Nam-A-Rama

by Phillip Jennings

  “Papa Tango Three Six, you back there?” Gearheardt radioed on the squadron channel.

  “I’m right behind you, Two Two. Are we lost yet?”

  The rain was not heavy but it made it more difficult to see anything on the ground. We had instructions to basically follow the Qui Nhon highway (which we couldn’t see) until we intersected the 245-degree radial off of the Chu Lai ADF. The battle should then be underneath us.

  “Monitor Guard on the UHF, Jack. We’ll use 131.8 on the squadron radio.”

  I clicked my radio twice to acknowledge that I understood.

  “Three Six, I’m going to turn on my running lights. I know you’re blind as a bat, but try to keep me in sight.”

  “How do you intend to find the LZ, Two Two?” I asked on 131.8.

  “Jack, there’s nothing out here that’s over a hundred feet until we get ten miles inland. If we hit a mountain, we’ve gone too far.”

  “Two Two, watch out flying over Pigville. They’re sure to lob a few rounds up at us.”

  A few days before, Gearheardt had been taking a four-hundred-pound sow to a village on behalf of the USAID folks operating in the area. The animal had broken loose in the chopper, and Gearheardt gave the word to boot it out before it ran back into the tail cone of the aircraft and caused severe control problems. They were at five hundred feet.

  “I was right behind him when that pig went out,” Johnson had related in the officers’ club tent that night. He had been flying wing on Gearheardt. “Man, those little pig feet were a blur. Count on Gearheardt though. The thing made a perfect arc down to the ground. Right in the center of the village.”

  Gearheardt had been unchagrinned. “I normally prefer a lower level pig launch,” he explained to the beer-chugging pilots in the tent. “The forward speed of the pig will cause it to bounce along the ground before it explodes. You can skip it right into the mouth of a VC cave if you practice. We had a lot of experience in the Boar War.”

  “Papa Tango Lead, you read Cricket on Guard?” said a calm and collected voice.

  “Hello, Cricket, I read you. How’re things at ten thousand feet?” Gearheardt answered.

  “Is this Gearheardt?” the overhead command ship asked.

  “The one and only, Cricket. You got me on your scope?”

  “We have you and your wingman about five clicks east of the LZ. Say your altitude.”

  “Two Two and Papa Tango Three Six are at one thousand feet, Cricket. You got any help for me down here, or are you just cruising for chicks?”

  “Two Two, be advised that the dinks are over-running the LZ. Too close for any air support, Gearheardt. You still planning on going in?”

  “Does the pope shit in the woods, Cricket?”

  A new voice on the radio broke in. “Two Two, this is Playboy Lead. You read?”

  “Now the Army wants in on the act! I read you, Playboy. What’s your position?”

  “We’re just lifted off of Qui Nhon, Two Two. Be there in about five.”

  The Playboy aircraft were Army gunships, sent up from Saigon to support our squadron at Qui Nhon, as the Marine Corps was woefully short of attack choppers. They were good guys—crappy pilots, but fearless.

  I had little to do but try to keep Gearheardt’s running lights in sight. It struck me that the United States had about twenty million dollars worth of aircraft and half a dozen flight crews heading out to try to rescue wounded Americans. I prayed that Gearheardt, at center stage, wouldn’t attempt a suicide mission, that he wouldn’t be shot down if he did, and that I wouldn’t have to go in and try to get him out if he was shot down. I decided to let God try to figure out whether I was on the right track or not with the prayers. I left it to him to deal with the guys in the landing zone.

  “Three Six, you read Playboy?” Gearheardt asked me on the squadron channel.

  “I read him, Two Two. I think I see him hauling ass up behind us. Two of them. You taking them down with you?”

  “I would imagine I couldn’t stop them. Medal-hungry assholes. You just keep me in sight, and if I can’t get out of the zone, try to come in and get the wounded. If we can make it over to your chopper, we will. But get the Special Forces guys.”

  I clicked my squadron radio twice.

  I began to worry about finding the battle zone in the rain and clouds (at least I told myself I was worrying about it), when I saw the parachute flares ahead of us.

