“OK Buddha,” smiled his friend. “Number one Buddha. Number one, see.”
Larry’s eyes slid down from the object to Suwon’s arm as he pulled back his sleeve. The inside of his arm was a mass of fresh scars carved deep in the flesh.
“Suwon, what happened? Who did this to you?” Larry demanded.
“I do, I do,” Suwon laughed. “Number one Buddha. See.”
He pointed, not to the scars but to a patch of skin that was. uncut.
“What is this, Prayoun? What does he mean?”
“He means he went looking for a number one Buddha. This is his way to ensure that the Buddha is truly a number one. When he found a likely statue, he would hold it out in his hand and draw his knife across his arm. If the knife didn’t cut and his arm didn’t hurt, it was a number one Buddha. They are very rare. You see, when you wear a number one Buddha, no harm can come to you. You can’t be hurt. Suwon tested many before he found this one.”
The young Thai marveled at the little golden statue. It radiated ancient age—that and something else. It was almost as if it had a calming effect on its surroundings.
“I never thought I’d see one. See, even the chain that it is suspended from is different. It was made by the monks from an old, old pattern to honor the number one Buddha.”
Larry marveled at the intricate pattern of the chain.
Suwon gestured at Larry and smiled. Prayoun, understanding his friend, slipped the chain around Larry’s neck.
“We both want you to have this and wear it when you fly.”
They would hear nothing of his protestations.
“You are a good man, Larry, and a good friend. We can’t watch out for you like friends should when you fly. So promise that you will wear this Buddha, and we won’t worry about our friend.”
Larry was overwhelmed by the gift and by the thought. Not being a religious man or one given to belief in the supernatural, he was not convinced of the magical properties of the little statue. But, just the same, he wore the necklace out of loyal friendship. After Suwon’s painful test of the other statues, he felt he owed it to his friend. As he walked out of the restaurant, his hand automatically clutching the little idol, he didn’t even realize that he hadn’t tripped over his own feet or run into a light post.
Larry had no idea that his friends’ gift would be put to the test so soon. He quickly found out. Their next mission, to put a bridge out of commission, was north. Way north. In fact it was very near a town that started with an H and ended with a holy shit! The brass had decided that the target deserved a maximum push. Instead of making things better, that kind of mission usually made it harder to survive. It seemed like every time extra effort was used on a particular target the other side knew about it before they got there. Larry knew that Charles would be waiting with any number of surprises. He clutched the Buddha as he flew his war bird across the river.
Five miles from the bridge it seemed like everything came up to meet them. The sky had more metal in it than the ground did. Larry wouldn’t have been surprised to see the bridge coming up at him too. He put irrelevant thoughts on hold and channeled all of his mind power to avoiding death and destruction. Instinctively he worked the controls and the Thud followed his commands. He jinked and dived and rolled and swerved—always just at the right time. Several times he saw flashing explosions where he had been only a fraction of a second before. Others were not so lucky. The radio was a cacophony of noise and rage. The staccato commands of the frantic pilots rode over a monotonous warble that indicated some were forced to step from their planes. The warble was activated by ejection… or worse. This was a very bad place to get out of the airplane. Few came back from so far north.
But Larry flew through it all. He never doubted that his Thud would bring him home. He flew by feel, by touch. He avoided every piece of scrap metal the bad guys could launch. Together man and machine walked over the carpet of flak and slid through the forest of flame. SAMs seemed to lock on to him momentarily, then suddenly decide to go hunt somebody else. Antiaircraft found better targets just as Larry came within range.
Then all at once the veil of smoke lifted and the target loomed ahead. Things had been running in a kind of attenuated slow motion. Now they revved into high gear. Larry saw the bridge, he saw the bombs go, he saw the horizon tilt as he banked to the south, and he saw the missiles salvo all at once. He also saw that there was nowhere left to go. Four missiles flew by and away from Larry. He didn’t see the fifth one. It’s always the one you don’t see that gets you.
