Hugh Mills - Low Level Hell

The enemy unit that we jumped in the clearing had definitely been identified as a heavy-weapons platoon belonging to the Dong Nai. We had been hunting those bastards for a long time. Now we had found them, and stirred them up pretty good by destroying one of their crucial subunits in that jungle clearing.

After rehashing the morning’s activities, I finally dropped off to sleep, knowing that I was going to be back out at first light the next morning looking to find the Dong Nai again. I wanted to help deliver the coup de grace.

The next morning, 29 August, we went back out and searched and searched. Nothing. It looked as though, after a day of scouring, we were going to go home empty-handed. It was getting late and we had found absolutely no evidence of recent enemy activity, let alone any traces of the Dong Nai Regiment itself.

It got to be last light and I finally keyed the intercom. “It looks like a dry run, Jimbo. We’ve lost ‘em again.”

I decided to make one more run before heading home, so I pulled in low over a strip of trees that ran from southeast to northwest right near FSB Kien. Watching intently in the fading light along the edge of the tree line, I suddenly spotted people.

Coming into view low, out my right door, was a group of what could only be enemy soldiers, lying on the ground at the base of a couple of trees. They were being perfectly still, weapons resting across their chests, and they were looking straight up at me. They apparently thought that if they didn’t move, I’d pass them by unseen. But they looked ready to shoot if they had to.

I punched the intercom to Parker. “Don’t move a muscle… don’t do anything. We’ve got beaucoup bad guys right below us… right below us in the tree line.”

“I see them, Lieutenant,” he came back calmly. “Looking up at us like they’re waiting for us to make a move.”

I jumped on Uniform to Sinor in the Cobra. “Three One, I got dinks, out my right door in the tree line now. Mark, mark. When I break, you roll.”

Sinor answered, “Roger, One Six, on your right break.”

“Breaking… NOW!” I jerked the ship hard over on her right side to get out of Sinor’s way. In the split second that I put the ship into the turn, the enemy opened up on me with everything they had.

Sinor was back on Victor to me instantly. “You’re taking fire, One Six… heavy fire, heavy fire! Break left… break left now.”

Just as he finished his transmission, I heard a loud impact on the aircraft, and felt a sharp burning, stinging sensation in my right hip. I bent forward to look down at the cockpit floor. I didn’t see anything that looked like a bullet hole. But leaning forward was painful as hell.

I continued my turn out for about five to seven seconds before I noticed that my seat was beginning to fill up with blood. “Ah, son of a bitch!” I groaned. “If I had only flown right on by them instead of making a break and settin’ them off.”

Then it became obvious that my body just didn’t feel right from the waist down. I keyed the intercom. “Hey, Jimbo, I’m bleedin’ like a stuck hog. I’ve been hit.”

“Do you want me up front to help?” he asked.

“No,” I answered, “just hang on tight. I can still fly this thing, but I don’t know for how much longer. I’m going to try to put her down at Contigny.”

Thank God I was close to that fire support base, because I was beginning to feel woozy. Contigny had a small helicopter landing area within the wire near the center of the complex, and I managed to put the bird down in that spot. Parker jumped out of the back, stuck his head in the cockpit, and calmly asked, “Whatcha got, Lieutenant?”

“What I got, Jimbo,” I said, looking for bullet holes and rubbing my hip, “is an AK round in my ass!”

“I see what happened, sir,” Parker said as he pointed to the instrument panel. There was the bullet hole I had been looking for. An AK round had come up through the instrument panel, hit the inner side plate of my seat armor, and ricocheted into my hip. After going through both cheeks of my backside, the bullet then hit the other side of my seat armor, ricocheted again, and flew back out of the airplane through the floor of the ship!

Just then a young soldier came running up to the helicopter. “What, can we do for you, Lieutenant?”

“Have you got a surgeon here?” I asked.

“Yes we do, sir. What do you need?”

I very tenderly lifted myself out of the cockpit and stood—a little wobbly—outside the aircraft. “Well, buddy, I’ve been shot in the butt.”

A smile broke across the young infantryman’s face. “But, sir, that’s not a very dignified place for an officer to get shot.”

“Be that as it may, Private,” I fired back, “I’m still shot in the ass, and would appreciate it all to hell if you would please get the surgeon!”

The battalion surgeon just happened to be at the fire base, and it wasn’t long before he came out to the helicopter carrying his little aid bag.

“Can you walk?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied, “if I don’t have to move double-time anywhere.”

He grabbed my arm. “Well, then, come on back over here to the aid bunker and we’ll take a look at you.”

Parker wanted to stay with the airplane, and I noticed that quite a little crowd of soldiers was beginning to gather around him and the ship. They were interested in looking over the OH-6 and asking Parker questions about it, but in typical Loach crew chief manner, Parker shrugged off their queries. I overheard him tell one man, “Keep your hands off… don’t touch the fuckin’ helicopter!”

But when the doctor got me over to the aid bunker and dropped my flight suit, the crowd wandered over, seeking some new entertainment. As my posterior came into open view and the doc began his examination, I began to hear a lot of one liners followed by muffled yuks and snickers. By that time my fanny hurt so bad I didn’t care.

Finally, after probing and sending spears of pain through my punctured buttocks, the doctor said, “You’re awfullylucky, Lieutenant. No bones were hit. It’s a through-and-through flesh wound, but you’ll have a beautiful scar to show off.”

Finally the doctor told me I could lift my flight suit back up, and a Dustoff was ordered to take me into Doctor Delta.

“But I don’t want a Dustoff,” I said. “I’ve got an aircraft out there on the pad and I’ve got to get it home. I’m sure as hell not going to leave it out here all night.”

The battalion doctor stiffened at my response. “No, you’re not flying! We’ll take care of your gunner here tonight while Dustoff gets you to the hospital, so just go on out there and secure your helicopter.”

When I told Parker what the doctor had said, his eyes got as big as dishes, then his boyish face screwed down into a hard frown. “Oh, no you don’t, sir,” he said to me. “If you think I’m staying out here at a fire base in these boonies, you’re crazy.

“And furthermore, Lieutenant Mills,” Parker continued, “I’d be awful pleased if, right now, you’d get your ass—shot up as it is—back into this airplane and take me home!”

I knew Parker was right. I turned to the medic who had helped me walk back out to the ship. “Tell the doctor thanks, but I’m going on back home to Phu Loi. I feel fine, and I’m not going to leave my crew chief and airplane out here overnight.”

It was about a twenty-minute flight back to Phu Loi. The only way I made it was to roll over in the pilot’s seat so I was resting on my left hip. Also, Parker sat up front with me and I let him fly to take the strain off.

But God, my ass did burn and hurt. I didn’t know why it was throbbing so badly, but I did know what the burning was. The doc had told me that the AK-47 round that passed through my buttock was a tracer!