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older than Moses. As much as anything, I yearned to be tested. I wanted to get out there and mix it up, walk through the fire, and live to tell about it.
That’s why I so clearly remember the first time I thought I was going to die. It was only a week after I got to Vietnam. The Huey I was riding in that day lifted off from an airfield in Natrang, skimming across the rice paddies until the pilot snapped a steep climb to get us through a high saddle in some mountains directly ahead. I was crowded in with General Faul, four other soldiers, plus the aircrew and the door gunners. The helo cruised along at six thousand feet. Warm wind rushed through the open cargo doors, blending with the loud chop of the rotors. Out the port side of the aircraft, I could see the Huey’s shadow flitting across the mountainside like a ghost.
Without warning, the helo plunged wildly. The wind now rushed suddenly upward, past the cargo door. The aircraft fell from the sky like an elevator car cut free of its cable. A single thought flashed through my brain:
we’ve been hit
. As we dove toward earth, my stomach hung in my throat and fear ripped at my heart like a vulture.
I have no idea what General Faul and the others did because I was completely engulfed by a white-knuckled terror. The bird felt in total freefall and I could still see the helo’s shadow, now screaming down the mountainside. I said one of those emergency prayers—not devout, but desperate:
Lord, don’t let us get killed!
As we plunged through five thousand feet . . . four . . . three . . . two, my brain clung to scraps of hope:
Can the pilot crash-land? In a rice paddy? Better chance for rescue there than on the side of this mountain
.
It was not to be. As we broke through a thousand feet, the pilot pulled back on the stick and ended our nosedive, leveling off low enough for me to make out individual villagers in the paddies, and even the hoes and rakes they were using. Relief flooded through me as I realized the pilot had the helo under control. The villagers glanced up at us, then returned to their tilling, unafraid. The pilot now commenced a low, slow racetrack pattern orbiting the paddies. After about ten minutes, we climbed again, up and through the mountain pass, landing at a Korean fire base somewhere out in the jungle.
Legs shaking, I exited the helo with Faul and the others. The pilot got out and came around to where we all stood trying to figure out what had just happened.
“Helluva ride, wasn’t it?” he said, smiling.
It turned out that we had nearly been the victims of friendly fire. The Koreans had a fire base on one side of that mountain pass, the pilot told us. They had received a call for artillery support from a unit engaged in a firefight on the other side of the pass.
“I saw artillery rounds crossing literally right in front of us,” the pilot said. These were 105 rounds—two feet long and as big around as a fence post, passing just feet off the nose of the helicopter. “I had to take her down fast to get below them.”
The chances of artillery rounds crossing our flight path at our exact altitude—and the pilot spotting them with his naked eye—were infinitesimal. I imagined what might’ve happened if he hadn’t and thought maybe now would be a good time to change my trousers.
6
I HAD BEEN IN VIETNAM for only three months when Henry Kissinger finally hammered out his ceasefire. Just that quickly, my combat tour was over. Faul and I headed back to Korea. Four months later, I returned to the States and, in May 1973, reported to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, as the new executive officer of D Company, 1/506 infantry, in the 101st Airborne. The 101st had returned from Vietnam and was transitioning from its role as an airborne outfit specializing in parachute insertions, to becoming an air assault unit. I was privileged to be in on the ground floor of that historic shift, helping to develop Army air assault tactics and procedures built around
That’s why I so clearly remember the first time I thought I was going to die. It was only a week after I got to Vietnam. The Huey I was riding in that day lifted off from an airfield in Natrang, skimming across the rice paddies until the pilot snapped a steep climb to get us through a high saddle in some mountains directly ahead. I was crowded in with General Faul, four other soldiers, plus the aircrew and the door gunners. The helo cruised along at six thousand feet. Warm wind rushed through the open cargo doors, blending with the loud chop of the rotors. Out the port side of the aircraft, I could see the Huey’s shadow flitting across the mountainside like a ghost.
Without warning, the helo plunged wildly. The wind now rushed suddenly upward, past the cargo door. The aircraft fell from the sky like an elevator car cut free of its cable. A single thought flashed through my brain:
we’ve been hit
. As we dove toward earth, my stomach hung in my throat and fear ripped at my heart like a vulture.
I have no idea what General Faul and the others did because I was completely engulfed by a white-knuckled terror. The bird felt in total freefall and I could still see the helo’s shadow, now screaming down the mountainside. I said one of those emergency prayers—not devout, but desperate:
Lord, don’t let us get killed!
As we plunged through five thousand feet . . . four . . . three . . . two, my brain clung to scraps of hope:
Can the pilot crash-land? In a rice paddy? Better chance for rescue there than on the side of this mountain
.
It was not to be. As we broke through a thousand feet, the pilot pulled back on the stick and ended our nosedive, leveling off low enough for me to make out individual villagers in the paddies, and even the hoes and rakes they were using. Relief flooded through me as I realized the pilot had the helo under control. The villagers glanced up at us, then returned to their tilling, unafraid. The pilot now commenced a low, slow racetrack pattern orbiting the paddies. After about ten minutes, we climbed again, up and through the mountain pass, landing at a Korean fire base somewhere out in the jungle.
Legs shaking, I exited the helo with Faul and the others. The pilot got out and came around to where we all stood trying to figure out what had just happened.
“Helluva ride, wasn’t it?” he said, smiling.
It turned out that we had nearly been the victims of friendly fire. The Koreans had a fire base on one side of that mountain pass, the pilot told us. They had received a call for artillery support from a unit engaged in a firefight on the other side of the pass.
“I saw artillery rounds crossing literally right in front of us,” the pilot said. These were 105 rounds—two feet long and as big around as a fence post, passing just feet off the nose of the helicopter. “I had to take her down fast to get below them.”
The chances of artillery rounds crossing our flight path at our exact altitude—and the pilot spotting them with his naked eye—were infinitesimal. I imagined what might’ve happened if he hadn’t and thought maybe now would be a good time to change my trousers.
6
I HAD BEEN IN VIETNAM for only three months when Henry Kissinger finally hammered out his ceasefire. Just that quickly, my combat tour was over. Faul and I headed back to Korea. Four months later, I returned to the States and, in May 1973, reported to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, as the new executive officer of D Company, 1/506 infantry, in the 101st Airborne. The 101st had returned from Vietnam and was transitioning from its role as an airborne outfit specializing in parachute insertions, to becoming an air assault unit. I was privileged to be in on the ground floor of that historic shift, helping to develop Army air assault tactics and procedures built around
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