Walking over to a map on the CONEX wall and pointing, the captain began his briefing. “First let me give you an overview of our area of operations and the enemy situation, then specifics for what we got today. The Fifth NVA Division have been moving supplies down from the north on a couple of trails that we have identified and set ambushes along last night. One comes down to the crossing point over the river as it’s shallow there, maybe chest deep. Alpha Company came across what looked like a possible .51-cal position on the edge of this clearing here.”
“Plot that location, Dan,” Mr. Leak directed, which I did with a grease pencil on my map.
The captain continued. “Alpha’s operating in this area with patrols. Bravo’s in this area, and Charlie is doing the same over here along the river. Right now, scouts are on the firebase. Now Bravo’s in need of a backhaul, and then they’ll be moving out, so that’s first thing right away. I can’t give you locations for resupply yet as the companies are on the move, so we’ll just have to wait until they’re ready to receive you. The old man may want to go up later, so that’s pretty much it for today.”
Mr. Leak spoke up. “Okay, sir, I’m going to need call signs and frequencies and a location for the backhaul for Bravo, and we can get right out there. Also, we have a maintenance issue that we need to run over to Bien Hoa to take care of, which should only take about an hour.”
The captain looked perplexed but smiled. “Yeah, that’s not a problem. I might have some guys to send over with you if it’s okay.”
“Not a problem, sir. The maintenance shop we need to stop at is close to the PX if you want to send some guys over,” Mr. Leak added. The bullshit lies had been told, acknowledged and accepted with grace and joy for all involved.
I got the call signs, frequencies for all the units and the location for Bravo Company so we could backhaul some stuff. Walking back to the aircraft, Howard looked up and Mr. Leak raised his arm and moved it in a circular motion, which meant we were cranking up. Howard and the door gunner immediately got up and started getting ready. By the time we reached the aircraft, they had their helmets on and the doors open, and
Howard had a small fire extinguisher in hand. Once we were strapped in, Mr. Leak gave me a nod and said, “Crank it.”
As the engine was starting, Howard looked through a small inspection panel into the engine compartment to make sure we didn’t have a fire on start-up. When he was satisfied, he returned the fire extinguisher and climbed into his seat.
“I have the aircraft,” Mr. Leak said. “Now we know this is going to be a dust bowl as soon as we pick up, so no hovering. Also, this isn’t a combat takeoff—there’s too many people around us and no space for that. Here we’re going to pull in max torque quickly to bring us up out of the dust, and then we’ll nose over and make a normal departure.”
As I sat and learned, the crew cleared us.
“Clear left.”
“Clear right.”
“Clear above.”
This was something that the crew did every time the aircraft departed or approached a landing. Every crew, every time.
“Okay, here we go.” Mr. Leak pulled on the collective to thirty-four pounds of torque. The aircraft, being empty, leaped into the air, and at about fifteen feet, he nosed over the aircraft for a smooth climb out with minimum dust over the entire firebase. I was thinking it must suck being in all that dust, all day, every day. It did. As we were climbing out to two thousand feet, Mr. Leak directed me to tune in the frequency for Bravo Company and call them.
“Bravo Six, this is Chickenman Two-Three, over.”
“Chicken-man Two-Three, this is Bravo Six India, over.”
“Bravo Six, Chicken-man Two-Three inbound to your location, over.”
“Roger, Chicken-man Two-Three, popping smoke.” Although we had plotted Bravo Company’s location, we were never sure of the exact location where they wanted us, so the ground unit would toss a colored smoke grenade to mark their location. This would also provide information on wind direction and velocity. You always had the ground unit toss the colored smoke and the aircraft would identify the color.
“Bravo Six, I have Goofy Grape, over.” Goofy Grape was purple smoke. Mellow Yellow was yellow smoke and Rosy Red was red.
“Roger, Chicken-man, Goofy Grape. Standing by.” The smoke was drifting ever so slowly, which indicated very little wind for the landing. It also gave us an appreciation on the tree height, which in this area was not as high as those along the Cambodian border, these being only about thirty to forty feet high. Bravo was actually on the edge of a small clearing for an easy approach and landing.
As we made a pass over the intended landing point, Mr. Leak went into education mode. “Okay, the smoke tells us almost no wind, so that’s not going to be a factor. The trees on the south side look lower than the north side. The unit’s on the south side as well, so we’ll make final approach over the south side. Never make your approach the same twice in a row if you can help it. Always make the approach from a different angle each time, turning into final at the last minute if you can. You make the approach the same each time and Charlie will fire your ass up. Got it?”
Lesson learned. “Got it,” I responded.
As we dropped below five hundred feet, Howard and the door gunner brought their guns up and began scanning for enemy fire. We were ninety degrees and one hundred feet from our final approach path when Mr. Leak made a ninety-degree bank turn with a ninety-degree roll, decelerating our forward speed, dropping rapidly and flaring to a hover in front of a grunt ground guide.
“Any questions?” Mr. Leak asked. Questions? Hell, I’m still a hundred feet in the air and ninety degrees to the final approach and we’re sitting on the ground.
“No, no questions,” I lied.
The ground guide grunt hopped up on the skid next to Mr. Leak and started talking. “We have two turns for you. Those water cans and eight grunts that need to go back. Also a mailbag and six marmite cans.”
“Okay, give me four guys and the water cans on this trip and the rest when I come back.”
As the aircraft was being loaded, Mr. Leak resumed instructor mode. “Okay, to get out of here is pretty easy. We have a light load and probably could have taken it all in one trip, but I want to make it two. We have very little wind and the trees are the lowest on the south, which was our approach in. The friendlies are on the south as well, so we’ll come to a hover, pedal turn and fly out on our final approach path, gaining speed as quick as possible and turning off the approach path as quick as we can. Get in quick and get out quick.”