Chapter 41
Rise to the Occasion

T he next morning, the missions were passed out regardless of rank, and just like the day before, I was handed a resupply mission. As we pulled out of the revetment and started down the runway before the sun came up, I began briefing the crew.

“We have a log mission working out of LZ Snuffy. They found a bunker complex up there that they’re emptying, and will be for some time I understand. Forty-two bunkers, and it’s taking an infantry company a day to inventory and remove stuff from just one bunker. We’ll be backhauling a lot today, so get comfortable. We will refuel at Song Be and then push up to Snuffy. There’s supposed to be a refuel point being set up at LZ Jamie. You have the aircraft, Rick.”

“I have the aircraft,” Rick responded.

It was a quiet morning on the radios as it was too early for aircraft to be in the thick of things, yet. Most aircraft were calling for artillery clearances up to Song Be, Bu Gia Map and Bu Dop with almost everyone stopping off at Quan Loi or Song Be for fuel before pressing on. The sun was just beginning to come up in the east, so we had no turbulence and cloud cover was well above the twenty-five hundred feet we were cruising at. The aircraft was sounding normal and the instruments were all in the green. I enjoyed this time, as no decisions had to be made and I could just enjoy the ride.

I started to realize that now I was a commissioned officer, and an infantry officer at that. What did the future hold?

Warrant Officer Branch was willing to send me back to college: I wondered if Infantry Branch would offer the same. And my next assignment, I was sure, would be the Infantry Officers Basic Course, which might have a couple of aviators like me, but the rest would be recent ROTC graduates. As a first lieutenant, I’d probably get stuck with some leadership position as all the others would be second lieutenants. I needed to think about an assignment when I got out of school. I wondered if they’d send me back here as a grunt. I knew I would be required to maintain flying proficiency even in a ground assignment, and I would need to balance my career between aviation assignments and infantry assignments. One thing I needed to do was get an infantry company commander assignment, as I might already be behind my contemporaries, who would all have been platoon leaders over here. A thousand questions were creeping through my mind, and I had no answers at this point.

Rick had been in the unit for over six months now and hadn’t made aircraft commander. At the monthly AC meetings, Rick had never received one positive vote. About two months ago, he had gone to the CO, wanting to know why he hadn’t made AC. He felt that the ACs had something in for him. The CO had come to me as the unit IP.

“Dan, I want you to fly with Rick tomorrow and give him an AC check ride.”

“Sir, no one has voted for him becoming an AC. He’s just not ready. He doesn’t think. He makes the same mistakes every time with every AC. Sir, if I tell Rick to fly at three thousand feet, ninety knots on a three-sixty heading, he does it perfectly regardless of what gets in his way—artillery, another aircraft, Song Be Mountain. Unless you tell him to avoid those things, he’ll fly right into them.”

“I know, but I want an impartial honest check ride tomorrow. I want every mistake documented and every good point as well. I want you to give him a through critique afterwards and then come to me. Understood?”

“Yes, sir. I would like a log mission with an assault if possible. Those are our bread and butter, and he’s got to be able to handle them.”

“I’ll talk to Ops and see that you have that.” With that, he left. Great, just the guy I wanted to fly with. Okay, this should be fun. Best go tell Rick the good news.

I found him in his room, doing what we all did when sitting in our rooms, writing a letter. “Hey, Rick. How you doing?”

Looking up, he said, “Good, what’s up?” I was still a warrant officer at the time, and while technically I did outrank him as I was a W2 and he was a W1, rank between warrant officers is like virtue between whores.

“What’s up is you’re taking an AC check ride tomorrow with me. We’ll have a log mission followed by an assault. We’ll use my aircraft, but you’re left seat. From the time we wake up until we’re back in the Chicken Coop, shut down and back in Flight Ops, you are the AC, unless you really blow it. Understood?”

His facial expression didn’t change. He held that blank stare as always, which made you wonder if anyone was home. “Okay,” he finally said, and he went back to writing his letter. I just walked off, knowing it was going to be a long day tomorrow.

