THUNDER ROAD. South Vietnam, July 1969

THUNDER ROAD

South Vietnam, July 1969

“Phu Loi tower, this is Darkhorse One Six. I’ve got a hunter‑ killer team on the cav pad. North departure to Lai Khe. ”

“Roger, Darkhorse One Six flight of two. You’re cleared to hover. ”

Cobra pilot Dean Sinor (Three One) and I were heading up to Thunder Road to provide aerial cover to a heavy northbound supply convoy. A scout and gun team ran ahead of convoys coming out of Lai Khe to run a low‑ level inspection of the entire road up to An Loc. Even though dismounted engineer and infantry swept the highway for mines every morning at first light, this stretch of road had proved highly susceptible to ambush attack.

With Sinor at altitude, I put my Loach down low and slow, to pick up anything out of place on or along the road. It was possible for the enemy to get in and plant a few mines between the time it was swept by the engineers and the arrival of the convoy. Early in the morning, once the highway had been swept by the engineers, civilian traffic was always bustling along Thunder Road–motorcycles, mopeds, carts, Cushman‑ type vehicles, little buses, and small trucks. But never before the U. S. Army had cleared the road for mines. It was far too dangerous.

Working about a mile ahead of the convoy, I headed straight down the highway, banked to the east, then back south to check the cleared area on the column’s right flank. I cut west over the last vehicle and headed back north to check out the left side of the convoy, creating a boxlike search pattern.

On my first run back along the east side of the road, I saw evidence of recent heavy foot traffic, enough to make me feel very uneasy. I didn’t see any enemy, so I headed across the tail end of the convoy to make my run back north on the west flank.

As I got about six hundred yards out ahead of the column, I picked up heavy foot trails again. There wasn’t any good reason for people to have been out in the Rome‑ plowed area next to the highway, so I decided to follow one of the trails to see where it took me. It led to a drainage ditch that stretched for nearly a mile–right along the side of the highway! But, again, not a single person in sight.

Circling over the area, I keyed the intercom to my crew chief. “Parker, do you see anything? Something’s damned screwy about this. What do you make of it? ”

“Don’t see anything but footprints, Lieutenant. Not a soul, sir! ”

About that time I made a sharp turn over a thick clump of tall grass on the west side of the road near the drainage ditch, about ten feet from the side of the highway. Not more than four to five feet below me, I glimpsed a slight movement and something dark lying on the ground.

“Son of a bitch, Jim! Did you see that? ” I hollered into the intercom.

I hauled the Loach around to hover right above the spot. Then Parker and I saw the two dark brown eyes staring up at us from a hole dug into the ground under an area of pushed‑ up dirt created by the Rome plow months before.

Without me saying a word, Jim Parker opened up. I winced at the explosion of the M‑ 60 right behind my head. The enemy soldier jerked violently and slumped over in his hole.

I got on the radio to Sinor. “Three One, One Six. We got a dink. The gunner shot a dink dug into the grass up under a Rome plow mound, not more than ten feet off the west side of the highway. I think they’re all over the place–up close, not in the jungle! They’ve dug in spider holes right on top of the convoy! ”

The head of the convoy was just seconds away at this point, heading right into an ambush. Sinor immediately called the convoy commander on FM.

The minute the convoy commander got the word that the enemy was close to him, I knew he would order all convoy weapons to open up on both sides of the highway, and woe be to the Loach pilot who was out there when all that ordnance started to go off.

Three One knew it too. “Get the hell out of there, One Six, ” he yelled. “Get up to altitude, NOW! ”

But which way can I go? I thought. No time to get any altitude. And I can’t go parallel to the convoy, or I’ll make myself a tailor‑ made flank shot for every gun–ours and theirs. So I pulled the hardest right turn I could, made a 180‑ degree arc, and headed back south again–right on top of the northbound convoy. I figured the safest place for a Loach at that moment was five feet off the tops of those trucks, where hot rounds would least likely be crisscrossing.

I barely made it on top of the convoy when all hell broke loose. The enemy, now fully alerted by Parker’s shooting of the soldier in the spider hole, sprung its ambush. They pushed aside the overhead camouflage and rose up out of their holes, guns blazing. At point‑ blank range, they opened up into the convoy with everything they had: AK‑ 47s, RPGs, grenades, SGMs. The column simultaneously let go with their machine guns, 90mm cannon firing canister rounds, and every other weapon carried on the vehicles in the* convoy. It was like one giant, sustained explosion. Bullets flew everywhere. Deafening noise erupted. Smoke and flying debris engulfed the entire convoy. And there, in the midst of that sudden hell, were Parker and me flying at antenna level, straight down the back of the convoy, trying our best to stay out of the way of both enemy and friendly fire.

