(Part of) Chapter 21
Dak Seang's Magnificent Stepchildren
On one particular mission where we hauled an SF team into Cambodia from Doc Co, a 5th Special Forces base camp on the border west of Pleiku, we first staged a phony insertion to draw the NVA away from the true LZ, then dropped the team off a few miles away. It was a two slick flight where one ship would stay at altitude about 2500 feet and guide the other into a very small LZ, necessary because it was extremely hard to see on approach at a hundred knots and tree top level. This flight included a relatively new peter pilot Lieutenant in from the States with the nickname Hickory Grove. The AC had him take the ship into the phony LZ for training. He handled it well and dropped the ship in and just hovered long enough for us gunners and the SF guys to deliver what was called a mad minute of fire into the surrounding bush. After the co-pilot took us out the AC took back the controls. About that time I glanced over at the SF team who were seated on the edge of the deck on each side of the aircraft. I was amazed to see, with their soft hats, darkened camouflaged faces, and legs dangling out over the side of the chopper, that they showed no fear or apprehension of any kind about their mission. Then I glanced up at our newbie Hickory Grove who had just turned and was looking intensely at the team members on the opposite side of the ship. When I looked around the gun well to see what he was looking at I saw one of the SF guys had pulled out a grenade and pulled the pin. He joked with the guy next to him then they both turned with a quick whistle to get the attention of their team members on my side of the chopper. When the guys on my side turned to the sound of the whistle, the smiling white teeth of the dark camo face broadened with laughter as he released the handle and rolled the green baseball size fragmentation grenade across the deck. Just then the AC banked left, the grenade decided to pause midway across the ship and Hickory Grove's eyes widened. Being a new guy he didn't know what to do, of which I could fully associate, and in fact he could do nothing other than nearly break his neck trying to turn against the restriction of his armored seat and safety harness to follow the grenade's progress. I'm not sure, but I think my eyes were about to close in fear when the chopper finally banked again in the opposite direction and the grenade continued on its journey to where it was swiftly snatched up like an infield grounder. By then Hickory Grove was squirming like a worm on a fishhook because he lost sight of the grenade altogether. When I announced, "Grenade out the side!" all the possibilities and hazards that grenade presented ran through our collective minds.
"What the hell...!" I heard the AC declare.
"Oh shit!" exclaimed the crew chief.
While they expressed themselves outwardly, Hickory Grove and I both cringed and puckered up for a worse case scenario, like becoming aerial confetti, or at best hopefully and miraculously surviving a crash and burn. The SF guys weren't rattled in the least and were still laughing when the grenade went off. Fortunately we had been accelerating and gaining altitude all through the episode and there had been no damage to the aircraft. I looked at the SF guys and the one nearest me just smiled reassuringly and patted me on the leg. I smiled in return, shot him a bird and we both laughed.
If the SF guys had respect for anybody in Vietnam it was the chopper crews and they often swore that if we went down they wouldn't hesitate to come after us. We believed it because we wanted to and because we knew it to be true. These guys were real hard-core. They were elite and they knew it and they relished what they did. Basically, they were just damn nuts. That particular insertion went well but I never had occasion to see any of that team again, not that I would have recognized them if I had. The newbie peter pilot Hickory Grove went on to become an AC, make Captain, and win a DFC and Silver Star a few months along in his tour. Such was the crash course school of life for our pilots.
Having met the requirements and flown the required hours, air crewman was added to my long MOS list and my part-time flight status earned me an occasional spot on what you could say was a privileged chopper. We called it 4-Balls simply because its number was 400, but its privileged status was because it was the personal on-call bright and shiny UH-1H ride of General Marra, one of the powers that be at II Corps Pleiku. 4-Balls was always on stand-by and to date I had only flown it at night when the General, as pilot, decided to get in some flight time and practice approaches. We would hop over to II Corps without a co-pilot and pick him up then he would take the stick and fly back and forth between Camp Holloway and the Pleiku Air Force Base practicing approaches and getting in his required airtime. A number of higher ups pulled this routine, taking short crash courses to become qualified chopper pilots, some learning just enough to be dangerous, then puttering around the sky just enough to get the money and the accolades. Meanwhile, the crew chief and I just kicked back and the pilot would tune in some late evening easy listening music that drifted in from somewhere on an FM frequency.
