COURAGE. I THINK WE WON

COURAGE

Three days later, the troop took another morale drubbing.

On 1 November, we had a hunter‑ killer team working up in the Thi Tinh River valley, just south of the Easter Egg. While down low working his pattern, the scout picked up a well‑ traveled trail that led to several bunkers of an enemy base camp. The scout put down a marker, the gun recorded the grid, and the contact information was radioed back to Darkhorse operations. As a result, the ARPs were scrambled to conduct a ground reconnaissance and find out exactly what enemy activity, if any, existed.

I had been assigned Scramble 2 on that day, so I stationed myself in the ops bunker to monitor the radios. I listened as the Horsemen, the four lift platoon Hueys carrying the ARPs, took off north, cleared the base fence, and headed on out over Dogleg Village.

“Two Six, this is Two Three, ” the number four Huey called flight lead. “You have a flight of four. ” Having thus been notified that his fourth Huey was up in trail, the flight leader, Capt. Morgan Roseborough, ordered, “OK, Horsemen, go echelon left at my command. Ready… now! ”

The four Hueys broke trail, with number two sliding over to the left, number three holding its position, and number four sliding over left in behind number two–into an echelon left formation. Captain Roseborough then rogered number four with a couple of fast squeezes on his radio transmitter trigger.

Flying that day in Chalk One (the lead Huey), in addition to flight leader Captain Roseborough, were pilot Bob Holmes, new ARP platoon leader Lt. Jim Casey, crew chief Spec. 4 Eric Harshbarger, door gunner Danny Free, platoon medic Spec. 4 Mike Smith, and a full squad of ARP riflemen.

As the four Hueys passed over Ben Cat and headed toward the Easter Egg, the aeroscout at the contact point was asked to mark the LZ with a colored smoke. This not only told the Horsemen where to put down, but the flow of the smoke also marked the wind direction. In addition, the colored smoke provided a center sector marker for the Cobra, who would normally roll into the LZ for a couple of antipersonnel gun runs to clear any enemy hiding in the grass before the Hue/s dropped in to unload.

Now well into the last leg of their flight to the contact point, the lift Hueys began to drop out of their fifteen‑ hundred‑ foot cruising altitude. Reaching about six hundred to seven hundred feet in their descent toward the LZ, Roseborough called for his flight to again go into trail.

Falling back into a straight line, and flying with their main rotor blades not more than ten to fifteen feet apart, the ARP‑ laden UH‑ lHs turned onto final. They were fast descending into the marshy little clearing that had just been swept by the Cobra’s several flé chette runs.

At two hundred feet of altitude, Two Six came up again: “OK, Horsemen, we’re clear to suppress both sides of the landing zone… no friendlies… suppress at my command. ”

The eight door gunners, with four machine gunners on each side of the formation, were to commence firing on his order and sweep the LZ on both sides before touchdown.

“Open fire, ” came Roseborough’s command as the flight of four passed through one hundred feet and steepened its angle downward toward the yellow smoke‑ marked landing point.

Suddenly the air was shattered by the sound of eight machine guns going off all at once. Hundreds of 7. 62mm rounds hammered into the marshy earth with every‑ fifth‑ round tracers spitting out a tongue of fire that streaked into the wood line surrounding the LZ.

Bob Holmes, at the controls of the lead Huey, decelerated and brought the flight straight in toward the still‑ billowing yellow smoke. He had made scores of hostile LZ landings, and knew that he had to move in fast, touch down for maybe three seconds to discharge his load of ARPs, then get out before any trouble developed. Yellow smoke swirled into Chalk One’s windshield. Down… down… the big Huey’s skid shoes settled to within inches of the marshy ground.

At the moment of near touchdown, a thunderous, blinding explosion erupted underneath Holmes’s aircraft. Chalk One lurched upward, shuddered in its death throes, and dropped to the ground.

