The Jesus Nut

By Paul Barcelo

This story is to be part of the sequels to “The Sweet War Man” a novel published Feb, 2009

            There is one main nut that sits atop the mast of a UH-1 Huey helicopter’s rotor system. The nut looks like it holds the main rotors on. Among Army helicopter pilots and crewmembers who flew in Vietnam, this nut was called the Jesus Nut. The reason it was so called was the belief that if this nut was lost in flight, there was nothing left separating you from Jesus.

            They were going West across the border into Cambodia to an area called the Angels Wings. Each company of ten aircraft would have two lifts. Each lift would bring in seventy to eighty South Vietnamese Army troops. With the total of four lifts that made it about a battalion sized operation for the friendly Vietnamese. What they were supposed to do in Cambodia was not mentioned in the briefing. That was the South Vietnamese’s business, not the American aviation companies transporting them. Then, the aircraft were to stand by at Dian, a large American base near Saigon in case they were needed, either to extract the troops or bring in reinforcements. There was no schedule to pick up the troops. For once, the Vietnamese were either going to walk home, stay overnight or longer in Cambodia or someone else was picking them up. To Randolph it meant bring a paperback, which he had slipped into his helmet bag before getting into bed that night. It meant they would stay on the aircraft all day until the release time. The long day would be boring with the inactivity and waiting.

            The Angels Wings were a section of Cambodia part of which was open rice paddies. Shaped more like a jagged dagger, it pointed directly at Saigon. It had been part of the Ho Chi Ming trail for years, the last protected stretch before coming into South Vietnam proper. In the areas Randolph had seen and could remember there seemed very few places the bad guys could hide since the land was open, wet and had only a few trees on rice dykes. When they had gone in there before, it had been quiet, un-ruined rice paddies, the farmland of Southeast Asia. The small villages appearing deserted had been ransacked and looted by the troops who had gone in the year before. Generally, since it had not been repeatedly bombed and shot up, Cambodia looked healthier than the land in South Vietnam.

            The briefing included estimates based on intelligence sources of the enemy units known to be operating in the area. Several NVA units were named. The old man, the company commander, was there and some people from battalion had come up especially to give the presentation. That too had been a little out of the usual.

            At the briefing Randolph looked around at the faces of the other pilots. None seemed overly alarmed. They were respectfully silent giving their full attention to the battalion briefing officer. Except for this night-before session, the mission seemed fairly routine. Usually on smaller missions if someone had to drop out of the flight the other ships carried his loads and more insertions were made. All the troops ended up in the field where they were suppose to be.

            The old guys, like Randolph, who had been flying in country over nine months, knew where the bad guys were. They weren’t in the Angels Wings. At least they hadn’t been in the past few months. He tried to remember the last time he had flown in that area and couldn’t. Randolph looked at Huntington, a warrant officer from the second platoon. Since the second was suppose to have the front part of the formation tomorrow, Huntington would probably fly lead. He was young, about twenty. He liked flying lead, which Randolph did not. He was cocky and self assured, God’s gift to aviation. He was listening to the briefing with rapt attention. Randolph considered him obnoxious.

            It appeared it would be an easy day, one more to eliminate from the 365 day tour. An hour and a half of blade time had been committed to each ship. Blade time was part of the Nixon Administration’s Vietnamization program. Missions were given set blade time, but could be extended. That would take a command decision from higher up headquarters, probably Group. Normally, it would be given. Blade time counted from the time the mission started when the troops were picked up. Getting to the pick up zone and then after, when they would go to Dian to refuel and wait, was support time. Some Army accountants were having a hell of a time with numbers, Randolph thought as he sipped his drink slowly, since the bar remained closed until after the briefing.

            The next day when it was still dark, that moment of night just before the first grayness of the morning Randolph stumbled into the operations hootch. His head felt thick, a rather normal condition. He had his usual mild hangover. His eggs, which he had made the Vietnamese cook hold on the grill that moment longer than usual so that they weren’t completely runny, plus the rubbery bacon, were swimming around his ample stomach deciding whether to stay. Several burps had brought the taste of them back into his mouth.

