LBJ's Hired Gun

by John J. Gebhart

  I climbed out on the skid again with the rocket head in my hand. I hung over the side and the Major gently flew the bird on its right side. Thank God once again I had my gunner belt on, or I would have fallen off the skid. I saw a small wooden bridge coming up and decided to blow it up. I jokingly said, “Bombardier to pilot, preparing to release!” and dropped the bomb load. It blew a huge hole in the wooden bridge and, believe it or not, set off a hidden mine that the VC had rigged to it. I climbed back into the chopper and the whole crew congratulated me for my low-level bombing mission.

  Every time you were out on the chopper you earned one point toward your air medal. After 20 missions you were awarded the medal, which is about the sixth or seventh highest one you can get. If some VC or NVC shot at your chopper, it was called a strike, and you got two points toward your air medal, so the name of the game was to get a strike every time you went out. But some days the zips took time off, or were too busy digging tunnels to shoot at us. This pissed off people in the gunbirds because it meant a wasted day—no dead VCs to put on the squadron chalkboard, no excitement, and wasted JP-fuel for nothing. Total sightseeing boredom!

  I got my 20 missions and was awarded my own Air Crewman Flight Wings. Only a few enlisted people had these on their utilities uniforms. When I went to the chow hall I really felt proud. Being a gunner was like being a gladiator in ancient Rome. When other Marines were filling sandbags, building bunkers and fixing helicopters, we were lying on the beach and drinking beer. First Sergeant Doright was pissed I hadn’t been killed yet, and even hated me more now that I was good friends with Major Moose, who didn’t like him either.

  THE HOLY MAN

  The Marines had many operations in the Chu Lai area. They usually inserted a Force Recon team a week ahead of time to observe from some hill what was going on in the valley or local area. Then they determined how many Marine units it would take to wipe the VC and NVA out. It was all figured out down to the last helicopters. They also figured the avenue of escape, and inserted a blocking unit to screw up the retreating VCs. Each operation got a name like “Hasting,” “Pierce Fire,” or “Utah,” and on paper looked like a well thought-out plan of attack.

  What the Marines failed to take into consideration was that a lot of the enemy were hiding underground and came out only at night, so you never really knew how many there were. By day you saw women, old men and kids in the villages. These same people were VCs at night. It was “Marines number one!” during the day, and after dark, “You die, Marine! You number ten! Fuck you, Marines!” These were the same people we gave soap to, whose bad teeth we fixed, and whose children and elderly and sick we provided with medical care. We were instructed to win their hearts and minds. Total bullshit! The Marines soon learned that the whole I-Corps area of responsibility in Vietnam was loaded with smiling, lying VC wastes who wanted only to kill or maim us with their endless hidden mines.

  On one operation, while I was working on my second air medal, we escorted troop-carrying CH-34 choppers into an LZ. We sent out four gunbirds, and two of them shot up all the tree lines, bushes, and hills surrounding the landing zone. The grunts took no fire and soon the LZ was filled with Marines, C-rations, ammo and water cans. The Marines moved out in company strength to their objective, a village complex across open rice paddies in an area in a valley surrounded by hills. We flew over every hill as low as 50 feet looking for VC. We couldn’t find any enemies to shoot, and it started to get boring and routine.

  All of a sudden, mortar fire started raining down on the Marines from who knows where. It was very accurate and a lot of Marines were killed or wounded in a matter of a few minutes. We flew from hill to hill and I looked through my binoculars, but I saw nothing. The Marines stopped their advance and hid behind the dikes separating the rice paddies. They then took sniper fire from the village, which quickly escalated to automatic weapons fire. The Marines were pinned down, and the VCs were walking mortar rounds into their positions. Somewhere there was a spotter with a radio calling the mortar adjustment to the mortar team, but where?

  We received an urgent request for immediate help with Med-Evacs for their wounded and dead, and especially in finding the mortars and destroying them. Finally, we saw an old man reading a prayer book on top of one of the larger hills. We hovered 20 feet over his head and the back blast from our UH-IE knocked off his hat. I put the field glass on him, and he looked like an old holy man reading his Buddhist prayer book.