Following just feet behind, the cockpit crews of Chalk Two, Three, and Four were horror‑ stricken by what they had just witnessed. The Chalk Two pilot, who now became flight lead, instantly realized that it was imperative to get the ARPs out of the remaining three Hueys and clear the LZ. He urgently yelled into his radio to the two ships behind him, “Get out of here! Chalk One’s hit. Door gunners, no suppression, no firing. Lift off and break right… break right. Let’s get out of here! ”

Right on top of that radio message, the Cobra was directing his scout: “Get in there… get in there and cover the LZ. You can’t shoot, there are friendlies on the ground. Don’t know the situation… get in there and advise. ”

By that time, the ARP platoon sergeant (who always rode in the trail UH‑ 1, whereas Four Six, the platoon leader, rode with the flight lead) had run forward to assume command of the remaining three ARP squads and secure the landing zone. Though both painfully wounded, Bob Holmes and Doc Smith somehow emerged from the shattered Huey and began helping others out of the smoking, hopelessly wrecked aircraft.

Later the news came from the crash scene that Chalk One had hit a mine as it was about to touch down. It was thought to be a “tilt rod‑ actuated” mine, which was hard to see once planted because the body of it was covered with dirt. A fine, wire tilt rod poked up about twelve inches off the ground through the grass like a miniature car radio antenna. When something like the belly of an aircraft came in contact with the rod, the mine was actuated and set off the explosion.

The enemy had apparently realized that the clearing was a likely spot for our helicopters to land and insert troops, so they had planted the mine in advance. It was Chalk One’s fate to set down on top of it. The resulting explosion ripped through the belly of the Huey–right under the passenger cabin–and sent fire, shrapnel, and tar‑ black smoke throughout the interior of the helicopter. Every person in the aircraft was injured in the blast. One man was killed.

Not only was the aircraft and its crew immediately out of action, but one fourth of the ARP platoon’s personnel (including its Four Six, Lieutenant Casey) was lost as an effective fighting force. What more could Charlie have hoped for, with just one randomly placed mine?

Four days later, the fragility of a combatant’s life in the Vietnam War was brought home again to the men of Darkhorse.

I was in the ops bunker monitoring radios because we still had a hunter‑ killer team out working a VR. Gun pilot Chuck Koranda (Three Nine) was teamed with aeroscout Joe Vad (Darkhorse Nine), and both were heading home from their reconnaissance area up in the Catcher’s Mitt, just north of the Testicles. It was late in the day and they were anxious to get back to base while they still had good light. The Cobra was running a shade over a hundred knots at his usual altitude of fifteen hundred feet; Vad was trailing along about three to four hundred feet below his gun.

As the flight came up on an open field about two and a half miles south of Lai Khe, Vad’s crew chief, Jim Downing, suddenly hit the intercom. “Hold it, sir, ” he yelled. “I’ve got movement down there in that field. I can’t tell if he’s friendly or a bad guy. We need to get down lower. ”

Vad took a fast look below and, apparently seeing something also, got on UHF to Koranda.

“Hey, Three Nine, this is Niner. My Charlie Echo has spotted movement down there in that open field. Why don’t you do a left one eighty while I go down and check the guy out to see if he’s a friendly. ”

Koranda came right back. “OK, Niner, roger. I’ve got you covered… you’re cleared down. ”

Joe Vad was a good scout pilot. He had been in the troop longer than I had, even though I was coming up on my year in country. Joe’s scouting experience dictated the way he came in on the contact. He rolled out of altitude and quickly spiraled down to the deck, then he intentionally went low level a good distance away from the field where the individual had been spotted. Once down and out of view, he kicked up his speed, staying right on top of the trees as he steered toward the contact. That way his aircraft sound would be muffled and not give away his presence as he closed on the field. His plan was to push his bird up to about ninety to a hundred knots, pop up over the nipa palms, and drop back down again on top of the spot where the suspect was last seen. It was a quick and dirty tactic designed to surprise and gain a tactical advantage at the same time.

Vad’s approach was perfect. With his finger tight on the minigun trigger, and Downing hanging out of the back cabin door with his 60 at the ready, Darkhorse Nine suddenly dropped down into the clearing.

Sure enough, there he was–just off Vad’s right wing, frozen almost in mid‑ step as he walked across the clearing. The man’s bulging eyes and terror‑ stricken face were plainly visible as the OH‑ 6 swept by at nearly a hundred knots.