During one of these moonlight air strolls in mid April, while we were counting the stars and nearly asleep, the General must have been flying with a head full of concern because he knew at the time what we EM types certainly didn't know. The NVA were not only moving down the complex Ho Chi Minh trail through Laos and Cambodia in force as usual, but had set up a number of major base camps from which they could and were inserting thousands of troops into South Vietnam's central highlands. In March the Cambodian government was getting a little antsy with their presence and powerful build up and demanded that the North Vietnamese get out, even giving them a two day time limit to do so. Knowing they couldn't withdraw their many divisions within that time limit, and in fact having no desire to do so, the NVA decided they would instead just take over Cambodia. By mid April they were well on their way, having already seized a number of provinces and preparing to overrun the Cambodian Capital. Things were getting busy in the central highlands as well, with major enemy buildups near villages all around the II Corps area, and specifically our strategic base camps of Dak To, Ben Het, Dak Pek, Dak Seang, and others that acted as stop gaps in the main arteries of NVA infiltration from their bases across the border. Units all around the highlands AO were in constant contact with the enemy, and SF and SOG teams were busy as hunt dogs on the opening day of deer season, collecting intel and monitoring movement. It was the intention of the NVA to keep the U.S. and its allied forces defensively occupied to the point we could not interfere or prevent their take over of Cambodia. In addition, intelligence revealed that one of those SF base camps, Dak Seang, was the object of a massive enemy buildup estimated to be of Division strength and there was no doubt they were going to attack.
All of this and more must have been racing around in the General's mind during the night hours of his repeated flying approaches. Maybe flying was his way of coping, mulling the building crisis around in his head, or maybe the flying was a form of therapy to quell a sleepless night. Who the hell knows? As far as the crew chief, and I and probably the pilot, were concerned, well... we didn't have a damn clue. We were jacked back listening to the Ray Conniff Singers and dreaming about raiding the kitchen as soon as we got back to base and tied 4-Balls down for the night. At least that was our agreed plan because Becker the crew chief and I, before we flew off to pick up the General, bumped into Buns the night baker who hinted he might be baking up some more of his big sticky buns. Buns was always sending stuff out to the guys on the perimeter, sometimes hot soup, sometimes coffee, and sometimes his famous sticky buns that were never on the official menu but always in demand. Sometimes I would even drive the jeep for him when he made his rounds. But usually getting some of Buns' famous sticky buns required luck and timing and the nocturnal determination of a raccoon. So there we were, high in the night sky with the General on the stick fretting about a major enemy offensive and us gunners staring into the starry sky, dreaming of coffee and fresh sweet warm sticky buns, while a division of NVA were hiding in the boonies dipping their bullets in piss and working their Budha beads, or whatever they used for praying, in anticipation of a glorious People's Army victory for the cause.
It was getting late and for some reason on this night the General made a few more trips and practice approaches than usual. He usually wrapped it up around 2300. When we finally flew back to II Corps about 0200 he ordered us to shut down and sit tight and we quickly realized our sticky bun ambitions were shattered. We settled instead for small talk and lying flat on our backs on the pad, smoking cigarettes and looking up at the stars. The pilot was a young Warrant officer named Massey who couldn't seem to get over the idea that I could type 87 words a minute without looking at the keys. He confessed he almost failed typing in high school because the young teacher had great legs and a seriously nice ass that made for a bit of a distraction. This blew my mind being it was coming from someone who could deal with the complexities of flying a $300,000 aircraft that through all applications of common sense by the average mind should not even be capable of flying. We laughed as he credited his ability to fly to his sustained fear of the TACs at Fort Rucker and I credited my typing to the fear of a very threatening Army WAC Sergeant at Fort Sill. We then explored the possibilities of what achievements would have been accomplished had the TACs at Rucker had the legs and ass of his typing teaching. It was just friendly chatter until we all three dozed off for an uncomfortable but peaceful and brief sleep that ended abruptly when we were awakened and told to make ready for immediate departure as soon as the General arrived. As we cleared our eyes and minds I looked to the east where I saw the light gray and rust of the distant sun beyond the horizon struggling to begin a new day. I caught the smell of coffee drifting through the dark predawn air. It was tantalizing and I wanted some so badly I could almost taste it.
Soon someone else, a Captain, brought another message to our pilot ordering us to go refuel and then return to the pad ASAP to pick up the General. At the time I was taking a piss near the tail boom and the Captain gave me a disapproving glare. I simply smiled and said, "Morning sir," as I shook it off.
