Squatty Body, which was what the other pilots dubbed me, somehow lacked the devil-may-care, yellow scarf—wearing élan associated with a flying cavalryman. I suppose it was better than being called Shorty or Half Pint, but none of this nomenclature befitted a pilot who would soon take Captain Blue’s place as platoon leader when he DEROS’d back to the States.
“Why do you think the army sent us a lieutenant instead of another warrant officer?” Captain Beatty asked rhetorically when the question of his replacement came up. “Squatty Body’s mustache is looking pretty good. Don’t you think it looks commanding?”
Everyone guffawed. A man got no respect in this outfit.
“Looks a little short to me,” Farmer Farmer ventured, launching another round of short jokes.
“My legs reach from my ass to the ground like everybody else’s.”
“Yeah, but our asses don’t drag over bumps.”
Because I was sent here to take Blue’s place when he rotated didn’t mean I automatically received the command. Probably I would, barring some fuckup. Everybody continued to look for a suitable sobriquet for the pending platoon leader. The question of what I would be called began resolving itself on the volleyball court. During one session of the ongoing game, Captain Brillo Pad, the tall, skinny S-3 with the kinky hair, spiked the ball flush into my face at the net.
“Why didn’t you jump up and block it?” Gerard scolded.
“He did jump up,” Brillo Pad chortled. “The problem is, he’s a mini-man.”
A few nights later, the scramble horn bleated us out of our bunks. A single long blast. A U.S. rifle squad out on patrol was about to be overrun. Although I wasn’t yet an AC, I still took left seat and the controls whenever I was on the board with Farmer. The Farmer was as clumsy in a helicopter as he was on the ground. Lloyd’s of London would never have insured him even if he were riding a bicycle.
Shaky was crew chief; O’Brien was the gunner. It was a clear, starlit night with no moon. Three lifts took to the sky along with a pair of Snakes flown by Swede in one and Whoppa in the other. “Whoppa” had something to do with the Snake driver’s genitals and a certain large hamburger from back home.
As we approached the scene, we learned that the rifle squad had fought its way in retrograde, which meant it hauled ass, to the edge of a clearing large enough for a PZ. There was a pretty good fight going on down there now as the GIs dug in to hold the clearing. It was their only chance of getting out. Grenade and rocket detonations flashed open the darkness. Erupting muzzles created a white, blinking rhythm. Red and green tracers crisscrossed in a crazy, confusing, and beautiful pattern. From the air, it resembled a silent light-and-shadow show with none of the sound and fury experienced by the grunts in the middle of it.
My ass was vacuum-cleaning, threatening to suck the seat up into my rectum, which at the moment had located itself near my esophagus. Anyone who claimed he could look down through the dark at that shit shimmering like a red and green animated spiderweb, knowing he was going to fly into it like a moth, and not be scared spitless was either a goddamned idiot or a liar.
I banked my ship off to the southeast to stay out of the sights of possible antiaircraft guns. Farmer and I were the first ship in the air on scramble; that made us head honcho on going in. I designated how we snatched up the grunts. I tagged myself Chalk One, the first ship on the ground, with Miles and Mighty Morris Chalk Two behind me. Two birds should be sufficient for ten grunts in the squad. Taylor and Mississippi would stand by at altitude in case one of us went down.
“Shoot a flare to give us your exact location,” I radioed the embattled squad leader.
Those guys were in a hurry to get out. Almost instantly a flare streaked out of the treeline on the northeast edge of the clearing.
Swede asked if the situation was such that his Snakes could lay down cover-and-suppress fire.
The grunt leader was almost screaming. “Negative, Red. Negative! The little yellow motherfuckers are all around us!”
As always during action, all three radio frequencies were going bugfuck.
“I’m going down and coming in,” I announced, then switched to FM to talk to the grunts. “Blue Four-Two? We have two birds coming down. Be ready to pile on. These elevators are going to be in a hurry.”
“Three-Seven, you ain’t nearly in the hurry we’re in.”