Downing shouted into the intercom, “VC… VC! He’s a bad guy. Got a weapons pouch on his chest and some kind of weapon. Come around, sir… come around! ”

Vad immediately hit his transmit button to Koranda. “I’ve got one VC in the open, Three Nine. I’m rolling in. ”

Nine turned hard right to come back around and set up an engagement solution for his minigun. By that time, the enemy soldier was running like a madman across the field, obviously trying to make it to the tree line before the Loach could come around on his tail and bring its guns to bear. After a fast one eighty, Vad dropped down to about two feet off the ground and twisted on more speed to catch Charlie before he made the trees.

Closing fast, and ready to squeeze back the minigun trigger, Vad was within a millisecond of firing when suddenly the enemy soldier stopped dead in his tracks about a hundred yards in front of Vad’s nose. The man whirled, swung his weapon up to his hip, and ripped off a totally blind burst of. 30‑ caliber carbine toward Vad’s onrushing bird!

One of those wildly fired enemy rounds crashed through the bubble of the aircraft and struck Joe Vad squarely in the forehead. The pilot lurched, instantly dead in his cockpit seat. Flying at at least eighty‑ five knots and now suddenly uncontrolled, the Loach rolled right, crazily back left again, then violently flipped over onto its back and into the ground. The aircraft exploded in a horrible, fiery blast, instantly killing crew chief Jim Downing.

Gun pilot Koranda was thunderstruck. Watching his scout like a mother hen from fifteen hundred feet above the clearing, he had seen Vad make a normal, calculated gun run on the enemy soldier in the field. Then, a split‑ second later, he saw his scout lurch wildly, pitch into the ground, and explode in a ball of flame. The VC who had fired the fateful shot? Gone. He had vanished into the jungle.

Three Nine did the only thing he could do. He immediately radioed troop ops and scrambled to the scene what few ARPs the troop had left after recent casualties. When the ARPs arrived, Vad’s twisted Loach was still burning. There was nothing they could do except secure the crash site until the fire subsided enough to remove the bodies.

To describe our feelings at the time is impossible. It was an incredible blow to us all. We had lost Sgt. James L. Downing, the courageous soldier who was my crew chief the day we made the blood drop to the ARPs pinned in the bomb crater. And we had lost WO Henry J. Vad, one of our oldest and most experienced scout pilots, a raucous, rowdy man who helped, in his own zany way, take some of the pressure off the rest of the platoon.

The next day, 7 November 1969, the 1st Aviation Battalion chaplain came to the unit to hold a memorial ceremony. Stationed on the table in the front of the room were the somber symbols of our Outcasts lost to enemy action: The steel infantryman’s helmet with a fresh, new camouflage cover, an immaculately cleaned and oiled M‑ 16 rifle, and a pair of fully laced, spit‑ shined boots.

As the chaplain spoke his few brief words, everyone had his own private thoughts of Downing and Vad. I thought of their courage and of their fear. I thought that one surely can’t have courage without fear. Like all of us, these two men knew that every day they got in their aircraft, the odds were against them. Yet they flew with the confidence that they’d make it through, and they did the best they could do for their country.

^{CHAPTER 18}

I THINK WE WON

I had been hearing that there would be a Christmas drop. In other words, if your tour in Vietnam ended near the first of January, as mine did on 1 January 1970, the army would make an effort to get you out of country in time to be home for Christmas.

The prospect was sounding better to me every day, but I really couldn’t let myself think about it. A scout pilot whose concentration was distracted by anything–let alone the prospect of going home for Christmas–was looking to get himself and his crew chief killed.

In any case, I was getting very short in country. My picture in the 0 club was moving up to the number one position over the bar, and 1 would be transitioning out of scouts soon and passing on the platoon leadership to my successor.

Charlie, however, was unimpressed. The enemy remained extremely active and was showing himself in the field in even greater numbers. Still, the infamous NVA Dong Nai Regiment remained elusive. These North Vietnamese main force regulars were hitting our 1st Division units with disgusting regularity. Then, almost phantomlike, they would steal away into their sanctuaries, defying our best efforts to find them.

