An Assault Helicopter Unit in Vietnam (Undaunted Valor 1)

“Sir, there’s no way in hell I’m selling you one hundred cases of beer. They’ll only wind up on the black market. No, sir. I don’t care if you have a hundred ration cards. You get one case. That’s it.” He handed the stack of cards to me.

“Oh, really? We’ll see about that.”

Grandpa and I left. At this time we were operating in some intense flying, with aircraft taking hits every day. We were flying long hours each day. I was in no mood to deal with some Air Force NCO in clean clothes who probably had a hot shower and hot meal and smelled like a perfume princess. I played my trump card and called my dad. A jeep picked me up, and twenty minutes later, Grandpa and I were standing in front of a two-star general, explaining my story. He told me to go back to my aircraft and have a nice day as he picked up a phone.

When I got back to the aircraft, the beer was not only there but was being loaded onto the aircraft by PX workers under the supervision of the Air Force master sergeant, who was under the supervision of Specialist Lovelace, who was showing the master sergeant how he wanted the aircraft loaded.

“Any problems, Specialist?” I asked Lovelace.

“No, sir. All is good.”

The Air Force master sergeant had more intelligence than I thought, because he kept his mouth shut. The general must have told him something else, because he didn’t even charge us for the beer.

When we were fully loaded, I called for clearance from the heliport control and received it. The heliport was an open area about the length of two football fields. As I was pulling in the power, we weren’t lifting off the ground before the engine would start to lose engine rpm! We were overloaded, but I wasn’t giving up the beer. At full power, we were able to get the aircraft light on the skids and begin sliding forward, slowly at first but building up airspeed to attain translational lift. Like an airplane at a certain speed, air passing over the wing, or in this case, the rotor blades, creates lift and the aircraft flies. The aircraft lifted up only to settle back down on the ground but still moving forward and building speed.

“Chicken-man One-Niner, Tan Son Nhat Heliport.”

“Tan Son Nhat Heliport, Chicken-man One-Niner, over.”

“Chicken-man One-Niner, are you okay?” the tower controller asked.

“Tan Son Nhat Heliport, we’re good. Practicing a heavy takeoff with a new pilot,” I replied.

I didn’t lie. We were heavy, and he was a new pilot. We climbed a bit higher this time, only to bounce down again, but with more speed a

nd moving forward. Translational lift usually kicked in at about ten knots airspeed. After the third bounce, Tower was telling me to abort as there was a five-foot-high berm rapidly approaching the aircraft, or we were approaching it.

“Chicken-man One-Niner, Tan Son Nhat Heliport. Abort, abort!” We had good speed and translational lift kicked in. We were airborne, clearing the berm by at least two feet.

“Tan Son Nhat Heliport, Chicken-man One-Niner. No need, we’re good. Just a bit of training. Chicken-man leaving your area. Good day, sir.” And I quickly changed the frequency so I didn’t have to answer any questions. As we continued the hundred miles to home, we were burning off fuel, which gave us more power to play with, and we were at a comfortable hover when we arrived at Lai Khe. We had cold beer that night and were in the air the next morning before the sun came up. The next day…..

“Chicken-man One-Niner, Chicken-man Two-Three, over.”

“Yeah, Two-Three, go ahead.”

“Hey, One-Niner, I heard you were leaving, going to Battalion. Over.”

“Two-Three, that’s bull. I’m not going anywhere.” Now how the hell did that rumor get started? I was an old-timer, having extended, but I had no intention of going up to be on Battalion staff. That wasn’t what I’d extended for. We continued on with our resupply mission, but the conversation didn’t stop. Another aircraft called me.

“Chicken-man One-Niner, Chicken-man One-Four, over.”

“One-Four, go ahead,” I answered.

“One-Niner, hate to see you leaving us. Be sure and come back and visit once in a while. Over.”

“One-Four, I’m not going anywhere. Who told you I was? Over.”

“One-Niner, I heard it in Flight Ops before I left. I got off late today because of a maintenance issue and they were talking about it.”

I said nothing. Crap, this could be more than just a rumor. Even later in the day, while sitting in a refuel point, my platoon leader hopped up on my skid.

“Hey, Dan, going to miss you, buddy. When you get to Battalion, be sure and send the good missions to us and not those other guys.” With that, he patted my shoulder and was off back to his aircraft. I sank lower in my seat. This had come from my platoon leader, and therefore I knew I was sunk. The rest of the day’s flying was almost depressing. I couldn’t believe the CO couldn’t save me from this.

That night, we got back in and I dropped my gear and headed for the club. I figured I had flown my last mission and would be flying a desk in the coming days, so I might as well have a drink, or two. Almost everyone that was back from flying was in the club eating dinner and having a drink, as we always did. The CO came in and took center stage.

“Let me have your attention. I got some good news and some not so good, which I will give you first.” I knew what was coming.

“Mr. Cory, come up here.” I hopped off the barstool my ass had been planted to for the past two beers and with a low-hanging head walked up to him. He towered over me.