I swung wide to the northeast, Miles and Mighty Morris hot on my tail boom, then sank down to just above the black roll of the earth and poured on the coal. Swede popped down behind us and followed in from about a mile behind.
“Three-Seven, let me know the minute you get them aboard,” he radioed, “and I’ll drop some shit in Charlie’s face.”
“Roger that, Swede.”
Trying to keep my voice calm and casual. Blue would probably be listening at the TOC. I hoped I didn’t sound like a schoolboy about to undergo puberty.
We were really hauling ass, and low. The world went by in a black blur.
“Yee-ha!” O’Brien cheered through the intercom.
Crazy bastard.
“Yee-ha!” I echoed.
“We’re all fucking bat-loco insane,” Farmer Farmer decided.
You had to be insane to do this for a living. We shot out over the clearing and I pulled up cyclic. I had already picked out my landmark—a particularly large tree nearby from which the flare had originated. I came in hot and flared as near the tree as I dared. Streaks of green pierced the blackness all around. Shaky and O’Brien held their fire since we didn’t know exactly where the good guys were.
Miles in Three-Four skidded in right behind me. Bullets were punching into his bird.
Hardly had we touched down than the squad appeared and tumbled aboard the two choppers. Door gunners opened up when everyone was aboard, pumping streams of red back at the flickering muzzle flashes in the woods. There was the smell of gunpowder, the sounds of grunts yelling, guns crackling, radios jabbering. In a helicopter on a hot LZ was a terrifying place to be.
I took off immediately through the live green web of rifle fire, soaring out shallow at first to reach max transitional lift, then pulling up hard on the collective. Enemy soldiers erupted onto the clearing, chasing after the helicopter, firing as they came. Shadows flitted and weapons sparked and flashed. Some nut was running underneath my chopper as I took off, firing directly up at it. I braced myself for the impact of his slugs. Tracers zipped past the cockpit.
While all this was going on, Swede’s Wisconsin-accented voice rang through my helmet receiver: “Mini-Man, lift your tail!”
I automatically jerked more collective and almost ripped off the stick. I nearly split the needles and spun off my rotor cap as the Huey lifted straight up in a dizzying climb. At the same moment, Swede’s Cobra streaked directly underneath as he planted rockets in the space I was vacating. They exploded among the hostiles with white flashes so brilliant the air itself seemed to catch fire, momentarily blinding me. The concussion shook the UH-1, rattling it to its bones, but at the same time nudging it higher into the sky and out of the enemy’s reach. Unable to see, I held on and kept climbing until my vision returned.
“Well done, Mini-Man,” Swede radioed.
The name stuck. No more Squatty Body. I adopted as my radio call sign Apache Mini-Man. Along with the name began a growing myth that Mini-Man flew charmed, that bullets couldn’t touch any ship in which I flew. Miles and Mighty Morris had five bullet holes in Three-Four. Luckily, none had struck anyone or anything vital, although Miles claimed to have a bruise on his ass where a slug thumped the armor underneath his seat. In contrast, there wasn’t a single dent in my Three-Seven. The guy running underneath shooting up at my belly must have emptied an entire clip, and missed every shot.
It became a bit embarrassing as word spread that Mini-Man flew charmed and that you were safe if you reached my bird. LRRPs stumbling into deep kimchi got on the radio and started yelping for help.
“We’re in heavy shit! Get us out of here! Send us Mini-Man!”
I collected so many wooden nickels I had to keep them in my locker. Guys made a point of coming out to the flight line after every mission to check for themselves. It got to where the tower recognized my voice and the sight of the white visor cover with which I accessorized my OD helmet.
“How are you today, Mini-Man?” Tower would ask. “Any bullet holes?”
One of the crew chiefs was an excellent artist. On the back of my helmet he painted a sawed-off cartoon character wearing spit-shined paratrooper boots, a flight helmet, goggles, and a scarf like Snoopy wore chasing the Red Baron. Above it was the notation Apache while below appeared the other half of my call sign, Mini-Man.
Mini-Man, the smallest chopper pilot in the U.S. Army, now flew the unfriendly skies of Vietnam.