by Dennis Foley
While Captain Taylor finished the last entries in his logbook, Hollister twisted out of his seat, unfastened the Velcro straps holding his chicken plate, and placed it back inside the chopper.
The crew chief waited for the blades to stop turning and walked out to the end of one with a metal hook, a foot and a half long, attached to a length of red fabric strapping. The soldier snagged an eye on the very end of the wide chopper blade with the hook and let his hand slip down the strapping. Then he walked the blade parallel to the long axis of the chopper, pulled down on it and wrapped the strap around the narrow part of the tail boom. Once the crew chief was satisfied that the blades were safe from sudden winds or buffeting caused by other choppers, he stripped off his shirt and went back to his toolbox. Hollister could see the pride the soldier took in keeping his machine in shape for safe flying.
Taylor spotted Hollister watching the crew chief and smiled. “He’s the best. Had to do some real slippery wheelin’ and dealin’ to get him away from that lift company over at Pleiku. Cost me a case of booze to get him reassigned. There ain’t another crew chief in the battalion who could keep this pig running.”
They started to walk across the dirt airfield that sat next to the Province Headquarters compound. “You know this guy Minh?” Taylor asked.
“I’ve met him once. He looks like some kind of character out of ‘Terry and the Pirates.’”
“Word has it that he’s a heavyweight with the Viet bigwigs in Saigon. He’s got family connections and money. He’s got a lot more power as a colonel province chief than he would have as a major general division commander.” Taylor stopped walking, looked ahead at the compound, and laughed. “And the housing situation is better, too.”
They stopped in front of the ornate and overprotected ARVN compound. The central building was French in design and had wide steps leading to a landing. The landing supported six columns that held up the overhang of the red-tiled roof. Flanking the front door to the headquarters building were two guard posts that each served as an enclosure for two ARVN soldiers in starched American-style fatigues, spit-shined boots with white laces, and patent leather Sam Brown belts with white trim. Each soldier had a brass whistle attached to a chain on his shirt pocket and wore a brightly polished helmet liner that had been squeezed to fit closer to his ears.
The building sat inside a compound within a compound, the two compounds separated by rows of barbed wire and coiled concertina wire. The only entrance into the inner compound was through a guard post manned by six ARVN soldiers who were wearing more protective combat gear, steel helmets, and oversized flak jackets. Two of them manned an M-60 machine gun, and the other four were armed with pump shotguns.
The soldiers snapped to attention and rendered rifle salutes to Taylor and Hollister, who returned them. Taylor sarcastically whispered to Hollister, “Amazing. ’Bout the only damn thing they can do without needing to take a break.”
An ARVN sergeant ushered Taylor and Hollister through a cramped hallway filled with desks, soldiers, and file cabinets, to a waiting room just outside Colonel Minh’s office. In broken English he asked if they wanted something while they waited. They declined and took a seat on the wooden benches, the only furnishings in the concrete-floored room.
As they waited, Hollister pulled out his map and drew a grease pencil mark around the area that they would be operating in. He had thought about doing it earlier, but the chances of losing the map case had made him wait. He was sure that he never wanted to have to send the word up the chain of command that they couldn’t conduct combat operations because he had lost the map with the outline of the operational area and other tactical control measures on it.
Around them the relentless Vietnamese chattering echoed in the building. It seemed like dozens and dozens of voices were talking excitedly and yelling over phones and radios with bad connections. Taylor shook his head with contempt. “Never heard a language like this one. Sounds a lot like ducks fucking.”
The doors to the colonel’s office swung open. Hollister looked from the doors to Taylor and back to the doors to see if it was possible that the slur could have been overheard. Taylor didn’t seem to care, so Hollister decided not to worry about it, either.
A Vietnamese aspirant—the equivalent of a third lieutenant-gestured back into the office. “Good morning. Colonel Minh will see you now, gentlemen.”
Taylor looked at Hollister, surprised at the aspirant’s command of the English language. “Good … Thank you.”