As the convoy charged north, we flew south, blistering along at well over one hundred knots, Parker working with his M‑ 60 from the right side of the aircraft. His tracers were impacting on the spider holes as we ripped past, his targets not more than ten to twenty yards from his muzzle. We were so low that if someone had reached up out of a truck or tank turret, they probably could have caught our skid.

Suddenly, not more than a hundred yards to my front, a five‑ thousand‑ gallon tanker truck took a direct RPG hit, and the diesel fuel it was carrying exploded like a nuclear bomb. Sheets of flame, parts of the truck, smoke, and dust shot up, momentarily blinding me. The little OH‑ 6 lurched violently with the shock of the explosion, as though a giant unseen fist had landed a smashing blow to the nose of the aircraft.

I jerked aft as hard as I could on the cyclic and yanked in a load of collective. The resulting g’s nearly sent my buttocks through the armor plate in the bottom of my seat. I don’t know how Parker was able to hang on.

As the fast‑ reacting Loach wrenched up over the eruption, I said silently, “God bless this helicopter! ” then yelled to Sinor over UHF: “Three One, One Six. I’m coming up to altitude. We’re OK, but that was close! You’re cleared in. I’m out of the way. Hit the tree line to the west of the convoy. ”

The battle between Charlie and the convoy continued with ferocity. Shortly after the tanker truck exploded, a five‑ ton rig near the middle of the convoy was hit. It was loaded with ammunition–enough to knock everything around it off the road. Then a tank went up, its turret flying into the air fifteen to twenty feet, turning a somersault, and crashing back down.

The convoy’s intent was to continue moving north as fast as it could, and it managed to do just that. If a vehicle was hit, the driver made every attempt to get it off the road under its own power. If it was hit too badly to move itself out of the way, the driver behind rammed it and pushed it off. The key was to break free of the killing zone and accelerate out of the ambush area, while pumping all possible fire into the ambushers to gain fire superiority.

The enemy’s RPGs did the most damage. Once a vehicle was disabled with rocket fire, the automatic weapons would open up. Charlie had prepared well; he was hitting hard from a position of advantage.

When the enemy had lost the element of surprise and the defenders began to gain the firepower advantage, the enemy troops usually would attempt to break contact and fade into the jungle before an organized pursuit could be launched. With this in mind, I keyed Sinor as he pulled out of his rocket and minigun run along the western line. “Three One, let’s cut off the avenue of retreat. Work up some artillery and give us two brackets of artillery fire on both sides of the road running north and south. We’ll pin them against the highway with no back door. ”

Moments later artillery began to pound down, blocking any enemy effort to disengage at the highway and make an escape to the jungle. Adding to the enemy’s problems, fast movers (USAF close air support) were called in to put down bombs and napalm all along the tree line on both sides of the highway. Then the APCs that had stayed behind the convoy were poised to sweep the Rome‑ plowed area and mop up the ambush survivors.

Parker and I had to return to Lai Khe to rearm and refuel; while we were on the ground it soon became evident that everybody out there–the armor, artillery, close air support, the Cobra–had the situation in hand. Working in close support on the flanks, they had knocked out virtually all resistance. The enemy was badly decimated and the survivors were trying to make it back to their base camps.

Several hours later the ambushed convoy made it to Quan Loi. We had six or eight vehicles destroyed and many more damaged in the brief, fierce battle.

With the convoy gone and the shooting over, our local security forces situated near the site of the ambush were preparing to sweep through the area to check on enemy dead. They needed me back on station to scout out ahead of the ACAVs and provide cover. Once back at the contact area, I radioed Sinor, who was still orbiting over the ambush point, and told him that I was going down out of altitude to make a pass over the Rome‑ plowed corridor on the west side of Thunder Road. Then I would work my way over to the tree line to see if any enemy might have made it to the jungle.