“Wake up, Mr. Cory. You have a zero six hundred launch,” said the ops clerk.

“What kind of mission?” I asked through the haze of sleep.

“Log and assault, out of Camp Gorvad,” he answered. Hmm , I thought as I dragged my ass out to take a piss. The terrain around Gorvad was fairly flat and had low vegetation, mostly tall brush and few big trees. PZ and LZs were plentiful. No hover holes, though, and I wished we were going to have at least one of those. Did I really want one of those with Big Rick? Who was I kidding? I headed back to get dressed and grab my gear. I walked over to Flight Ops, and Rick came out of his hooch and walked with me.

“Morning, Rick,” I said. I might as well be civil to the guy. Maybe he would surprise me.

“Hey, Dan,” he responded. Man of few words.

“Okay, once we get to the door at Flight Ops, you are the AC and take the lead. Got it?”

“Got it,” he responded flatly. In Flight Ops, the assistant ops officer began his brief, addressing me. I stopped him.

“Rick is AC today. Need to talk to him.” The look of surprise was obvious, but Rick didn’t see it because Rick was looking at the area of operations map.

“Hey, Rick, you want this brief?” Mr. Stevens asked.

“Yeah, sure.” And Rick rejoined the conversation as I stepped back and made my own notes. Arriving at the aircraft, we began our preflight and Rick was putting his stuff in the right seat.

“Rick, you’re left seat today,” I reminded him.

“Yeah, but I like the right seat. I’ll fly it today.” Unusual in our unit, but okay if he wanted to fly right seat. No big thing. We climbed in and got ourselves adjusted, and he started going through his start-up procedure. Before we got out of the revetment, he made a major mistake. He forgot to do the hydraulics check. Pick up the aircraft with no hydraulics and you could have a major accident. I made a note of that.

“Okay, take us out,” he said, turning to me. So he wasn’t going to pick us up to a hover in the revetment, which was a problem for him, as I had seen and others had pointed out. Smart on his part; he was the AC after all.

“I have the aircraft,” I said and commenced with the hydraulics check.

The crew cleared us. I applied power, eased us out of the revetment and turned towards the runway.

“I have the aircraft,” Rick said, taking the controls. “Get us clearance for takeoff.” I did, and we hovered out. Rick applied power down the runway and climbed out. As we cleared the trees, he directed me, “Take the controls and give me a heading to Camp Gorvad at fifteen hundred feet.”

“I have the aircraft,” I responded and took up a heading to our destination. Does he not know the way to Camp Gorvad? Normally an AC would climb out and take up his heading to the destination and even fly for a bit to get the feel of the aircraft.

The flight over was uneventful and quiet, without the normal early-morning banter between the crew, each lost in his own thoughts. That was okay. Oops! Rick didn’t get us arty clearance to Camp Gorvad. Major mistake. Noted.

As we approached Camp Gorvad, Rick asked for the controls and told me to contact the unit and get us our clearances, which I did and relayed it to him. The unit’s instructions were to shut down on the log pad and come in for a briefing. So far Big Rick was doing okay—two major mistakes and a couple of little things. Rick retained control of the aircraft and landed on the unit’s log pad, which was the same log pad that had been used since I’d arrived in-country over a year ago. We headed into the brief, which was conducted by the S-3 air. They had three morning resupply runs for us right away. Good , I thought.

Rick asked, “What’s the call sign and freq of each and where are they?” Reasonable question, I was thinking. The S-3 air handed Rick a piece of paper with the information and we left. So far so good.

Arriving at the aircraft, we saw that it had been loaded with cases of C-rations. I looked around and didn’t see any water cans. Unit must have been resupplied the night before with water. Rick spread his map out and hunkered over it. I looked over his shoulder. Oh shit! He was not only marking the location of each unit on the map, which in itself was okay, but he was writing the call sign and frequency of each unit next to each mark. Major no-no. I said nothing but made a note. We cranked the aircraft, and Rick pulled in the power for the takeoff, with no announcement of coming up, leaving the crew chief standing on the ground. Poor Lovelace was attempting to climb onto the aircraft by grabbing the machine-gun mount and hanging on.

