Robert Mason - Chickenhawk

“Unless they make you fly assaults during your last month.”

“If they do that, then I’ll give a shit.”

While the First Cav slipped unceremoniously back to An Khe, the 101st decided to end the operation with a parade. There would be no spectators except for the news reporters—unless you want to count the men in the parade as spectators, and of course they were.

Hundreds of bone-weary soldiers gathered at the artillery emplacements and began the five-mile march back to the airstrip. They marched, in parade step, along the dusty road. Insects buzzed in the saturated air. No virgins threw flowers. No old ladies cried. No strong men wept. They marched to their own muffled footsteps.

“I bet they’re pissed off,” said Gary, leaning against his door window, staring down at the column. “Especially when they look up and see all these empty helicopters flying around.”

We flew up and down the column in four V’s at 500 feet during the entire march. Supposedly we were generating excitement, or underscoring a memorable event. But according to a grunt, “We wanted to know why you fuckers wouldn’t come down and give us a fucking ride.”

When the head of the column finally reached the 101st section of the airstrip, the band played, the Hueys whooshed overhead, and the general beamed.

With all the troopers back in camp, noses were counted. Nearly twenty people were unaccounted for. It was presumed that these men were all dead. There would be a search operation to find their bodies in a few days.

The next day, while the missing moldered, the 101st had a party for the survivors. Their camp was within walking distance, but our aviator egos demanded that we fly. Af ter seeing too much death and injury, the survivors celebrated life. We had a boisterously good time to emphasize that we were still alive.

Business was so slow during the next few days that Gary and I decided to follow up a rumor. Other than the daily ice flight, and an occasional ass-and-trash, air operations in support of the 101st had stopped while loose ends were tied up.

The rumor was that our old First Cav company, the Preachers, was camped at Cheo Reo, a hundred miles south of us. So we went to Ringknocker and said, “Major, can we use a Huey to go visit some old friends of ours?” The question sounded stupid as I asked it. I wouldn’t have even thought about asking Farris or Shaker for a ship in the Cav. Helicopters were never, never used for personal business, unless maybe you were bringing in a load of ivory and you outranked everybody else.

“Visit friends?” Ringknocker stood in front of his tent dressed in shorts, on the way to the shower we had built. “What kind of friends do you have in Vietnam?”

“Our old company is camped down by Cheo Reo,” said Gary.

“Oh, those old friends.” Ringknocker seemed relieved. “Sure. Go ahead. But”—he smiled warmly—“be home before dark.”

And that was that. I didn’t even have to get the ice. Sky King agreed to take the trip for me. We had at our disposal a half-a-million-dollar helicopter, two hundred gallons of fuel, a full crew, and nothing to do but drive south to visit some friends. It was like getting the family car.

After lunch, we climbed up into the cumulus sky. Crossing Pleiku at 3000 feet, we changed course to 140 degrees for the flight to Cheo Reo.

“We’ll get some storms outta those clouds this afternoon,” said Gary.

I nodded. I was flying at the base of the clouds, changing course now and then to thread between the gaps. Below, the clouds cast dark shadows on the jungle. The river beneath us changed from gleaming sparkle to dull black, in patches.

“There she is.” I jutted my chin forward. After nearly an hour of flying, we saw our objective.

“Ah, good old Cheo Reo…. I remember it well.” Gary smiled. We’d camped here once with the Prospectors.

I let down and circled a field where I saw a bunch of Hueys parked.

“That’s them.” Gary keyed the mike to broadcast. “Preacher Control, this is Prospector Oh-four-two.”

No answer. Gary repeated the transmission. “Of course they don’t answer,” he said. “They wouldn’t be using the old frequency anymore.”

Meanwhile, I saw a group of men shielding their eyes with their hands, staring up at us. “It’s them all right. I can see Connors,” I said.

I rolled out of the orbit and let down. We landed next to one of the Preacher ships, killed the turbine, and stepped out.

“In-fucking-credible!” said Connors. “Don’t tell me. You were on your way to Saigon and you got lost, right?”

“Wrong. We’re on our way to Paris and we stopped for fuel,” I said. I saw some more men walking our way. One of them was Farris.

“Mason and Resler!” Farris said. “I don’t believe it. What the heck are you two doing down here all by yourselves?”

“Just visiting, Captain,” said Gary.

“Really? Just visiting?” Farris was trying to figure just how such frivolity was possible. His First Cav logic could not fathom it. “They let you… just visit people?‘

“That’s the way they do it on the outside, Captain,” I said.

Farris shook his head in wonderment. “Well, come on over and join us. The cook just made up a new batch of brew.”

All the way to the mess tent, Gary and I had our backs patted and hands shaken by friends we hadn’t seen for two months. At the mess tent, we also saw a whole bunch of new faces. As a matter of fact, almost all the faces we saw were new people. They were breaking up that old gang of mine. I saw Major Astor walking out to the flight line. His nemesis, John Hall, was no longer in the company. Banjo was still there. And so was Riker. Kaiser had gone to work for Air America. And that was it. A few old faces, some rumors, were all that was left of the original Preachers. The second shift was taking over. They were moving into An Khe, never realizing all the work that the original guys had done to make it the way it was. It was funny how the hardships that I hated the most became the core around which I built memories of camaraderie.

We sat around drinking coffee and telling war stories.

The Preachers had been overrun on an overnight laager. Four new pilots had been wounded. And a month before, a new pilot was killed in an assault.

We told them about the gunship that had landed with everybody unconscious (it had become the Phantom Gunship), about hauling the reluctant ARVNs to the fort, and how the NVA overran the 101st artillery position. But most of all we bragged about how much better we lived under the reasonable leadership of Ringknocker. Ice runs, beer parties, Vietnamese labor to build bunkers, and ambulances loaded with party girls: just a way of life with us, all right. As we listed these things, calculated to shock their Spartan sensibilities, Farris began to look uncomfortable.

“That guy would be hung in the Cav,” he said with a knowing nod.

“He gets the job done,” I said.

Farris nodded, but I could tell he didn’t believe me. If the Cav wasn’t doing it, it wasn’t getting done.

We had chow and stayed longer than we should have. The sun was low in the sky, leaving us an hour or so to get back. We said good-bye for the last time.

“Hang in there, short-timers,” said Connors.

“Yeah, it’s not long now,” I said.

“Don’t forget, we’ll have a party when all this is over,” Connors called as we walked away.

I called back, “Call us when you get to town.”

The last missions we flew at Dak To were to recover bodies. We dropped teams at various spots around the bombing zone, and waited for them literally to sniff out the bodies, which had become very ripe during the few days we had been packing up the camp.