On 10 November, I was flying with a young new crew chief by the name of Bolin (Parker was still out with his neck wound and had, in fact, been sent back to Okinawa for recuperation). We were out on VR in the western Trap, not far from where I was shot down last time near FSB Kien.

I was down low working my patterns when we picked up movement of a single enemy soldier. We jumped him out in the open near a bunker complex. Bolin engaged with his 60 and dropped the man almost where he stood.

That brief encounter suddenly brought about fifteen more enemy soldiers into the fight–more than I could handle with my firepower. So I had Bolin drop a red grenade, and asked my Cobra to hit the smoke.

My gun that day was Bill Church (Three Six). He rolled in immediately and made several passes to hose down the area with rockets and minigun. Then I went back in for a BDA. But the area was still hot–I took so much enemy fire that I had to get back out fast before getting shot to pieces. I realized that we didn’t have enough horsepower to neutralize the contact, so I went up on the FAC push and told Sidewinder that we needed him to bring in fast movers, and whatever else he had available.

After two heavy air strikes, we inserted the ARPs and found a base camp with five enemy KIA. With the extraction of the ARPs, elements of the 2/2 Mech Inf–call signs Label Eight One and Label Eight Nine–were called in to stay in the area and sweep the base camp.

Since we hadn’t known about this enemy base, I flew back out the next day to see if I could pick up anything else around that area. Sure enough, about thirty meters from where Label Eight One was working, we jumped one more enemy soldier. Bolin again quickly dispatched a stream of 60 fire that cut the man down.

Not finding anything more on the ground to warrant their presence, the 2/2 element was extracted on 11 November. We had apparently lost contact with the main enemy force that had occupied the base camp.

Just a week later (17 November), Rod Willis (One Seven), with Sp4 Joe Cook in the back cabin, was working a reconnaissance in the western Trapezoid. I was back at Phu Loi standing by on designated Scramble 1 alert. As usual, I was in the ops bunker monitoring the radios and drinking coffee.

One Seven was working down very low on top of the trees. He was just to the southeast of the Michelin rubber plantation and about four kilometers north and east of FSB Kien. The area was covered by very thick vegetation. The triple‑ canopy jungle was so dense, in fact, that Willis and his crew chief could catch only fleeting glimpses of the ground as they flew over. At one point, however, the foliage beneath them opened up and they thought they saw evidence of an enemy base camp below.

Rod immediately hauled the OH‑ 6 around to go back for a closer look. As One Seven attempted to hover over the area in question, a fierce explosion suddenly erupted beneath Willis’s Loach. The force of the blast violently rocked the scout ship and sent hot fragments flying, with some pieces of shrapnel catching Joe Cook in the left hand.

(Coincidentally, Cook was the second crew chief to be hit in the left hand in the last two weeks. It had also happened to Ken Stormer. This was mainly the result of how Loach door gunners positioned themselves in the ship; when at the ready with their M‑ 60s, their left hands were forward out on the gun and more exposed. )

Willis didn’t know what had exploded, but he could see that the explosion had obviously detonated in the top of a tree. The tree had nearly disintegrated, in addition to nearly blowing his aircraft out of the sky.

Though wincing with pain, Cook immediately began to throw M‑ 60 fire into the enemy base camp area. A barrage of enemy weapons burst forth in response.

One Seven increased his speed and his radius of attack, and simultaneously broadcast a request to his Cobra that the ARPs be inserted to find out just what they had stumbled upon.

Major Moore was in the ops bunker at Phu Loi when the request came to scramble the ARPs. He quickly consulted his maps and surmised that the enemy outfit probably would try to make it back up into the Michelin and, ultimately, on into their sanctuary in the Razorbacks. With that thought, Six told One Seven to scout out an LZ to the north of his contact; then, if the enemy tried to make a run for it out the back door, the ARPs would be in position to block their escape.

Within thirty minutes, the ARPs were on the scene, led by the new Four Six, 1st Lt. Stuart J. Harrell, replacing Lieutenant Casey, who was badly wounded in the Huey‑ mine incident. As ordered, Willis had picked an LZ north of where he had been rocked by the tree explosion.

