The Aviators

by W. E. B Griffin

  "No, I don't think so. The story as I get it is that the Army has to produce. The 11th is now big enough and has enough equipment to conduct a real test. AIR ASSAULT II will either make or break the whole idea. The Army can field an air mobile division or it can't."

  "But we know it can," she said loyally.

  "The Air Force says not. And they're going to try to prove that they can do it better. When AIR ASSAULT II is running, the Air Force is going to run GOLDFlRE I, moving the 1st Infantry Division around in Air Force airplanes. If they can do that more efficiently, so long 11th Air Assault Division."

  "Daddy didn't say anything about that," Marjorie asked.

  "Then maybe I shouldn't have," Oliver said. "What's up, Marjorie?"

  "Jack."

  "What about Jack?"

  "Jack is at Fort Bragg."

  "He is?" Oliver said, genuinely surprised. "You sure?"

  "He called me," she said. "I'm sure."

  The last word Oliver had had on Portet was that after he had flown- the B-26K to the Kamina Air Base in the Congo, Colonel Felter had had him sent to Berlin. Felter had been furious with Fullbright for ordering Portet to fly the B-26K against what he thought had been clear orders.

  Unpleasant reality had overwhelmed even Felter's worstcase scenario. The rebellion had been more than the Army of the Republic of the Congo could handle. Thousands of square miles, including Stanleyville, had fallen to the "Simba Army of Liberation." Sixteen hundred "Europeans," including the staff of the U.S. Consulate and sixty-odd other Americans, among them Jack Portet's mother and sister, and Ursula Craig and her baby, who had been caught there returning from Europe, were being held hostage by people who regularly announced their willingness to execute them all if they didn't get their way.

  Political opinion was sharply divided between those who felt American intervention was necessary and those who thought the problem could be resolved by diplomatic negotiation. Felter had explained to Oliver that if it became known to any of several people in what was known as "the Congo Working Group" that one of the B-26Ks had been flown to the Congo by someone in the military, it would be leaked to the press. Jack Portet was a soldier-even if he had flown, the airplane over there in civvies and was ostensibly a civilian employee of Supportaire, Inc.

  And that in turn could very well have meant the end of all efforts to rescue the hostage Americans. It could even possibly have resulted in America's having to give in to African Nationalist pressure to cease both overt and covert aid to the Congolese government. Felter's solution to the problem of PFC Portet and. the B- 26K was to have Portet assigned to the U.S. Army garrison in Berlin, as a German language interpreter.

  "What's he doing at Bragg?" Oliver asked.

  "That's what I want you to tell me," 'Marjorie said.

  "I don't know."

  "You don't know or won't tell me?"

  "I don't know, but I probably wouldn't tell you if I did. Why don't you ask him? Or did you ask him and he told you to butt out?"

  "He called me from the Fayetteville Airport and said he didn't know what he was going to do; he was assigned to the 7th Special Forces Group."

  I know what's he doing. He's working with those HALO A-Teams I saw, because of his knowledge of Stanleyville.

  "Well, then, you know. He's running around in the woods, eating snakes," Oliver said.

  "When I called the 7th Group, they said they never heard of him."

  "You call Post Locator?"

  "Of course," she said. "I started there. I know he's there, and I want to know why, and why they won't tell me."

  "Marjorie, honest to God, l don't know," Oliver said.

  She met his eyes for a moment.

  "OK," she said. "How long do you think it will take me, in a Jaguar, to drive from here to Bragg?" That's right, she's got Portet's Jag.

  "Why don't you just sit still and wait till he calls again?"

  "Because I can't, that's why," Marjorie said.

  "You listen to Johnny, Marjorie," Bobby Bellmon said behind Oliver.

  Oliver spun around, furious.

  "You little shit!" he exploded. "How dare you eavesdrop at my door?"

  "I recognized her voice," Bobby said, unrepentant. "She's my sister, for God's sake."

  "Oh, goddammit!" Oliver said.

  "You listen to Johnny, Marjorie," Bobby repeated.

  "I'm going to Bragg," Marjorie said. "If Bobby doesn't get right on the phone and squeal on me, Johnny, would you call my mother later and tell her where I am?"

  "At least let me try to find out something at Bragg," Johnny said. "Before you run off."

  "Go ahead~"

  Both the officer of the day at Headquarters, U.S. Army 7th Special Forces Group and the sergeant on duty at the Fort Bragg, North Carolina, post Locator denied any knowledge of a PFC Jacques Emile Portet.