He turned and hustled back to his General.
"Starchy little bastard isn't he," commented our AC Massey with a smile.
"Probably a ring knocker," guessed crew chief Becker.
"Nah, ring knockers are cool," I said. "At least all the ones I've met."
"Probably a ring kisser,"said Becker.
"Or an ass kisser," added Massey. "Lots of those around. 'Specially in these parts."
We refueled and returned to II Corps where we found the General and two others, a Special Forces Colonel and a civilian, waiting at the pad. They boarded without a word and we lifted off immediately after the General got situated in the co-pilot's seat. Becker got the two passengers hooked up with two of the many extra radio head sets rigged on the ship for visiting VIPs and media, then came over and instructed me to keep the chatter to a minimum, leaving the COM system free for the brass.
"Where we heading?" I asked him.
He just shrugged and it was apparent we were both out of the loop on this one. For me this was par for the course. As usual I had no idea where we were or where we were going and this time no idea why. I assumed we were just ferrying the brass to a meeting at some other base but I wasn't fully confident with that assumption when I remembered the predawn hour. Actually I didn't really give a damn as I sat quietly, pissed at having to take off with only the memory of a quick whiff of coffee, but, I thought, since when were General officers required to be considerate of the troops? The General knew where we were going, however, and he was hell bent to get us there, instructing our AC Massey to push 4-Balls to the limits. Our destination was Dak Seang, the SF/CIDG camp about 20 miles north of Dak To in Kontum Province. The camp at Dak Seang sat in a valley canyon near Highway 14 between the Dak Vai and the Dak Si, tributaries of the Dak Poko River and was surrounded by high rough mountainous ridges. It was a border surveillance operations base placed there for the purpose of detecting and preventing enemy infiltration from Laos only 14 klicks to the west. Like most such camps, it was home to SF teams, SOG teams and a Montagnard strike force. Now they were under attack. The NVA's 28th Infantry supported by artillery began attacking Dak Seang at the very first hint of light, part of their spring offensive in an attempt to cut off Dak Pek at the closed end of the canyon - and our General wanted a front row seat.
Before our arrival the enemy had already bombarded the camp with mortars, rockets, and artillery, destroyed a number of buildings, and were in the midst of an all-out ground assault, working their way to the wire. A TAC-E (Tactical Emergency) had been called at Camp Holloway and Bikini Beach in Kontum and reinforcements were already being airlifted from Plateau Gi, another SF camp in the Kontum area. We were there now and I was watching it all from high above, hearing the muffled explosions and seeing a spider web exchange of tracers between the attacking NVA and the camp defensive positions through the low morning light across the kill zone around the base, some finding targets, others glancing away into the sky or through the camp, red tracers going out of the camp and green going in.
As the early morning light crawled over the mountains and revealed the siege, the entire scene seemed surreal. Being safely divorced from it all, thousands of feet above, I was seeing it yet somehow at first not believing it. Our gun ships were already working over the NVA, leaving me to feel we should be doing something as well, something other than just observing, and in fact expected that we would. The NVA got closer, then reached the wire, and for the longest time it seemed the security of Dak Seang would be breached, but the repelling firepower from the camp and supporting air assaults continued, even increased, and the NVA were beaten back. Soon after their retreat an airlift with a company of reinforcements arrived and landed outside the wire but they were immediately surrounded before they could move into the camp. Pinned down, firing, and being fired on, it was a battle within the battle for Dak Seang.
We circled and watched the drama on the ground all day except for a brief time when we refueled at Dak To. The refueling break was a welcomed respite. It gave us an opportunity to grab a bite to eat in the form of a can of lima beans and ham from a C-rat pack along with a shared can of beer we scrounged from an SF sergeant who was pumping us for info about what we had seen. It was his last can and he gave it up without hesitation, and with the enemy build up expecting to soon reach Dak To, it quite possibly could have been the last he ever saw. As for the General and his company, they disappeared for a short time into the TOC. The crew chief handled the refueling while I filled in the SF sergeant and thanked him for the beer and C-Rats. Then we gave the aircraft a quick once over after which I just leaned on the chopper and ran everything through my mind, seeing again that relief company outside the wire, surrounded and holding their own just like the guys in the camp. And then there were the choppers, gun ships and slicks from various units of the 52nd CAB, including our Ghostriders and Avengers. They ran the gauntlet of enemy fire without hesitation to assault and provide cover, drop ammo, and supplies and take out the wounded. They went in balls to the wind and came out bullet riddled by enemy fire, their crews and pilots exposed with little or no protection as they returned fire and flew their ships with steely determination. They were selfless, ignoring their own safety beyond any reasonable expectation.