First Lieutenant Hodak, his peter pilot for the day, was standing in the opts room like a tree rack trying to keep out of other peoples’ way. He had the code wheel tucked in his right breast pocket with the cord around his neck. Hodak was still a newguy having been with the company about two weeks. Nobody knew him, so he was like a non-person. He was quiet, keeping to himself, not much of a conversationalist, so the prospect of flying with him for a day was rather boring. Randolph had flown with him once on a short inconsequential four-ship combat assault mission. He was stiff and rather formal in the cockpit. That was Randolph’s only memory of him. Already, he had procured the mission sheet and offered it to Randolph. There was no expression on his non-face in the half light of the room.

            “We have to take two fuel specialists, someplace.” Hodak said solemnly.

            Randolph looked at the proffered sheet noticing immediately he didn’t have his regular aircraft. He was suspicious.

            “We’re the spare for the flight,” Hodak added noncommittally. He was looking intently at Randolph’s face, although Randolph was not looking at him.

            “Lieutenant Thayer, you have to take the two guys up to Thien Ngon before the flight leaves.” It was Captain Noonan, the operations officer. He was a second tour aviator. He seldom flew. Randolph barely knew him, which was why he had been addressed by his rank.

            “Where are they?” Randolph asked bluntly. Noonan was behind the counter with his RTOs and equipment anxiously preparing to go to breakfast. He was always in the operations hootch in the morning to give out the mission sheets, and then he turned it over to his enlisted crew who handled the monotonous, repetitive procedures. Captain Noonan looked hungry although he was sipping a cup of coffee, probably made in their hootch and not from the mess hall. Surprisingly although a nightly regular at the club, Noonan always looked awake in the morning.

            “They’ll be out to your aircraft shortly. They’ve both been told. Everyone’s in the flight. I didn’t have anyone else to send. Since you’re the spare, if you miss the flight departing by a few minutes, you can catch up to them.”

            “Why haven’t I got my own ship?” Randolph’s tone was more terse than he intended.

            “Ask your platoon leader. He made the assignments.”

            Randolph and his platoon leader did not get along. If there was any method of getting stiffed, his platoon leader would think of it. By not having his unofficially assigned aircraft, Randolph felt he had just got it.

“I got to crank in thirty minutes if I’m going to make the flight.”

            “357 is on the maintenance ramp.” Captain Noonan said and setting down his coffee cup departed quickly. If the mess hall ran out of real eggs, you got the kind made from powder, which tasted a lot like sawdust. Randolph understood his motivation and rapid departure.

            “Well, at least we don’t have far to walk this morning,” Randolph said sourly to Hodak, who was still standing as ramrod straight as a cigar store Indian statue.

            Carrying his flight bag and water jug, Randolph leisurely strode out of the operations hooch with Hodak following closely. There were blast walls of dried, spilt sandbags to protect the building from incoming. They had been there so long dried by the tropic sun, they were as hard as cement blocks. It was gray, getting lighter. The outline of the Black Virgin Mountain was visible in the distance. The flight to Thien Ngon would take ten minutes, if he honked it over to red line speed. Then, the trip back to Tay Ninh. Another ten minutes. At 2000 foot altitude it might take fifteen minutes each way. No way, as a single ship did he want to low level up the highway in the early light. He would go at altitude. So with thirty minutes of fuel gone, he would have to stop and refuel before joining the flight, even if he only had to follow it at a distance. There was no way he was going into Cambodia with thirty minutes less fuel than everyone else had. He still had to keep the flight in sight. Randolph knew someone had been taking the two fuel specialist to Thien Ngon every day for the past week. There was a small airstrip there which apparently had fuel. Being so close to Tay Ninh that did not seem to make much sense to Randolph. Maybe there was something else of a secretive nature going on up there which required these two specialist guys. It aroused Randolph’s curiosity.

            357 stood in a corner of the maintenance yard, alone, deserted. The flight line was beyond, past rolls of bared wire. Through an opening in the wire same groups of men lugging their flight paraphernalia were stumbling quietly out to the ships. The flight line was lumpy peniprimed ramps and roads with grass growing up through cracks and along the edges of permanent puddles of water, which dried up only in the dry season. The ships, Cobra gunships on the first row and Huey troop carriers further beyond were all parked in L-shaped revetments. It was getting light fast, but the sun still wasn’t up.