  "Cal1 GeneraI Hanrahan," Marjorie said. "He'd tell you."

  "I can't do that, Marjorie," Oliver said.

  " He can't do that, Marjorie," Bobby said righteously.

  "Bobby, I don't need any help," Oliver said.

  "Sorry I asked," Marjorie said.

  Hey!" Oliver said.

  "Call my mother and tell her where I went," Marjorie said and walked out of the room.

  Oliver turned to Bobby.

  "If I ever catch you with your ear to my keyhole again, Bobby," he said furiously, "I'll kick your ass into next week. You read me?"

  Bobby nodded and then shrugged.

  "I'll be gone in a couple of days, anyway," he said.

  "What the hell does that mean?" Oliver demanded, still furious.

  "It means I'm getting an elimination check-ride tomorrow and I don't think I'm going to pass it," Bobby said.

  "Why not?"

  "Because I can't fly, that's why."

  "Oh, bullshit. Flying is no more difficult than riding a bicycle. What's wrong?"

  "I just told you," Bobby said. "Great week for the Old Man, huh? His daughter runs off to Fort Bragg after a goddamned PFC and his son busts out of flight school for 'inadaptability' read, stupidity."

  "What are you having trouble with?"

  "Does it matter? Everything."

  "You really can be a pain in the ass sometimes," Oliver said as he picked up one of the three telephones-and started to dial. "You're a pimple on an abscess." Bobby started to walk out of the room.

  "Come back here," Oliver ordered sharply. "Where the fuck do you think you're going?" Bobby stopped and turned and looked at him.

  "Major, this is Captain Oliver, General Bellmon's aide.

  Sir, I need a little Huey time and I just fell into several free hours and wondered if you've got something out there I could borrow." There was a brief pause, and then Oliver said, "Thank you very much, Sir. I'll be right out" "What's that-all-about?" Bobby asked.

  "You're pretty smart, what did it sound like?" Oliver said.

  "Put a flight suit on and meet me at that strip on the Ozark Highway."

  "We can't do that," Bobby said. "That's against regulations.'

  "I am going flying. I am taking you along for a ride. What's against regulations?"

  "I'll know," Bobby said. "It's dishonest. It's unfair to the others. "

  "So it is. Welcome to the real world, Bobby. Generals' daughters fall in love with PFCs and make asses of themselves over their men just like ordinary human beings, and Genera1s' sons get a little bootleg instruction from their fathers'

  aides."

  "I couldn't look him in the face," Bobby said.

  "What do you think his face is going to look like when you tell him you've busted out of flight school? Or your mother' for that matter?"

  "If he found out he'd fire you. He'd have to."

  "You want the fucking wings or not?" Oliver asked. "What I'm going to do now is go wind" up a Huey and sit, it down on the Ozark Highway strip. If you're there, fine. If you're not you will be a selfish little prick who considers his high moral standards more important than breaking
his father's heart."

  Oliver went to his closet, grabbed a flight suit and his helmet and walked out of the room.

  When he put the skids of the Huey on the ground at the tactical strip next to the Ozark Highway, Bobby was waiting for him.

  xx

  [ONE]

  Headquarters,

  11th Air Assault Division [Test]

  Harmony Church

  Fort Benning, Georgia

  0845 Hours 14 October 1964 Brigadier General George F. Rand escorted into the VIP map room one more of the many distinguished visitors who were on hand to watch the beginning of Exercise AIR Assault II.

  There were simply too many senior officers there to permit them, and their aides and assistants, to wander at will around the maps in the G-3 Division's office space. As a consequence of that, an adjacent room in the white, two-story, frame, World War II building had been emptied of the rows of filing cabinets used by the G-l [Personnel] Division and turned into a VIP map room. Duplicates of the G-3 maps were put up on the walls; and chairs, both upholstered and folding, were set tip. The Signal Section had installed telephones, and two coffee machines and stacks of china mugs were placed on a folding table.

  "The post," that is to say, Headquarters, Fort Benning and the U.S. Army Infantry Center, had been asked for help. And they had provided cars and drivers for the visiting VIPs; and, in response to a request for some bright enlisted people to help with the maps, they had sent over eight crisply turned out young enlisted people, six of them female.

  The VIP who Brigadier General George F. Rand ushered into the VIP map room was Lieutenant General Richard J. Cronin, Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, United States Air Force.

