An Assault Helicopter Unit in Vietnam (Undaunted Valor 1)

“Dad is fine and safe. He has a desk job at a very well-protected compound and a really nice set of quarters in Saigon.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her he was probably getting laid once a week by his hooch maid.

“How long are you going to be here with me?” she asked. Boy, got off the Dad subject real quick, we did.

“My leave is for thirty days. I really don’t have any plans. Anything you want to do?”

“How about we take off after my last exam and run up to New York to see family? Your Aunt Joanie and Uncle Bill would love to see you, and so would your cousin Kathy. My last exam is the day after tomorrow.”

“Yeah, sounds good. I do want to get over to Warrant Officer Personnel Branch and sit down with an assignments officer, but that’s only one day.”

“Oh, do you remember the Simmons? You met them in Morocco. Their daughter is Mary. I was talking to Margie, and they would like to see you in Virginia Beach as well.”

“Yeah, that might be nice to get back to Virginia Beach, see if it’s changed any since we lived there in the fifties. Mary wrote to me a couple of times. I think she’s in New York City still.” I had met the Simmons when I’d visited my parents in Morocco, before I’d joined the Army and before I’d graduated from flight school. They had a daughter who was a senior in high school. I’d met her in church on my first trip to Morocco. We’d talked a bit, and I’d taken her for a ride in my parents’ MG sports car. That was it. When I came back from Morocco the second time, I had a layover in New York and she came out to the airport to see me. She had graduated and was working in New York City at an accounting firm. She wrote to me a couple of times in Nam, I guess at the urging of her mother, who talked frequently to my mother, both being of Italian descent and both from Queens, New York. See a connection here? Hmmm.

Grabbing my third beer since I’d walked into the apartment twenty minutes ago, I said, “Mom, there have to be a couple of ground rules with me staying here.”

“Okay, what are they?”

“First, I know how you are about waking me up. No coming up to me while I’m sleeping and kissing me. Stand at the foot of the bed and shake my foot, but otherwise no touching. Please.”

“Okay, what els

e?”

“Make sure we have beer. That’s it. Now I’m going to bed and sleeping for about twelve hours. Which room is mine?” And off to bed I went. Clean sheets, a flush toilet and hot showers. What more could a guy ask for from his mom? No, my mom wasn’t a great cook, so I didn’t ask for hot meals from her. She tried, but… Mom also couldn’t follow simple instructions.

The air was cool and I was snuggled in warmth. There was no sound. The night was still. The blackness was all around me. I felt a presence penetrating my world. I reached for my sidearm ever so slowly, but it wasn’t there under my pillow. God, they were coming closer. I could feel them. Strike—strike now before it’s too late! And I came out of the bed with a roundhouse punch, smashing my attacker to the floor. Except it wasn’t a VC sneaking up on me but my mother. She’d tried to kiss me good morning. She was lying on the floor and her cheek was starting to swell. Oh, someone was going to have a black eye.

“Damn, Mom, are you all right!” I asked as I finished getting out of bed and picking her up. “What the hell are you doing? I told you not to do that.”

“Oh God, I’m sorry. I thought—”

“Mom, I’m a light sleeper and always on guard for an intruder. Don’t sneak up on me. Damn, I could have really hurt you. Are you all right?”

“I’ll be fine. Let me put some ice on it. Do you want some breakfast?”

“Just coffee.” She can’t screw that up, I thought, and she didn’t. She got ready for school and left me in the apartment. Pretty nice setup. I turned on the TV, which was a two-year first. After coffee and watching The Dating Game, I decided to get out and walk some. Little did I realize that for the first couple of days, that would be my routine. Walking about in a college town was an experience in 1970.

Antiwar protesters were evident but not really antagonistic. I didn’t reveal I was a GI and kept to myself. I was uncomfortable in crowds and avoided large gatherings. Quite coffee shops were my speed in the morning, and a local bar in the afternoon. Again, I got my beer and found a quiet place to watch a game or whatever mindless thing was on TV at that time of day. It would be nice if there was a channel devoted to sports twenty-four hours a day.

Mom was telling me about different students that she knew and thought I should meet. They were all girls, which was fine by me, but I never took the initiative to call any of them. She even attempted to hook me up with a young lady standing in the grocery store checkout line.

“Excuse me,” she said to the girl’s mother, “but you have a very attractive daughter.” They both turned and looked at Mom. I grabbed the National Enquirer and kept my head down in embarrassment.

“Why, thank you,” the mother responded. “Is that your son?” I looked up. Way to go, Mom. The daughter was now grabbing the Reader’s Digest.

“Why, yes. He’s an Army helicopter pilot, home from Vietnam and going back in three weeks. He doesn’t have a girlfriend.” Crap, Mom, get your boyfriend over here and he can do the wedding right now here in the grocery store.

The young lady was as embarrassed at this point as I was and grabbed her mother by the arm, but she did look back at me with a smile. Wonder what she was thinking. When we got outside, she was pulling out of the parking lot and flashed another smile. Probably thinking, And with that for a mother, he isn’t going to get a girlfriend either.

Girls in the past had been trouble for me, and I really wasn’t interested at this point. Truth be told, I had been dating a girl in college who had trashed my heart, and I had sworn afterwards that I would never again let myself be that vulnerable. Someday, maybe, I thought I’d like to get married, but right now, no thanks, not interested. Drink my beer and fly my helicopter—that was all I needed at this point.

Finally, we drove up to New York and stayed with my aunt and uncle. My cousin Kathy was a senior in high school and as pretty as could be. We hung out together a lot and had some good laughs. Some might think it weird, since I wasn’t from the backwoods of Kentucky, where much older cousins could date much younger cousins, but I really liked Kathy. I would have liked to have dated her even, except for the fact that her dad scared the crap out of me. I didn’t know why, because he was a great guy. I’d had a crush on Kathy since we were little kids, but that couldn’t be, because they were from New York City and not someplace where cousins were allowed to date. Cousins weren’t allowed to date in New York City unless you were in the Corleone family, and then you had to have the Godfather’s blessing. Godfather Uncle Bill wouldn’t give it, I was sure. So I drank my beer instead, and he drank my beer too.

Back home, Mom brought up the subject of Virginia Beach. “Why don’t you get out of here and go down to Virginia Beach? The Simmons would love to see you,” she nagged.

“Yeah, I might do that.” Mom was starting to get on my nerves. I needed to get out. I was becoming very restless. It was only ten days into my thirty-day leave and I felt out of place, a boat without a rudder.

“I’ll call Margie and tell her you’ll fly down tomorrow. I can drive you to the airport.” And she was immediately on the phone. Something felt odd about this. I hardly knew these people, although the last time I had seen them, at a party at the officers’ club in Morocco, I was draped over the truck of my dad’s MG, drunk out of my mind, asking them how their daughter was. They thought that was funny, I was told. I was too drunk to remember. I didn’t have that much to drink that night, but the hundred-degree temperature had adversely affected me with what little alcohol I’d had. That was my story and I was sticking to it.