“I understand you want to go home to Morocco on Christmas leave. Who is in Morocco?” he asked. How the hell did he know that?
“Sir, my father is a naval officer and stationed there. They’re buying me a plane ticket.”
“You do understand that you have to submit a DA Form 1049 requesting permission to leave the country along with your leave request, don’t you?”
“No, sir, I did not.” I was sinking here.
“Do you have a passport?”
“I have applied for one, sir. It hasn’t come yet, but this being October, it should be here soon.”
“Okay. Monday morning, you get to the orderly room and have them prepare the 1049 requesting permission to leave the country for Christmas leave. Understand that you best be back here for morning formation on January fourth or you will be dropped from the program,” he cautioned me.
“Sir, I told my mom to have the plane bringing me back from Rabat to Savannah arriving on January first. I’m not taking any chances like what happened before with the fog.”
“Okay, then, I’ll sign it and recommend approval as soon as it comes across my desk.” We made some small talk about different people in the class, those that were doing really good and those that were struggling.
“Well, I won’t keep you. Just wanted to know if you had any questions. This was a messy situation, but we will get it resolved. I want you to understand that if there is a problem, you bring it to me, immediately. Here’s my home phone number if you need to speak with me after duty hours for any reason.” He handed a piece of paper to me.
“Oh, and one other thing. Your class moves on to Huey transition Monday morning and you are the senior class now, which means we have to have a cadet battalion commander overseeing the entire cadet corps. You’re it, along with being your class leader. Pick your staff and give me their names Monday morning. Any questions?” I was sure he was smiling, or laughing, behind his coffee mug.
“No, sir, no questions,” I stammered out.
“Good. Go enjoy your weekend. See you Monday morning.” He set his coffee mug down and stood. That was my signal to get out, which I promptly did. A thousand questions ran through my head, not the least of which was Why me? I had been in a leadership position longer than anyone and now was going to be stuck in it for another eight weeks. How many times was I going to get my ass chewed out now, as I was responsible for the entire corps of cadets? Thoughts of what I had to do now plagued my mind over the weekend as I mapped out what I thought needed to be done. I spent Sunday in my room, getting my notes in order to meet with the junior class leaders.
Monday morning began as usual, with one hundred percent of the company
present for duty. We were to begin our transition into the UH-1 aircraft, the workhorse of the Vietnam War. Most of us would be flying this type of aircraft shortly in combat, so our training took on new meaning. We were riveted to our classroom and our flight instruction. Classroom work was understanding the different systems for the aircraft, to include flight control system, electrical system, engine and transmission. Flight training was one instructor with two students in the aircraft, and we were introduced to not only flying the aircraft but formation flying as well. Flying at two thousand feet with only a two-rotor-blade separation from the aircraft in front of you in different formations, including at night, was a bit hair-raising for me. I wasn’t comfortable with it. This was nothing compared to night autorotations, however.
In primary flight, we hadn’t done night flying or night autorotations. Night autorotations consisted of flying on the darkest night of the month and at one thousand feet, then closing the throttle so you immediately fell at a rate of one thousand feet per minute. At about one hundred feet, you turned on the landing light and executed a safe landing. We would joke that once you turned the landing light on, if you didn’t like what you saw, just turn the light off and it would go away. How we didn’t crash aircraft during this phase of training was beyond my comprehension. Very soon, I would learn different ways to do autorotations and proper formation flying, and at night.
Formation flying began in earnest when we moved to Fort Stewart, Georgia, for the last month of our training. We moved to a field camp that was representative of the living conditions in Vietnam. The hooches had fifty beds along the walls with a single corridor down the middle. We would receive our flight briefings in a hooch that served as the operations center. Two students would go with one instructor and conduct the mission. The instructor would sit in the jump seat behind and between the two students. If we screwed up, there was no way he could salvage a crash. We did not screw up.
Some days we practiced flying heavily loaded aircraft, which had water cans that added considerable weight to the aircraft. Some days we would conduct sling load operations with water bags tethered under the aircraft. Some days we would conduct formation flying with the formations changing while in flight. Once we had formation flying down pat, in daylight, we then got to practice it at night. Scared the crap out of me! Our passengers were Ranger students that initially had no idea we were students. They looked terrified for the rest of the flight once they found out. I really thought I would be better off flying gunships or medical evacuation missions.