I made my first pass from south to north right down on the deck ten to fifteen yards out from the highway. After completing that pass, I keyed Sinor with a report. “OK, Thirty‑ one, this is One Six. I don’t know how bad the convoy got hurt, but we really nailed their asses down here. I see forty to fifty bodies strewn around, many body parts, numerous blood trails and drag marks. Looks like the remnants of the enemy force moved off to the tree line on the west, dragging along as many of their KIA and wounded as possible. But they’ve left a lot of dead and a lot of equipment. ”

After several more passes up and down the Rome‑ plowed area, I moved over to the trees and began to look for trails of the enemy retreating into the jungle. I was about three hundred yards deep into the tree line, right at the area where our Thunder II base camp was located, when I heard what sounded like a quick, sharp explosion. Suddenly my aircraft became almost uncontrollable. The vibration was so extreme that I couldn’t control the ship up or down. I knew I had been hit, undoubtedly in the rotor system.

I fought to control the Loach, which seemed on the verge of shaking itself right out of the sky. I tried to accelerate and found that made the ship all the harder to control. So I decelerated and immediately began looking for a spot to put the bird down.

There was a line of nipa palm trees just north of Thunder II and I could just see beyond it. With my eyes jerking from the violent vibrations of the aircraft, I could barely make out a fairly open rice paddy–the size of a small golf course–just over the nipa palm line.

I yelled into UHF, “One Six is hit, we’re hit. We’re going down! ” I pointed the nose toward the rice paddy and prepared to enter auto‑ rotation just as soon as we cleared the trees. The engine sounded so awful that I thought the whole damned thing was either going to explode or shake itself apart before I could get the ship over the tree line.

Seeing our bird wallowing through the air, and having heard me screaming over the radio, the front‑ seater of Sinor’s Cobra came up on VHF: “Twelve o’clock… twelve o’clock… the open field… the rice paddy. Go for it… go for it, One Six! ” He had obviously spotted the same hole in the jungle.

With only about forty feet of altitude, I had decided to autorotate in because I wasn’t sure I still had a functioning engine. This was no time to have it seize up and bind the transmission. I wanted to be able to control the aircraft as I hit the water in the flooded rice paddy.

Jim Parker hadn’t said a word through all of this. I grabbed a quick glance over my right shoulder and saw him leaning half out of the aircraft, looking ahead as if he was trying to help me find a place to put down. I didn’t have to tell him that we were in trouble, but, as superfluous as it was, I managed to key the intercom and say, “Hang on, Jimbo, we’re going to hit hard! ”

Autorotation was working. I had rolled off the throttle, reduced the collective to the bottom pitch setting, and come aft with the cyclic. The result was a deceleration with the nose up and the forward motion and mass of the aircraft building up RPMs in the rotor system. This allowed me to better control the aircraft as it settled into the rice paddy. The skids sliced through the water and sank to the mud floor of the paddy, and the bottom of the fuselage smacked into the water like a ton of bricks. Spray and mud flew everywhere.

I quickly followed the emergency procedures–pulled up the emergency fuel shutoff and flipped off the master battery switch. This shut down the fuel and electrical systems in case there was a post crash fire. Then I wanted to get out of that cockpit ASAP. I tried to roll over to my right to jump out of the aircraft and into the water. But I couldn’t move.

“You dumb shit! ” I muttered, cursing my stupidity. I was still strapped into my seat. I reached down and hit the handle to release my seat belt and shoulder harness.

The rice paddy water was almost up to the door, so all I had to do was lift my left leg up over the cyclic stick apd roll out. A quick inventory told me that I still had all my body parts and didn’t seem to be hurting anywhere. Parker was still struggling with his seat belt, trying to get out of the aircraft, so I stood up to give him a hand.

Once in the water, Parker leaned back into the aircraft to retrieve his M‑ 60 machine gun and a seven‑ foot belt of ammo. As he threw the ammo over his shoulder he looked at me and asked, “What in the hell happened, Lieutenant? ”

“I don’t know, but whatever it was sure raised hell with the rotor system. ”

We both looked up at the main rotor blades just as they were slowing down to a stop. One of the blades came to a halt right over our heads.

“My God, ” I whispered. A. 50‑ caliber machine‑ gun round had gone right through the leading edge, about four feet from the tip of the blade, shattering the spar. The only thing holding the blade together was the honeycomb structure in back of the blade’s leading edge.

“My God, ” I repeated. “By all rights, that blade should have come off four feet from the end. And if that had happened, the aircraft would have come apart in midair. ” Then I noticed Parker’s chin. It was bloody and looked like it had been laid open to the bone. He patted the front sight of his 60. When the Loach slammed down into the rice paddy, the impact had thrown Parker’s head forward, into the machine gun. Parker was the kind of guy who would never say a word about it.

