’s the temperature?”

“Pressure and temp are good.”

“Roy, just keep your airspeed up in case the engine suddenly dies. If you can get some altitude, so much the better,” I said. Roy knew what the hell he was doing, but I had to do something. As we approached the airfield at Song Be, an ambulance was waiting on the runway for us. Not really an ambulance, but a jeep with a stretcher in the back and two medics. Someone at brigade must have been notified from the battalion that we had taken fire and broken for Song Be rather than continue the mission.

“Guys, I’m coming in hot to make sure we can make the runway. Hang on.” And with that, Roy dropped the nose and set himself up for a low-level autorotation. However, the aircraft didn’t fail us but continued to fly just fine.

Once the aircraft was on the ground, I turned my attention to Underwood. I hadn’t had much time with him, but he was a good kid from the Mississippi bayou. His wound would be a million-dollar wound with the round passing clean through the meat of his leg. No major arteries were hit, and no broken bones. Some skin grafting would be necessary, and that was his ticket home. As they loaded him into an ambulance to go over to the aid station, he waved me over.

“Hey, Mr. Cory.”

“Yeah, you’re going to be fine,” I said as I grabbed his hand.

“I know. You be careful, sir, and trust in your feelings. You got something going with the spirit world. Someone is watching over you.” With that, the ambulance rolled away.

Roy came over to me, and we walked to the TOC.

“You got a cigarette?”

“Yeah, I thought you didn’t smoke.” He pulled out a pack and offered one to me with a lighter.

“I don’t,” I said as I inhaled, “but I might just start.”

Inside the TOC, the S-3 air met us, and Roy briefed him on the location of the shooters. The infantry battalion we’d initially stopped at had heard the shooting and watched us limp off to Song Be. They’d called and told the TOC what had happened, and already a scout team from First Battalion, Ninth Cavalry was on station and looking for them. In hindsight, it was a well-planned trap, putting up the small campfire as they had known it would attract someone to investigate, be it us or a scout team. We’d just happened to get there first.

Back at Lai Khe, the maintenance officer was not a happy camper. He now had another aircraft in for some unscheduled maintenance. The first sergeant wasn’t happy as he had to get another door gunner. The only one happy was the CO, as I told him that Roy was more than ready to be an aircraft commander. Three days later, I left to come home.

Roy went on to be a fine aircraft commander and a bit of an icon in the company. A man of few words, he did make his presence known on one memorable mission. The mission was a combat assault that had turned to crap with both a hot LZ and a hot PZ. Aircraft were down in both, with the grunts pinned down in both. Our battalion commander, Lightning Bolt Six, was flying Chuck Chuck aircraft at twenty-five hundred feet, calling for more aircraft to support the lift. The infantry battalion commander was also up there with Lightning Bolt Six calling for more infantry and artillery support. Both were calling Yellow One with instructions that contradicted each other. To say the least, a lot of confusion was crossing the airwaves. Then the aviation brigade commander, Pouvoir Six, Colonel Merrill, suddenly came up on the radio and started giving instructions to Yellow One, in a panicked, almost screaming tone. Pouvoir Six seldom flew, had never flown in a combat assault, and did not know the first thing about being a flight leader. At his level, he managed assets and did not fight the battles. Yellow One was catching hell from everyone when the situation called for everyone to leave him alone and let him do his job. Suddenly everyone stopped talking for just a moment, except for this lone voice. “That’s it, Merrill, blow your cool.” You could have heard a pin drop. The world became silent. We never heard another word from the brigade commander, ever again, and calm returned to the mission. Roy had said it all.