“Stop! Stop! I’m not on board,” Lovelace howled. And Rick did, but he put the collective down so fast that it almost landed on Lovelace’s foot and banged us hard.

“Sir, you have to let us know you’re coming up and give us a chance to respond.” I could tell that Lovelace was pissed.

“I thought you were on board.” Rick’s voice was a bit testy. “Don’t get out of the aircraft unless I tell you to.”

“Sir, we were shut down on the log pad. Do you want us to stay in our seats when we’re shut down?” Now Peters was entering the fray. This was going south real quick.

“I think the ground guide is signaling you, Rick,” I said to get the mission going.

My crew had only so much patience. Rick turned his attention to the ground guide, who was signaling all clear to come up. Again Rick pulled up on the collective without notifying the crew. Okay, that’s how it’s going to be . I knew my crew. They were professional enough that they weren’t going to do anything that would endanger us or damage the aircraft, but they were probably not going to do anything to help out Rick either. Rick flew us out to the first location. Arriving overhead, we could see troops on the ground. He began his approach.

“Rick, don’t you think we should call and ask for smoke?”

“I can see them. I don’t need smoke,” he responded.

“Just because you can see troops on the ground doesn’t mean they’re friendly.” I was trying to coach him to do the right thing without directing him to do the right thing.

“Okay, you call them,” he directed.

“Badger Six, Chicken-man One-Niner, over.”

“Chicken-man One-Niner, I have you in sight, smoke out.”

“Badger Six, Chicken-man One-Niner, I have Rosy Red.”

“Chicken-man One-Niner, that’s affirmative. Recommend you land north to south. Over.”

“Badger Six, roger.

Got that, Rick?” I asked.

“Got it.”

And Rick set up his approach to land south to north. The smoke clearly showed a breeze from the south, and the recommendation from the ground unit was land to the south, so why was he setting up for a downwind landing? He was flying, so I kept my mouth shut. I made a note. The LZ was a good long clearing devoid of small trees and brush. Rick made his approach, passing directly over the troops on the ground with plenty of airspeed as the wind was pushing the aircraft along and he was using maximum power to come to a hover. As we had speed coming over the southern end of the clearing, we used the entire clearing to stop the aircraft and turn around. If there were any unfriendly troops on the north end of the LZ, we would have been a tempting target. We hovered back to the troops and unloaded the C-rations and took on empty water cans.

“You have the aircraft,” Rick instructed me. Lovelace and Peters were still in their seats, not helping the grunts load—doing what they had been told. As the unloading of the C-rations was complete and the empty water cans loaded, Rick instructed the crew,

“Close the doors. I don’t want any of the water cans to blow out.” This was unheard of.

“Sir, we close the doors, we can’t fire our guns if we need to,” Lovelace stated, almost pleading.

“I don’t care, I don’t want any of those water cans to blow out.”

I looked at Rick, glad that my sun visor was down so he couldn’t see my eyes, which must have been the size of saucers. I made another note. If the aircraft was properly flown, water cans didn’t blow out of the cargo area.

I flew us back to the log pad and picked up the next load, returning to the LZ and making a north-to-south approach. After we were offloaded, Rick instructed me to take off and return to the log pad while he studied his map. We were halfway back when he put his map on the top of the instrument panel and took the aircraft controls. Maps did not go on top of instrument panels because maps in that location were above the open side window and had a tendency to blow out. Rick’s map was no exception, and out the window it went.

“I have the aircraft,” I stated and turned immediately to keep an eye on the map as it drifted downward.

“Peters, keep an eye on that map. Rick, this ride is over. I’m AC for the rest of the day. We’ll talk when we get to the log pad. Watch that map.” He said nothing and continued to watch. Finally the map landed.