  “There they be, Three Six. See the flares? Let’s go down to five hundred feet. We can keep them in sight now. Playboy, you caught up?”

  “I’m just above you, Two Two. We’ll head on and take a closer look.”

  I saw them then. Two Huey gunships, rockets and M-60 machine guns mounted on their sides. They pulled ahead and descended below us.

  “Cricket, Papa Tango Two Two. We have the LZ in sight. Tell Laura I love her.”

  “Two Two, say again the last.”

  “Never mind, Cricket. Hang around up there until we’re out of the LZ. We may need help finding the medical ship.”

  We had been instructed to take the wounded offshore to the Navy hospital ship when we got them out of the LZ. I didn’t want to think about finding it and landing on it at night. I was sure Gearheardt was looking forward to it. He had never landed on it without claiming engine trouble so that he could stay on board and try to screw the nurses.

  “Three Six, let’s go down to a hundred fifty feet. I’m turning left here so just stay with me. I’m going up on the HF to try to get someone on the ground talking to me.” He paused, his radio still on and hissing. “Not much trouble finding the zone, is there?”

  The battle was not difficult to keep in sight. In addition to the flares being dropped continuously over the area by Air Force aircraft, there were numerous explosions and hundreds of tracers crisscrossing what must have been the commander’s headquarters. My HF radio was not working, so I concentrated on following Gearheardt’s aircraft as he descended in a tight left turn.

  He came back up on the squadron channel.

  “Good news, Three Six. The bad guys haven’t overrun the zone yet. We can still get in and out if we come in from the north and go out the same way. Most of the enemy troops are attacking from the south. Good deal, huh?”

  I clicked my radio again. Damned Gearheardt.

  “The Playboy ships are about to take a quick pass over the zone. If they can find a spot they’ll bend back around and lead me in. Laying some rocket fire on the south. Sound okay?”

  “Two Two, just let me say for sanity’s sake, that this zone is way, way too hot for you to get in and out of. We all want to save those guys, but we’ve got our own crew to think of. Take a look over there. That zone looks like a two-sided firing range on Uncle Sam’s birthday. When the Playboys get—”

  “Oh, Three Six, they have four more badly wounded Special Forces guys. I can’t get all of them. You come in right behind me. That’s better than trying to go in one at a time, don’t you think?”

  Damned Gearheardt!

  “Two Two, this is Playboy, we just came out of the zone. I only took about twenty or thirty hits.” He laughed and I knew it was that damned Capt. Vance—crazy as a loon, crazier than Gearheardt. “My wingman, the pussy, had a chunk of his cockpit shot off, and he’s headed back to Qui Nhon. I’ll hang here with you and lead you in. Come in from the north and as hot as you can manage. You’ll never be able to turn around in the zone, so just take off straight ahead. I’ll try to keep their heads down.”

  “Playboy lead, any chance of getting more gunships out here?”

  At least Gearheardt had a tiny lick of sense.

  “What for?” Vance, the dope, would always prefer solo performances. It kept the medal count up.

  “Let’s go, Jack. You got me in sight?”

  I clicked again. On the aircraft intercom I checked with my crew.

  “You guys set? Probably can’t use the guns once we get down close to the ground. At least the mortar fire is lighting up
the area. We should get three guys. Stay in the ship if you possibly can, Gunny. If you have to get out to help them load, tell me and then hit my leg when we’re ready to lift off. All set.”

  “Fuck me,” was all I heard, I think from the corporal who was the side gunner. Lieutenant Brown, beside me in the cockpit, was bouncing his knee up and down with an increasing rhythm. He clicked his intercom, looking straight ahead.

  “Hit the lights,” I said to him. He dimmed the instrument panel lights and checked to see that the running lights were off. There was no need to advertise our position on the way in.

  We circled far to the north of the battle and went to treetop level, keeping our speed at about ninety knots. It was dark below us, but the fighting ahead kept the cockpit lighted. Brown adjusted his shoulder straps. I pulled the clear Plexiglas visor down over my face.