Inside, Taylor and Hollister stopped in front of Colonel Minh’s desk. He had his back turned to them and was speaking rapidly over the phone—in Vietnamese. He kept it up for just a moment too long. Hollister wondered if it was just to keep them standing and waiting.
Hollister looked around the room. The walls were adorned with plaques and awards and certificates. Hollister couldn’t read the Vietnamese, but recognized that Minh had been to some French military schools.
Hollister’s eyes wandered from one cheap, handmade Vietnamese enameled plaque to the next until he recognized a familiar document. It was a Certificate of Completion from the Infantry Officer’s Advanced Course at Fort Benning. The name in Old English lettering was Captain Le Van Minh.
“Good morning. Please forgive me,” Colonel Minh said as he hung up the phone and swiveled around in his chair.
Taylor saluted. “Sir, I’m Captain Mike Taylor and this is Lieutenant Hollister.”
Colonel Minh returned the salute, nodded and made a sweep with the same hand to point to the two chairs flanking Taylor and Hollister. “Please sit down. Would you like some tea? Or something cold to drink?” Without waiting for a reply he spat rapid-fire instructions to the Vietnamese aspirant.
“I was told that you would be coming today. How can I be of service?” Colonel Minh asked, looking at Taylor.
Captain Taylor pulled an aviation map from his flight suit. Hollister pulled his out too. “We need your okay to operate in the western part of your province, Colonel.”
Colonel Minh stood, picked up a pencil from his desk, and walked to a wall that held a large map.
Hollister disliked the man as much as he had the day he saw him drive into the compound. He was affected, and everything about him smacked of an immorality that Hollister couldn’t pinpoint. He surprised himself at how the sight of Colonel Minh made him uncomfortable and angry. He wondered if it was his expensive, silly-looking uniform, or his hair—long and greased into place with some strong-smelling pomade. He did know that he felt uncomfortable about Minh’s fingernails, which were long and lacquered. Hollister was embarrassed by how it made his skin crawl.
The two Americans stood and moved to the map. Taylor let Hollister take the lead.
“Colonel, we need to operate in this area,” Hollister said, tracing an imaginary loop around the area that they hoped to have okayed.
“Oh, that area. That will not be a problem. It is a very bad place. There are no good Vietnamese there.”
Taylor looked at Colonel Minh. “You mean that there are bad Vietnamese in there?”
“Only bad—only VC. Many times my troops have tried to clear it. But the VC either left the area for a short time or they placed many mines and booby traps in there. My brave soldiers take many casualties.”
The aspirant entered with a tray. Colonel Minh waved the two Americans to the low table and couches in the far corner of his office. “Ah, the tea is here. Let us sit. We can have overlays made of your AO.”
While they moved to the coffee table, Colonel Minh spoke rapidly to the aspirant. Hollister tried not to make eye contact with Taylor because he was sure he would laugh at his earlier comment about ducks fucking.
The aspirant kept nodding as the colonel spoke. As he did, he took the glasses of hot tea from the tray and placed them on the table.
Hollister looked down at the tea. It didn’t look particularly appetizing. It was light brown like American tea, but had what looked like flat worms floating in the bo
ttom. He tried to convince himself that they were only strips of tea leaves.
The aspirant placed a container of very grainy-looking sugar on the table and a ceramic vase that contained a light beige liquid that looked like heavy cream or evaporated milk.
Sitting back on the couch, the obese colonel spooned several heaping spoonfuls of sugar into his tea and then poured the thick-looking creamlike liquid in on top of it. He spoke rapidly to the aspirant and stirred his tea for a long time. Putting the spoon down, he raised his glass to the Americans in a toast. “To our victory.”
Taylor and Hollister followed suit, raised their glasses, repeated the toast, and then brought the tea to their lips.
The aroma of the hot tea was not too unpleasant, but it was not Lipton’s. Hollister pursed his lips to keep the strips of tea from slipping into his mouth and then sipped the tea. It was bitter and very hot. In all, it wasn’t as bad as he had expected.
