Medal of Honor (Undaunted Valor 2)

(c) Wheel vehicles: C-130 requests. How many on load plans?

(d) Pallet loads: Do we have current load plans? How many pallets?

(e) CONEX requirements: Load plans.

(f) CONEX for personal crap: fans, refrigerators, lawn chairs. Can we palletize, CONEX or leave?

3. AO orientations for all crews: Ops coordinate.

4. Air Movement officer. Appoint one OIC.

5. Closeout Coordinator. Appoint one NCOIC. 1SG.

Having completed his list, Major Adams headed over to see the Operations officer. Captain Beauchamp had been the Operations officer, but he had recently returned to the States. A new Operations officer had been in the position for a month. The unit hadn’t moved in two years, so this might turn out to be a challenge. When he went to the Operations hooch, the new Ops officer was a bit surprised to see the CO at this hour as he was usually off doing other things.

“Morning, sir. What can I do for you?” asked Captain Curran. John Curran was an armor officer and on his first tour in Vietnam as a pilot. Being from sunny, dry Phoenix, he wasn’t quite used to the humid heat Vietnam offered.

“Have you heard anything from Battalion yet this morning?” Major Adams asked.

“I was just getting ready to come and see you about that phone call. Yes, sir, the S-3 gave me a heads-up. Said the attachment and movement order would be here the day after tomorrow. Do you want to go over some things?” The captain motioned to his office.

“Yeah, that would be best,” the major said.

“Want some coffee? It’s fresh, just made it,” the Operations NCO asked.

“That would be good, please. With a shot of cream,” Major Adams requested.

Moving into Curran’s office, the major noticed a large folder on his desk. The words “Movement Plan” were scrawled across the cover. Movement plans were maintained by all combat, combat support and combat service support units and were supposed to be updated quarterly. The movement plan outlined how all the unit personnel and equipment were to be moved by truck, rail, sea or air. Included in the movement plan were load cards for each vehicle, trailer and CONEX. The load card showed what each piece of equipment weighed, to include anything added to that vehicle and how it would be packed.

“Sir, when they called this morning, I went looking for these and found them in the file cabinet. I should say Sergeant First Class Robinson knew right where they were and pulled them for me. I was sure we would be going over them.”

Accepting his coffee from Sergeant Robinson, the major began leafing through the file. “First question. How up-to-date is this movement plan?”

“Sir, the last update was noted to be three months ago by Captain Beauchamp. Did you tell him to do that?” Captain Curran asked.

“Nope, he must have done it on his own. I wonder how current those plans are and if he consulted with anyone,” the major pondered out loud as he sipped his coffee.

“Well, sir, looking them over just briefly, they look pretty good to me, but it would be best if we break this out at the next staff meeting and have everyone look their respective portions over and update everything. We’re going to be hit very soon with lots of questions on the number of 463L pallets we’ll need, the number of vehicles and weight for C-130 transport, and what our CONEX requirements are, just to name a few things.”

“Well, that’s one thing I wanted to give you a heads-up on. Staff meeting will be at fifteen hundred hours today in the O club. Bring this with you and be prepared to brief it to everyone. Wish we had some way of making copies of all this. How many copies do you have?” the major asked.

“Sir, I have five copies and that’s it. Everyone should have their own copy as well,” John agreed.

The major looked at John over the top of his coffee cup. “You think?”

“I said ‘should,’ sir,” John said, half laughing.

“Okay, let’s talk missions. When I was up that way last month—or was that two months ago? Hell, I forget. Anyway, I was told we would be flying mostly in support of the ARVNs out of Camp Holloway in an area called Dak To. They are getting ready to kick off some big operation up there and helicopter support is badly needed from what I’ve heard. Do you know anything about it?”

“Not much.” Curran said.

“Who knows? Anyway, we need to coordinate with someone up that way to get our crews oriented to the area. I don’t think we have anyone that’s ever flown in that area before, do we?”

“We may, sir. Mr. Barstow was up north in the sixty-eight, sixty-nine time frame. Mr. Price was up north on his first tour with the company in sixty-eight I believe. I remember him talking about spending the night in a bunker at Camp Evans the night the ammo dump blew up. Let me ask around and see if anyone has been there.”

“Well, since we’ll be attached to the Fifty-Second Aviation Battalion, they should be able to provide us with a couple of guys. I don’t expect we’ll jump right into missions until we get most of the orientatio

n rides out of the way. Oh, who is your movement plans officer? Not you. You’re going to be busy enough.”