Once the ARPs were down, One Seven established FM contact with the platoon’s RTO and set about the task of steering Harrell’s infantrymen through the dense jungle toward the enemy base area. Leading their ground movement was the point man, Pfc. William J. Brown. To work point, a man needed a lot of experience and almost a sixth sense to detect impending danger. Unfortunately, Private First Class Brown had very little of either. He had recently arrived in country and had just been transferred into the ARP platoon as a casualty replacement.

Willis shepherded the ARPs closer and closer to the enemy bunker complex. As he did, point man Brown became more and more cautious. Quietly, warily, Brown approached the first bunker.

When he was just a few feet away, Brown prudently moved off to the side and took up a position of cover to study the potential firing lanes of the enemy emplacement. As he crouched for a brief moment to observe his front, a single SKS carbine shot suddenly cracked out of the heavy undergrowth to Brown’s flank. The ARP point man crumpled forward onto his face, dead before he hit the ground. The carefully aimed round was fired from another bunker to his left–one he hadn’t seen.

The whole jungle area immediately erupted into a thunderous hail of gunfire, as the entire enemy camp opened up with its full complement of machine guns, rifles, frag grenades in layers, and RPG rounds, which seemed to be going off in the trees and everywhere else around the surprised ARP platoon.

In that initial enemy fusillade, six more ARPs went down, including the platoon’s new Four Six. Both senior squad leaders, S. Sgt. Mark K. Mathewson and S. Sgt. James A. Jordon, were hit, Mathewson with a frag wound to the right leg and Jordon with a ripping gunshot wound to his left hand. Pfc. Sammy G. Lindsay crumpled to the ground with an enemy bullet piercing his left thigh. A CHICOM grenade went off right in front of Four Six, Stu Harrell, and the fragments shredded his left arm from shoulder to fingers. A Soviet RPG‑ 7 round exploded right at the feet of Sgt. Allen H. Caldwell; he was dead before he hit the ground. Pfc. Robert L. Foster caught shell fragments in the thoracic area and was slammed down onto the blood‑ spattered jungle floor. The murderous barrage had, in just seconds, put one fourth of the ARP platoon out of action.

Flying right over the ARPs, Willis was enraged. But there was little he could do to help the aeroriflemen.

Aeroscout Bob Davis (One Three) had been sitting with his gun at Dau Tieng waiting to relieve One Seven on station. Davis and his Cobra immediately lifted off and arrived at the contact point in less than five minutes.

With One Three on the scene and briefed to provide cover over the beleaguered ARPs, One Seven beat it back to Phu Loi. Joe Cook, his left hand bleeding badly from Charlie’s grenade fragments, needed attention beyond the makeshift bandage he had bound around his fist.

I was leaning over the radios back at the ops bunker listening when the troop commander walked in. Davis’s gun, Bruce Foster, was yelling at One Three to get out of the way so he could shoot. Concerned that the ARPs were in over their heads, Six asked me to get cranked and fly up there.

I raced for my aircraft. Jim Parker met me there. Just back from his recuperation, he was scheduled as my Scramble 1 crew chief. Willis was also set to fly out with me. He had gotten Joe Cook to the medics, picked up another crew chief, and was ready to get back over the contact area.

As soon as we arrived at the scene, I dropped down low over the ARPs to get a firsthand report from S tu Harrell. I needed visual contact to assess what the enemy force was doing. Zeroing in on the area where Harrell was down with his RTO, I hit FM. “Four Six, this is One Six. What’s your sitrep? ”

I could see him take the mike from his RTO. “We’re in bad shape, One Six. I’ve been hit either by a very well initiated L‑ shaped ambush or by a hell of a heavy and well dug in force. ”

“What about your people? ” I questioned.

Harrell’s bloody left arm lay limp at his side and, though his voice was sharp and clear, I could hear that he was in pain. “We’re completely covered. We’re taking very, very heavy fire… machine guns, rockets, grenades. I have at least two KIA, another five or six wou–”

His last words were smothered as the jungle below me opened up again with devastating fire–directed this time not only at Four Six’s position but also up at me as I flew just twenty to thirty feet off the ground.

