“If I can get on his gun and fire it I don’t,” Reid responded with a wide grin. Pilots were always wanting to get on the guns.
“Yeah, I’ll get us a free-fire box when we start back,” Mike said as they approached the aircraft. Specialist Mike Kelly was already going over the aircraft, and the door gunner, Specialist Conrad, was mounting the guns.
“How’s it looking?” Mike asked.
“Good, Mr. George,” Kelly replied.
“Reid, you take the bottom and I’ll get the rotor head,” Mike directed as they placed their flight gear in the aircraft and commenced the preflight. When all was done, both pilots climbed in and began start-up procedures. Kelly and Conrad closed the pilots’ doors after pulling the armor plate side panels into place and ensuring that there were no leaks or fires in the engine compartment. When all that was completed, both climbed into their positions and cleared the pilots to come out of the revetments.
“Clear right and back,” Kelly said.
“Clear left and back,” Conrad parroted.
Bringing the aircraft to a hover, Mike backed the aircraft out while Reid received clearance from the tower to take the runway and depart.
The flight up to Bu Gia Map was pleasant, with clear skies and no turbulence. At Bu Gia Map, they refueled the aircraft and then shut it down to get a briefing at the Third Brigade TOC on the mission they were to fly. Entering the TOC, Mike was met by the brigade operations officer, commonly referred to as the S-3.
“Good morning, Mr. George. Good to see you today.”
“Morning, sir, you too. What we got today?” Mike asked.
“Here’s the situation. Want you to take the psyops guys over to this valley east of here. They’re going to drop leaflets and use the loudspeaker to broadcast. We know of some activity in this area but nothing specific as to how many or where exactly,” the S-3 said.
“So you want me to fly around and draw fire so you’ll know where they are. Right?” Mike asked.
“No, stay at twenty-five hundred and let’s just nudge them to Chieu Hoi.”
“What’s Chieu Hoi?” asked Reid.
“Get them to surrender without a fight,” the S-3 responded. “Oh, Mike, if you do take fire, get your aircraft out of there. Do not pull a Cory on me.”
“What’s a Cory?” asked Reid.
“Cory was before your time. He was flying psyops one day and drew fire. He called an artillery barrage on them. Didn’t get any Chieu Hois but did get a good body count,” replied the S-3, smiling. “No Corys, Mike.”
“Yes, sir, got it. If there’s nothing else, sir, we’ll get back and get going. Call you when we lift off,” Mike said.
“Thanks, and see you back here.”
Mike and Reid walked out of the TOC and saw that the aircraft was loaded with boxes and a large speaker in the left-side cargo door. Kelly, who generally sat on the left side, did not look happy as that speaker was right next to him. The psyops crew consisted of a staff sergeant and a Vietnamese captain.
“Good morning, Dai-uy,”16 Mike addressed the Vietnamese captain, whom he had met on previous psyops missions.
“Ah, goo moning, Geoge,” the captain answered. “Geoge, no Coyie t’day. Okay. He number ten,” the captain said with a disgusted look.
“No Cory this morning. Cory gone home,” Mike said with a smile.
“These guys really didn’t like Cory, did they?” Reid asked.
“No, he really messed up the psyops thing for a while, but no one blamed him. He had just lost his roommate and good friend, Hanna, in a stupid shoot-down that shouldn’t have happened, and he just wanted revenge. We all did.”
“Why shouldn’t it have happened?”
“Hanna was flying the engineer battalion commander and his staff that day. The engineer convinced Hanna that the clearing was secure to land in, when it wasn’t. Hanna was at a hover when the gooks opened fire on him and Tittle, killing both outright as well as the gunner and the battalion staff in the back. The crew chief managed to evade for about a hundred yards before they caught up with him, but from what I heard, he put up a fight before they got him. Never, ever land in an LZ unless it’s a combat assault or you have commo with someone on the ground at that location, regardless of what anyone in the back tells you to do. You are the aircraft commander and that trumps everyone else’s hand. Got it?” There was a touch of anger in Mike’s voice. Hanna had been his friend too.
Once everyone was settled in, Reid went through the start-up procedures while Mike was looking over his map and confirming with the psyops NCO the location and pattern that Mike would fly. Satisfied, Mike told Reid to take off and head east at twenty-five hundred feet. This area of Vietnam had an above-ground elevation of three hundred feet above sea level, so when flying at twenty-five hundred feet, you were actually only twenty-two hundred feet above the ground. In most cases that wasn’t enough to make a difference if Charlie was shooting at you—unless it was a quad .50-cal or a twin 23 mm antiaircraft gun, and then a pilot would be climbing for a lot more altitude. Although one SA-7 antiaircraft missile had been fired a couple of months before around Bu Gia Map, none had been seen in-country since. Reaching altitude was always welcomed as the air temperature was generally cooler at altitude.
As Mike started into his orbit, on came the speaker, blaring the singsong language of Vietnam. Almost immediately, Kelly started howling like a Tennessee coon dog with a treed raccoon.