by Dennis Foley
On the way back to the LRP pad, the chopper flew over an ARVN unit that was stopped on Highway 1. The troops were stretched out for a good mile, all lounging around on their trucks, playing cards and smoking. From the air it was obvious to Hollister that there was absolutely no sense of vulnerability to enemy fire. None of their commanders had put out security to protect the main body of the convoy, and the troops were unconcerned about any possible enemy threat.
At one point, forward of the center of the column, a tight knot of Vietnamese officers and two American advisors huddled around a map spread out on the hood of a jeep. One of the Americans was waving his arms and pointing in a direction away from the apparent direction of march.
A slight shiver went through Hollister as he thought of what an awful job it must be to work as an advisor to the Vietnamese army.
After deciding on the general area for the river ambush patrol and selecting several LZs and alternates, Captain Shaw drew up a map overlay containing all of the control measures to be coordinated with adjacent units. He took the plan to the American units and the ARVNs while Hollister got stuck taking a copy to Province Headquarters to coordinate with Vietnamese units under the control of the province chief.
At Province Headquarters, Hollister learned that Colonel Minh was in Nha Trang with his American advisor, Colonel Baird. In the Province Tactical Operations Center, Hollister eventually found an American sergeant.
While the American NCO couldn’t make any promises for what the Vietnamese would or wouldn’t do with the overlay, he did say that he would make sure that it got to the province chief and his operations officer.
Hollister explained that the overlay was firm even though it didn’t display all of the specific locations of the proposed ambushes. The details of the specific patrols, locations, and such would be sent over when they had been worked out. He also noted that they would be operating in the area starting two days hence and would notify Province when they cleared the AO.
Leaving out the details of the ambush locations was no accident. Hollister and Michaelson had decided not to give the Vietnamese any more information than they absolutely had to. So, Hollister just wanted to make sure that the Vietnamese knew that the Americans were in that area, and to confirm that no Vietnamese ground forces operations were scheduled there.
The sergeant spoke with the Vietnamese Plans officer and cleared the area of any Vietnamese units. He assured Hollister that he would see that everyone got the word.
Hollister then got the frequencies and call signs of all adjacent Vietnamese units and outposts. He asked specific questions about fire support available, and then, with little confidence in the answers, about any restrictions on fires in the AO.
Hollister left Province Headquarters only partially satisfied with his coordination with the American advisor. He knew that he could not completely count on the Vietnamese, but had to go through the motions. He was just as happy not to have bumped into Colonel Minh. At least with the advisor he felt that they were understanding each other and there wasn’t any other agenda going on.
On the way back in a jeep he made notes on who he talked to and what they talked about. Something told him that if anything went wrong, Province Headquarters would try to blame it on the Americans. He wanted to be ready with dates, times, and bumper numbers.
Even if things went smoothly, he would need the details for the After Action Report. And if anything needed to be changed, he could more easily get things done starting with the sergeant he had actually talked to.
Captain Shaw’s aerial photos came back from Brigade, printed and marked with a few key grid coordinates. It was the first time they’d used photographs that were not several years old.
Shaw brought the key players into the Ops tent to look over the photos and make the final decisions about the LZs and routes. The ambush sites had already been decided upon.
The enlarged black and white photos gave a panoramic view of the AO, but they were low-angle photos and the distortion didn’t allow the exact transfer of map data like grid lines, distances, elevation, and relief. Grid coordinates of key terrain features had been accurately marked on the map by Sergeant Marrietta in white correction fluid.
They had just concluded that there was a severe shortage of optimum distance LZs in the area of Hollister’s primary ambush site when Captain Michaelson entered.
“What’s the problem?”
“We’re having trouble finding a good LZ. If we use the better ones, we’ll have to go to a secondary ambush site. If we stick with our best ambush site, we’re stuck with one very tight, very marginal LZ,” Hollister said.
Michaelson pulled his cigar out of his mouth, leaned over and looked at the photos. Everyone waited while he examined the photos of the landing zones and the primary ambush site. “You feel good about that location for an ambush?”
Hollister and Davis both nodded yes.
“So how ’bout this?” Michaelson pointed to a bare ledge, an eroded piece of ground that was barely the size of a car.
“Too small, isn’t it?” Hollister asked.
“You can go in on a rope … It’s on the side of a hill, nothing much above you. Won’t be silhouetted. And your trip from there to the ambush site is all downhill along that skinny finger that runs away from it,” Michaelson said, stuffing the cigar back into his mouth.
“Is it level?” Davis asked.
They looked at another photo for a different angle.
“I’ve gone in on a rope, only to lose it trying to stand up under my ruck with the rotor wash kicking my ass,” Davis added.
“Yep. Look at this,” Hollister said. He passed around a photo that showed the spot to be very close to level.
Everyone looked at the details with a small magnifying glass. No one had any other objections.
“What’s the moon phase gonna be?” Camacho asked.
Marrietta consulted a chart on the tent wall next to the radios. “Three-quarter.”
“Why?” Hollister asked.