  General Cronin looked around the room, found an upholstered chair with his name Scotch-taped to it, and then surprised General Rand by walking to the front wall of the room.

  There, under the eyes of a young captain, one of the female soldiers was marking the latest position of Hurricane Isbell with a grease pencil on a six-by-twelve-foot map of the eastern coast of the United States from Florida through Virginia.

  "I thought you'd be out flying," he said, and Captain John S. Oliver turned in surprise to look at him.

  "Good morning, Sir," he said, and took General Cronin's offered hand.

  "You know Johnny, do you, Sir?" General Rand said.

  "Sure," Cronin said. "What have they got you doing, 0liver?"

  "I'm trying to make myself useful, Sir," Oliver said. "I had in mind flying, but I suppose we also serve who make grease-pencil marks on weather maps."

  The female Spec Five actually working on the map looked over her shoulder and smiled at him.

  "What's the weather like?" Cronin asked.

  "I would say that God is on the side of the Air Force, sir," Oliver said, and pointed to the map. "Here's the center of Hurricane Isbell, which is moving norm-northeast at about twenty knots. On the Georgia coast here, we have severe rain, winds gusting to fifty knots, and a pretty good indication that conditions will worsen. We have an assault-helicopter battalion here, he pointed to the airfield at Fort Stewart, Georgia, near Savannah. "where the winds have already turned over two choppers on their pads. Here on the right, where Colonel Buchanan's battalion is, visibility is down to zilch, with heavy rains. And in the center, on Colonel Seneff's battalion's route, in the mountains, some visibility, under a ceiling of five to seven thousand feet, which means a lot of rock-filled clouds."

  "Just before we landed," General Cronin said, "it came over the horn that flight operations-our flight operations have been suspended from here" he pointed to a point in Florida near the Georgia border and then to a point near the North Carolina-Virginia border-to here, and two hundred miles inland." Then he turned to General Rand. "What are you going to do, George, call it off, reschedule it?"

  "Not yet," Rand said.

  "We think we can fly through this, General," Oliver said.

  "We've sent reconnaissance ships out, looking for holes in the soup."

  "Visually, you mean?" Cronin asked. "Holes radar can't find?"

  "Yes, Sir."

  "That doesn't seem to be a very good way to become an old aviator," General Cronin said.

  "Yes, Sir, that's just what I told General Bellmon when he took off in a Mohawk."

  "He's out there flying in this stuff?" Cronin asked, genuinely surprised.

  "Yes, Sir," General Rand said.

  "I will not say, in front of this junior officer and this young lady, that I thought he had more brains than that," General Cronin said, "but that thought does occur to me."

  "Sir," Oliver said, "those of us who aren't fortunate enough to have aircraft which permit us to fly over weather have to learn to fly through it." Cronin looked at him and laughed.

  "Touche, Captain," he said. Then he grew serious.

  "Straight answer, Oliver. Is it going to go?"

  "We're going to give it a hell of a shot, Sir."

  "Isn't that a little foolish, George?" General Cronin asked.

  "I guess I meant to say dangerous. Wouldn't it be better to reschedule?"

  "Sir," Rand said, "at the risk of stepping over the line, if we called off Air ASSAULT II for any reason, those who feel the concept of an airmobile division is wishful thinking would consider their opinion proven. On the other hand, if we can move a battalion-carried in one hundred and twenty Chinooks-through these weather conditions, I think we'll be able to say that we have proved it will work."

  "And the risk to those involved?"

  "General Wendall called each aviation battalion and made it clear that anyone who was uncomfortable flying was free to stay on the ground."

  "And did that offer extend to the troops aboard the Chinooks?" General Cronin asked.

  After a pause General Rand said, "No, Sir. The decision whether or not to fly was left to the pilots."

  General Cronin did not reply.

  "It's 0900, Sir," Oliver said. "AIR ASSAULT II just began."

  "I find myself ambivalent about this," General Cronin said thoughtfully. "I find myself hoping that you will fall flat on your faces and end this Army Air Force nonsense once and for all. And on the other hand, maybe, as a pilot, 1 sort of hope you make it."

  Neither Rand nor Oliver replied for a moment, and then Rand said, "Thank you, General"

  "How many pilots elected not to go?" Cronin asked.

  "No one opted out, Sir," Rand said.

  "I would hate to be General Wendall right now," Cronin said.

  [TWO]

  Office of the Deputy Commanding General