            His crew, the crew chief and gunner, were not at the ship. After sliding back the cargo doors, Randolph set his flight bag and water jug on the cargo deck. Strange, the M60 machine guns, one each for the two enlisted crew members were not there at the ship. If they had gone to get something, they would not have dragged the bulky guns with them. That was the second thing wrong this morning, Randolph thought. Unscrewing the top of the bottle, he poured himself a capful of ice water. His mouth was dry and his body ached after its night of dehydration from alcohol. He filled a second lidful, gulping it down.  

            Randolph eyed Hodak who stood holding his helmet bag looking expectant but otherwise newguy dumb.

            “Want some water?”

            “No thank you.”

            “It’s yours, anytime you want it. Just help yourself.” Randolph jumped up onto the cargo deck, nearly loosing his balance and falling. With his head throbbing, he could feel the skin on his face heating up. The water he had drunk sloshed around his stomach keeping his eggs company. He reached for the logbook, which was lying on the radio deck panel, not in its holder.

            The two enlisted fuel specialist emerged from the half light and stood motionless beside the ship. They had flak vests and steel pots on. Each had an M-16 rifle slung over a shoulder with several bandoleers of ammunition draped over the bulky vests. Each held two cartons of c-rations, their lunch and dinner, if necessary. They looked at Randolph with expressionless faces. He wanted to ask them what was happening at Thien Ngon, but realized the preflight had to get started, which without the crew chief was going to take longer.  

“I wonder where the fucking crew is.” Randolph jumped down off the ship hitting the hard surface with a dull thud. He set the book on the deck and leaned over it. There was just enough light to read it without a flashlight. Groups of the last straggler crew members were still going past the maintenance area out to the flight line.

            A gunner carrying two M60 machineguns by their handles as if they were buckets detached himself from a group and scurried toward 357. He was young, maybe 19 or 20. The insignia on his collar indicated he was a Specialist Four. Randolph didn’t know who he was although his face was familiar. His nametag was so faded it was unreadable. Good crew chiefs, but not usually gunners the junior member of a four-man Huey crew, were usually a little sarcastic. Uncharacteristically, this young man had a serious expression to his face.

            “Did they put this up today?”

            “You the gunner?” Randolph asked, irritated.

            “I’m a crew chief. This is my ship, but they got me flying gunner today on 856. Don’t fly this today, sir.”

            “What’s wrong with it?” He had Randolph’s complete and immediate attention.

            “The short shaft. They’ve replaced it three days in a row. Something’s wrong and it ain’t the short shaft. I talked to the guy who replaced the shafts. He says it ain’t’ them. He knows his shit! We can’t figure out what’s wrong. It’s that Captain Moellers. He says it has to be the short shaft, but three in a row. I wouldn’t fly it, sir. Just refuse to fly it.”

            “Who’s crewing this today?”

            “I don’t know. I’ve got to get going.” The kid turned quickly and walked rapidly for the opening in the wire. The weight of the machineguns slowed his gait making it unsteady. Randolph watched him go, then flipped through the logbook. The short shaft had been replaced. The ship had been test flown during the night. The flight was signed off as ok. All that was normal, and made the ship flyable.

            His stomach rumbled from the sudden aggravation as Randolph opened the left pilot’s door, and taking his helmet out of his bag plugged it in. Turning on the master switch he then clicked on the UHF and FM radios, checking the faces of the radios to see if they were properly set to the month’s tactical frequencies. They were. So much for security, Randolph thought. The radios made whirring sounds as current charged through them. When the radios had warmed up, he put the selector switch on two and pulled the trigger switch on the cyclic. “Six-Nine, this is one-two, commo check uniform—“ He changed the switch to position one. “Commo check Fox Mike.”

            “Got you Lima Chuck, Uniform, same-same Fox Mike.” The radios crackled the response in two slightly different tones. Randolph recognized the RTO’s voice. He was a nice kid. He always wanted to fly, if only to escape for the day from the confines of the dark opts hooch.

            “Where the hell is my crew?” Randolph said into the radio.

            “I don’t know, one-two.”

            “How about checking on them.” Randolph turned off the radios, then the master switch and dropped his helmet on the armor plated seat. He climbed up to the top of the ship. Silently, Hodak followed him.

            Over the short shaft there were screens designed to keep large or heavy objects from getting into the engine air intake. The screens came off in three sections. Randolph using a jackknife loosened the screws. Hodak made no attempt to help, but showed obvious interest.