When the Army needed pilots to fill these mass-produced new fangled air machines and to beef up the new air-mobile military they needed them fast, and to fill the seats they waved the standard officer college requirements and decided to let anybody who could pass the test take their shot. And though the six-month training program encompassed the same rituals and standards as the OCS program, the Army was unwilling to award these pilot officers the coveted and long respected hard commission. In other words, they were denied membership in the club and instead they were relegated to a position of commissioned limbo and limited advancement, somewhere between the NCOs of the enlisted ranks and the supposedly more valued and respected upper class officer corps. As far as the Army was concerned they were, in a way, the stepchild soldier, a bunch of Cinderellas, and just another piece of equipment. What the Army didn't count on was the fact it was that very status that made these talented men different, independent, rebellious and courageous. Most, some as young as 18, respected their superiors but also respected and accepted the enlisted man as an equal and in doing so gained the same in return. And this attitude at this stage of the war was contagious, affecting regular commissioned officer pilots as well. What the hell, it was a war and one thing war does when the shit hits the fan is generate a lot of honesty born of necessity, trust, fear, and courage.
Could the brain trust of the Army have been so stupid as to assume that a young man who had the intelligence, talent, and courage to fly complicated expensive aircraft into the jaws of hell wasn't capable or deserving of respect and command? What I was witnessing were the actions of the most heroic pilots in aviation history. It was one thing to fly over the shit but it was something else altogether to fly down into it where you could actually see the angry eyes of the enemy, knowing you were their prize target. It was no wonder the NVA had a bounty on the Ghostriders. There was an old American Indian saying that a warrior was only as great as his enemy. To the NVA that philosophy translated to a reward of $20,000 for a Ghostrider patch with a pilot attached and $10,000 for a crewman. The nose panel off a 189th chopper with the Ghostrider or Avenger artwork made for a really big prize. If the Marines could call themselves Magnificent Bastards, then considering all this, I thought, our guys, our Army chopper pilots and their crews, could certainly be labeled Magnificent Stepchildren.
The General returned with an addition to his party in the form of a Vietnamese Colonel and I immediately noticed in his hand he carried what looked like a stack of neatly wrapped sandwiches. Typical, I thought, as I turned away and shrugged it off as rank and privilege then watched our passengers climb aboard. Then a tap on my shoulder turned me around to find General Marra putting one of the sandwiches in my hand. I thanked him and watched him toss one to the crew chief and the other to Massey in the left front seat. He patted me on the back with a smile and climbed in the co-pilot's seat. Needless to say, my opinion of the General should have changed but then I was schooled in the art by an older half brother with the same technique. In my early days of elementary school he would talk me out of my lunch money then at the end of the school day when my stomach was grumbling he would charitably give me a nickel for a candy bar and expect me to be forever grateful.
"Let's get back to the war," I heard the General tell our AC Massey while putting on his flight helmet. "What you say I fly us out and give you a chance to chow down on that well-deserved roast beef sandwich, son?"
"Thank you, sir. She's all yours," Massey smiled.
The General busied himself with the switches in the cockpit, the igniters popped, the engine whirred, and when the blades were cranked up the ship rose, tail up, nosed down, and slipped away from the pad with ease. Not that I was one to judge, but it seemed the General had a pretty good touch on the stick.
With our ship and our bodies refueled, we approached Dak Seang in the midst of a maelstrom from hell. The cutoff reinforcements were still surrounded and the NVA were again attacking the base camp. There were layers of aircraft orbiting and alternately attacking from all directions. Huey gun ships and cobras were working the perimeter through a hail of enemy fire, getting as close in as possible with their miniguns and 60s splattering the flesh of the attacking enemy in all directions. They sent rockets into enemy NVA who were now dug in a mere 30 meters from the wire, and into the tree line to take out gun emplacements. The controlled chaos of the aerial defense alone was mind boggling, forcing us to shadow the Command and Control ship in order to stay out of traffic and trouble. At one time when I looked to the C&C ship I locked eyes with one of its passengers. He was decked out for combat in tiger fatigues with a ragtop, a .45 pistol, an M-16, an M-79 grenade launcher, and ammo bandoliers for both. I at first wondered why he was there since the command ship would only orbit at altitude and play quarterback, much as we were doing, then I concluded he must have been added security in case the ship went down, the security blanket of whomever was on that chopper calling the shots. As we grew near he looked straight at me and smiled and I somehow felt a connection or an odd sense that we knew each other, or an uncanny feeling that we someday would. The feeling sped away when my attention was again drawn to the actions on the ground.
