Connors hovered to intercept the line of burning grass. He approached from downwind, forcing the flames to pause against the blast from his rotors. I pulled back up to a hover and joined him and another ship in the corraling operation. The fire died against the wall of wind.
While we were at Ia Drang, Christmas packages had been pouring in. Gifts, canned hams, cookies, cards, and loving pictures. We even had a large cardboard box filled with letters from schoolchildren all over America delivered to our mess hall. “Dear American soldier,” said one of them. “I am very proud of you. I know you will win. Becky, Grade 5, Mrs. Lake’s class.” I got a pound cake from Patience mailed in September. After three months en route it was not edible.
Two weeks before Christmas, we launched more assaults into Happy Valley, landing troops on pinnacles instead of down in the valley.
Resler and I began flying together. We were the two most junior warrant officers in the company. It was an honor that we were trusted with our own ship. I usually logged aircraft-commander time.
“Why? We’re both equals, you know,” Resler said.
“Not quite. I graduated a month ahead of you.”
“So?”
“So, I’ve got seniority on you, Resler. You’re the pilot and I’m the aircraft commander.”
“We get to trade!”
“Maybe.”
We’d both practiced pinnacle landings with the more experienced pilots in the company. It was like approaching a floating island in the sky. Some of the hilltops were easily eight hundred feet above the valleys. The trick was to keep the landing spot below the horizon. If it climbed above it, you were too low, and that put you at the mercy of the buffeting winds on the lee side of the hill. With the heavy loads we carried, the chopper could mush into the hill if we approached through this burble of down-rushing wind. It was difficult to recover because there was no place to dive to get more airspeed. A captain in our other platoon had done it wrong a few days before with the result that he flopped and rolled down the side of the hill, strewing men and matériel out the doors of the Huey all the way down. He climbed out and landed on his hands and knees in a bed of punji stakes. Given that two other people on board had been killed, it wasn’t bad. He got to go to Japan to get the shit dug out of the punji holes in his knees.
Resler and I made a good team. We talked ourselves away from trouble.
Resler was on the stick, flaring toward the top of a grassy hill. Our sink rate was high because of the eight grunts we carried. We both knew the landing was going to be hard.
“Power,” I said.
“I’ve got all the power she has.”
“Then flare more. You’ll hit too hard.”
“Look, Mason, I’m flying. I can handle it.”
Luckily, it was windy. It was lucky because the wind blew the grass around and I saw part of a large boulder just where we were going to land. Hitting that would trip us, sending us crashing down the other side of the hill.
“Rocks!”
“Huh?” Gary couldn’t see them, because he was flying from the right side and had no chin bubble to look through. We were going to hit.
“Rocks!” I grabbed the collective and pulled hard. I hadn’t put my feet on the pedals, so the ship yawed to the right. We hesitated crookedly above the boulders, and the rotor wash blew the grass down, and Gary saw them, too. The ship mushed lazily over the boulders. As we cleared the hilltop, Gary dove down the other side to recover the waning rotor speed.
“I have just saved your miserable life,” I said.
“Oh, yeah? From what?”
“Those rocks, you blind fuck.”
“What rocks?” Gary fumed. “Why did you grab the collective like that? You could’ve killed us.” He shook his head seriously as he started his climb out of the valley. “Lucky for you I was able to save it,” he said.
Even though we flew every day, they always found time to give us our shots—plague shots, yellow-fever shots, hepatitis shots—on a regular basis. Naturally, we all hated shot day.
While I waited inside the tent, I watched a soldier having his thumb tended. I watched intently as the surgeon pried up the man’s thumbnail. It was smashed and almost black. As the surgeon pulled the nail up, black juice ran out. When the nail finally pulled free, I sank to my knees. I couldn’t believe it. This simple little operation brought me to my knees. I almost fainted.
“Shouldn’t watch stuff like that,” said the medic.
“You’re right.” I nodded weakly from the floor. “Maybe if it had been regular blood…”
Connors was chosen to fly a CBS News film crew around as it followed Gary and me in our ship.
“Hey, you guys, make it look good.” Connors stood outside my window at a laager.
“Like how?”
“Like steeper-than-normal turns and lower than low level and flaring steeper than steep. Like that. You know: Make it look good.”
So while we swooped all around the valley, dropping off troops—the valley had no war that day—we were being filmed. In a low-level turn, I pulled in close enough to a tree to brush the leaves with the rotors. I flared so steeply at an LZ that the grunts screamed.
“Looking good,” said Connors.
Patience said she saw the film clip on television. She knew it was me because there was a square on the door, which she knew marked my company, and “That pilot flew just like you drive.”
Nate and Resler and I went to town one morning. There was nothing up that day, so we hung around in the bars and watched the girls. Nate claimed he was immune to Viet clap, so he had most of the fun.
Something did come up, but since we weren’t there, the company left without us. We got back early in the afternoon to a ghost camp. Everyone except the Bobbsey Creeps were gone.
“Big battle going on just north of Lima,” said Owens. “Where were you guys? The major is pissed. Did you have a pass? It’s hot out there. Really, the major is really pissed.”
Nate thought the time was right to open the canned ham he had been saving for Christmas. We had a quiet party. The ham was good.
Just after dawn, Leese busted in through the door flap. “The New Guy was killed.”
“What?” said Gary.
“The New Guy. You know, the replacement. He got shot through the head. Hey, you guys, get ready to get out there.”
I wondered if I would amount to that much of an utterance someday. “Mason got shot through the head. Hey, you guys, get ready to go out there.”
“What’s going on?” I said.
“It’s hot,” said Leese. “Lotta automatic fire. All in the same area where we’ve been farting around for the last two weeks. Yesterday Charlie decided to fight. It’s already hot again this morning. You guys are supposed to crew the next two ships coming back. Mine is fucked. Nate, you and I take the next ship, and Bob and Gary the one after that. Okay?”