            The short shaft was the main connection between the engine and the transmission. If it failed or broke, power would be lost. This wasn’t necessarily fatal, since they could autorotate. Randolph didn’t want any short shaft failures or even the mere possibility of one. Not in the Republic of Vietnam. He felt around the shinny metal of the shaft. It was dry. If it was failing, it would be streaked with oil, an indication of the packing disintegrating from within.

            “Untie the blade.” Randolph suddenly looked up at Hodak’s face. His peter pilot looked at him obviously displeased to have to perform a function normally handled by the crew chief. Slowly he backed away and climbed down off the ship and went to the tail. As he released the tie down, the main rotor blade flopped up out of his reach. With a contemptuous look at Hodak, Randolph stood and pushed the blade, keeping his attention on the gold color of the shaft. Reexamining the half that had been hidden, it was entirely dry, with no indications of leaks. Had he looked at this shaft as it appeared to him in any other ship, he would have accepted it.

            “Finish preflighting. I’m going to maintenance.” Randolph scrambled down off the ship. Without a glance back, he marched with even steps toward the maintenance hooch, his brain screaming to remember all he had learned of short shafts during flight school. The only thing he could remember was that they must have no grease or oil streaked.

            A plump sergeant sat at a desk at the front of the building. He was reading a Playboy magazine and merely looked around it at Randolph when he walked in.

            “Where’s Captain Moellers?”

            “I don’t know, sir.” The sergeant tipped forward on his chair, but did not stand up. His face was guarded.

            “Have you got a dash-twenty for a UH-1?”

            “Hey Andrews, get me a Huey Dash-twenty,” the sergeant called toward the back of the building. In a moment a kid appeared carrying the dictionary size maintenance manual. He wore an olive drab colored T-shirt and jungle fatigues pants. His head was bare. Randolph took the book from him. He flopped it on a desk and opened it to its table of contents.

            “What do you know about short shafts, sergeant?”

            “I’m not an aircraft mechanic, sir.” The sergeant had got up out of his chair. He stood, still holding the Playboy.

            “What are you doing in maintenance, then?”

            “I’d like to know that too, sir.”

            Randolph sat in a chair when he found the section on short shafts. There were pictures of the individual components of the shaft. Randolph recognized only the completed item. He scanned for additional information. Angrily, he flipped through several pages looking for material he was not quite sure of. There were instructions concerning tolerances of the different pieces. There was nothing of the limitations or of a picture of what a failing short shaft looked like, which is what he was looking for. His head started to throb again, as he turned several pages of the book. He failed to notice several enlisted men who had come into the hooch and were being respectfully sullen with the presence of an alien officer, who was a pilot and should be out on the flight line at that time of the morning.

            Captain Moellers came in quickly through the door, brought by an invisible grapevine that indicated trouble. He was the commander of the maintenance platoon, but he was not a school trained maintenance officer. Randolph looked up from the open book.

            “What’s wrong with the short shaft in 357?”

            “It was replaced last night.”

            “The crew chief says it’s been replaced three days in a row.”

            “The shafts were defective. They were probably improperly packed.”

            “Three in a row?”

            “Yes, three in a row! Did you look at it this morning?” Moellers added sarcastically.

            “It was dry.”

            “Well, it was test flown last night.”

            Randolph looked down at the maintenance manual and could barely understand the diagrams that swam before his eyes. His lips pursed down in a frown.

            “Thayer, I wouldn’t give you an aircraft that was not flyable!” Moellers said angrily.

            Somehow, that made sense to some far recess of Randolph’s cloudy brain. Although not a maintenance officer, Moellers had been given the maintenance platoon because they were unruly and sorely in need of discipline. He provided it in good measure and took his job very seriously, working hard at it. Randolph did not like Moellers but he sympathized with his position and the job he held.

            “All right, I’ll take your word for it.” Randolph slapped the book shut and stood up. He looked Moellers square in the face. Moellers’ dark scowl stared squarely back at him. Randolph walked around him and out the door.

            The sun was above the horizon. It was bright. The sky was cloudless. The mountain was clearly visible in the distance. All around the mountain, the land was flat, the elevation was about fifty feet above sea level. Nui Ba Den, the Black Virgin Mountain rose to three thousand feet. There was some story about it being named for some local peasant girl with an appropriate legend behind her. It reminded Randolph of a woman’s breast. Like all the unusual things about Vietnam, there was only one. Its sides were artillery scared gray rubble. The nipple belonged to them. There was a radio relay station on the crest. The rest of the mountain belonged to the bad guys. It was rumored there was a hospital, and a rest and relaxation center on the mountain. There were tunnels wide enough so that two trucks could be driven abreast of each other. Every time the South Vietnamese had an operation on the mountain, they got their asses kicked. Randolph double timed back to 357.

