Wilde Love (Forever Wilde 6)

The flight was straightforward, but it marked a new kind of “us against them” mentality. Griping about the general was never smart, but that day I realized just how much the four of us trusted each other. Over the next several months through some very challenging and heartbreaking rescue attempts, we shared moments that would forever bond us together. I learned how true it was that there was just something between brothers-in-arms that was impenetrable.

And it got to a point that I truly thought there was nothing that could break the four of us apart. For as horrible as the war was and as dangerous as it was for all the men stationed on smaller firebases or in the field, the four of us were lucky. We were able to return back to the large, relatively safe base at Long Binh at the end of each shift where there was an officers’ club, a PX, cold soda, hot meals, hotter showers, and clean clothes when we needed them. I began to think it was righteous, that those of us who were tasked with helping evacuate and treat the injured would somehow be kept safe.

How naive could I have been? I’d heard plenty of stories of other Hueys going down, pilots and crews getting severely injured, but I stupidly thought that wouldn’t happen to us. We were under the flight command of a fourth-tour, high-ranking pilot with almost fifteen years of army experience. The man had a Distinguished Fighting Cross, for god’s sake. If he hadn’t been shot down or killed by now, surely that meant there was some kind of angel looking down on our missions.

And maybe there was. But on one particular day, it was the angel of death.

Chapter 4

Weston “Major” Marian

It had never occurred to me—and maybe it should have—that the first night Doc and I would spend alone together would be one of the worst of our lives, pressed injured and terrified into the red muddy soup of the jungle floor.

The night before, the base itself had come under heavy mortar fire since it was right around the year anniversary of Tet. The Viet Cong didn’t want us to forget.

So that afternoon when we got into the Huey for our shift, Moline turned to me with an uncharacteristically grave expression. “Gonna be a crazy one today.”

He was right, and it was the worst kind of crazy.

We were called out to rescue two men injured in a VC attack on a patrol unit. It was a fairly standard mission, but no dustoff mission in Vietnam was ever safe, especially near the anniversary of Tet.

After standard preflight checks, we were on our way, tipping through the skies above Long Binh on our way northwest, past Bien Hoa toward the coordinates of the injured men.

Since I was the flight commander, I was responsible for navigation and radio communications while Moline was on the stick. I could hear Doc and Rusnak banging around behind us as they prepped the hoist.

Suddenly there was the boom and flash of an air strike and everything went dark and strange. My hearing didn’t work, my vision didn’t work. Flickering light and shadow snapped here and there as my brain tried to put the puzzle pieces back together. I couldn’t feel anything other than bright, sharp stinging on my right hip and low, dull throbbing in the back of my skull. I shook my head to clear it and realized we were going down fast. Moline was slumped over the controls, so I quickly pushed him back and tried my best to take over. My brain swam and my own equilibrium was off, but it didn’t matter. It was like the cyclic was no longer connected to anything.

My training somehow kicked in, and I grabbed for the switches that I was supposed to flip in the event of a crash landing. Had you asked me then what they were at the time, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you, but muscle memory from my hours of training and the many missions I’d already flown came through. The fact we were already halfway down from altitude helped because the Huey was still semi-upright when the skids hit the trees.

We tumbled through the canopy, banging side to side in seat restraints so badly I worried for the safety of Doc and the crew chief in the back. The bay doors had already been sliding back when the blast hit us, but I couldn’t spare a single second to turn around and confirm we even still had Doc and Rusnak with us.

After making a mayday call on the radio, I shouted out orders from my seat about preparing to crash land. I knew if we landed in any semblance of one piece, I’d be responsible for getting Moline out, so I prayed the younger medic and crew chief remembered enough of their training to get the medical supplies and fire extinguisher respectively.