Hugh Mills - Low Level Hell

For a distance of eighty to ninety kilometers, the jungle crowded right up to the road on both sides, which put any military or civilian traffic under constant enemy surveillance and potential ambush attack. To open the Song Be Road for our supply convoys and civilian traffic, it was necessary for the 1st Engineer Battalion to put out land-clearing companies to remove jungle growth for about two hundred yards on both sides of the road.

The Outcasts’ job was to sweep ahead of the Rome plows, chaperon the tanks and armored personnel carriers (APCs), and scout for enemy mines, bunkers, and spider holes. The Rome plows could take a good deal of punishment, but the APCs were soft bellied and didn’t take too well to running over mines. The scout platoon was to work this mission under the operational control (opcon) of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, whose headquarters at the time were located at fire support base Bunard, way out in the boondocks northeast of Dong Xoai.

I was called up there to get a briefing on the specifics of the scout assignment from elements of the regiment’s command group. They were to direct me to where the regimental commander (none other than Col. George S. Patton III) wanted our air cav unit to work, since*the aeroscouting mission was being split between us and the 11th’s own Blackhorse troop.

On the appointed day, Dean Sinor (Three One) and I flew up as a team to FSB Bunard. It was 5 June. Since a fire support base was a crowded, busy place, Sinor got on the radio as soon as we had Bunard in sight to get our landing instructions. “Blackhorse Three, this is Darkhorse Three One. We’re a flight of two coming up on station for a briefing. Where would you like us to put down?”

“Ah… OK, Darkhorse, this is Blackhorse Three. We’ve been taking a lot of fire this morning from the jungle. Recommend that you make a spiraling descent right into the base camp. No long approaches because we’ve got a bunch of sniper fire down here.”

Sinor rogered that and then asked me how I felt about going in. Even from altitude I could tell there wasn’t much room down there for a couple of birds to just drop in. So I keyed him back: “You know what, Three One? Why don’t you go on in first and take all the room you need. I can put my bird down anywhere, but you’ll have some trouble shoehorning that gunship inside the concertina wire. Then, after you’re in and shut down, I’ll just drop on into whatever space is left.”

Sinor made a high overhead approach and circled down into an open area right in the middle of the fire base—the only space big enough to take his fifty-two feet, eleven inches of rotor-turning Cobra.

When he was in and shut down, I searched the camp for a spot where I could light. My Loach had a turning diameter of just over thirty-four feet, so I was looking for about a forty-foot niche inside the wire.

I spotted a small bare dirt area in between where Sinor had put down and what looked like a tent pitched out the backside of an armored personnel carrier. It would be tight, but that’s all there was.

I went into a high overhead approach by spotting my ship directly over the point where I wanted to put down. Kicking the OH-6 over on her side, I entered a hard right-hand descending spiral. I continued falling out of trim until I was over the little bald spot next to the tent attached to the APC. Then I leveled off into a wider turn, flared, pulled pitch, and dropped the Loach to the ground right on the money.

Red dust swirled. Objects blew. I didn’t see much with all the junk blowing, except to notice that my rotor wash had popped the tent loose from its moorings.

With ropes and stakes flying, the wind blast blew the tent and its belongings like a rumpled paper sack up over the top of the personnel carrier, then deposited the mess, inside out, at the other end of the APC. It looked like a huge pile of dirty clothes at a Chinese laundry.

When the dust settled, I looked over toward the APC. Two soldiers were sitting in lawn chairs, scowling at me. One had a huge mustache; which was twitching with anger. The other man had a great shock of gray hair, now totally askew from having his tent blown off the top of him.

I didn’t immediately recognize the soldier with the mustache. But the gray-haired man… oh, shit! Though I had never met him, I knew exactly who he was: the regimental commander of the hard-fighting Blackhorse 11th ACR, George S. Patton III.

As I shut down, the enlisted man with the big mustache got up out of his chair, put on his helmet, and walked toward my ship, looking as though he was going to eat me alive. I could hear him screaming as he got closer. “Goddamnit, Lieutenant, I guess you realize that you just blew away the regimental commander’s tent!”

Just then I recognized the sergeant. His name was Wolf, and I remembered him from Fort Knox. He had been my first sergeant in the recon company at Knox after I graduated from OCS.

By this time, I had my helmet off and he recognized me. “How in the h-e-e-1-1 are you, Lieutenant?” he said, the anger leaving his face. “How ya been?”

Realizing that I was probably in trouble anyway, I responded sarcastically: “Fm OK, but the regimental commander ought not park his goddamned tent in my landing zone.”

“You want me to tell him that, Lieutenant?” said the sergeant major, smiling.

“You’re damned right,” I answered, thinking so far so good.

But the sergeant major was going to have the last laugh. He turned around and walked back to Colonel Patton. “Colonel, that young helicopter lieutenant out there wants to know why you got your goddamned tent in his landing zone.”

Patton exploded with laughter. “Bring that obnoxious son of a bitch up here!”

That was my introduction to George Patton. Though the son of famed General Patton of World War II, George III was well known in his own right as an aggressive, fearless, and hard-hitting leader. He was also a man with a very much appreciated sense of humor.

The Outcasts were closely involved in the Song Be Road mission until it was completed ten days later on 15 June. On that day, and in conjunction with the Big Red One’s fifty-second service anniversary, a Song Be Road completion ceremony was held at Phuoc Vinh.

As our final assignment, I was asked to go up for the ribbon cutting, primarily to set up a couple of VR teams to cap and fly cover for the ceremony. It was a big occasion. Both Vietnamese civilians and allied military forces would now be able to traverse the full length of the road with much improved security.

I returned to Phu Loi that afternoon about 1500. After four straight hours of flying, I was ready for a shower and quiet dinner at the O club. I walked in my hootch door and parted the beaded curtains that separated Bob Davis’s and my bunk areas from the rest of the hootch. I immediately noticed that my fan was running, my TV was playing, and perched right in the middle of my bunk was a black-haired lieutenant of infantry.

He had his boots off. He was scratching his bare foot with one hand, drinking a Coca-Cola out of my refrigerator with the other, watching my TV, and cooling his damned self with my fan! There were no possessions guarded more jealously than a man’s fan, TV, stereo, and certain refinements of his bunk area. In fact, these items of luxury were so coveted by the pilots that they were actually willed to successors should the owner depart the country or be killed in action.

With as much composure as I could muster, I demanded, “Just what in the hell are you doing here?”

Completely unperturbed by my blast, the man responded, “I’m new to the troop. I’m assigned to this hootch, and I’m looking for a place to drop my gear.”

“Well, this ain’t the place, soldier,” I shot back in a caustic tone of voice. But I realized that the guy had probably been waiting around in an empty hootch for two to three hours hoping someone would show up to help him find an empty bunk. Besides, I kind of liked his manner.