  Ahead of me I could see the outline of Gearheardt’s aircraft against the light of the battle, and ahead of him a shape that was the Playboy gunship. When I saw the rockets leave the pods on the side of the gunship, I knew that we were approaching the zone. Tracers began appearing from the darkness between Gearheardt and the landing zone. They came up in graceful, swooping arcs, curving away and behind us as we sped by. The crack of small arms fire and the thump of larger machine guns now began to grow louder.

  “About ten seconds, Jack,” I heard Gearheardt say. We usually abandoned the call signs when the two of us were on a mission together. It saved just a split second of thinking time.

  I heard the first round hit my aircraft and began my trick of counting them. Simple thinking told me that any round that I could hear hit us wasn’t one that would kill me. Then the next rounds hit, two and three, quickly together. As I saw Gearheardt begin to flare his helicopter to slow for landing, the rounds began hitting my aircraft in bursts that took away a large part of my ability to think. I heard the gunny shout something on the intercom, and Brown jumped as a round came through the windscreen and smashed the first aid kit between us. I felt a sharp pain on my neck.

  The gunny was shouting almost continuously now and I made out that our gunner had been shot in the stomach. I raised the nose of the aircraft to bleed off airspeed as we came over the trees at the edge of the landing zone. Gearheardt had come to a stop in front of me and I had to adjust at the last moment to keep from hitting his aircraft with my rotor blades. I touched down roughly.

  “Get ‘em in! Get ’em in, Gunny!” I shouted, not using the intercom. The radios were all but useless as everyone was screaming at once. The mortar barrage, which had let up, now began in earnest, and explosions walked across the zone in front of me. I heard and felt the blasts. Outside of the helicopter, scores of troops swarmed, hunched close to the ground. The light of the flares and explosions put everything into silhouette.

  “Skipper,” the gunny called on the intercom, “they’ve got to bring the wounded over here. It’s going to take a couple of minutes. What do you want me to do? There’s a shit-pot full of ARVNs trying to get on board.”

  “Keep ’em off, Gunny! Do what you have to do!” The Army of the Republic of Vietnam had an aversion to dying unequaled in Southeast Asia.

  We sat in the zone with the war going on around us. A bullet or shrapnel clanged through the aircraft about every ten seconds. Only a few in the cockpit, as the enemy, blessedly, normally aimed for the bulk of the bird, behind the cockpit. I saw Gearheardt’s crew chief on the ground beside his aircraft, trying to help lift a stretcher into the cabin. He went down on one knee as a black spot appeared on his thigh, then recovered and helped a shirtless soldier with a head bandage climb up also.

  “Where are those fucking guys, Gunny?”

  “The sergeant says to wait one, Skipper.”

  “How’s Porter?” I yelled.

  There was a pause. “Not good, sir.”

  Porter was the gunner. A pudgy kid from Nebraska.

  An American soldier climbed up the side of the aircraft and grabbed my arm through the cockpit window. He leaned his mouth dose to the side of my helmet.

  “Thanks!” he shouted. He gave a thumbs up with his free hand.

  “Jump in,” I shouted. “Let’s get you guys out of here before the ARVN bolt!”

  He leaned closer. “Can you move over toward that treeline?” he yelled. “The guys you need to load are there. We’re having to drag them. Can’t stand up. You get zapped.”

  I looked where he was pointing, about twenty yards away. It was closer to the treeline, where most of the small arms fire was coming from.

  “Okay,” I shouted to him. “Get some fire going—”

  The soldier shrugged. “Get my wounded out. We’ll be okay.” Or something that sounded like that. He jumped back to the ground.

  I pulled the chopper into a hover about five feet above the ground and moved sideways across the zone, thankful for something to do. Two more brilliant flares popped open above me, relighting the zone.

  My downdraft blew the cover off of a line of dead soldiers. The light so bright there was no shading in the zone. White or black. The soldiers looked eerie. Black eyeholes and bloodless faces. They were all Vietnamese.

  When we sat back down, I could hear the rounds hitting the sides of the aircraft again. A bullet came through the cockpit and Brown and I both jumped back. I heard or felt it passing.

  “Skipper,” the gunny shouted into the intercom, “Porter’s bleeding to death! Gutshot, sir!”

