“Drop your gear on your bunk and let’s go out to the flight line. I’ll show you where our aircraft is and where the guns are so you can get them and the ammo in the morning.”
“You mean I’ll be flying in the morning?” Dorsey asked, a bit surprised.
“Well, yeah. Did ya think we were going out tomorrow without ya?”
“No, I just thought that I would have some training time and a chance to get accustomed to this.”
“Training will be OJT, on-the-job training. As far as getting accustomed to this, ya have until about oh five hundred hours to do that. Let’s go.” And they walked out towards the maintenance area. Approaching them with his flight gear was Jonesy’s usual aircraft commander.
“Here comes Mr. Fairweather. Grampa is his nickname, but you better think twice about calling him that until you get to know him real well, and never in front of an RLO.”
Approaching Mr. Fairweather, Jonesy asked, “How was your flight, sir?”
“Good—I came back in one piece and the aircraft is flyable for tomorrow. Is our aircraft going to be up in the morning?” Fairweather asked.
“I believe it will be, sir. Sir, this is PFC Dorsey, our new gunner.”
Fairweather shook Dorsey’s hand. “Glad to meet you, Dorsey. How much flight time have you got?”
“Ah, none, sir. I’ve never been in a helicopter before except to fly over here from Phuoc Vinh.”
With one of his dark, bushy eyebrows going up and the other down, Mr. Fairweather asked, “Soooo, you’ve never fired an M60 from an aircraft? Is that what you’re telling me?” A sideways look was on Grampa’s face.
“Sir, the only time I fired an M60 was in AIT.”
“How long have you been in-country?” Grampa asked.
“About two weeks now, sir.”
“Oh shit,” Grampa said, rolling his eyes. “Dorsey, get him over to the armament bunker and make sure he knows how to put the guns together without putting the gas plugs in backwards. Then show him how to set them on the aircraft. You can do it tonight or first thing in the morning, but have it done before we take off tomorrow. Also, walk him through how to shoot at a ta
rget from a moving aircraft. I need a damn beer.” And he walked off to find that cold beer.
Waiting a few minutes, Jonesy looked towards the armament bunker, then at the mess hall, then at the enlisted men’s club. After some deep consideration, he said, “Let’s get a beer, then some dinner, in that order. We can mess with the guns in the morning.” A command decision had been made.
Chapter 7
First Time Out
“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty,” Jonesy said as he kicked the side of Dorsey’s bed. “We have a mission today and launch at zero six hundred.”
“What time is it?” Dorsey asked, half-awake.
“It’s 0500. Let’s go get some chow and then out to the aircraft. Let’s go, let’s go. You don’t want to piss off Mr. Fairweather on your first mission,” Jonesy prodded.
Raising himself up and rolling out of his bed, Dorsey started reaching for his pants and boots, which he’d left on the floor. As he began to slide a foot into his pants, Jonesy spoke up. “Hey, did you leave your pants laying on the floor last night?”
“Yeah, why?”
“You best turn them pant legs inside out to make sure no scorpions crawled in them. They’ll sting your ass. Worse yet, if one stings your dick, it’ll fall off,” Jonesy added with a straight face. Dorsey withdrew his foot and cautiously pulled the pant legs inside out.
“Shit, hurry up. I’ll meet you at the mess hall, but we have to get going.” Jonesy headed for the door, leaving Dorsey to stand there and inspect his pants.
A couple of other crew chiefs had heard this exchange. “Hey, Dorsey, don’t let him bullshit you. Your dick will not fall off if stung by a scorpion. It will hurt like hell, but it won’t fall off. That only happens if you get Black VD, and then they ship your ass out to that island off the coast. Dickless Island, it’s called,” one of the other crew chiefs told him. At this point, Dorsey didn’t know what to believe.
Finally he got to the mess hall and met Jonesy, who was finishing up his breakfast.
“Let’s go—grab something and take it with you. We’re late.”