“Captain Beauchamp, Lieutenant Cory is coming over to see you. Can he get his old call sign back, Chicken-man One-Niner?” the major asked.
“Yes, sir. That call sign hasn’t been assigned since he left. No problem,” Captain Beauchamp stated.
“Okay, assign it to him now, and after a couple of flights you can cut AC orders on him.”
“Roger, sir, anything else?”
“That’s all,” the major stated and hung up.
It was close to evening chow time, and aircraft could be heard returning to the Chicken Pen. Cory figured he would head to the officers’ club for a beer before dinner and meet some of his fellow pilots, new and old guys. The club was dark inside compared to the bright sunlight outside, so it took Cory’s eyes a few seconds to adjust, but when they did, he saw nothing had changed except someone had placed a miniature Christmas tree on the end of the bar. The stone-and-concrete bar was to the immediate right, spanning a distance of twenty feet from the exterior wall to a rubber tree that grew up through the roof. When the club had been built, rubber trees couldn’t be cut down, so the club had been built around the tree. There were ten pedestal tables and forty wood chairs scattered around the room and ten barstools along the bar. The plywood interior walls had been stained brown to show the grain but also made the club rather dark. Single-bulb lights hung from the ceiling with homemade coffee can shades covering them. A large ice chest behind the bar was stocked each day from the ice machine in the unit mess hall. Beer and soda were stored in a CONEX container that was built into the wall. A Vietnamese woman, Sam, was still working behind the bar. About twenty years old and rather attractive, she had been the club manager since the club had been built a year ago. She was not a boom-boom girl, and heaven help the pilot that thought she was. How she’d gotten the job was a mystery to Cory, but she had been hired by Major Bobby Saunders, a previous company commander. She even lived in the company area, as it was well after curfew before the club closed and she couldn’t be walking around the base camp. The Vietnamese woman who was the bartender at the EM club shared a hooch with her.
Seeing Stu already perched on a barstool, Cory joined him. “I see some things don’t change,” Cory said as he planted his butt on a stool. “Sam, can I have a beer, please?”
Sam looked up as she reached into the ice chest to retrieve a cold one. It didn’t register immediately who this new pilot was. “You new here? You look like guy here before. Where you come from?” she said as she passed over the cold beer. “That two bits,” Sam said, using American slang.
“Yeah, Sam, I’ve been told I look like a pilot that was here, Dan Cory.” Stu sat there with a straight face, but he was laughing inside.
“Yeah, you look like him, but he go home.” Then facial recognition kicked in. “Hey, it you, Lieutenant! What you do here? You go home.”
“Sam, I just missed you so much I had to come back.”24
“You number ten crazy,” Sam said as she threw a wet bar towel at Cory, which missed and landed on the floor. Laughing, he picked it up and handed it to her. Resuming his place on the barstool, Cory turned to Stu.
“So how has the flying been since I left?” he asked.
“Things quieted down for a bit after you left but have started to pick up again. After Cambodia, the gooks were in no position to do much, so the flying was mostly resupply around Song Be. Then we started backhauling people to Bien Hoa as the grunts started standing down while we were flying more missions in support of the ARVNs. Now it’s almost exclusively in support of the ARVNs, and a lot of cross-border operations. Each ARVN unit has a US advisor or two and that’s who we talk to. They get the loads ready. I’ve had to pull liaison with the ARVN brigade headquarters here at Lai Khe a couple of times.”
“How’s that duty?”
“It isn’t bad. Mostly find out what they want for missions the next day and come back and get with Ops to schedule the missions, then back to their headquarters and give them the missions. Seems to be working okay.”
“Well, what all is left here at Lai Khe?”
“Let’s see—us, Lobos, a US engineer brigade headquarters and an MP company as well as the Robin Hoods. Word is that the engineer brigade is pulling out by next week. The Robin Hoods are leaving sometime soon for places unknown. Lobo’s moving to someplace south to fly for First Aviation Brigade, and that’ll leave us and the MP company. Oh, there’s also a US Army dentist with one assistant over at the ARVN compound. He comes over all the time for company and the club. Civilian contractors are manning the fire station and are responsible for all the handover of installation property. They’ve been busy,” Stu went on. As Stu spoke another pilot walked in and took the stool next to Cory.
“Beer Sam, please and one for these two,” Lieutenant Alston Gore said tossing his head towards Cory and Stu. Cory turned to face his new best friend.
“Thank you. Dan Cory,” Dan said extend
ing his hand.
“Your welcome but why thank me?” Alston responded.
“Well you just ordered me a beer,” Cory said with a bit of confusion.
Accepting Cory’s hand, Alston said with a wide grin, “Yea, I ordered you two a beer. Didn’t say I was buying you a beer.” Alston Gore was the Distinguished Military Graduate for the Reserve Officer Training Corps of Cadets at Clemson University, class of 1969. He was from South Carolina and proud of that fact. The rest of the evening was spent catching up on who had left, who had come in, who were the good newbie pilots and who were the clueless ones. Several old pilots Cory had flown with were surprised to come into the club and find him there. “Are you nuts?” he was asked more than once. Mike George had a few choice words when he saw Cory, as did Lou Price. Both had just signed up for their extensions, first for Lou and second for Mike. The three amigos were back together again.
Chapter 20
No Blade Strikes
“Hey, Kelly, what we got today?” asked Dorsey as he approached the aircraft with the two M60 machine guns. Kelly was in the process of checking the engine over with his flashlight before the pilots arrived and conducted their morning preflight.
“Not sure, but I suspect it’s a resupply for the ARVNs again today. Really doesn’t make a difference who we’re flying for or what we’re flying. It’s just another day closer to going home. Let’s get loaded up. Here comes Mr. Fender,” Kelly indicated as he mounted his gun. Kelly’s normal AC was Mike George, who was on his thirty-day extension leave in California.
“Morning, ladies,” Mr. Fender said as he tossed his helmet into the AC seat.
“Morning, sir,” Kelly responded.