“Mr. Cory, it’s down. There’s a clearing about twenty meters from where it landed,” said Peters.

“Roger. Lovelace, pass up your M-16 to Rick. Here’s the deal, Rick. I’m going to land in that clearing and drop you off. You’re going to retrieve that map and come back to the clearing, where I am going to pick you up, and you will jump into the cargo area so I’m on the ground for only a few seconds. I’ll orbit low over you and cover you with the guns. Any questions?”

Rick just stared at me like I was nuts. I wasn’t. I was pissed. Stupid to let the map fly out, but what was worse was putting call signs, frequencies and locations on the map. Locations, okay, but not all the other stuff.

We flew around in a circle several times to see if we could spot anyone on the ground. Finally I set up the approach and landed. It was this sort of thing that had gotten Dave killed. Reluctantly, Rick got out with the M-16 and moved away from the aircraft. As soon as he was clear, we were back in the air. As I circled above him, his movements reminded me of Elmer Fudd hunting the elusive Bugs Bunny.

“Damn, sir, why doesn’t he just haul ass over and get it?” Peters asked.

“Because he’s scared, that’s why,” I answered.

Lovelace had moved over to the right side of the aircraft and was holding Peters’s M-16 and searching the brush. Finally Rick got to the map and this time sprinted as fast as his fat little body would carry him to the clearing, waving his arms frantically as we made our approach as if we didn’t see him. The aircraft hadn’t touched the ground, and he was on board and we were coming out. At the log pad, he resumed his position in the right seat.

“Okay, I have the aircraft,” he said, as if he didn’t understand his situation.

“No, Rick. You do not. I am now the AC.” And with that, I put us on private on the intercom.

“Rick, you have bused this check ride. First you left this morning without doing a hydraulics check. That’s a major mistake. If all else had gone well, I would have overlooked that. Getting here, you didn’t know the heading, and yet you’ve been flying for, what, six months now? You still don’t know your way around the AO. You never got us clearance from Arty, another major mistake. Then you plot unit locations, which in itself is okay, but you put the call sign and frequencies on your map, which is a major mistake. And where does your map go? Out the window. A major mistake. Let’s not forget you left your crew chief standing on the ground when you picked up and then nearly set the aircraft back down on him. You instructed the crew to close the doors, which in essence left the aircraft defenseless. Rick, I can’t sign you off for AC. Look, you’re an okay guy and no one has it in for you, but there’s something about you. You aren’t ready for AC. You’re an okay copilot but not thinking like an AC.”

“You going to tell the CO?” was his only response.

“I got to tell him something. He ordered this check ride. I tell you what. I’ll say nothing to the other ACs, and I’ll tell these two not to say anything about this being a check ride. That’s the best I can do, but word will eventually get out, I’m sure.”

“Okay. Thanks.” Rick remained quiet for the rest of the flight and performed his duties in a satisfactory manner. In fact, he was more relaxed and did better. In fairness to him, I told the CO that it may have just been nerves that caused him to make some major mistakes, but the CO didn’t buy it. Plotting frequencies and call signs along with unit locations on your map isn’t nerves, and what would he do under fire?

I was about to find out.

Landing at LZ Snuffy, Rick and I went into the TOC and met with the S-3.

“Morning, Mr. Cory.” Looking up, he saw me. “Wow, what’s this? Lieutenant Cory now?”

“Yes, sir, I’ve come over to the RLO side as of last night.”

“Well, congratulations. What branch?”

“Infantry, sir.”

“Oh shit, you’re going to be a grunt. Different world. I’ll see if I can get you assigned here.”

“Sir, I still have to go to Benning School for Boys, and that won’t be until I rotate back.”

“Too bad. I could use you here as S-3 air. Okay, here’s what we got today. Backhauling a ton of crap. We have a medical supply bunker that’s full of new medical instruments. I mean new in the packing crates from Europe. I have a bunker packed with new Chinese Communist SKS rifles still wrapped in grease and paper. I have a couple of bunkers of rice. I need to resupply three rifle companies. That should keep you busy for today. Might toss in a C&C flight as well,” he added.