Damn! I thought. We must have stepped on a lot of bad people down there. It must be at least a company plus–or, more likely, a battalion‑ minus‑ sized base area. But, whatever, it’s full of bad guys. They’re mad, and they sure as hell want to fight.

I pulled an armful of collective and moved away until the firing calmed down. But I knew I had to get back in there and find out from Four Six where his men were.

I hollered back at Harrell. “Get me a position report on your people. I can’t shoot until I know where all of your people are. ”

I swooped back in again–this time faster–to see if I could get a better picture of Harrell’s situation. It was hot down there–like touching a light switch and having the lights come on. When I dropped down, the enemy fire came up. Instantly.

But this time, I got a better lay of the land. There was an old tank bust trail that ran from the southeast to the northwest, which roughly bisected what I could see of the enemy base area. Harrell’s ARPs had been inserted in an LZ to the west of the trail. They had started advancing directly east toward the base camp when point man Brown was hit, and all hell broke loose.

The enemy base camp most likely had. been alerted to impending trouble when the initial explosion had rocked Willis’s ship. Probably reacting to the fact that they had been discovered, Charlie decided to get out of his base area and escape north before the aeroscout brought more firepower down on them. When the ARPs were inserted and headed into the base area from the west, they cut the old tank bust, just as troop commander Moore had foreseen. The tactic had blocked the trail and posed an obstacle to the enemy, who wanted to use it to escape north, back to their established sanctuary in the Razorbacks. The enemy soldiers were obviously getting set to ram the ARP’s right flank from the south, bust through their ranks, then head on home up the trail.

With this scenario in mind, I dropped down again on a fast run‑ by. Looking closer this time, the only people I could see moving around the trail were Four Six and his RTO. I spotted several more of our people who were down and not moving. It didn’t look good.

Harrell–typically not wearing his helmet–was crawling on the tank bust, M‑ 16 in his right hand and dragging his shrapnel‑ riddled left arm beside him. Every few seconds, he’d pull himself up on his knees, brace his rifle on his bloody left arm, and fire off a burst down the trail to his southeast. He had plenty of targets down that way–and they could easily overrun his position and split the ARP blocking force.

It was a frustrating situation. The Cobras had worked up some artillery, and Sidewinder Two Two had been called to the scene to order up some of his fast movers. But we couldn’t use any of that muscle until Harrell could get organized and tell us where our friendlies were located on the ground. Time was running out. It didn’t look to me as though Four Six could hold much longer against what was surely a very large force hammering against his flank.

There was only one thing I could think of that might help relieve some of the pressure. It was not exactly a happy thought, but it was the only one I had at the moment.

I keyed the intercom to Parker. “OK, Jimbo, ” I said, “we’ve been here before. The only thing I know to do is get back in there low and slow, make ourselves enough of a pain in Charlie’s ass that he pays more attention to us and leaves Four Six alone long enough to get his people reorganized. ”

I got back two quick squelches from Parker’s intercom. He understood and was ready.

As I hovered back toward the trail, I hit the intercom again. “If you can definitely identify the enemy and can make a positive shot, fire at will, but don’t hang it out too far. I’m hanging it out far enough for both of us. Here we go! ”

I hovered in toward the contact point at a very low airspeed, fish‑ tailing the boom and rocking the aircraft back and forth as I went. As I figured, the heavy fire was suddenly diverted to us. We began to take hits; we could hear and feel the rounds crashing through the Loach’s skin and passing through the open interior of the ship.

I yelled to Harrell on the FM freq. “I’m trying to draw the fire away from you. Get your people into one area. Get yourself reorganized into a position so we know where you are and can shoot. ”

I could see Four Six trying to drag himself along the trail. His RTO, who had also been hit, was crawling slowly behind his platoon leader, painfully trying to keep up.

Still taking intensive enemy fire, I hovered right in over Harrell and looked him square in the face. He was badly hurt. I could see the anguish in his eyes. His left arm and hand looked like punctured raw meat, covered with blood and red dust from the trail.