A-1E Skyraiders, attack prop planes common to WWII and the Korean War, roared in like ghosts from the past, turning the surrounding multilayered jungle canopy into a huge billowing fiery red and yellow inferno with their napalm drops. In the midst of all this, small LOH hunter/observation choppers, the Loaches, buzzed around the tree tops like pesky bats looking for trouble and drawing fire in order to find and pinpoint the enemy for destruction by dropping smoke or white phosphorus. Green tracers rained down at the various aircraft from the sides of the cliffs and it sometimes appeared the entire valley was in conflict. Incredibly, the North Vietnamese forces didn't seem to be discouraged by the awesome symphony of air support as they continued to send men and sappers against the camp.
Repeating concussive impacts in the distance revealed B-52 bombers were dumping their loads on suspected enemy base locations. Then my attention was drawn to the fast-movers, Air Force F-4 Phantoms, that were napalming the bald peak of a dense jungle covered mountain. The mountaintop was the highest and most advantageous peak in the valley, known as LZ Orange. It had been cleared and previously used as a night defensive position and a fire support base by the 4th Infantry. When they moved out the NVA moved in and was now directing enemy fire support for their own troops against us from the same location. Once again someone somewhere decided LZ Orange was now critical to the defense of Dak Seang and the rest of the valley forming a plan to retake the mountaintop by inserting a SOG Hatchet Force to secure it, then land an ARVN Mike Force to occupy it. Then if necessary, they could move down the mountain to aid and rescue the SF camp. Throughout the day the mountaintop was barbequed with nape runs as were other areas around the Dak Seang base camp where the NVA were repelled again only to attack a third time with the same result.
Even at altitude the impact and sounds of the battle mingled with my heartbeat and the throbbing of the chopper blades as I sat there, clutching my gun, leaning out, observing. I felt as though we should be down there and at the same time felt fortunate that we weren't. I was like a small child taking his first Ferris-wheel ride, excited yet frightened, looking down at all the marvelous lights and sounds and confusion of the rest of the world. I was ignorant of everything I saw, and unlike the General, I had no background and no preview of what was going on or what was going to happen next. I had just shown up, an observer with no purpose, and there was something obscene about watching people die from a safe distance. Hovering while the brass chatted and pointed like Greek gods up in the clouds looking down and placing bets on mortals in conflict.
We toured the valley from above and watched the assault on Dak Seang and the events on the mountain. The only thing that slowed the bloody efforts by both sides was the eventual setting of the sun. As it slid behind the western mountains and darkness fell we pulled away. We were leaving just as safely and securely as when we had arrived, not taking part or so much as firing a single burst. When I looked back I saw a surreal portrait of conflict. Tracers, both green and red, dotted with flashes of explosions, created what looked like a patchwork of electrical charges throughout the valley below. Ground fired flares briefly lit perimeters and bright rocket flares shot from aircraft, sent broader extended balls of light floating through the smoky air on parachutes above the jungle canopy like the bright firey breath of flying dragons, delivered by our own 52nd CAB Flying Dragons. And indeed, the deadly night sky now belonged to those thunderous flying machines with names like Ghostrider and Avenger.
We returned the General and his company to II Corps with instructions to be back on the pad by 0500, predawn, the next morning. I watched them walk away from the chopper like they had just stepped off a commuter train, met by the smiling ass kisser Captain who, holding his soft hat on against the wash of the rotor blades with his left hand, looked at us, dropped his smile and pointed skyward, twirling his right hand and index finger. Yeah right, I thought, as if we needed his damn permission to lift off. Maybe it made him feel good or look cool in front the General, or maybe he was just a shit, who knows. He had seen them off like some mother hen and now he was meeting them at the threshold after a hard day at the office. The only thing missing was the kiss on the cheek and a cocktail. I wondered how men like him slept at night, how the hell they could discard their dignity in exchange for ambition, that is if they ever had any in the first place.
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THIS CHAPTER CONTINUED IN THE LAST GHOSTRIDER