A loud clap of thunder, louder than anything he had ever heard, rang through the aircraft. The plane gained altitude in a way that it never had before. It went straight up. All further sound had ceased for Larry with that one loud clap. But he could see well enough that his bird was in trouble. It told him so. The instruments spoke to him in sign language. Every light that could change from green to red did so at once. Every gauge with movable needles demonstrated that capability. Everything else did everything that it could to indicate that things were bad. Larry held his breath and moved the controls ever so gently. They worked. He glanced through the canopy. They were still flying straight and level. It even looked like they were still heading south.
Now just a few of the indications that Larry had would mean that the Thud was about to depart controlled flight. Taken all together, the plane should have been doing its imitation of a tractor. But it continued to fly. Larry did not question it or his good fortune. He kept very still, did not think, and guided the wounded bird ever farther toward the south.
South was good. Every mile south was one more mile nearer to good guys. Larry glanced at the instrument panel. Every mile also meant one less mile he had to walk. The only gauge that was still working right was the fuel gauge. And it was only working right so that he could get the bad news. In a very short time his airplane would turn into a paperweight. Thuds do not run without fuel.
Larry scanned the area he was passing over. He seemed to be out of the target area defenses, but the jungle could hide many secrets. Before he could come to any conclusions the airplane came to one for him. It got quiet. Time to get out. Larry wrapped his right hand around the little Buddha hanging on the front of his flight suit and activated the ejection system. His final thought was Too late; too late.
Larry woke up on the ground. Cautiously he tried to assess his injuries. One as accident-prone as Larry was used to the routine. He was amazed to complete his inventory with purely positive results. He could find no broken bones or open wounds. He didn’t even have a headache. Then he saw something that chilled him to the bone. He was lying right next to the wreckage of his recently vacated flying machine. It was incredible. Even low on fuel it should have burned on impact. Larry would have burned too, sucked by the draft into the fireball. But there was no fireball. He looked at his tightly clenched fist. It was wrapped around the little Buddha. He opened his hand and stared at it. “Did you have something to do with this?“
He suddenly realized that he needed to be somewhere else fast. The wreck was sure to draw a crowd. He shucked his parachute and helmet and headed off into the jungle, his only choice of direction being away.
Before Larry knew it he was lost in deep jungle. He hoped that his trail was lost, too. He tried to remember what the intel types had told him about E and E or escape and evasion. He was supposed to follow some kind of natural feature or other. But what? He was concentrating so hard on remembering that he was three paces into knee-deep water before he knew his feet were wet.
“Oh, yeah,” he said to himself. “A river. Follow a river. They should head south.” He backed out of the water and started to crash through the underbrush next to the river.
“They also said something about a path. Maybe I should look for a path.”
He found one a few yards away, a well-traveled one. He headed along it, making better and quieter time. He rounded a bend and took a couple of steps then suddenly pitched forward facedown. He lift
ed his head from the dirt. He felt a sharp pain in his chest. He reached down and pulled out the Buddha.
“I thought you were supposed to protect me from this kind of thing.”
The Buddha just stared with its all-knowing smile. Then Larry glanced at the dirt just forward of his head. It didn’t look right. He brushed it and found that dirt and leaves had been expertly strewn over a covering of thin branches. He lifted the branches to find a three-foot-deep hole across the path. Sharpened punji sticks embedded in the bottom of the hole pointed at his face.
“I guess I was supposed to avoid the paths instead of look for them.”
He tucked the necklace back in his flight suit and tiptoed away from the path. “Sorry, little Buddha, I take it all back. You just keep doing what you’re doing.”
After what seemed like miles, Larry squatted under a giant tree. The undergrowth was dense near the roots and he figured he could take a protected break. He was about to doze off when suddenly the jungle began to dance. It was an explosion that just seemed to go on and on. It had started a couple of miles from him but it was growing in intensity. He grabbed the tree roots to hold himself in one place. The thunder kept getting closer. Finally his overtaxed brain told him what it was.