“So, does this mean that we have a free fire zone to work in, Colonel?” Taylor asked.
“Yes … yes. To be sure,” Colonel Minh replied with extra emphasis.
Hollister reinforced the question. “So the rules of engagement for this area are unrestricted? Ah, we can fire on any targets? Is that right, Colonel?”
“You can shoot anything in that area. It is a dangerous area.”
“Good. I’m glad we came to talk to you. We want to take no chances,” Hollister added.
Taylor looked at his watch. “Well, Colonel, if you don’t need any more information from us, we will let you get back to work. We are sure you must be very busy.”
The three stood. “Thank you for the tea, Colonel,” Hollister said. “Our Brigade Liaison Officer will bring the exact overlay to your Operations officer this afternoon, after the final details are worked out—if that is okay with you?”
Colonel Minh nodded, then clapped his hands once. The aspirant ran in from the outer office. “He will show you out. Thank you for coming to see me.”
Taylor and Hollister saluted Minh and left.
CHAPTER 17
“SHELTON TELLS ME THAT you’re getting to be quite the aviator,” Captain Taylor said over the intercom as they flew back toward the base camp.
Hollister spun his head around and looked at Iron Mike. “You kidding me? I have less than an hour of straight and level flight time logged.”
“Well, let’s work on that.” Taylor took his hands and feet off the controls and said, “You got it.”
Surprised, Hollister lunged for the pedals and the cyclic. The nose of the chopper shifted left then right then left again as he tried to equalize the pedal pressure with both feet. As he did, the chopper started to sink and airspeed reduced. Hollister reached down and pulled up on the collective a bit. The nose pulled to the right.
“Easy, easy, Ranger. Damn! You guys must just play hell with women,” Taylor said.
Hollister nodded his head. He forced himself to make smaller corrections, to take his eyes off the instrument panel and look off to the horizon for a reference point. He had learned from Shelton to pick a point on the horizon that was on the course and fly toward that. The farther away the reference point, the easier it was to use as an aid to flying.
“Better,” Taylor said. “What do ya say we find a place in the new AO where we can hurl a couple’a three-point-five rockets at the ground? S’pose you can hit Vietnam with a rocket?”
Hollister looked over at Taylor and smiled. He was excited by the thought of being able to go along on a firing run in a gunship.
They flew for several minutes and entered the near edge of the new operational area that they had cleared with Colonel Minh. “How’s this look to you?” Taylor asked.
Hollister pulled his map out and flopped it open on his knees. He cross-checked their location to be sure that they were in the free fire zone. Once he had double-checked, he answered, “Fine with me. But I think we ought to stay away from the waterways—where we’ll be settin’ up the ambushes.”
“Okay, it’s a big chunk of real estate. Shouldn’t be any trouble avoiding the blue lines,” Taylor said as he looked down at his own map. “Looks like there’s a steep wall and a rock outcropping on that hill over there,” he noted, raising his finger to point it out.
Hollister nodded and tried to make a level turn to the left. His control was good but his focus wasn’t.
“Look above and behind you, below you, and where you’re going. Last thing you want to do is make a textbook left turn and fly into some other dumbshit flying near you. You gotta fly inside this thing but think outside it if you want to keep from meshing rotors with some other chopper jock.”
Once they reached the area that Taylor had picked out, he instructed Hollister to fly a lazy loop around it. He explained that he didn’t want to start firing practice runs without making a visual search to make sure that no one was there—Rules of Engagement or not.
Finally, Taylor took control of the chopper. He spotted a small uprooted tree hanging by its roots on a slope that had eroded into a low spot between two small hilltops. “We’ll start way out from the target and pretend that the friendlies are to the west, our right, of that tree,” Taylor explained.
“You mean you don’t start by shooting at the tree?” Hollister asked.
