“You two are going to be the next flight leaders. The policy about warrant officers not being flight leaders has changed. You will be our first if you guys want the assignment.” All the warrants in the room were smiling and talking softly. My platoon leader was smiling, and while Captain Weed wasn’t, he didn’t
protest, nor did any of the commissioned officers. I never knew if the major had spoken with them before the meeting or not.
“Yes, sir, I’ll take it,” I said.
And the next morning, I was back in the copilot seat, learning to be a flight leader. The major and I went to the brigade TOC, launching an hour ahead of everyone else to talk with the S-3 about the day’s missions. Three combat assault and three extractions were planned. I took the briefing and all the pertinent information we needed. We then took off and flew out to each PZ and LZ, passing by and over at two thousand feet. He talked me through how to judge the size from that altitude so we put maximum number of aircraft into each on the first lift as well as determining the type of formation. He further showed me how to pick checkpoints to be at on the H minus six and H minus two mark. Arriving too early in the LZ wasn’t conducive to morale as the artillery would still be shooting at the H minus two time hack. You didn’t want to cross the H minus two checkpoint until you saw the white smoke, and you didn’t want to be hovering over the H minus two checkpoint waiting for the white smoke. Arrive at the H minus two checkpoint too late and you gave the enemy time to come out of their bunkers and set up to shoot at us. Timing was critical.
The day’s missions mostly went off with success. Some fire was taken on the second insertion, but nothing serious. A bullet hole here, a bullet hole there. Nothing that maintenance couldn’t patch overnight. At the end of the day, we headed back to the Chicken Coop feeling pretty good.
“Okay, you’re ready. You take a mission tomorrow, and I’ll take the other with Mr. Roberts. I’ll see you at the club, and you’re buying,” he said as we shut the aircraft down.
“Yes, sir, and I’ll be happy to buy,” I added. I dropped my gear off in my room and headed over to the club. Mike George was coming out of his room and asked if I’d heard that we had a new pilot come in.
“No, I hadn’t,” I replied.
“Yeah, I guess he’s going to bunk in my room with me. His stuff was on the empty bed,” he added as we walked through the door of the Officers’ Club and bellied up to the bar. I ordered three beers, expecting the CO to come in shortly. As Mike and I were talking, a hand reached around me to the third beer.
“Thanks, you’re finally learning, New Guy,” this guy said. Mike and I both turned to see who this asshole was, talking to two old ACs in such a disrespectful tone. The look on my face told Mike I knew the guy.
“Lou, what the hell are you doing here?” I said as I wrapped both arms around him in a hug.
“Hey, people will talk!” He backed away.
“What are you doing here? Oh, Mike, this is Lou Price, the guy that taught me to fly.”
Shaking Mike’s hand, Lou said, “I got tired of the stateside bullshit at Mother Rucker, so I volunteered for coming back here. Did you miss me?”
“Shit, we missed you. It’s great to see you.” And we started to play “what happened to so and so?” Soon the major came in looking for his beer. He hadn’t met Lou yet.
“Sir, here’s your beer”—I pointed to the beer in Lou’s hand—“and this is Mr. Price, the guy that taught me to fly.”
“Well, Mr. Price, welcome back to the roost, and thanks for nursing my beer in my absence. You’re buying,” the major said while shaking Lou’s hand and smiling. “Good to have experience in new pilots. What have you been doing since you left us?”
“Sir, I was a flight instructor at Mother Rucker. Decided it was safer flying back here, so I dropped my paperwork to come back. I guess they wanted to get rid of me, because it was approved in less than thirty days.”
“Good. You’re familiar with the AO, then, as you’ve only been gone, what, eight or nine months?”
“Actually, it’s been ten, but who’s counting?”
“Okay. What say you take a couple of missions as a copilot to learn the Song Be, Bu Dop, Bu Gia Map area, and then we’ll put you in as an AC? Sound okay to you?”
“That will be fine, sir,” Lou responded, taking a long pull on his beer and ordering another for all of us. Some of the older ACs that were getting ready to rotate home came over and expressed their condolences to Lou for coming back, but all in good humor. He told them what they could expect going to be flight instructors at Mother Rucker or one of the other two locations. He advised them to reconsider extending, but they were married and had other commitments, if they wanted to stay married.
Chapter 33
The Ides of March
Ops woke me at 0430 hours in the morning so I could launch early. Something wasn’t feeling right about the missions, and I asked Lovelace and Peters if everything was in order.
“You feeling okay, Mr. Cory?” Lovelace asked.
“Yeah,” I lied. “Why?”
“We’ve heard about you and your feelings. Every time you’ve had one, your aircraft has taken hits. You sure you’re okay?”
“Okay, I’ll be honest. I got a feeling about today. It’s nothing. Superstition,” I said.
After a thorough preflight and crew brief, we were off and got up to Song Be for the morning briefing. When I walked in, the brigade commander was there and asked where the flight leader was at.