Devotions for Boots on the Ground

Chapter 7. Doug Ward “For whoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved”. (Romans 10:13) Seems like most people have things that happen in their lives that go beyond the physical realm, you know? My Dad was very religious; he used to stop by and light a candle and pray for me at church every morning, while I was in Viet Nam. I had just informed him in my last letter that he better light two; that it was impossible for God to live in hell…which of course was where we were; I was quite sure God didn’t live in Viet Nam. Shortly after that 2300-mile conversation with Dad, Doug Ward showed up at Lai Khe, and something happened that made me wonder. I’d met Ward in Basic Training, and we’d gotten to be pretty good friends, but afterwards he was sent to Artillery and I was sent to Aviation Mechanics’ school. Presently he was on his way back to II Corps where he had been an artillery spotter for a Special Forces Mike force operating in the Ia Drang valley. He had been badly wounded and had spent the last six months recovering in Japan. From somewhere he got the idea that being a door-gunner on a Huey precluded having to hump a 90lb rucksack out in the boonies, so he had voluntarily extended his tour, and Major Pim signed a letter for (my cousin) to take to his CO, guaranteeing him a slot as a gunner if he would be released to the Robinhoods. We flew three incredibly easy days of A and T (“Ash and Trash” a curious acronym singular to helicopter crewmembers that meant “passengers and materials”). Recruiting him was sort of like reeling in big bass back home at Lake Bloomington. Doug carried the post then back to his original Company Commander, and showed up a week later looking forward to the easier life of an aviator. But such was not to be. The first week we got shot down south of Phouc Vihn by Viet Cong 12.4mm (.50 cal) fire. Mr. Broadhurst cut the fuel on the flame-out and auto-rotated us down on to a sandbar in the river (there was heavy jungle on both sides). The second week, Capt. Anderson was using us as Chalk-One of a ten-ship insertion of 1st Infantry Division grunts to check out some enemy activity about five miles east of Lai Khe. We had just dropped them off and were on the way back for the second load, when at about 50’ AGL (Above Ground Level), we had an engine compressor-stall. A sudden explosion blew a hole in the side of the engine about the size of a dinner-plate, and Capt. Andy auto-rotated us into heavy brush about 15 feet tall. We landed on a fire-ant hill, which for certain gave the term “Hot Landing Zone” a whole new meaning, and we set up for a long wait; “Pipesmoke” couldn’t recover us for about an hour. They must have been VC fire-ants! Doug’s third week in the Robinhoods marked the first week of Monsoon; a season that was the Vietnamese equivalent of equatorial “winter”. During the worst four weeks of the weather here, there were usually three rain-showers a day, which averaged about 20” of rain per day. During this time, nearly everything shut down, the war included. There was a month of weather going into monsoon, and a month of weather coming out of it. As the season finally came to an end and the sun came out, the spectrum of jungle-colors, especially in the green hue, was spectacular from the air; much less so from the ground, where everything was either under water, or soaking wet, and therefore full of leeches. Today, most of the 2nd Flight Platoon Crew-chiefs were sitting in the leaking tent, shooting the bull; waiting for a pause in the rain so we could do maintenance on our ships. The conversation ran a gamut, covering Ward’s so-far “interesting” introduction to helicopter aviation. It wasn’t over yet. That morning a curious individual came walking down our company area. He was a Vietnamese civilian, wearing slacks and a white shirt, and carrying an umbrella and a large briefcase. He engaged Ward in conversation, and appeared to be some kind of a salesman; a bit off-the-wall for our area. Doug paid him for something, the man carefully wrote on a piece of paper, they shook hands and he left. About that time one of the Peter-pilots walked in and informed me when the weather broke we were to do a single-ship pick-up down at Hotel 3 in Saigon. I eyed Doug, who stuffed the paper in his shirt-pocket, and we ambled out to pre-flight the Huey, tight-walking a long, 12” wide, PSP plank that had been set up on doubled sand-bags to provide a dry path through 6” deep water. The weather during the monsoon was always moody, but today there was a sudden, dark, and unusual chill. --------------------------------------------------- Ton Son Nuit Air Base, near Bien Hoa, north of Saigon: The barely-dry paint on a new-out-of-the-box C-130-B Hercules glistened from the recent shower. It had been ferried in from Marietta, Georgia, to Clark AB (the Philippines), and yesterday had landed in Viet Nam in a torrential down-pour, with under two hours of fuel left. As the two pilots today performed a preflight, the older one, an old-school captain who had flown fighters in Korea, commented on the updates of the newer version. He had recently been flying the C-130-A Model gunship called “Spectre” or sometimes “Spookey”, a version which was replacing the old WWII era C-47s outfitted with the 7.62 mini-guns. The larger ship was outfitted with an electric, 20mm Vulcan cannon with mini-gun backups. The sizable, 20mm version of the mini-gun still had some bugs that needed to be worked out; it had feeding problems and the barrels got hot quickly. The damned weather in this hell-hole has its own personality; it’s like it is evil, hateful. I’ll sure be glad when we are out of here. “So,” the younger pilot forced a change in his thoughts. “We’ve got 20 thousand pounds more ramp weight, new avionics, more powerful engines (T-56-A-7A’s now), and we can carry 42,000 lbs of cargo, and external fuel tanks for extended range over the “A” model. What are we going to Ubon (Thailand) for?” “Well, first we have to get you used to low-level, foul weather flying. We do a lot of that here. If you can get us to Ubon in one piece, we’re to get her fitted out for what they call BLU-82 “Daisy Cutters.” “Which is?” “It is simply the largest conventional bomb in the US Air Force inventory. One of them will open up a clearing in the jungle large enough to land a flight of ten helicopters simultaneously. We are going to carry two of them.” “You’re putting me on, right? I mean they can’t use a bomber for this?” “Nope, too big; they are 10,000 pounds apiece. They can put ‘em on a B-52, but the brass has determined that the “Pig” here needs a new undertaking. Therefore, you and I are getting paid the big money we get to do some testing. Down the road they are looking to do something like this on a bigger scale with the 463rd Troop Carrier/Tactical Airlift Wing at Clark. Alright, looks good! Lets crank this Pig, check Artillery, and given this weather, it’s not likely we’ll have anybody in the air with us, so check your map, we are going to low-level to Ubon. You’ve got one mountain in this area called Nui Ba Dinh; locate it! I don’t want to end up as a Christmas decoration splattered all over the side of it.”