The aerial observer several miles away, at their target, radioed the news. “A hit. Body count over 150.” A few isolated cheers sprang from among the twenty crews. Their sweat-covered backs glistened in the sun as they sat down for a smoke break.
Theirs was an odd war. Working feverishly in tree-walled clearings dotted here and there, away from everyone else, their enemy remained unseen, and the measure of their success or failure was a radio call from an aerial observer counting bodies. The work was hard and the noise was oppressive. During the month-long battle of Ia Drang valley, it went on twenty-four hours a day. Could a man ever really sleep in such cacophony? I tried it once and couldn’t.
I talked to some guys in the crews, and they liked their job, especially as an alternative to being a trooper or a door gunner on a Huey. Their only real danger, aside from their guns blowing up, was being overrun. So far this hadn’t happened in the Cav.
They asked me a lot of questions about what was happening. They could see the big flights of choppers heading south. They were having more fire missions with big body counts. The pace was quickening. They were excited about the idea of trapping the NVA. Maybe, just maybe, the enemy could be surrounded and killed. Maybe after suffering such a defeat, they would give up. We could all go home. It seemed possible. We were winning, weren’t we?
The number of wounded we were carrying was growing fast. That week Leese and I flew more than a hundred wounded to the hospital tent. Other slicks carried a similar number.
When there was room and time, we carried the dead. They had low priority because they were no longer in a hurry. Sometimes they were thrown on board in body bags, but usually not. Without the bags, blood drained on the deck and filled the Huey with a sweet smell, a horribly recognizable smell. It was nothing compared to the smell of men not found for several days. We had never carried so many dead before. We were supposed to be winning now. The NVA were trapped and being pulverized, but the pile of dead beside the hospital tent was growing. Fresh recruits for graves registration arrived faster than they could be processed.
Back at our camp, I was feeling jittery after seeing too much death. I heard that two pilots had got caught on the ground.
Nate and Kaiser had gone to rescue them. Nate was almost in tears as he talked to us in the Big Top. “The stupid assholes. They had been relieved to return for fuel. But you know Paster and Richards: typical gunship pilots. Somehow they think their flex guns make them invulnerable. Anyway, on the flight back they were alone and spotted some VC or NVA or somebody on the ground and decided to attack. Nobody knows how long they were flying around there, because they called after they got hit. When Kaiser and I got there about ten minutes later, the Huey was just sitting there in a clearing looking fine. There were two gunships with us, and they circled around first and took no fire. Kaiser and I went behind the grounded ship. When we landed, I saw a red mass of meat hanging off a tree branch. It turned out to be Paster, hanging by his feet with his skin ripped off. There was nobody else around. The guns kept circling around and a Dust Off landed behind us. I got out, Kaiser stayed with the ship. The medic jumped out and ran with me.” Nate kept patting his breast pockets, looking for his pipe. He never found it. “Paster’s skin hung down in sheets and covered his head. The bastards had even cut off his cock. They must have just started on Richards, because we found him lying half naked about a hundred feet away in the elephant grass. His head was almost off.” Nate stopped for a second, looking pale. “I almost threw up. Richards and I went to flight school together. The medics, cut Paster down and stuffed him into a body bag.” He shook his head, holding back tears. “Remember how Richards always bragged about how he knew he’d survive in the jungle if he got shot down? Shit, he even went to jungle school in Panama. If anybody’d be able to get away, it’d be Richards.”
Nate’s story hit hard. I remembered Richards and his jungle-school patch. Big deal, jungle expert. You got a hundred feet on your one big chance to evade the enemy. All that training down the drain. The thought of his wasting all that training brought tears to my eyes.
The pace remained hectic. The next day several assaults were made to smaller LZs near X-Ray to broaden our front against the NVA. Farris was assigned the command ship in a company-size flight, a mix of ships from the Snakes and the Preachers. We were going to a small, three-ship LZ. He picked me to be his pilot.
Everyone was tense. Radio conversations were terse. The grunts in the back looked grim. Even Farris looked worried. The NVA were being surrounded, and we knew they had to fight.
Farris and I would be in the first group of three to land. The company, each ship carrying eight grunts, trailed out behind us.
As the flight leader, Farris had the option to fly from any position in his flight. He chose the second ship. A theory from the developmental days of the air-assault concept said that the flight commander supposedly got a better idea about what was happening from the middle or even the end of the formation. Really big commanders flew high above us, for the best view of all.
I think this was my first time as a command-ship pilot, and I was all for survival. I would’ve been very happy flying the brigade commander up there at 5000 feet, or Westmoreland to his apartment in Saigon. It’s amazing how many places I considered being besides there.
In assaults, we usually started drawing fire at 1000 feet, sometimes at 500. This time we didn’t.
At 500 feet, on a glide path to the clearing, smoke from the just completed prestrike by our artillery and gunships drifted straight up in the still air. There had to be one time when the prep actually worked and everybody was killed in the LZ. I hoped this might be it.
Fighting my feeling of dread, I went through the automatic routine of checking the smoke drift for wind direction. None. We approached from the east, three ships lined up in a trail, to land in the skinny LZ. But it was too quiet!
At 100 feet above the trees, closing on the near end of the LZ, the door gunners in Yellow One started firing. They shot into the trees at the edge of the clearing, into bushes, anywhere they suspected the enemy was hiding. There was no return fire. The two gunships on each side of our flight opened up with their flex guns. Smoke poured out of them as they crackled. My ears rang with the loud but muffled popping as my door gunners joined in with the rest. I ached to have my own trigger. With so many bullets tearing into the LZ, it was hard to believe anyone on the ground could survive.
The gunships had to stop firing as we flared close to the ground because we could be hit by ricocheting bullets. Still no return fire. Maybe they were all dead! Could this be the wrong spot?
My adrenaline was high, and I was keenly aware of every movement of the ship. I waited for the lurch of dismounting troopers as the skids neared the ground. They were growling and yelling behind me, psyched for battle. I could hear them yelling above all the noise. I still can.
My landing was synchronized with the lead ship, and as our skids hit the ground, so did the boots of the growling troops.
At the same instant, the uniformed regulars from the North decided to spring their trap. From at least three different directions, they opened up on our three ships and the off-loading grunts with machine-gun crossfire. The LZ was suddenly alive with their screaming bullets. I tensed on the controls, involuntarily leaning forward, ready to take off. I had to fight the logical reaction to leave immediately. I was light on the skids, the troops were out. Let’s go! Farris yelled on the radio for Yellow One to go. They didn’t move.
The grunts weren’t even making it to the trees. They had leapt out, screaming murderously, but now they dropped all around us, dying and dead. The lead ship’s rotors still turned, but the men inside did not answer. I saw the sand spurt up in front of me as bullets tore into the ground. My stomach tightened to stop them. Our door gunners were firing over the prone grunts at phantoms in the trees.