“Sounds like we’re not going to get bored today. If your guys are ready, we’ll head out for the first load.”

“Alpha is standing by with a load of rice for you. I’ll call them and let them know you’re coming.”

We headed back to the aircraft, which was already loaded with thirty water cans to take to Alpha. Lovelace had supervised the loading, so the aircraft was ready to go. As Rick was going through the start-up procedures, I was tuning the radio to Alpha Company’s frequency on the FM radio.

“I have the aircraft.” I took the controls from Rick.

“You have the aircraft,” he responded.

The crew cleared us, and I pulled in forty pounds of torque. The bird responded beautifully, and I had to decrease some torque to keep us from leaping into the air. Clearing the firebase, we headed in the general direction of the Alpha Company LZ. Flying out, I called Alpha Company.

“Sidewinder Six, this is Chicken-man One-Niner, the wonderful white-winged wicked weekend warrior. Over,” I said, taking a line from the radio show.

“Chicken-man One-Niner, good morning, Sidewinder Six India, over.”

“Sidewinder, good morning. The wonderful white-winged wicked weekend warrior is here to serve you this fine day,” I joked with him.

“Chicken-man One-Niner, smoke is out.” I could hear him and someone else laughing in the background.

“Roger, I have Goofy Grape.”

“Chicken-man One-Niner, that is affirmative.”

A moment later, as I was descending and setting up my approach to the smoke, Lovelace chimed in.

“Ah, sir, I have purple smoke behind us at eight o’clock.” I was looking at two o’clock. Something was wrong, and I increased power to get altitude.

“Sidewinder Six, Chicken-man One-Niner, I’m a bit confused. Can you pop another smoke for me? Give me a Mellow Yellow.” There was a long pause.

“Roger, Chicken-man One-Niner, I understand you want a yellow smoke. Wait one.” Since our last sighting of the smoke, we had executed a 180-degree turn and were facing the second purple smoke location. Now we were seeing yellow smoke mingling with the second plume of purple smoke.

“Sidewinder Six, Chicken-man One-Niner, I have your yellow smoke.”

“Negative, Chicken-man! I did not, repeat, did not pop yellow smoke.”

“Roger, Sidewinder Six! Wait one.” And I switched to FM number 2.

“Song Be Arty, fire mission, troops in the open, coordinates…”

Shortly afterwards, I heard, “Chicken-man One-Niner, shot out.”

Turning to Rick, I said, “Take over adjusting the artillery, I’ll fly.” And he did, hitting the target with one adjustment.

“Nice shooting, Rick,” I complimented him. I received his usual stoic reaction.

It was a trick of the NVA to monitor the radio frequency that the grunts were using to communicate with the aircraft and if possible lure an aircraft to the wrong location by popping the color of smoke identified by the aircraft, only for it to be greeted by antiaircraft fire. Aircraft never called for a particular color of smoke but always identified the smoke that the grunts had chosen. We returned to Sidewinder’s location and began an approach to his PZ.

“Chicken-man One-Niner, break off. Break off, we are in contact. RPGs!” The aircraft nosed over and banked hard left to terminate the approach and gain speed and altitude.

“Sir, I can see where it’s coming from. They’re in the treetops,” Peters said.

“Sidewinder Six, you have snipers in the treetops with RPGs.”

“Roger,” came his response over the sound of heavy automatic weapons fire and explosions. With each explosion, we could see a puff of black smoke as the RPG was launched, indicating the shooters’ positions.

“Sidewinder Six, Chicken-man here. I can see their positions. Do you want me to make a gun run and distract them from you?”

“Chicken-man One-Niner, go ahead, but just don’t shoot us.”

“What heading are you facing?”

“Facing due east, over.”

“I’ll make my run north-south. Okay, crew, I want both guns firing straight ahead and swinging straight down unless you see an identified target. Got it?”

“Got it, understood,” the crew replied.