            “Where the hell is the crew?” Randolph called up to Hodak, who was on top of the ship, kneeling next to the hub.

            “I don’t know.”

            “The preflight done?”

            “Except for here. Everything looks ok.” Hodak had one hand firmly grasping the Jesus Nut to help maintain his balance as he checked the intricacies of the connections for the main rotors and the mast. Right, Randolph thought, no crew and a newguy doing the preflight.

            Randolph went out through the wire to the flight line. The whine of a turbine indicated someone was cranking. Looking, he saw the blades of one of the Hueys begin to turn. Each ship would crank, hover over to the refueling pads to top off their tanks, adding a few pounds of fuel to replace the small amount used in starting, and then reposition lined up in chalk order on the rows in between the revetments. If anything was wrong, cranking early gave them time to get it corrected or at least evaluated before the flight had to leave.

            “Hey Vish, can I borrow your crew?” Randolph called to Captain Vishay. He and a few other outcasts ran the tech supply. Whenever necessary which was nearly every day, he flew to Hotel Three, the main helicopter airfield near Saigon and picked up any aircraft parts the company required. The tech supply ship was an entity unto itself. Damaged or salvaged aircraft parts as well as sundry pieces of company equipment in need of exchange or turn in found their way onto this aircraft when it was parked in its revetment and not in the air on its daily flight. There was a lot of paperwork involved and Vishay was always busy. Also, he knew the art of barter, so there was no telling what might be in some of the boxes or containers on his aircraft. He was a second tour, first tour aviator and had gone on several combat assaults when first joining the company. He had also seen the potential of running tech supply, so when the officer running it rotated back to his native Nebraska, Vish applied for his job. Quickly, he was elevated to aircraft commander and assigned his own ship. His cost in escaping from normal combat assault missions was that he was always single ship. However, he could fly over the well traveled Highway One which went directly to Saigon.

            Clustered around Captain Vishay’s revetment were several other people, some carrying luggage. Vishay and been in the first platoon with Randolph, and technically was now part of headquarters. They were good drinking buddies. Since the tech supply ship always made the run to Hotel Three, it was the surest means of transportation. The standing company policy for passengers was that emergency leaves had first priority. R & Rs were next and DEROS, those rotating back to the U.S. were last. Randolph recognized one of the men waiting to board. He carried a souvenir SKS bolt action rifle besides his dufflebag. From the look on his face, there was no way he was going to get bumped off that flight. The other potential passengers seemed just as determined.      

            “My crew hasn’t shown up and I gotta go to Thien Ngon before the flight. “It should take me about thirty minutes.”

            Vishay and his crew were in the middle of preflight. All the cowlings and panels had been opened or taken off. A good crew chief usually had everything opened before the aircraft commander got there.

            “No problem. It’ll be an hour before I crank.” Captain Vishay smiled. He was from a southern state and had an accent common to that region of the country.

            “Crew chief and gunner bring your sixties with some ammo and come with me.” Randolph announced.

            Sergeant Holmes emerged from the other side of the ship. He was flying gunner for Vishay. Holmes was the first platoon sergeant and responsible for scheduling the enlisted crews.

            “Where the hell’s the crew for 357?” Randolph’s harsh gaze bore into the sergeant.

            “You’re the spare, sir. I didn’t think you needed a crew.”

            “Jesus, I gotta follow the flight. You didn’t think I’m going to Cambodia without a crew chief and gunner. You get me a crew!”

            Sergeant Holmes stood holding the M60 and a metal ammunition container. “Do you want me to go with you now or go get someone?” There was a sheepish expression to his face.

“Never mind. I’ll tell opts over the radio.”

The crew chief collected his gun, not without some grumbling which Vishay silenced. Vishay had been a grunt on his first tour. He had survived a year in the boonies and didn’t take kindly to back talk from anyone, especially his crew. He told chilling and funny stories about his combat infantry time. He was also a stickler for rank. He was a captain and he let everyone, especially enlisted men, know it. The crew chief and Sergeant Holmes followed Randolph back to 357.

