Ch 12: Rotor Raptors
Most folks think of warfare in its component parts. Artillery, an infantry squad or something like that. Even warriors are prone to tight focus on the mission to exclusion of other facets and we were as likely to do that as any unit. The A Shau Valley was our turf and by damn we were going to do it our way! As the Monsoon progressed we found that very often the weather out in the Valley was good even if it sucked between Camp Eagle and FSB Rendezvous. Like flying thru a curtain�poof, pull out the sunglasses and there you have it. We scouted the Valley systematically although it would not appear so to the casual observer. A grid down at the south end in the AM, up north near Tiger Mountain in the PM, hopping around, picking up sign like a pointer after quail. We didn�t take much fire thru the month of October or even early November, but with each passing day the trail activity became heavier and we began to know our turf like no other unit in the region. There was the odd spat here and there, almost always a flurry of ground fire met with a barrage of rockets from the Snakes, but no .50 cals. or much else that was intimidating. Certainly not in comparison to our experience down Chu Lai way.
We had a new page turn in our endeavor that November though. 1st Marine Recon out of Phu Bai to be specific. Now the 101st had Lima Company, 75th Infantry, AKA �Sneaky Petes�, or LRPs. Say �lurps� and you are phonetically correct. The acronym stands for Long Range Patrol. 6 man teams that did on the ground what we did in the air, although they were not looking for the chitt-storms we were. I want to make clear I have nothing bad to say about Lima Company. Their job I did not want. On the other hand, 1st Marine Recon was a different animal entirely. We were tasked to provide support for a long term recon mission in the Valley and at first we were, well, very fuggin� underwhelmed. We, being as how we were a bunch of blood crazed maniacs, WE wanted to kill something, not baby sit a bunch of jarhead weirdos. I can only say they felt the same way and neither of our units understood that we were both sitting on that same bench�the Group W bench.
The basic set up was this: Insert a radio relay team of 12 as the old FSB Berchtesgarden, up about 6,000� in the cool�and then 4-6 teams of 6-8 men each at various other parts of the Valley. The theory was that we would rotate the teams out about every 2 weeks with replacements and let them do what they did. What we did not realize was the fundamental difference in mentality between Army LRPs and Force Recon. Those crazy fugs would start a battle at every opportunity and thus we wound up with more than a few hot LZs for extraction.
As example, one such team ambushed a water detail on a razor back ridge one morning, fell down grade to a previously established claymore ambush and popped the NVA company that came pouring down the ridge. They then withdrew and went up to the NVA bunker complex and took position in the bunkers whilst throwing smoke grenades outside and telling our guns to shoot the smoke. They didn't get a scratch, but the NVA were not so fortunate.
Well, that would probably be enough excitement for a single tour for most, but it wasn�t good enough for those nuts. No Sir! We�d be out doing our thing and they�d call up and ask if we were bored. Didn�t take long for that crap to get addictive, not long at all.
Along the way we were getting some new pilots and I was still the Combat Check Pilot. One was John Donnelly, the Child Killer. Just about fell off the bar stool when he showed up. Got him checked out pretty quick, and then a couple of others and we were starting to look fat for the first time since May.
It was around this time that my friend Johnny got shot down in the southeast fringe of the Valley. Johnny had this saying he repeated often: �Some days you get the bear, some days the bear gets you, and some days it just gets rained out.� This is how the bear got Johnny.
He had a nasty habit of trying to kill folks. You see, there was another Scout in the platoon named Mullins�.Moon we called him, and Moon was a USDA certified killer. I don�t recall his body count but by that time he had surpassed the 3 digit range and his glory inspired Johnny to do foolish things. He was operating in a large coliseum shaped bowl on the Laotian border�tall country with TALL trees and a few food plots here and there. Johnny saw some hooches under the canopy and spied a way to get closer. This was the psychotic part of him, the evil twin perhaps�he began hovering down between trees and under the canopy until he had worked his way about 75 meters into the forest and face to face with a hooch. Johnny and me, we had talked about this evil chitt he did and we both knew he�d get his clock cleaned doing it, but hey, he was the guy that had been ripping roofs off of hooches with his skids down near Tam Ky when we were out of willy petes so caution was not his middle name. It was about the time that Johnny said to himself, �Self, what do I do now that I�m here?� that about a dozen of Uncle Ho�s finest opened up on him.
The thought occurred to Johnny that an exit to the rear was called for and as they methodically chewed his LOH to shreds he calmly backed out of the hole he was in�all this without guidance from the gunner who was shooting everything that moved. Damn good memory and very cool maneuver, even if decidedly awkward. He had just cleared the canopy when lots of red and yellow lights began blinking on the dash and his power began fluctuating wildly. He stumbled down hill, headed for a very narrow gash in the side of the bowl where a stream had cut thru the terrain, then heard that incredible silence that can only come to a chopper when the engine quits.