Into a shallow dive we went with both guns firing to the front and down. The RPG fire stopped, and I could see tracers from the grunts’ automatic weapons passing under me. Hope they don’t shoot us , I was thinking when Peters broke my train of thought.

“Shit, RPG! Sir, they’re shooting those things at us.” His comment was confirmed almost immediately by Sidewinder Six as an RPG streaked behind the aircraft.

“Chicken-man One-Niner, you almost took an RPG in the ass. Clear the area. We have arty coming in soon.”

“Roger. Chicken-man is clear of the area and standing by. Rick, you have it.”

“I have the aircraft,” Rick said as we pulled up and moved out of the way of incoming artillery. During the whole time, Rick just sat there, appearing to be bored with the whole thing.

After a few minutes, during which several artillery rounds landed in the vicinity of the RPG fire, we heard, “Chickenman One-Niner, Sidewinder Six, over.”

“Sidewinder Six, Chicken-man, go.”

“Chicken-man One-Niner, PZ is secure. Can you take out our wounded?”

“Sidewinder Six, that’s affirmative. How many?” I asked as Rick set up our approach.

“Chicken-man, we have seven. Medivac is coming, but if you take them to LZ Snuffy, it’ll be quicker for them.”

“Roger. We are one minute out. Pop smoke.”

Almost immediately, smoke was blowing across the PZ. Rick brought the aircraft in fast and stopped on a dime, troops climbing aboard right away. None had on their load-bearing equipment or rucksacks. Most were walking wounded, but one was missing a foot and had a tourniquet around his leg. Most looked to have shrapnel wounds from RPGs.

As the last was loaded, I gave Rick a thumbs-up. “Let’s go.”

As we approached the log pad, medics were standing by with a stretcher for our soldier with the missing foot. As much pain as he was in, he was high-fiving guys because he knew he was going home. I could see the morphine needle sticking through his shirt collar and a bloody red “M” on his forehead indicating he was on morphine. The others would be back in the field in a couple of weeks from the looks of things. As we were loading some ammo to take back, I saw a medivac chopper approaching. For the next five hours, we were flying steady, hauling in supplies and backhauling all manner of materiel. Finally we got a chance to shut down and eat some C-rations. Lovelace grabbed a five-gallon can of water, and we all helped wash the blood out of the aircraft. I saw the S-3 approaching, and he was not smiling.

“Hey, Dan, I need you to get out to Bravo for a backhaul to Song Be.”

“Okay, what we got?” I asked.

“We just lost two to another RPG attack. The bodies need to go back there. Medivac won’t take them.”

“Yeah, I know,” I mumbled. “They take the living but… okay, let the unit know we are on our way. Mount up, guys, we have a pickup.”

As the crew policed up our garbage and closed up the C-ration box, I explained to them our cargo for this trip. This wasn’t the first time, but we never got used to hauling the dead out. From Song Be, someone else would fly these grunts to Camp Gorvad for their final trip home.

As we approached the PZ, Rick called for the smoke and made our landing with a ground guide. When we touched down, there were two groups of four standing soldiers, one group on each side of the aircraft. With each group was a wrapped poncho lying on the ground. The ponchos were tied, but it was obvious that these were boys making their final trip home. I wondered what their families were doing right now. Soon they would have a visit from an officer, who was normally accompanied by a chaplain. Casualty notification officer was not an assignment that anyone volunteered for. The days of just a telegram from the Pentagon had ended in early 1967.

The crew concentrated on watching the ground and rear of the aircraft as we flew back. They didn’t like seeing the dead on the aircraft.

I mumbled a prayer that I had written. “May they soar with the angels on wings of eagles; may they watch over those they loved and those who loved them; may they rest in peace until we all gather for the final formation.”

Returning to LZ Snuffy, we resumed our backhaul and resupply, and when finally released, we had racked up another twelve-hour day with a hour-and-forty-five-minute flight to get home. Rick had done good today and had risen to the occasion, I was glad to tell the CO that night.