  I thought it rather odd that this old guy had walked all the way from the village up this hill. He seemed too old for the four-to five-mile walk, but maybe he liked to pray in silence. Corporal Cross looked at him, pulled the bolt back on his M-60, and shot the old man dead, wasting a complete 100-round belt of 7.62 NATO tracers. He turned this holy man into a soup sandwich that rolled down the hill, leaving a bloody trail of arms, legs, guts, and brain matter. I was so pissed he murdered the holy man, I pulled out my MP Model .38 pistol and put it to his head. I wanted to shoot him dead. Major Moose looked surprised about the whole thing and told me not to shoot Corporal Cross. He probably had a good reason to waste the gook.

  I put my pistol back in its holster and stood there in complete and total disbelief. All of a sudden, the mortar fire became very inaccurate and then it finally stopped. We took a quick ride out to the village complex to see about the automatic fire and spotted a group of VC running into a bombed-out Catholic Church that the French had probably built for them. We made a rocket attack on the church, one gunbird after another, and the VC ran out like rats in a junkyard. We went down low and shot the hell out of them. Four gunbirds can do a lot of damage. While we were working over the village, we called Land Shark Alpha for Med-Evac choppers and four more gunbirds to escort them in and prepare the LZ again so the wounded could be taken out without being wounded again.

  We had a rather enjoyable time destroying this village. The more we shot down at them, the more the VC shot back. Major Moose decided it was urban renewal time. We called in Oxwood F-4 Phantoms and napalmed the VC-infested village back to the Stone Age where it belonged. There was nothing above ground alive when we got done. You could smell the burning bodies of the dead VC/NVAs. I really do love the smell of napalm. The ground Marines finally could stand up and relax. They gathered their dead and wounded and then went about looking for booby traps and mines, which they found on every dike, trail, and almost every swinging gate in the village.

  We flew around the LZ until the Marines got the wounded out. We watched from above, looking at the huge burning mess that was once a village, as the Marines bagged and tagged their dead. We escorted the CH-34 chopper back to the Army Evacuation Hospital at Chu Lai and then landed. I was still pissed at Corporal Cross and we cleaned our M-60s in silence and put them in the Ordnance shack.

  Our Colonel heard the whole story from Major Moose, and caught me coming from the chow hall. He said, “PFC Gebhart, I got interesting news for you.” Third Battalion, 9th Marines had called Land Shark and reported they had found a hidden US prick radio next to what was left of the holy man. He was actually a VC General who had been calling in mortar adjustments from his hilltop prayer spot. Corporal Cross was being recommended for a Bronze Star for his unselfish devotion to duty in killing the holy man and saving hundreds of lives. The Colonel said he needed my statement about what had happened, and to tell it exactly as it occurred, even the part when I wanted to shoot Corporal Cross. I was dumbfounded that the Colonel took the time to look me up and personally tell me this.

  I immediately went looking for Corporal Cross to apologize. He wasn’t in the Enlisted Men’s Club or in his hootch. I finally found him sitting on a rock overlooking the beach, writing a letter to his wife. I shook his hand and told him I was a total asshole for wanting to shoot him. I also told him the Colonel was putting him in for a Bronze Star. I borrowed some of his writing paper and sat down next to him and wrote up the story as the Colonel requested. We both laughed and Corporal Cross said it took a big guy to a
pologize. I said, “I am sorry that I’m the nickie new guy gunner, and I dared to question a crew chief with so many air medals he’s forgotten how many he has!”

  I told him I was working on my second air medal, and he laughed and said, “By the time you get ten, you’ll finally understand by basic gut instinct what the fuck the VC are up to!” As the missions went by, I did get the gut impression of what the zips were up to, and how to react instantly without being ordered. He was right again!

  TWO-SHOT CHU LAI CHARLIE

  At the very beginning of the Chu Lai runway, which was miles long, there lived a local VC who always took two shots at low-flying helicopters. He never hit anything because they went by too fast, but he tried. I think his job was to harass our choppers. On slow days, this VC was a bonus to our Path of Glory. We would fly in low and he would shoot at our gunbird, which meant we could mark the mission down as a strike, thus getting us two points toward our air medals. Since it was almost on the Marine’s runway, we wouldn’t shoot back. We got a lot of bonus points from flying over his hidden position, and we let only a few people know where he hid out, so he wouldn’t get himself killed.