I reached back in the ship for the Prick Ten (PRC‑ 10) emergency radio so I could report in to Sinor. The gunship was off to the east, circling at altitude. “Three One, this is One Six. We’re down in the rice paddy. We’re OK, except Parker nearly cut off his chin when we hit. Keep your speed up, Dino, it’s a. 50 just west of Thunder II. ”

“Roger that, One Six. I saw the tracers. That’s affirmative on the. 50 cal. ”

“Hey, Thirty‑ one, why don’t you scramble the ARPs to come in and pick us up. Get Pipe Smoke to yank the bird, then you can get some more guns on station to go after that fifty. ”

“OK, One Six, ” Sinor rogered. “ARPs are on the way. Have advised Darkhorse Control that we have a Loach down. How are you fixed for Victor Charlies? ”

“No sign of enemy, ” I answered. “What I’m going to do now is climb up and pull the hinge pins on the rotor blades so Pipe Smoke can zip in here and throw a harness around the rotor head and recover this bird. ”

I climbed up on the fuselage to reach the hinge pins. It was a simple procedure of just pulling up the four inverted U‑ shaped retaining pins and dropping the blades. Parker stood beside me, trying to feel how badly his chin was cut.

Suddenly the silence around us was shattered by a sharp burst of readily identifiable AK‑ 47 fire. The AK was immediately joined by another enemy weapon–probably a. 30‑ caliber machine gun–firing much faster. Bullets were plunking into the water all around the ship, and I could hear rounds tearing through the aircraft. The enemy was still very much present in the area, and they obviously knew exactly where we were.

I instinctively ducked my head, then jumped backward off the fuselage into the rice paddy. I landed on my feet in about twelve inches of water, but immediately fell over on my backside–Parker would probably have been laughing at me if he hadn’t been busy ducking, too.

As the enemy rounds let up for a second, Parker ran around the tail of the aircraft and threw himself, and his M‑ 60 and ammo belt, down on top of a nearby paddy dike. Crawling out of the water, I reached back into the cockpit and grabbed my CAR‑ 15 along with a bandolier of magazines, then rolled around the back of the ship and fell prone on the ground next to Parker. Bullets were kicking up all around us. No doubt the enemy had seen us move out from behind the aircraft and were determined to nail us.

I raised my head just enough to try to see where the fire was coming from. Then I got back on the PRC‑ 10 and fairly well screamed to Sinor: “Three One, we’re in deep trouble down here! We’ve got bad guys to the west of us, bad guys to the west. We’re taking heavy fire on the ground from the wood line two seven zero degrees due west our location, at a range of about three hundred yards. ”

“Roger, I’m in, ” Sinor said as he rolled the Cobra and began his run right over the tree line. I heard the noise as he punched off several pairs of rockets. The first pair hit a little short; the second and third pairs looked as though they were pretty close to where I thought the fire was coming from.

As Sinor broke to come around again, I said, “Second and third pairs look like good rocks. Give ‘em hell! ”

On his next pass, all I heard was his minigun fire. Then Sinor came back up on the radio. “I didn’t get any rocks off that time. I’m coming back in. I’m recycling rockets, so keep your heads down. ”

Sinor rolled in at about 140 to 160 knots, leveled out nose down, and ran the length of the tree line without firing a single rocket.

What the hell? I thought as Sinor sped off to the north. Then Sinor came back with the news. “I’m empty. Most of my ordnance was expended during the convoy ambush and I haven’t reloaded. ARPs are on the way. I’ll keep making dry runs on Charlie to try to keep their heads down. Stay cool. ”

So there we were. Down in a rice paddy, the enemy just three hundred yards away, and we had a defanged Cobra! Sinor continued to make runs, with horrendous fire coming up at him from the enemy. But after about three dry passes, Charlie quit shooting at the Cobra.

Two things became obvious to Parker and me as we lay there on the dike half in and half out of that foul rice paddy water: the enemy had wised up to the fact that the gunship was out of ammo, and it wasn’t the gunship they wanted anyway. Those bastards wanted the Loach crew; they wanted us!

Just then Parker yelled, “Lieutenant! ” and pointed toward the tree line. I immediately saw two men standing at the edge of the jungle not more than 175 yards to my right front. One man wore a blue shirt, the other dark green. Neither had headgear, but both were carrying AK‑ 47s. They apparently hadn’t seen Parker and me on the dike, and probably thought we were still in or behind the aircraft.