“I’d rather go down a rope at night,” Camacho said. “If we don’t get a cloud layer and we wait till the moon is full up, we got a better chance at seeing the spot on the ground without being sitting ducks for some gook with a decent rifle. We don’t want to be hoverin’ around with the lights on looking for that spot in the trees. The moon’ll be a help.”
“Yeah, but can the pilots find that dot at night just usin’ the moonlight?” Allard asked.
“I’ll go look tonight,” Hollister said, looking up at Michaelson.
“Those are your choices,” Michaelson said, tapping another point on the map. “It’s either go in by rope or you got a very long walk from the closest decent LZ.”
They decided to plan on rappeling in unless the night recon or the weather data was discouraging.
“We ought to get the troops up on the wall this afternoon,” Davis said.
“Right,” Hollister said. “But with full gear, weapons and blindfolds. If we get time, we’ll try some rappeling later tonight too. Okay?”
“Roger that,” Davis said.
Captain Shelton screwed up his face as he leaned over the map and aerial photos on the table in Operations. “From the looks of that, we’ll need a seeing eye dog with a strobe light stickin’ out his ass to find that twelve-digit grid coordinate at night.” He shook his head and laughed. “You guys are just trying to test our aviation excellence, now, aren’t you?”
Hollister waited until he was sure that Shelton was kidding, and then picked up on the teasing. “If this is too much—we can get some of those real combat pilots from the First Cav down, here—”
“Whoa! Whoa! I’d rather you say something bad about my mother, youngster, than be talkin’ about my flying skills.”
“That mean you want to give it a shot, sir?” Hollister asked.
Polishing his fingernails on his flight suit, Shelton announced, “I’m a senior aviator. I got the control touch of a surgeon. The VC applaud my f
lying.” He then reached in his sleeve pocket on his flight suit and pulled out his sunglasses. “And, I got me a new pair of gen-u-wine, bullet-proof aviator sunglasses today. So—no problem.”
Hollister threw his hands up in the air as if to signal that all was perfect. “So what are we waiting for?”
“You’re right. Let’s go out to that chopper, kick the tires and light the fire, youngster.”
“Think we ought to wait till it gets dark first, sir?” Hollister asked.
“Maybe we ought to stop by the mess hall for a cup of coffee first. It’ll be dark in another half hour.”
Shelton had let his co-pilot go see Sergeant Tillotson, the LRP senior medic, about a bout of diarrhea that doubled him up on the flight to the LRP pad. Still, he didn’t want to wait for a replacement pilot to arrive before he and Hollister took off for the night recon.
The recon time was critical, so Hollister strapped himself into the right seat next to Shelton and they lifted off without a second pilot.
The moon was high and behind them as they moved toward the insert location, and they had a clear view of the ground below. If they inserted the team at exactly the same time of night, it would be a little more difficult for someone on the high ground above them to make out features on the chopper with the large moon behind it.
As they flew along at fifteen hundred feet, they saw specks of light in thatched huts, even though everyone was supposed to be out of the valley each day at sundown.
Hollister knew that it didn’t mean they were VC. Lots of the older farmers couldn’t make the trip in and out of the valley each day to tend their rice fields. And there were no young men to do the hard work—only old men, old women, and young women with children. So, many of them hid or bribed the ARVNs to let them hole up in their homes for the night.
Hollister looked up from the valley to the hills in front of the chopper. They were flat black in contrast to the monochrome shades and water reflections of the rice fields. There were also sparkles of light from lanterns and cook fires on the hillsides, and it was fairly certain that those lights were VC hiding in the caves that dotted the slopes of the foothills.
“How ’bout some music?” Shelton asked.
Hollister stepped on the floor button. “I could go for that. It’s not Mantovani, is it?”
Shelton gave Hollister a look and screwed up his face while he twisted the frequency dial on the ADF radio in the console between them.
The Moody Blues were just finishing the chorus of “Go Now.” It was one of Susan’s favorite songs. Hollister looked out at a formation of birds that was heading south below them. He felt very far away from her at that moment.
CHAPTER 22
THE VISIBILITY IN THE objective area was not as good as it was over the rice paddies. Shelton and Hollister strained, looking out the open side windows in their chopper doors to find terrain features and landmarks on the ground.
By looking out the open windows instead of through the windscreen, they could eliminate the little bit of glare and distortion that came from the reflected red cockpit lights and the tiny scratches that were all over the Plexiglas windows and the windscreen.
“There it is,” the crew chief said. “’Bout nine o’clock and almost right under us.”
Shelton let the chopper drift out past the spot a respectable distance, did a quick right turn and then a long lazy left that put the spot out their left door again on the return trip.
“Yeah, I think we have it. The world’s smallest LZ,” Shelton said.
Hollister tried to stretch and look over Shelton to see out his side of the chopper.
“Hold on a sec. Let me come around again and let you have a look.” As the chopper crossed back over the spot on the ground, Hollister saw it out his door. “Jesus! That’s gonna be tough!”
“Naw, going in ain’t gonna be so hard. It’s coming back up the ropes once they start shooting at your ass—now, that’s really gonna be tough!” Shelton said.
Hollister flipped his map open, dropped it onto his lap, and looked for reference points that he could identify on the ground. He found a couple and circled them with his grease pencil.
