Medal of Honor (Undaunted Valor 2)

“Yes, sir. Well, we lifted off the firebase at Bu Gia Map and had an eight-minute flight, circling to the south for a northern approach into the LZ. The LZ was sort of in a valley with the firebase on one side and a high ridge on the western side. At H minus six, the Artillery started a four-minute prep on the LZ and Cory gave a time hack. At H minus two, a white phosphorous round hit the LZ, and Blue Max started into its dive. Just as he did, from the top of the ridge-line on the west, this missile or rocket comes up trailing white smoke. At first, it’s just coming up and then it made a slight turn towards the Cobra. It hit the tail boom, just behind the engine, severing it right where it hit. The rotor came off the aircraft intact and sailed away. The body of the aircraft just fell out of the sky. We were all taking ground fire and dropping red smoke to mark where it was coming from. Cory aborted the insertion and had Chalk Two take the flight back while he flew over the downed aircraft. When we got back to the firebase, we debated if it was an RPG or a missile of some sort. We came to the conclusion it was a missile.”

“Why did you conclude it was a missile?” asked Lieutenant Colonel Bronson.

“Sir, several of us have been on the receiving end of their rocket-propelled grenades, and they have a black smoke trail behind them. This was white. Also, an RPG flies straight; this thing flew as if it was tracking the Cobra. Lastly, Cory said he thought that ground clutter would prevent a missile from being fired down off the ridge, and that may be why it went after the Cobra and not the lift ships, as we were all pretty much below the ridge,” Mr. Sinkey explained. “Sir, we, the Slicks, were pretty busy. We were taking ground fire before we ever got to the LZ. The flight path was a trail of red smoke being dropped by each aircraft,” Mr. Sinkey added.

“Thank you, Mr. Sinkey. You have answered my questions,” the lieutenant colonel responded.

“Thanks, Mr. Sinkey, that will be all,” Major Sundstrum said. Sinkey got up and left the orderly room, thankful that he might be off the CO’s shit list, if he had ever been on it.

Lieutenant Colonel Bronson sat there for a minute, looking at the notes he had taken. Finally looking up, he asked, “Is that about the same as everyone else’s comments?”

“Yeah, pretty much. Now what can I tell my pilots?” Major Sundstrum asked.

Bronson stood and donned his hat. “Nothing for now, but I would consider a lot more low-level flying instead of flying at twenty-five hundred feet. You have a good day, and thanks.” With that, he turned and left.

Major Sundstrum sat there for a few minutes digesting what Lieutenant Colonel Bronson had just told him. Getting up, he walked into the outer office, where Lockwood and the first sergeant had their desks. Finding a fresh pot of coffee, he started to pour himself a cup, still deep in thought.

“You look troubled, sir. Anything I can do?” asked the first sergeant. First Sergeant Ronald Miller, commonly referred to as Top, was on his third tour in Vietnam. Initially he had enlisted as a grunt right after Korea. He’d reenlisted for an aviation military occupational specialty, MOS, and moved into aircraft maintenance in the late 1950s, when he’d seen his first helicopter. The Army and aviation was his future he decided. The leadership traits he’d learned as a young sergeant in the infantry carried over well to his roles in aviation, and he’d risen through the ranks to be a true leader of young soldiers and a mentor to junior officers, at least those that were willing to listen to some sage advice. He was not a tall man and he had a slim build, but when people heard his gravelly voice, they listened.

“Grab a cup and come into my office. I want to bounce some thoughts off you,” the CO said as he walked back to his office. A minute later, the first sergeant came in and took a seat.

“So what did the colonel want that has you thinking, sir?”

“You remember that mission Lieutenant Cory led last July that lost the Cobra from Blue Max? Well, the head shed now believes that we may be looking at a game-changing weapon coming into play.”

“A missile, sir?” the first sergeant asked, taking a sip of his coffee and looking over the top of his cup.

“Yeah, and that will be a game changer if we start seeing them with any frequency,” answered Major Sundstrum. “We’ve been flying here in Vietnam since 1965 using the same tactics for airmobile operations that we developed in the early sixties back at Fort Benning with the Howze Board. We tested the concepts when we were the Eleventh Airborne Division and validated the Howze Board’s findings. The problem is we didn’t test those findings against missiles as an antiaircraft weapon. Hell, in the early sixties, we didn’t know anything about shoulder-fired missiles as air-defense weapons, tactically. Now we’ve lost one aircraft to one, and I think it’s the first but not the last we’re going to see. I’m considering that maybe it’s time we considered changing our tactics. Get away from flying our missions at high altitude to avoid the .50-caliber weapons and start flying at treetop and low-level in future operations.”

“What did the colonel say about the effective range of the missiles?” asked the first sergeant.

“They can reach up to fifteen hundred meters.”

“What does it take for them to acquire a target?” asked First Sergeant Miller.

“He said that a hundred and fifty meters was needed for the missile to reach maximum speed, which puts us in the perfect range of the .50-caliber weapons.”

“Sounds like you have two choices, sir. Fly very high or very low.”

“The problem with very high is you have to come down through their effective range to reach the LZs.”

“Sir, I think you just answered your own question. Start running the missions low and fast.”

“It’s going to make it a lot harder for the flight leaders to navigate. Hell, when I led the flight into Cambodia, I had Lightning Bolt Six sitting up at thirty-five hundred feet, navigating the flight to the LZ for me. I doubt if he’s going to want to do that for every mission now. I sure don’t want to be sitting up there with these things flying around.”

The first sergeant looked at him over the top of his coffee cup. “Sir, why don’t you get with Lightning Bolt Six and the other company commanders and discuss this with them? They probably don’t know all the facts on that shoot-down. Lightning Bolt Six can probably get a group to start looking at the intel and come up with some answers for us.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right, Top. We’ve only seen this one case, and maybe it was just a test, but I have a bad feeling about this. The quicker we start training for low-level operations, the better off we’re going to be to meet this new threat. I’ll talk to the flight leaders and get them thinking about it,?

? Major Sundstrum decided.

“Sir, we have some of the best flight leaders I’ve seen since I’ve been around. They’ll figure it out.”

“I hope so, Top. I hope so.”

Chapter 3

Welcome to Vietnam