One of the VC pointed toward the bird and the other one let go with a burst of AK fire. As he fired, more AKs from the tree line let go–shooting the hell out of the rice paddy where they thought we were.

Adding to the blanket of fire the AK‑ 47s were sending in, an RPG‑ 7 round suddenly exploded not more than fifteen to twenty yards from us, showering us with mud and foul‑ smelling water.

“These sons a bitches ain’t kidding, ” I shouted into Parker’s ear. “They’re coming after us! ”

Parker opened up with his machine gun, and I cut loose with my CAR‑ 15. The two soldiers caught the full blast of our combined fire and were blown backward into the grass at the edge of the tree line.

Parker didn’t let up. He kept spraying the jungle and yelling above the chatter of his M‑ 60, “The bastards aren’t gonna get me… the bastards aren’t gonna get me! ”

He soon shot his belt dry, and at the same time his gun jammed. I worked with his weapon trying to clear it, while he crawled back over to the ship to get another belt of ammo.

With a fresh six‑ foot belt, Parker let go again. I fired three more CAR‑ 15 magazines into the jungle behind where we had dropped the two bad guys. Between bursts, I managed to tell Parker, “If they start coming at us, we’re dropping this stuff and running for it, got me? We’ll run eastbound, toward Thunder Road. ” He nodded and kept pumping rounds through the M‑ 60.

One of our mech units over on Thunder Road was probably trying to get across the stream to help us. It made a lot more sense to head toward them, rather than try to hold off a bunch of enemy soldiers if they decided to rush us.

Just then, as if fate had suddenly looked down on us and smiled, a Huey came out of nowhere in a steep, descending spiral and hit a hover right across the corner of the rice paddy, not more than twenty feet from us. I grabbed Parker by the back of the neck. “Come on, Jimbo, let’s get the hell out of here! ”

Clutching our weapons, we cut across the corner of the paddy and moved as fast as we could in the thigh‑ deep water toward the hovering UH‑ 1. The Huey door gunner was shooting like crazy over our heads as I climbed out of the rice paddy and dove into the open right door. Parker was right behind me. I grabbed his M‑ 60 as he struggled to get aboard. The Huey lifted off with me still yanking on his arm and half of his body still flailing outside the aircraft.

Finally, both of us were sitting on the Huey cabin floor, looking at each other, trying to smile. The ship climbed to altitude and headed back to Phu Loi.

We found out that we were in a command and control helicopter belonging to the commander, 3d Brigade, 1st Infantry Division. He had been in the general area and heard Sinor go up on the Guard push. Realizing that an aeroscout crew was on the ground, the CO had ordered in his C and C ship to snatch us up and zip us out of there. He and his crew had sure saved the bacon of a couple of wet, scared aeroscout crewmen that day.

Back at Phu Loi, I learned through operations that after Parker and I were out of there Sinor had called in close air support on the wooded area where the enemy was located. The whole sector from the edge of the Rome‑ plow to about a quarter mile into the jungle was boxed and worked with fast movers.

Parker’s cut on the chin, though serious, wasn’t as bad as it had looked the day before. He had gone over to the medic when we got back to base and had it stitched.

The next morning, we had a requirement to go back out and assist sweep‑ up units. A scout‑ gunship team was needed to help look for blood trails and search for the enemy force that had hit the convoy along Thunder Road.

Realizing that I was going out on the mission, Parker came to me that morning and asked to go. “Look, Lieutenant, I’m fine. I want to go back out there because I’ve got a score to settle with those bastards. ”

I understood his feelings, but I knew the regulations: “I can’t let you fly today, it’s not legal. You know as well as I do that stitches are a grounding condition. ”

“Come on, sir, I want to go, ” he pleaded.

I liked his spunk and I finally gave in. “Get in the aircraft, but if the Old Man finds out about this, it’s my ass. ” He gave me a smile as big as his stitched‑ up chin would allow and headed off to the flight line with his M‑ 60 cradled under his arm.

We flew directly to the ambush site. Coming up on the Rome‑ plowed area in front of the tree line, we saw that some of our tanks were still there. We could see the tracks where 113s had rolled through, policing up the enemy bodies and looking for any personal gear or documents that could be of help to division intelligence.