It was a Buff strike. A flight of B-52s, dropping tons of bombs in a string. A string that was heading straight toward him. And he couldn’t even let go of the tree long enough to kiss his ass good-bye.
When it seemed that he was doomed for sure, the line of bombs suddenly jinked to the west. He stared in amazement as the jungle to the side exploded, then pulled the little golden icon from his flight suit. He stared at it in wonder.
Larry had no way of knowing that the reason he wasn’t dead was that the bombardier on the last B-52 had made a serious mistake in his target coordinates, thereby saving Larry’s life probably at the expense of his career. However, even the bombardier didn’t know that his mistake had destroyed the majority of the target that the Army had requested be struck. The Army would therefore recommend that the young man be decorated at the same time that the Air Force would be trying to hang him. It was that kind of war.
Meanwhile back in the jungle, Larry had just about recovered the use of his ears and his legs. And he knew roughly where he was. Their squadron had been warned about the impending Buff strike. Intel had found out about a concentration of VC who were massing to penetrate the Thai border. That was good news and bad news for Larry. It meant that he was near the border to friendly territory. But he was there at the worst possible time, right at rush hour for the bad guys.
Then he heard it. Movement. A lot of it. Near him. It sounded like a large group of people moving through the jungle. Larry didn’t know whether to run or hide. So, being Larry, he tried to do them both at once. He took off running while looking left and right for a place to hide. He ran right into a solid object and sat down suddenly. He looked up to see what he had hit this time, and stared into the eyes of a short man. A short man wearing the latest in basic black. A short man with a very big gun. The man was as startled as Larry. He quickly recovered and pointed his rifle at Larry’s head while he called out in another language. Larry was rapidly surrounded by several more short men, all with very big guns. They all seemed to be very excited about Larry. They gestured for him to do something. He didn’t know exactly what they wanted him to do but he could tell that if he didn’t do it immediately, they would all shoot him with their big guns. Larry smiled and raised his hands. This was not what they wanted him to do. The leader raised his gun to fire at a stunned and uncomprehending Larry. Larry closed his eyes tight and waited for death. When it didn’t come, he squinted one eye open.
The leader had lowered his gun and was staring at Larry’s chest. Larry looked down. The VC was looking at the Buddha. After a minute of intense scrutiny, the leader said something to his companions. Larry watched as they all filed by to look at the Buddha. After only a cursory look they each faded into the jungle. The leader looked for a minute longer, then raised his eyes to Larry’s. He shook his head in disgust and followed his men into the jungle.
After a couple of minutes Larry was able to get his mouth closed again. He had ceased to marvel at his luck. He jumped to his feet, and started running in the direction opposite to the one that the VC had taken. He rounded a tree and skidded to a halt in horror. He was face-to-face with a demented demon. He heard a ting and glanced down. The biggest knife he had ever seen had just glanced off the Buddha and sliced through the chain like it was butter. Larry fainted.
He came to as the result of a couple of sharp slaps to his cheeks. The demon was standing over him. It grinned.
“Lieutenant, you must be the luckiest man in the world.”
The demon introduced himself. He was an Army special forces major. The demonic mask was camouflage paint intended to break up the planes of the face and scare the daylights out of young Air Force types.
“We did not come here to rescue you. We’ve been tracking that squad of gooks. They’re a nasty bunch. Their job is to sneak around and kill any villagers that they think are too friendly with us. They just wiped out an entire village. We saw them grab you but couldn’t do anything about it. Our orders are to watch them, not fight them.”
“Come on, let’s get you out of here.” The major pulled Larry to his feet. “Unless you want to spend some more time running around in the jungle.
As they moved out, the major looked back at Larry.
“Why did they let you go, do you think?”