  One day, a Second Lieutenant from 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, Charlie Company, somehow heard about Two-Shot Charlie. He was a Joe football hero Marine poster child, a total gung-ho asshole. He came to our squadron with his driver and hopped out of his jeep wearing new starched utilities and a starched hat bent in typical USMC grunt tradition. We gave him a half-assed salute. He said he wanted a complete military salute, so we gave him the standard Parris Island 45-degree-angle hand salute. This made him happy.

  He went into our ready room and wanted to know the exact position of Two-Shot Charlie. We had our tactical maps on the wall, with the big map marked with red dots where we had taken fire. There were big AA symbols if the zips shot anti-aircraft .51-caliber guns at us. He studied the map, and looked at his local map, trying to fix the zip’s position. He then asked Major Moose why we hadn’t blasted the VC to Kingdom Come. Major Moose responded that he was too close to our lines and we might endanger our troops. No one was about to tell the Second Lieutenant this VC was a bonus for us on slow days. He was almost a part-time employee of our squadron.

  The Second Lieutenant said he would get this zip if it killed him. He took a whole company of Charlie Company grunts to beat the bushes at the end of the runway for our part-time sniper. After being hunted for two weeks, Two-Shot Charlie must have gotten scared and moved. And so Second Lieutenant Waste, as we shall now call him, ruined our race for air medals. We now had to fly lower and stir up more shit. The smart zips wouldn’t shoot at a gunbird, because they knew it would be curtains for them. Thus we had to get into more landing zone preparation and recon extraction missions to earn more points.

  Our private VC didn’t shoot at us for two months. We really started feeling sorry for him, and hoped Lieutenant Waste hadn’t wasted him. A few times we even flew at 50 feet off the ground to draw fire, but there was nothing but total silence. Then one day, about nine weeks after Second Lieutenant Waste had left the area with his company of riflemen to fight in a real operation, we were flying home listening to Armed Forces radio when low and behold, there were two quick shots at our chopper. We were overjoyed that Two-Shot Charlie was back from vacation, and Second Lieutenant Waste hadn’t killed him. We were back in the strike business again. Hallelujah!

  THE KGB SPY

  Sudden Death, a Force Recon unit, was inserted early one morning on a hill in the middle of nowhere. Two CH-34 choppers took them in, and my outfit, Klondike, flew escort. If the LZ was hot, we were on hand to shoot the shit out of it with rockets and machine gun fire and get them out. The recon insertion went as planned, and we returned to base and were on emergency standby in case they ran into VCs or NVA.

  The Recon unit leader called in to Landshark Alpha that they had found something very unusual. The Force Recon team called their base. All of a sudden Third Marine Division, Wing Headquarters, Marine Air Group 36 and everyone else were wondering what the recon unit had found. Since the radios were being monitored by English-speaking NVA/VC, Wing called down for us to return and land at the recon LZ and await further orders. Hush! Hush!

  We loaded up and headed back to the LZ, not knowing what to expect. The Major said they had found a lost tribe of Vietnamese. Captain Adventure said, “I bet they found hidden French gold.” Sure! Corporal Cross said, “I hope we aren’t wasting valuable fuel, and causing needless wear and tear on Lucky #7.” I said, “Maybe they’ve found dinosaur bones, which are worth a lot of money to buy more helicopters.” By the time we got there, everyone and his mother had landed in the LZ. The Recon team leader looked relaxed and very happy with whatever he had found. There was a Captain from Group-16 Marble Mountain S-2 Intelligence, and three guys in Hawaiian shirts with small .38 Colt detective specials who had come in an Air America Huey.

  What the hell was going on? It turned out that the Recon team had landed on this hill overlooking villages and endless rice paddies and run into a civilian armed with a J.C. Higgins .22 rifle. Corporal Cross said he probably was out squirrel hunting, except none of us had ever seen a squirrel in Vietnam. Next we were told this civilian was a KGB agent, so we’d better watch what we said in front of him. There were to be no pictures. It was a top-secret mission. Sure!

