I checked the map. “See that big field there, between Holloway and New Pleiku?”
“That’s it?”
“Yep. It’s been named the Turkey Farm.”
Riker and I landed at the edge of a sea of tents: the grunts’ camp, called the Tea Plantation, adjacent to a real one owned by a Frenchman.
The man we were assigned to support, Grunt Six, was a full colonel, or “bird colonel,” as they say. He ran toward us in a crouch, ducking the rotors. Two captains followed, one wearing pilot’s wings. They climbed on board and grabbed the radios their assistants handed them. While they set up the radios, the captain with wings leaned forward between our two seats and pointed to a spot on a map where he wanted us to go and motioned thumbs-up for takeoff.
Riker brought the Huey up to a hover and nosed it over to go. As we climbed to the altitude they wanted, I turned around to watch.
Grunt Six and the other captain sat on the bench seat facing forward. Coiled cords ran from their headsets to the pile of radio gear on the deck in front of them. The other captain, assigned to aviation-liaison duty with Grunt Six, sat forward on the floor with his back to us. He was supposed to advise the grunts on how to use the aircraft and the crews assigned to them.
The infantry commander and his assistant studied a plastic-covered map mounted on a square board balanced on the assistant’s knees. They talked through their own intercom system, and the assistant made marks on the map with a grease pencil.
Grunt Six switched his radios constantly from one channel to another. I tried to listen in, but I didn’t know which frequencies he used. Once in a while, he would come up on the channel I monitored.
“Red Dog One, Grunt Six.” The number six in the call sign always meant boss, chief shit. Red Dog One was the radio call sign for one of his subordinates, probably a lieutenant, leading a patrol in the woods below.
“Yes, sir.”
“Status.”
“No contact yet. Still proceeding on azimuth one-eight-zero.”
“Roger, maintain, out.” He immediately switched channels to someone else. He was all business. There were thousands of men down there among the bushes and tree clumps, over their heads in elephant grass, trying real hard to make contact with the retreating NVA.
If I hadn’t loved flying so much, the job would have been boring. All we had to do was fly compass courses that crisscrossed the south end of the valley. The aviation captain hooked into our intercom and gave us the new headings as Grunt Six dictated.
At the far south end of the valley, about eight miles north of the Chu Pong massif, Grunt Six had established a forward command post on the top of an isolated hill. At about two o‘clock the captain gave us the coordinates and told us to take them there. The valley from the hill to the massif was all flat plains covered with elephant grass. It ended where the Ia Drang River changed course and the ground rose sharply to a massive plateau of rough, tree-covered mountains that descended gently on the other side into Cambodia. At the base of the rise was the beginning of a series of sharp, jungle-covered foothills that twisted their way up into the massif. It was in these foothills that the enemy was thought to have a base.
Riker flew to the lone hill covered with tall brown grass and a few small trees. Circling once to see where they wanted us to land, he made the approach. As we came in over the edge of a sharp drop-off covered with tall bushes, a pup tent flew away in our rotor wash. Its owner bounded off through the tall grass trying to catch it. We landed about a hundred feet from the headquarters tent, sinking into the grass up to the cargo deck. The captain with wings jumped out and signed a cut-throat and Riker shut down the Huey.
Grunt Six marched off to the tent. His other assistant said, “We’ll be here an hour, so get something to eat.”
So far, so good. This command-ship flying was okay. At least we weren’t in the assaults going on near Pleime.
While the rotor was spinning down, Reacher pulled the C-ration case from the aft compartment. I walked past the still-spinning tail rotor to see how the kid who lost his tent was doing. He was peeling his tent from a bush below the steep edge of the hill, up to his armpits in weeds. The tent was snagged on something, but he finally got it loose. Clutching it to his chest, he trudged back toward me.
“Sorry about that,” I said. “We didn’t see you when we came in.”
“Oh, that’s okay, sir.” He smiled and threw the tent down near a bush. “I didn’t want you to see me. I’m building a camouflage position here.” He pointed proudly to a pile of brush near his crumpled tent.
“Well, that could be a bad spot for it.” I nodded back toward the Huey. “You’re downwind, and you’ll be on our approach path every time we land.”
“I never thought of that.” He wiped his forehead with his T-shirt, pulling the stretched-out bottom up to his head. “How come you don’t come in like this?” He made his hand stop in midair and drop straight down.
“Vertically,” I said.
“Vertically. Can’t a helicopter do that?”
“We can in a pinch,” I said, “but it’s dangerous. We like to keep some forward motion so we’ll be able to autorotate in case we lose power. What we can do, now that we know where you are, is to come in a little steeper, which should keep you out of the rotor wash. But another helicopter coming in here will just blow everything away again.”
“Well, thanks for explaining that. But I think I’m just going to rebuild it here, stronger.” He smiled and started back to work.
“You want beef with noodles or boned chicken?” Riker came up beside me.
“Neither.”
“That’s all we got.”
“Boned chicken.” Riker threw me the box and walked back to sit on the edge of the cargo deck.
Riker and I and Reacher and the gunner sat around the Huey and ate lunch. Grunt Six was in the headquarters tent, making plans.
I approached the headquarters tent after lunch. About five of the fifteen or so grunts on the hilltop were outside the tent hanging around. I said hello and sat down on a stack of C-ration cases. Beyond the group of T-shirted enlisted men, I could see the wooden legs of a map tripod through the tent door. The meeting between Grunt Six and his men was still going on.
A Vietnamese soldier walked out from the tent. He was dressed in the camouflaged, tight-fitting, big-pocketed uniforms of the Vietnamese Rangers. He was, however, not a ranger but an interpreter. He was smiling. A smile is a safe thing to hide behind. I waved him toward me, happy to see an interpreter. I saw this as a chance to learn how the people here really felt about the war. The Cav was so isolated from the ARVNs, I had never had a chance before.
“Hello,” I said.
“Hello,” he said.
“I’ve been wanting to talk to a Vietnamese who spoke English.”
“Yes,” he said knowingly.
“Well, how do you think we’re doing so far?”
“Yes,” he nodded.
“No, I meant how do you think we’re doing? Are we winning?”
“Yes, that could be so,” he assured me. “How are you?”
“Me?” Must have trouble with my accent. “I’m fine. Fine.”
“I am fine, thank you.” He bowed slightly.
I looked quickly over to the smiling faces of the grunts and realized that they all knew he couldn’t speak English worth a shit.
“Great,” I said. “I understand that this hill is going to sink into the valley today.”
“Yes, that could be so.”
What fun. “They’ve been thinking about moving Saigon up here this weekend so we won’t have so far to go for R&R.” I heard a little cheer from the watchers.
“Saigon.” He nodded with happy recognition.