He let his RTO catch up with him, then grabbed the radio handset. “We’re in deep shit, One Six. I think I’ve got only about twenty men left to hold them off. They’re trying to overrun us. Every time we move, they come at us again. ”

I empathized with him, but there still wasn’t a damned thing more I could do. If the enemy had chosen that very moment to overrun our people down there, we couldn’t have fired a single shot for fear of shooting into the midst of our own soldiers.

The stalemate continued for almost another thirty minutes. I would draw away from the trail for a minute or so, then run back in to decoy Charlie’s fire. The ship was taking terrific punishment, but neither Parker nor I had been hit. Somehow, that sturdy little OH‑ 6 just kept on flying.

The time was enough, however, for Harrell to get his people consolidated and organized on the trail. His earlier guess was accurate–he had only about twenty ARPs left to try to keep the enemy at bay.

Suddenly Four Six’s voice boomed into my phones. “Fire’s picking up, One Six. I think they’re pushing… I think they’re coming! ”

I looked down. Harrell was standing up in the middle of the trail, pointing his weapon to his southeast and letting go with a full magazine of ammo. All his other ARPs were firing off in the same direction. The lid was obviously coming off.

I yelled at Parker. “Open up. Do what you can… fire at will! ”

We found ourselves sitting on top of one of the fiercest firefights I had ever seen. We, of course, couldn’t see the enemy, or whether Parker’s barking 60 was knocking any of them down, but it was obvious that our twenty friendlies were holding off a much larger force… and could be overwhelmed at any second.

Four Six finally got enough of a breather to talk to me again, in a calm but noticeably apprehensive voice. “We got a lot of people down here, One Six. I shit you not, we got a whole lot of people, and they’re trying to flank us. They’re moving off the trail and heading northeast on our flank. My God, there’s a lot of people down here! ”

“Four Six, One Six. How many people have you got? ”

“More than a hundred, ” he answered.

I silently mimicked his, my God! This was the largest concentration of enemy troops we had ever jumped in the field. And here we were not able to shoot at them, not even able to see them as they prowled around in the jungle.

Harrell came back again. “One Six, they’re definitely moving toward the northeast. They’re trying to move around me on my east flank and head on up north. What in the hell is up there that they want to get to so bad? ”

While airborne, scouts never had the free hands or time to even look at a map, but Harrell’s question caused me to reach for mine. I cradled the collective on my knee, then reached around with my left hand to pull the chart out of its pocket, located between the two pilot seats. I probably looked like a juggler in his first talent show as I tried to watch where I was going, handle the controls, and spread out the map.

But I managed it, and my eye quickly went to the grid where the ARPs were located on the tank bust trail. Looking north of that point about two hundred yards, I saw a little stream that apparently carried runoff water down south; at that point, the stream ran mostly east and west through some pretty rough terrain. It looked to me as though the stream formed a natural obstacle that the enemy would have to cross in order to escape north to the Michelin.

I decided that was a fine place to throw in some heavy stuff. Even though it was only a couple of hundred yards from our friendlies, we could blow up everything around the stream at that point and contain the enemy’s flight.

I called up the FAC to set the plan in motion. “Sidewinder Two Two, this is Darkhorse One Six. You see where the Little Blue crosses through that low area just north of the ARPs about two hundred yards? ”

He answered in his now‑ familiar Aussie twang. “Roger, One Six. I got it. ”

“OK, then, ” I continued, “I’ve got heavy enemy troops moving that way from the south, probably a hundred or more on the run, trying to flank our friendlies and didi to the rubber. You work up your first set of fast movers and I’ll make one pass over and give you a smoke. ”

Sidewinder rogered, and I headed into a big sweeping right turn over the area just south of the streambed. As I looked down, I saw whole groups of underbrush and bushes, but they were moving! The “bushes” were, in fact, enemy soldiers with camouflage capes across their backs. They were obviously the lead element of enemy troops who had flanked Harrell’s ARPs.

No wonder Four Six had his hands full. His little unit of twenty riflemen was all that stood between what must have been a battalion of bad guys and their otherwise open and clear flight path.

As I passed low over the stream, I yelled to Parker. “Smoke… drop the smoke… now! ” and the red smoke canister was on its way.