Randolph made his own, quick inspection of the vital parts of the aircraft. It was not his usual thorough job. He opened none of the cowlings or panels. He got in his seat and strapped in adjusting his chicken plate over his chest. The two fuel specialists climbed in before he cranked. He knew the start up procedure from memory, but used the check list to impress Hodak. While his peter pilot watched attentively, Randolph quickly went through all the checks.

“Tay Ninh, Crusader 357.” Randolph called to the tower.

“Crusader 357, Tay Ninh.”

“I’m on the maintenance ramp. I’ll be departing to the North.”

“Roger 357. Winds are calm. Altimeter 30.13. Check two company aircraft repositioning in the Holly Land. You’re cleared for take off.”

“357 on the go.”

Randolph picked up to a five foot hover and checked the controls. When he was satisfied everything was fine, he pulled more pitch bringing the ship to a higher hover. At the same time, he pushed the cyclic about an inch forward. The helicopter started forward, the nose dipping slightly just before gaining translational lift. As soon as he had sixty knots airspeed, he pulled back slightly on the stick, keeping the pitch in so that they would climb quickly. In a moment, the revetments, the runway, and the deserted parts of the camp receded quickly. They crossed the berm at six hundred feet, still climbing.

“Guns up!” Randolph said into the interphone. “Put me on one.” He added to Hodak. Hodak reached for the radio panel and put Randolph’s selector switch on position one, the FM radio.

“Six-nine, this is one-two.”

“Go ahead, one-two.”

“Roger. I’m off at this time en route Tango November North. Be advised, I have on board the two Foxtrot Sierras. I have the tech supply ship’s Charlie Echo and Gulf on board. The Gulf is the first platoon sergeant. He did not schedule me a Charlie Echo and a Gulf. I will still need a crew. Please have them out on the VIP pad in about three-zero minutes. How copy?”

“Roger one-two. You have the two fuel specialists on board. Understand you need a crew chief and gunner. You’re going to land at the VIP pad in thirty minutes, over.”

“You’re a peach, six-nine.” Randolph said. He glanced over his shoulder towards the back of the ship. The gunner, Sergeant Holmes had stowed his gun on the mount, the barrel pointing down below the aircraft and was leaning forward talking to one of the fuel specialist.

“Get that gun up,” Randolph said angrily over the interphone. “What the hell do you think you are, a tourist? I want that gun up until we’re above 1500 feet and I tell you, you can put it down.”

“Yes sir!” The sergeant grabbed for his mike switch. He pulled the machine gun up, steadying the gun in the slipstream. Both of the pax sat on seats along the transmission bulkhead as far as possible away from the speeding cold air. Randolph noticed neither was strapped in.

“Whenever you fly with me, that gun is up as soon as we leave the ground. I don’t care if we’re just coming out of Tan Son Nhut. Now listen up. Something’s wrong with the short shaft. If it goes, we lose power. That means we’ll go down fast, so strap yourselves in. Tell those paxs to strap in too. Hodak, you get on the radio and give the call. Stay away from the controls and use your floor switch. Make sure you give them our position. Make damn sure of that!”

“Where are we?”

“Jesus! Look at the mountain! Haven’t you learned anything yet? That’s highway 22 we’re following. We’re going to Thien Ngon. Make damn sure you tell them how far north we are of Tay Ninh. That’s important! Think you can do that?”

“I think so.”

“How long you been in country, Hodak?”

“It’ll be eighteen days tomorrow.”

“You’re going to have a long year, Hodak. A damn long year.”

“How much time you got left, Lieutenant Thayer?” It was Sergeant Holmes, cheerful as if they were sight-seeing. Randolph had never liked him.

“Three months.” Randolph said impassively.

“Short!” Sergeant Holmes squealed happily into his mike. “Eighty-two days and a wakeup. I’m a two-digit midget. Short!”

“OK, no unnecessary chatter.” Randolph said sternly.

A few miles north of the city, highway 22’s asphalt pavement ended. The road became dirt. Randolph leveled off at two thousand feet. At that altitude, the road was a straight brown ribbon. There was jungle on both sides. Naked gray trunks of trees rose like wheat stalks from the dense undergrowth. Defoliants had stripped and killed them. New growth sprouted beneath the bare trunks. The U.S. Government had tried but couldn’t kill the jungle.