I later gave Johnny a 10 for execution and a -2 for placement. He splatter-crunched into the stream bed with about 3 feet of air between each side of his rotor disc. His back was FUBAR and his gunner was, you know, like, �WTF do we do now?� I assume Johnny said something like �How would I know, I�m from Texas.�
In the ensuing melee there were several things that happened I thought had merit, not a one of which have I ever disclosed to a single soul. The Blues were scrambled as was I, and we raced out to save our dear friend Johnny. We flew out of the murky weather into sunshine and with guidance from the team lead overhead Johnny�s crash site I pushed the nose over to hurry things along. The LOH had a max sea level speed or Vne of 124 KIAS. That speed was reduced with altitude in accordance with the little red placard on the dash. I never paid it much mind. Problem with excessive speed in a chopper such as we flew could be found in two forms. In one case, usually under very high gross weight conditions, you could stall the retreating blade due to reduced relative air flow over the retreating side of the rotor disc. In the other, you could enter a transonic speed range on the advancing blade tip if you were at high altitude. I was 1) heavy and 2) at high altitude. The typical response in both events was a severe vibration and sharp pitch up of the nose with a left roll. Afterwards, my Snake lead said �You OK?� �Uh, yeah.� Oddly, my Oscar did not wet his pants, although I was close enough for the two of us. It were a wild ass experience, but we came out the other side upright and in one piece�so back to the rescue�at reduced speed.
The Blues landed upstream about 300 meters from the crash site and there was absolutely no way they were going to walk down stream to snatch Johnny. It was deep and the terrain on the sides was very steeply pitched. The grunts were milling around and I landed in the middle, told my Oscar to hop out and take ALL of the ordinance with him except for a thermite grenade. I called Mad Gary and told him I would go pick up Johnny, he said �Roger� and I was off to the task. Hoovered down the narrow cut a bit and saw Johnny and his gunner looking up at me�absolutely no place to park on either side and I had some very serious reservations about trying to hover while they clambered aboard�tail wind to boot. I backed up and saw a large boulder about 30� upstream from the downed bird and quickly settled down to it and found that with a little power I could balance on it well enough with only about 6� of belly in the water. That put my tail rotor blade tips about 2� above the water. Johnny and the gunner swam/sloshed their way over to me and started to climb in. I handed Johnny the grenade and told him to torch his bird and I would be back for him after I dropped off his gunner. In the process of all of this I had turned down the radio volume because Gary was yakking way too much and I found it totally unnerving, given the circumstances. I did not realize at the time that Johnny had fugged up his back as bad as he had�..figured the pained look was just for effect and a quiet plea for understanding. He backed away and I hoovered back to the grunts and dropped off the gunner along with his M-60 and other crap they�d brought with them. My crew started to load up and I waved them off, hopped up and went after Johnny. When I landed on the rock he pulled the pin and set the grenade on the floor above the fuel cell. Thermite Grenades pop as soon as you let the spoon go and the flare startled him�fell back in the rushing water then recovered, backpedaled away and as the flames began to roil up he turned and made his way to me. He climbed up on the rock and grabbed the door frame�I had let the power down a bit too much and my left skid slipped on the rock. Dan be yanking collective pitch pronto and Johnny be doing his best to hang onto the LOH as we staggered into the air. Short of it was that he crawled into the cargo compartment and as I hovered back to the LZ I remembered I�d turned the radios down.
So, I turned them up again. I was greeted by one of the longest strings of invective I�ve ever heard in my life. Gary going nuts �cause I wasn�t talking to anybody. I was down in the LZ and they were helping Johnny out of my ride before Gary shut up. When I got a chance I keyed the mic and said �I was sitting with the belly in the water, the antenna was under water sir.� Silly fug accepted that. Well, whatever works in a moment of crisis, right? We flew home in loose formation, surrounded by light rain. A hole opened up in the clouds and we were in a circular rainbow. One of the cool things I�ve seen in flight.
Johnny got about 3 weeks off and a new job as one of our maintenance officers. Well hell, he deserved that I figured. I was out in Johnny�s punch bowl a few days later and all that was left was one of the engine bay doors. A week later and it was gone as well. You�d never know anything exciting happened there that day, but by then our Recon boys were starting to have some problems. They had put so much heat on the NVA that the dinks brought in dogs to track them down.
It was just a few days after Johnny got shot down that one of the teams got hit hard and we had to make a hot extraction. 1st Recon lost two lads that day and the dinks lost about 30 for all their trouble, mostly at the hand of the Jarheads. It was a sobering loss but it was also easy enough to see the Recon boys weren�t going to weep in their beer over it. Their CO looked a lot like Yul Brenner. His philosophy was simple. If you call for extraction it should be a hot PZ. If you say you�re in contact there better be some blood somewhere. Within that company there were several of those boys that had been in country over two years. One had lost 3 brothers in the same unit. He had the most chilling eyes I�ve ever seen on a man in my life. They carried sawed off M79s in holsters, Swedish K�s, Winchester Mod 12s�nothing much standard at all, except for the odd CAR 15. They all carried more that one long arm, multiple 1911s and a lot of knives. They were not afraid of Chuck at any level, but it was about to get really rough in the next few weeks.
My recollection is that the end of our R&R came about a week later. I was working a muddy trail down in the south end of the Valley early one day and followed a squad sized unit all the way across the Valley floor to the west escarpment. Just before I found them I could see the muddy water swirling in their tracks which were leading directly to a low knob of a hill at the base of a sheer mountain face�little bit of single canopy scrub on top of the knob and a chill up my back. I knew we were fixing to meet each other�.