I keyed Sidewinder. “Hit the smoke… red smoke is out. Enemy troops are moving north‑ northeast. ”

Sidewinder came right back. “Negative smoke… negative smoke! ”

I jerked my head around and looked back. Damn. Parker’s grenade had dropped in the stream and gone out.

We were catching it from below, taking hit after hit in the aircraft. But there was nothing left to do but pull around and make another run over the stream to put down a good mark for Sidewinder.

This time Parker dropped two grenades to avoid a repeat of the problem. He let the spoons fly and both grenades popped in his hands before he dropped them. Parker’s gloves protected his hands as the smoke poured from the ports at the bottom of the canister. Red smoke billowed up at us as we hightailed it back toward the ARP’s position.

We stayed down as low as we could, fairly brushing the treetops. I felt myself sucking down into the armor plate and tried to keep my pucker factor from totally eating the seat cushion.

Sidewinder’s voice popped back into my phones. “OK, Darkhorse, we’ve got your marker. Get yourself clear. We’re inbound with high‑ drag snake and nape. ”

As I pulled back in over the ARPs, the whole northern area exploded into great balls of black smoke and fire. Sidewinder’s fast movers had just hung a detour sign on Charlie’s back door escape route.

Through the roar of explosions I suddenly heard the troop commander’s voice over VHF, advising us that he was overhead in his command Huey, and that we’d soon have a supporting infantry company on the scene. The plan was to put about 150 troops on the ground, on the backside of the ARPs, engage the enemy soldiers that had flanked the ARP position, then drive the bad guys back toward their base camp.

About eight minutes later a flight of ten Hueys flew in. They descended below the tree line to my north, then took off again, apparently heading back to Dau Tieng for another load of friendlies.

Moments later, the Cobra broke in on FM. “OK, Four Six, get your heads down. Inserted unit reports fifty to seventy‑ five, possibly one hundred enemy troops coming your way. They have engaged and turned them around. They’re now headed back toward your position on the way into their base area. They’re comin’ fast! ”

I could tell that Harrell had read the Cobra’s warning. He was crawling around to his men, checking their ammo and trying to get them better positioned to fight off the next onslaught.

The jungle below me literally exploded again with heavy firing. As predicted, the enemy soldiers were rushing back down the tank bust

in full retreat, apparently determined to take down everything that stood in their way.

The ARPs opened up with blistering fire. The enemy surged ahead, The battle became head‑ to‑ head and nearly hand‑ to‑ hand before the surge of oncoming soldiers veered off the trail to the east, trying to bypass the merciless fire of Harrell’s aeroriflemen.

Their move off to Four Six’s flank gave me the room I needed to shoot. I dropped down to a hover over Harrell, dumped the nose, and took aim over the heads of the ARPs, pulling the minigun trigger back to the four‑ thousand‑ rounds‑ a‑ minute stop. Kicking left and right pedals, I hosed out everything I had into the tree line. Parker was leaning out of the right side, spraying down the running enemy soldiers with 7. 62.

I suddenly went dry on the minigun. Parker, just seconds later, went dry on the M‑ 60. We had thrown everything we had at them, except for Parker’s backup. In desperation, he reached back for his “Thumper” and started pumping out M‑ 79 40mm rounds, followed by a full thirty‑ round magazine out of his “stowed for last resort” M‑ 16.

As abruptly as the furor had started, it ended. There was almost dead silence, except for the whirring sound of my rotors.

I maneuvered back over the ARP’s position, about twenty feet off the ground, and looked down at Harrell. He was sitting on the ground, still without his steel helmet, legs stretched out in front of him. His bleeding, grimy left arm was cradled in his lap and his jungle fatigues were black with sweat. The bolt of his still‑ smoking CAR‑ 15 was in the open position, indicating that he had expended his last round and was on an empty ammo magazine.

I could hardly tell if he was dead or alive, until he finally turned his sweat‑ drenched face up toward me. Through his pain and exhaustion, he managed a grin.

As I smiled and waved back, he reached over to his RTO and picked up his radio mike. He looked back up at me and flashed another big, toothy grin. “Goddamnit, One Six, I think we won! ”

^{CHAPTER 19}