  We walked over and what did we see but a five-foot-six-inch white dude named Gene Guy. He told the three guys with the .38 Colt detective specials that he was from White Fish, Montana, and showed them his Montana driver’s license. Neither the civilians, the CIA agents, nor the secret agent from the American Embassy believed a word of it. They ran his name through their special radio scrambler and tried to confirm his real identity. The CIA wanted the Recon unit to guard him while they looked around his campsite, so we all took a walk around the area. We found one Sears Roebuck tent and a Coleman propane stove with no more fuel. We looked over his J.C. Higgins semi-auto rifle. He had two bricks of .22 hollow point ammo. The CIA guys said, “That proves he is a spy for sure! Everything this man owns comes from Sears or Montgomery Ward.”

  Mr. Guy lit up a small Clint Eastwood cigar and related a great story worthy of any Viking saga told down through the ages. His brother and he had gone down to enlist in the Marines at Kalispell, Montana. His brother was accepted, but he was rejected because he weighed only 145 pounds and had a couple of fingers missing on his left hand from a tractor accident. His brother was killed near Da Nang in a search and destroy mission, and he had to avenge his brother’s untimely death. So he sold his pick-up and horse trailer, gave his favorite horse to his girlfriend, and flew to Okinawa as a tourist. He then used his dead brother’s military ID and went shopping at the PXs on Okinawa, where he got his camping equipment, rifle and ammo.

  He then took a taxi to the docks at Na Ha and purchased a ticket on a tramp steamer headed for Da Nang with a JP-4 fuel delivery. He kept his mouth shut, and at Da Nang he got a trip to shore, got out his National Geographic map of Vietnam, and grabbed a local bus to the farthest village stop. How he even stayed alive outside of Da Nang armed with a .22 rifle, a Bowie knife and a hand-forged tomahawk made by a Crow Indian in Montana is a miracle. God and Odin both were watching out for this 145-pound, five-foot six-inch killing machine from White Fish, Montana. He backpacked his shit up into the foothills and simply disappeared. He had a few books on survival, a week’s worth of Campbell’s soup, and cans of Chef Boyardee macaroni and spaghetti. He found a secluded spot off a trail and set up his Sears tent and began hunting down VCs.

  He wore a green T-shirt and regular Lee dungarees. He said he had lain low, like he was out groundhog hunting, and eventually two VC complete with SKS carbines and backpacks came diddy bopping down the bunny trail. He shot one guy in the left eye and killed him dead on the spot, but he hit the second VC only in the ear. The VC opened up with his SKS carbine but, since Mr. Gene Guy, our KGB spy, was lying low, the bullets went over his head. He had a Weaver scope on the
.22 rifle. He aimed again and hit the zip in the mouth, which knocked out his front teeth, but still didn’t completely kill him. The VC was half dead, flopping around like a shark in a fishing boat. Finally he stabbed him through the heart with his Bowie knife. Since Mr. Guy was only five-foot-six and 145 pounds, this fight was almost even.

  For each VC he killed, he dug a grave and said the Lord’s Prayer. He said he was a mountain man from Montana, but he wasn’t a heathen devil. He had been raised properly and knew the Good Book. He took each dead VC’s gun, food and rice. After three weeks, his small graveyard had 17 crosses. He still used his .22 because it made very little noise, but he also carried a MAT-49 French submachine gun in case he ran into any real problems.

  The two CIA smartasses finally got word that he was for real and that his brother had been killed near Da Nang. They wanted to fly him to Saigon and debrief him—in short, tell him never to tell his story again because it might embarrass the US government. Maybe other mountain men would come and fight on their own, God forbid! The embassy snob said, “I speak for the State Department, and he is going to see the inside of a federal jail! If we don’t keep this secret, every malcontent in the USA will be over here shooting VC and NVA, and pretty soon we will have mercenaries and bands of warriors fighting their own wars.”

  By this time, the Marine Recon team, Sudden Death, was tired of all the bullshit and asked the Captain from G-2 Wing Intelligence if they could borrow Mr. Guy and use him as a civilian scout with their various teams. He was a born tracker. The G-2 guy didn’t know what to do with our happy camper. Meanwhile, Mr. Guy told us his name was from an old French fur trader and mountain man. It was also said in Montana that his brother could track a grizzly across solid rock by his smell.