The final exercise in our training was SERE training: Survival, Escape, Resistance and Evasion. We moved to a new field location, minus additional clothing, toilet articles or goodies. The first two days were spent attending lectures and demonstrations. The lectures were on land navigation by the stars and sun, first aid, and the Code of Conduct. The demonstrations were on how to build a shelter with tree limbs, vines and leaves; how to build snares and fish traps; how to skin a rabbit without a knife; and how to identify edible plants. The bottom line was, eat plants only as a last resort. In the area of resistance, we were instructed not to be heroes. Do whatever we were told to do. Do not look at our captors but look at the ground. Do not communicate with one another unless we could do it without the captors seeing it or knowing about it. The bottom line we all took away from this training was you best not get captured.
At the conclusion of the second day’s training, everyone was ushered into a briefing room. A chart board with a map was set up and one of the cadre came forward. He was wearing a black beret, black shirt and black pants. His insignia was foreign to us. He was of Asian descent.
“I am Colonel Nguyen, commander of the opposing forces, the OPFOR. Tonight you will be required to escape and evade my force. If you are captured, you will be sent to the POW camp, where you will be interrogated and reveal to my interrogator the location of your pickup point. Once you reveal that location, you will be allowed to eat and sleep. I look forward to welcoming you to my camp.” With that, he left. Next up was another cadre member, this one dressed in the uniform we were familiar with.
“Tonight you will be driven to the start point for this exercise. There you will be put into four-man teams. Each team will be issued a rabbit and a chicken to prepare for dinner, since you have not eaten in the past twenty-four hours. I recommend you prepare them quickly and eat fast. At some point, and you will know when it is time, move out and head for the pickup point, which is located nine klicks2 to the north at this location.” He pulled a cover off the map, and you could hear the mumbling as we all looked at it.
“You will note that there is a major stream or river on both sides of this area. Do not cross the river or stream. Since it is December tenth, the water is about forty-five degrees and swift-moving. Across the river is out of bounds. There are several roads through the exercise area. If someone is injured, get on a road and wait. Colonel Nguyen will have vehicles on those roads looking for you. When and if you arrive at the pickup point, check in with the NCO there, and the exercise will be over for those of you that make it to there. Any questions?” Some spring-butt always had a question.
“Sir, where do we get maps and compasses?” asked Mr. Spring-Butt.
“The stars are your compass, and keep the rivers on your flanks. There are no maps. Now load the trucks, and good luck—you’re going to need it.”
We loaded the trucks, which were all driven by soldiers in black shirts, black pants, and black berets. As we loaded, comments such as “Be seeing you soon, Cadet” could be heard.
Each four-man team was given a live rabbit and chicken when they arrived at the start point. I broke the chicken’s neck and another cadet broke the rabbit’s back as they had taught us. Several campfires were already burning, so we filled metal coffee cans with water and boiled the meat. In about twenty minutes, we were eating what we could, and not having eaten in the past twenty-four hours, it tasted okay. Then all hell broke loose with gunfire, and we took off running. It was still daylight, so knowing which way to head was easy. Sun on the right and gunfire behind us sent us off in the right direction.
Soon, however, it turned into night with an overcast sky. The four of us kept moving in what we were fairly sure was the right direction. Whoever was walking point would walk ten to fifteen feet in front of the group and provide early warning if we walked into the OPFOR. That would give the other three time to escape, or so we thought. About three hours into the exercise, our point man raised his hand for us to halt and we did, going into a low crouch. He came back. There was a road ahead that was perpendicular to our line of escape. He wanted to know if we wanted him to cross it. We had not taken a break at this point and thought we would just lie there for a few minutes. As we did so, we began to hear movement off to our right. The ground cover was sparse, and we eventually saw this group moving through the trees. We didn’t know who they were, but they were traveling on a parallel course. We decided to just watch them.
They didn’t even stop when they got to the road, until the headlights from the vehicle parked in the woods across the road from our position came on. The OPFOR rushed over to take them prisoner. We didn’t even breathe. We lay there and watched four of our fellow cadets being tied, blindfolded and loaded into the truck and taken away. Only after we were sure that no other OPFOR were along that stretch of road did we move to the edge of the road, spread out and all at once sprint across the road. Our adrenaline was pumping as we moved on through the woods, right into a swamp.
At first we considered whether we might have bumped into the river on the left flank, but this water wasn’t moving, and trees were standing. It was cold and up to our thighs, but we thought it best to keep moving. We reasoned that there would probably be no OPFOR standing in a swamp getting wet waiting for our dumb asses. We didn’t consider that they might be wearing hip boots. At one point, we began to doubt our direction. Since I was the smallest guy in the group, it was decided that I would climb to the top of a tree