  He wanted me to do something.

  Goddam it! I wasn’t the one fucking around trying to get the wounded over to the aircraft! Goddam it! What the hell was I supposed to do!

  I keyed the intercom mike. “Does everyone have their head up their ass? They knew we were coming for these guys!”

  The gunny, I assumed, clicked his intercom mike.

  A blast landed between Gearheardt’s aircraft and mine, and I looked across Brown to see if Gearheardt was still in one piece. I saw him looking back at me, his face a black place inside his hardhat.

  “This is the shits, isn’t it?” I heard him say to me on the squadron channel.

  “They’re in! They’re in! Go! Go! Go!” The gunny was slapping my leg from below.

  I called Gearheardt. “We’re all set. Let’s get the fuck out of here!”

  As Gearheardt lifted from his spot and lowered his nose to gain airspeed, he answered, “Now Jack, is that the kind of language that your mother would wo—Oh shit!”

  I saw his aircraft lurch up as a mortar exploded underneath. The small arms fire begin to pound my aircraft again as I climbed to where more of the enemy could see me. I pulled hard right to avoid running into Gearheardt and then we were in darkness again, the light and tracers now coming from behind us.

  “You okay, Gearheardt?”

  “I got red and yellow lights all over the damn place, but I’m running fine. How about you?” We leveled at five hundred feet and Gearheardt turned on his running lights.

  “Porter is hit. Bad. The aircraft is okay.”

  “You want to go to Charlie med”—the medical unit near Qui Nhon—“or out to the ship?”

  “I’ve got two head wounds, a spine shot, and the gunny is holding Porter’s guts in. Let’s head for the hospital ship.”

  “You go ahead in. My guys can wait. Another minute or two won’t matter.” He switched to UHF. “Cricket, you read Papa Tango Lead?”

  “We read you, Papa Tango. We are to advise you that Backbiter Six says to not, repeat not land in the zone to pick up the wounded. You copy?”

  After a moment, Gearheardt replied. “These guys are going to be awfully disappointed that I have to take them back and drop them off, Cricket. Could you pass on a message from me to Backbiter Six? Tell that dumb cock—”

  “Drop it, Gearheardt.” I needed the channel. “Cricket, we’d like to have a heading for the Hope. And we need it right now.”

  The drop of the wounded on the USS Hope was as uneventful as a night landing on the back of a small bouncing pla
tform can be. Gearheardt actually did have engine problems and spent the rest of the night aboard the ship. Porter was dead when we offloaded him, but the Special Forces guys were all still alive.

  My co-pilot, Lieutenant Brown, turned in his wings the next day. I had not realized that the mission was his very first in Vietnam. It was just too much for him, he said. Strangely, no one razzed him. I felt bad for him, knowing that I should have communicated more with him in the cockpit, given him something to do.

  The gunny spent the morning washing the blood out of the cabin, even though his rank would have excused him from that chore. I hung around the aircraft for a while also, having trouble letting go.

  Gearheardt came back from the hospital ship the next afternoon. I expected him to have lurid tales to tell. But he didn’t tell them.

  “Not a lot of sex available there, Jack Couple of cute corpsmen, but the women docs were bitches. They had locked up the nurses before I landed.” He smiled, and I wasn’t sure which parts of the story to believe. He went on. “So I went to the radio room and called the Prez.”

  “About our mission?”

  “Naw, just to shoot the shit about football. Of course it was about the mission, Jack. That damn Brit didn’t clear up anything, and the squadron keeps getting more suspicious. We need to move things along.”

  “And there are those nights like—”

  “Yeah, I knew you’d say that, Jack. We gotta stop this shit or we’re going to get creamed.”

  That evening I faced what all of the officers dreaded, and usually passed off to someone in the squadron administration—the letter to the parents or wife, the next of kin. The NOK on the form that we all filled out.

  I couldn’t help but think about Barker’s letters, the idiot, and knew that I could craft decent, helpful, compassionate letters to grieving NOK. I thought about the letters that I had written about kids that I didn’t know. Now that seemed immeasurably easier.