“Not if we can avoid it. I want to pull the impact off target in a direction I can control and walk it in toward the friendlies. Especially since I haven’t bore-sighted the armament on this bucket since it came out of maintenance. And there’s too much chance that the rockets can hook or slice and land on the green in some young platoon leader’s back nine.”
With some concern in his voice, Hollister asked, “You mean that the rockets aren’t that accurate?”
“Well, there’s a lot involved. You could have a fin screwed up on one, or the rocket motor could be damaged, or the wind conditions could trick us—or I could just be a shitty shot!”
“So I should worry more when I’m on the ground and I call for chopper support?” Hollister asked.
“No … lemme show you. It isn’t as bad as you think,” Taylor said to reassure Hollister.
Taylor made a hard banking turn, causing the blades to pop, and headed back toward the target. Once he was level again, he sucked the collective up under his left arm, gave it some left pedal, pushed the cyclic forward and laid the nose over—rapidly picking up airspeed. “I don’t want to be over the target any longer than I have to.”
Taylor picked a spot on the ground to the left of the upside-down tree, then squeezed off the trigger on his cyclic. A sudden whoosh sound filled the cockpit as a pair of rockets left the pods behind the cockpit and passed by the left and right doors only inches away from their heads.
Hollister watched the small flames coming out of the tails of the rockets as they converged in front of the chopper. Just as they were about to hit the ground a few feet apart, Taylor yanked the nose of the chopper up, dumped it over to the right, and was soon heading back to where he came from.
Hollister snapped his head to the left and followed the rockets until they impacted to the left of the tree, exploding into a thick gray-brown bubble of smoke and hurling chunks of debris into the air.
Taylor reached up and made a small tick mark on the Plexiglas window next to his shoulder to remind himself where the rockets had hit with respect to the homemade gun-sight marks. He then leveled the chopper out at the end of what became a 360-turn over the simulated friendly positions and nosed the chopper over again.
Hollister’s excitement grew with the chopper’s acceleration. Just short of the firing point for the first pair, Taylor fired a second pair of rockets. This time the rockets streaked closer to the upside-down tree, but about twenty meters short of it the rockets crossed over each other and started to increase the distance between them.
“Shit—too early!” Taylor mumbled over the intercom.
“But the right one was closer to the tree,” Hollister said.
“Actually, it s
tarted out being the left one and became the right one. Makes a difference if you’re going to make some pod adjustments.”
“You sure that you want me to see all this?”
“Just you hang on, Ranger. You’ll see some amazing shit as soon as I get the hang of this new equipment setup.”
Taylor fired a third pair and snapped the nose up and right again. The two rockets flew straight and true to the target. Both hit exactly on the tree and obliterated it.
“See? Nothing to it.”
“You expect me to be surprised?” Hollister asked.
“You aren’t?”
“You gotta remember that I’ve been on the ground when you guys have dotted i’s and crossed t’s for me,” Hollister said. “I was just concerned that you were going to show me it was just luck.”
“Slick drivers need luck. Gun pilots are just born with hand and eye coordination that make them the envy of women worldwide. Not to mention the saviors of many an undeserving grunt.”
“Sir—heads up! Over your left shoulder!” the crew chief broke in on the intercom.
Taylor snapped the chopper to the left, sliding right while doing it. “What ya got?” he asked calmly.
“I saw some movement in the tree line just on the far side of that clearing … the one with the trail running east-west through it. See? Down by that slash in the trees? Our ten o’clock now.”
“Hot shit!” Taylor said. “We might just bag ourselves a bad guy here.” He handed his map to Hollister. “Check me out, Jim. Make sure we’re still inside the free fire zone.”
Hollister looked out his side window and then back at the compass on the instrument panel. He reoriented the map to make sure that he had a good fix on their location. “Looks like we’re easy inside the AO by over four klicks.”
“Let’s go huntin’, then,” Taylor said as he made a quick descending right turn, dumping altitude and picking up airspeed, to come back around in a wide arc that would turn the nose toward the sighting.