Randolph gripped the controls tightly. His left hand was clamped on the throttle at the end of the collective. If the shaft started to go, he wanted to begin the necessary precautionary action immediately. He felt the vibrations from the controls go through his body. He strained attempting to feel anything unordinary. His hands went damp inside his gloves.

Thien Ngon was a star shaped fort. Vietnamese Rangers lived there, as did their wives, children, grandparents, dogs and chickens. They lived in squat rectangular windowless bunkers. The complex was designed so that on any two points of the star, the defenders could have interlocking fields of fire against any attack. There was an outer row of bunkers, the outline of the star, plus an inner row forming a second defensive circle. The defenders protecting their families, presumably would fight if attacked. Around the entire fortress was a solid hundred yards of rusting barbed wire, which was also a mine field. Access could be gained through a road through the wire, which had several portable barriers. There was a helipad inside the barbed wire field. Outside the complex was a small paved air strip.

At two thousand feet, Thien Ngon looked uninhabited. Directly over the complex, Randolph bottomed the pitch spiraling down in one huge circle. Going down, he kept the air speed high. At one hundred feet, he pulled the cyclic back and flared to reduce the excessive speed of his approach. The nose went up and the blades wopped-wopped the heavy warm air. He landed on the peniprimed apron next to the empty airstrip. The two fuel specialists hopped out, running doubled over to keep sand out of their faces from the rotor wash.

Randolph jerked the ship back up to a hover and peddle turned in the opposite direction. Moving out onto the open airfield, he pushed the cyclic forward until they were racing down the narrow strip. At the threshold, he pulled the cyclic back and pulled up an armful of collective. The helicopter shot up into the air. Randolph immediately banked sharply. With the steep climb, they circled Thien Ngon. Within two minutes, they were at altitude heading south toward Tay Ninh.

“Six-nine, this is one-two.”

“Go ahead, one-two.”

“Off Thien Ngon enroute your location. ETA one-five minutes.”

“Roger one-two.”

“Why didn’t you call ahead before we landed?” It was the first time Hodak had spoken during the flight. “They could have been wiped out last night and we would have landed among the enemy.”

“Good point, Hodak. At least I know you’re awake. Someone in the company has been taking these two guys or two other guys up here every morning and picking them up at night for about a week now. The NVA aren’t stupid. Even though we change our frequencies every month, they have our equipment. Probably better working radios than we do. They know our voices by now. We’ve established a pattern coming up here every morning. Charlie likes to wait. It’s his country and he’s got nothing but time. If he was listening this morning, the only thing a call would have done was allow him time to get a round into one of his mortars. Besides, if Thien Ngon had got hit last night, we would have heard about it. Or, we should have heard about it at operations. If there were any smoldering fires near or in their perimeter or any of that rusty wire looked disturbed, I wouldn’t have landed there. Here, take the controls for a while. Get used to this monster.”

Hodak jerked in his seat as he straightened up and put his feet on the pedals. Randolph looked over at him to make sure he had the controls before releasing them. He lit a cigarette and dragged deeply. The nicotine tasted unnaturally good. Passing wind which he realized no one could smell with the cargo doors in the open position he realized his breakfast eggs were working their way through his system.

“Whenever you go out on a single ship mission, you’re hanging your ass out.” Randolph lectured his peter pilot. “You go down, regardless of the reason, it’s going to take time for anyone to get to you. You got to plan in advance. Stay ahead of the competition. There’s a lot of guys dead over here because they had space problems between their ears.”

“You can’t hide the sound of a Huey, even at two thousand feet.”

“On the ground, they couldn’t tell where we were going until I started the approach. If you noticed, you never made an approach like that at flight school.”

“Why didn’t we low level?”

“I’ve come up that road at ten feet and a hundred knots. It’s a lot of fun watching the tree tops go by above you. It’s also pretty damn stupid. If Charlie was waiting to knock off a truck convoy, he’d be waiting just inside the tree line. He’d get more jollies off getting a helicopter with his B-40 rocket rather than a deuce and a half truck. If I was going to low level up the road, I’d be fifty to a hundred yards inside the tree line right on top of the trees. Because of the short shaft in this ship I didn’t think that was a very good idea. I don’t feel like getting a tree up my ass this morning.”