At the same time, Shelton looked in vain for places to put a chopper down if they ran into trouble during the insert.
There were too few breaks in the canopy. The insertion would be a whole lot hairier than his humor indicated. If Shelton had to put the insert chopper down, it would be into the trees or into the water below a break in the canopy over the wide part of the streambed.
Shelton let Hollister have the controls on the way back to the LRP pad. Flying at night felt different. Hollister seemed to project his awareness farther out, perhaps because he was trying harder to distinguish the horizon and pick out distant landmarks to use as navigational aids along his compass heading. He was getting used to the feel of the large chopper being under his control and kind of liked it.
“So? How ’bout putting in the paperwork?” Shelton asked.
“Paperwork? Paperwork for what?”
“Flight school. Don’t you want to be an Army aviator like every other red-blooded, God-fearing, skirt-chasing American male?”
“Oh, no. I don’t think so. I think that this is just about all the flying that I want to do.”
Suddenly the headset in Hollister’s helmet filled up with a low and rising chant from Shelton, the crew chief, and the door gunner “Grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt.”
Hollister laughed.
“I think what we have here is a little fence riding,” Shelton said. “A little more stick time and you’ll be dreaming about the wonders of flight and the joys of the brotherhood of aviation.”
“And the painful results of excessive alcohol consumption, sleep deprivation, and social diseases,” the crew chief added.
Shelton and Hollister walked toward the mess hall from the chopper. Hollister took out a pack of cigarettes and offered one to Shelton, who waved his hand. “Thanks, no. I’ve had too many of those things today. I feel like I’m still wearing a chicken plate when I’m not.”
Hollister lit one and slipped the pack and lighter back into his pocket. “What do you really think about that hole in the canopy out there?”
“You mean that divot in the rough?” Shelton asked.
They both stopped to watch team members silently rappeling down the side of the tower. They made no noise except for the zipping sounds of the rope flying through the snap links on their Swiss seats, and the soles of their jungle boots tapping the wood face on the way down.
“I can get the choppers in there if you can get these kids off those strings in a hurry,” Shelton added.
Hollister didn’t reply. He watched as Camacho, Davis, and Allard put the LRPs down the rappeling wall over and over again. It was hard to climb to the top of the tower with all of their gear on, but not one LRP complained. They knew that the success of the insert hinged on their ability to get down, touch the ground, and get unhooked from the rope rapidly.
They would practice until well after midnight. Three of them would even go through a pair of rappeling gloves.
In Operations, Hollister and Shelton were drinking coffee and comparing notes on their maps when Michaelson walked in. He was fresh from the showers, wearing PT shorts and a T-shirt with a large set of master parachute wings on the front. He carried an envelope in one hand and a beer in the other. “So? What do you two think?”
“We can hover over the insert point long enough to get ’em in,” Shelton said. “But if they run into a welcoming party—we’re fucked.”
Michaelson looked to Hollister.
“I agree. We can get on the ground. As long as we’re the only ones there, it’ll be no problem.”
“How would you feel about taking a reaction force with us?”
Hollister looked back at the map and tapped a light green spot. “If we put in troops here and they weren’t too worried about security on the move, they could be to us in about thirty minutes on
a flat-out run.”
“Well, we’re going to have a full-strength infantry platoon in choppers in the air to back us up. I was able to talk Brigade into it. I’ll put them in the air near that LZ—in a high orbit.
“If you take one round of ground fire, we can put them on the ground before the last man is off the rope,” Michaelson said.
Hollister looked at Michaelson, puzzled. “Something about this mission we don’t know, sir?”
Michaelson dropped the envelope on the table.
Hollister reached in and pulled out ten large black and white photos. They had been taken the night before by an infrared reconnaissance camera from a much higher altitude than Shaw’s snapshots.
At the bend in the river that was to be the ambush site, there were four sampans loaded with boxes and containers. They were headed downstream—toward the west side of the valley.
Hollister shuffled through the photos and laid them all out on the table. In two other prints sampans were moving upstream with huge baskets on board. “Rice?” Hollister asked.
“That’s their guess,” Michaelson said. “Field Force G-2 is pretty sure that it’s weapons and gear going into the valley and rice and fruit coming out. Anybody on that river at night is up to no good.”
Hollister made a disapproving face. “Can this be another case of poachers? I’d hate to fire up some poor fucker and his family trying to make a buck.”
Michaelson reached into his trousers pocket and pulled out a small magnifying glass. He dropped it on a spot circled on one of the photos. “Poachers don’t carry those.”
Hollister picked up the photo and looked through the loupe. “Shit! RPGs. Take a look.” He handed the loupe to Captain Shelton. “At least one of ’em is carrying a loaded ChiCom grenade launcher,” Hollister said, pointing to a standing man on the bow of one of the boats.
“And it’s good enough for me,” Michaelson said.
“Let’s see—hovering over a spot where one of those fuckers can lay an RPG sight on me,” Shelton said. “And you want us to do it at night. And you want to take along a spooky grunt platoon. Yeah, that’s just about right for us. Lesser men would be worried. But then, lesser men aren’t real aviators.”