To get oriented again, we first made a north‑ south pass up the west side of the highway, running at about sixty knots and thirty to forty feet off the ground. As I made my turn at the far north end to start back, I saw a VC body lying on the ground. It was behind a large mound of dirt that had obviously been pushed up during the original Rome‑ plowing of the area. I hauled the Loach around and keyed Parker on the intercom. “Look there, they missed a body. I thought the friendlies picked all those guys up and buried them. ”

Holding in a small circle over the body at ten feet, I took a closer look. He had on long blue pants, a long dark green shirt, and Ho Chi Minh sandals. Then I noticed that there was something around his body. Looking closer I could see it was a map case.

I got up on Uniform to report to Sinor, who was my gun cover again that day. “Three One, One Six. I’ve got a dead guy down here with a map case on him. The grunts have missed him. I’m going to go down here and land–it’s wide open, no problem. I’m going down and recover that map case. ”

“OK, One Six, roger that. But be careful, he could be booby‑ trapped. ”

I briefed Parker. “When I land, I want you to get out and get that map case. Get the hook out. I’ll put down behind that mound of dirt from the body. You pull the hook over him and stay behind the mound when you pull the body over. ”

Parker jumped out with the grappling hook line over his shoulder and his drawn. 45 in hand.

“Hey, wait a minute, ” I yelled to him over the sound of the idling engine. “Take this with you. ” I handed Parker the CAR‑ 15 submachine gun. He reholstered his. 45 and disappeared around the corner of the dirt mound, cradling the carbine under his arm.

Just as I lost sight of Parker, I heard the CAR‑ 15 go off, all thirty rounds in a sustained burst. Parker came running around the mound for all he was worth and dove head first into the gunner’s compartment. “Get out of here, sir, NOWl He’s not dead! ”

I pulled pitch and squeezed the gun trigger to the four thousand rounds per minute stop. The OH‑ 6 shuddered as it spewed tracers and clawed for altitude. The tongue of fire raked over the soldier’s body and blew dust and debris across my windscreen.

“What the hell happened back there? ”

Parket was panting. “The bastard had an RPG round in his hand when I came around the corner. His eyes were closed, the bastard looked dead to me, but as I walked up close to him, he opened his eyes. His left arm was blown away, but he had this RPG round in his right hand. And when I got up close to him he picked the RPG round up and slammed it into the ground, picked it up, and did it again. The son of a bitch tried to blow me up! ”

Ground troops from the security forces were arriving, now cautious at our recent outburst of fire. They came around their APC, weapons at the ready. Before getting too close to the body, one infantryman took a couple of insurance shots to make sure the VC was dead and wouldn’t try to detonate the RPG round still tightly gripped in his hand.

Parker and I were watching from a nearby orbit as the grunts carefully removed the map case and took it back to the M‑ l 13. Then the officer in the personnel carrier called on FM. “Jackpot, One Six. Charlie was an officer type. We’ve got maps, and we’ve got operational overlays. Looks like good stuff for G‑ 2. Thanks for finding this dude. Your crew chief OK? ”

“OK, thanks, ” I came back. “Crew chief is OK, other than what I might do to him for shooting up all my CAR‑ 15 ammo into Victor Charlie. You’ll get the map case contents back to Brigade? ”

“This is really good intel, One Six. From a quick look at these overlays, it looks like the dinks who ambushed the convoy are headed back to their sanctuaries in the Fish Hook. As far as the map case contents, we’re tied up here for a little while. Can you get it down to Tango One [Thunder I Fire Base]? Then they’ll get it on back to division. ”

“Roger, we’ll get it back to Tango One, ” I answered.

That was Parker’s cue to cut back in on the intercom. “Horse shit, Lieutenant, ” he said to me jokingly. “No disrespect intended, sir, but I don’t care what you say, I’m not getting out of this damn aircraft one more time to screw around with some dink’s map case! ”

“Cool it, Jimbo, ” I chuckled. “Don’t worry about the bad guy, he’s dead. ”

“Well, no offense, Lieutenant, but I’d just as soon one of those grunts handle the map case while I stay to‑ hell inside this helicopter. ”

Smiling to myself, I set the ship down next to the M‑ 113, and one of the infantrymen brought me the map case. I didn’t even have to ask Parker to get it.

That day, 21 July 1969, ended up being a pretty short flying day for Parker and me. We ran the map case on down to Thunder I, turned it over to the brigade S‑ 2, and headed back to Phu Loi. As I cruised leisurely back to base, I wondered again if my decision eighteen months before had been a good one.

^{CHAPTER 2}