“Why did you take this aircraft if you didn’t like the short shaft?”

“You’re rated. What did you think it looked like?”

“It looked all right to me.”

“I trust the crew chief more than Captain Moellers. I’m taking it back.” With a disappointed frown, Hodak released the controls, then relaxed in his seat.

Randolph shot a normal slow approach to the VIP pad. On long final, they could see the ten ships of the flight with their accompanying gunships lined up ready to go with their rotors turning. The VIP pad was just outside the wire from the maintenance ramp. As they touched down, the flight departed in a flurry of dust and flying debris. There was no crew waiting for them.

“Flight lead this is one-two.” Randolph called over the company VHF frequency.

“Go ahead, one-two.” Randolph recognized Huntington’s voice.

‘I have no crew. I need fuel. May have to meet up with you at Delta. Inform C & C.”

“Understood, one-two.”

“Take it, roll down the throttle but don’t shut it down,” Randolph said to Hodak. Sergeant Holmes and the crew chief took their M60s and without removing their flight helmets, started off to rejoin Captain Vishey’s ship. Quickly Randolph unbuckled, and climbed out of the aircraft. Throwing his helmet onto his empty seat with his chicken plate, the portable piece of armor that covered from his chin to his crotch, he started at a normal pace toward the company area. He got several strange glares from others walking by not used to seeing a pilot without a cap on his head and wearing his flight vest. He went directly to the headquarters hootch. The old man was not there. The XO and the admin officer were probably in the flight, since they were always short of peter pilot right seats in a big flight. Ten aircraft up in one day was a strain on the company’s resources. The only person of authority was the First Sergeant. He looked like he had just dropped his bottle and crawled out of his bed. Then again, he always looked like that.

“First Sergeant!”

“Yes sir.” He did not rise from his chair, but he returned Randolph’s glare with equal intensity. He was not a stranger to confrontation.

“I’m the spare aircraft for the flight. I have no fucking crew! Get a crew chief and a gunner, with guns and ammunition on the VIP pad in ten minutes. I’m going to refuel and then go back to the VIP pad. That crew better be there, First Sergeant, or I can’t do my mission. You can explain to the old man why I didn’t make the mission! Understood?”

“Yes sir,” the first sergeant was out of his chair and the hootch before Randolph could turn around. Randolph didn’t believe he could move that fast. On the way back to the VIP pad again his pace a near amble, he lit another cigarette. Will not get a chance to look at the short shaft. First thing I look at when I get to Dian, if I can’t find the flight. Hodak was still sitting patiently in the ship at flight idle when he climbed back into the aircraft. Getting permission from the tower, he hovered to the refueling area. Again he gave the controls to Hodak when he had set it down on a refueling pad. He directed him to stay at full throttle, the usual procedure for hot refueling. As he was unstrapping, he was thinking about how to refuel. He knew he had to ground the fuel hose and wished he had paid more attention to the crew chief who normally handled this task. As he was about to open the pilot door, a head appeared in the open window.

“I’m your crew chief today. I’ll get the fuel.” Randolph recognized him, but had forgotten his name. He thought he was from second platoon. The crew chief closed his door, so Randolph re-strapped himself in. Glancing out his window, he saw the First Sergeant sitting in a jeep. Regardless of what that SOB is, he still a first sergeant, Randolph thought. A three quarter ton truck drove up beside the jeep. Another Nomex clad soldier emerged lugging two M60s with him. Another soldier, not in flight gear unloaded two metal containers of 7.62 rounds for the machine guns. Both of them ran toward 357. Sitting calmly in his left aircraft commander’s seat Randolph felt them attaching the guns and stowing the boxes of ammunition.

“One-two, this is six-nine.” Operations called him on the Fox Mike Radio.

“Go ahead, six-nine.” Randolph transmitted on his FM radio, although he was slightly reluctant to transmit while they were refueling.

“Flight is breaking off one of the guns to escort you to the flight.”

“Roger six-nine.”

Randolph looked over at Hodak, who turned his helmeted head to look back at him.

“We should remind them to use their monkey straps because of the short shaft.”

A monkey strap allowed the crew chief and gunner to attach themselves to the aircraft and allow them more movement than with a regular seat belt.

“Good point, Hodak, we’ll do that,” Randolph said. Hodak just might make it, he thought. He was starting to understand what it took to do the mission.