“Probably because of my Bu…” Larry reached for his necklace to show the major. It was gone. The major’s knife had cut the chain, and now the little number one Buddha was lost forever in the dense jungle undergrowth.
“Probably because of my natural good luck,” Larry finished the sentence.
The special forces team was still confused after delivering Larry to his unit. He had tripped over, run into, and crashed into everything and everyone in that section of Southeast Asia.
As Larry waved from the door (and slammed his hand against a metal fitting) of the aircraft sent to return him to the flying base, he saw the major shake his head in disbelief. He knew what the major was thinking.
He was thinking, Now I know for sure what they mean by Dumb Luck.
And somewhere, in a hidden patch of jungle, an exhausted little gold idol was settling in for a much-needed rest.
STUDENT GHOST
UNTIL I went to live and work at a pilot training a I base I never imagined the impact of the training. We used to laugh about what we called students’ disease. It seemed like the studs couldn’t walk down stain without an instructor to tell them how. Many times we’d see a student walk right in front of a car without even noticing. It was just that they were totally and completely focused on the instruction. It became the most important thing in their lives. It became life itself. Those who succeeded got wings. Those who failed lost a part of themselves. Some refused to acknowledge failure regardless of the evidence.
An Air Force base has a feeling, a flavor. It is the basic character of the place and it’s usually more intense than any civilian arena. Sometimes it takes a while to gauge the character of a base. You have to walk around, join in, be a member before you can taste the flavor. It’s usually a gradual thing. Nothing really hits you in the face. It develops over time.
It has to do with the goal of the base, the reason that the base is there. It has to do with the people who work there and pursue that goal. It has to do with direction and guidance or, in some cases, the lack of it. It’s usually pervasive, camouflaged by business as usual. But it is persuasive also. By the time you can touch it and taste it and define it, you’re part of it.
It wasn’t that way at Williams Air Force Base in Arizona. The guiding force at Willy grabbed you by the neck and dragged you in the minute you crossed the fence. It pulled you directly to the flight line and wrapped its arm around your shoulder and pointed with pride to the noisy ramp and said loud and cle
ar, “Here We Train Pilots!”
Everyone on the base was caught up in the mission and goal of the base. They all trained pilots. Willy boasted the best weather, the best instructors, the biggest student load, the busiest ramp, and the most-crowded skies of any base in the world. It was kind of the big-mouthed Texas of Air Force bases.
With three runways and a huge ramp, the air traffic never stopped. Unlike most fields, where an approach to the main runway could be discontinued anywhere, if you were established on final ten miles from the main runway at Willy, you were either going to fly over the runway or land. There was no place else to go. Hopefully, if you chose to land, it would be on the runway. But that wasn’t always a given.
Pilot training at Willy was known as the “year of fifty-one weeks.” The base had only fifty-one weeks to turn a ground pounder into a flyer. The base also had roughly fifty-three weeks of training built into the syllabus. So somewhere along the way they crammed in those extra two weeks.
The students referred to it more as the day of twenty-seven hours. Pilot training was grueling. There was no time to relax or digest what was being taught. Classroom academics were taught in a style known as the Guillotine Method. Every day in every class you were required to put it on the line. You had to prove yourself worthy to hold the title of pilot. Each day brought more tests. And the tests were handled in a unique fashion. No open book, true-false, multiple guess with plenty of time to think. These were on your feet in your face interrogation tests with lots of derision and sarcasm to help you along. The instructors were not the kind and gentle old “Mr. Chips” type. They evolved more from the teaching techniques of Attila the Hun. Torquemada would have been pleased to know that the Spanish Inquisition lived on in the hearts and minds of flight instructors.
The Instructor
“I taught academics at Willy—several different classes. I know what kind of pressure is generated and I firmly believe in this method of teaching. I mean, we were trying to teach pilots here. We had to ensure that they knew the airplane and everything about flying it. They couldn’t hesitate. They couldn’t wait for something to come back to them. They had to know it cold, or somebody would die.
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