Vietnam War stories from Gene

I've finished typing all four tablets of Mr. Gene's war stories.  He called me yesterday to make sure we were clear on the issue of sharing his stories.  He told me that, as long as his stories aren't published, it's no problem at all to have my family and friends read them.  It will probably be a different story once he gets them into a book and official.  He also told me about how he's writing an introduction for his book, too, and he asked if I would be willing to type it out for another $50.  I couldn't turn him down.  The last thing he wanted to tell me was how these are real stories, but he doesn't like the idea of writing stories about himself, so would I please change the name of his character to Sam Walker.  "Let me know if you think of a better name..." he said.
 "Oh, no, I like that.  Sam Walker."
"I always wanted to be named Sam Walker, but my mother never did anything to change it."
"Well now you can live out your dream through your stories."
He laughed and agreed.

Ladies and gentlemen, here is a story from Sam Walker.  (My favorite lines in the whole work are those last two sentences.)

Bart

A persistent early morning rain dripped from a slate gray sky.  Helicopters lined both sides of the An Khe airstrip and men were slowly stirring to cook their breakfast of C Rations over low fires.  Other fires from halved oil drums serving as latrines were burning nearer the perimeter.  These brought a foul smelling smoke drifting across the entire strip.

“Damn!  Sure wish they’d wait till after breakfast for the crap cremation,” groaned Sam to no one in particular.

Bart stood about ten feet away, shaving out of his helmet, the white lather a stark contrast to a dull gray/green scene.

“They seen their duty and they done it,” said Bart wiping the lather from around his ears.  “Ah, where else but in the beautiful Central Highlands of lovely Southeast Asia, and all this sponsored by the United States Army.”

Bart was the C.O. of Charlie Battery, Aerial Artillery – Gunships.  He was a major and his command consisted of Regular Army Captains and non-drafted professional solders.  Discipline was not a problem.  Bart knew this and treated his men with the respect they had earned.

“Sam, brew me up some coffee and if you don’t mind, smear some grape jelly on the cracker.  I’m going down the line and make sure everybody’s up.  Thanks.”

He smiled as he pulled on his fatigue shirt, barely hearing Sam mumble something about not being the frigging cook.

Sam was recognized as being the unit’s second best pilot.  Bart was the best.  Sam had finished first in his helicopter instrument school class and indeed had set a record for both academic performance and flight performance.  His record still stands.

Everyone was up, and most were ready.  Some were conducting their pre-flight inspection and others were already loading their 2.75” rockets.  A few kidded Bart about not being a good example by sleeping in so late.

How can morale and esprit be so high in these men when things were the worst, thought Bart.  Back at Benning (Fort Benning, Georgia) where they had trained, conditions were far better but morale only mediocre.  Now after forty-five seasick days on the Baltic Ocean and a week sleeping in pup tents, shallow bunkers and under helicopters, suddenly these men were ready to take on the world.  How do you figure?

A few minutes later he briefed the aircraft commander on the morning’s air assault.

“Ok, this is a biggee,” he began.  “Eventually, by the second lift, an entire brigade will be involved.  The LZ’s, as you can see, are at the northern end of Happy Valley.  As usual, we’ll provide the preparatory fires and then orbit until the LZ’s are secure.  We’ll take five of the ten ships here, Gen and I plus 2^nd Platoon.”  Each platoon had four choppers – two sections.

“We’ll expand half load for preparatory fires and heap a half of our orbit.  GZ’s not sure of the size of the VC force but could be as much as a battalion.  An L-19 was hit by some 14.5 millimeter anti-aircraft fire over the area, so be on guard.”  Actually, Sam and he were going to attack that target during the preparation.

“Ok, frequency for F1 (Fire net) is 35.6 fm.  Also be up on Battalion Flight net on UHF and no listening to AFN on the way.”  The pilots laughed and made their way back to watch this aircraft.  Like most professionals, they appeared relaxed, but their minds were already rehearsing the violent scenes ahead.

Promptly at 0755 Bart got the radio message to crank.  “Fire in the hole!” Sam shouted as he pressed the starter button.  Slowly the blades began to rotate picking up speed as the engine caught.  In a few seconds, optimum RPM had been reached and he picked up to a hover.  He swung the tail ninety degrees right so that Bart could see that every one was ready.

They were flying UHIB (Hueys) with XM-3 rocket pods loaded with thirty-six High Explosive (HE) 2.75 inch rockets.  On each door hung an M-60 machine gun manned by the crew chief on the left and an infantryman attached to the unit on the right.  These were used to provide suppressive fires as the gunships were breaking from their rocket runs.  Most people think that shooting a helicopter down would be as easy as shooting ducks, but it’s much harder when the ducks are shooting back.

As the gaggle of gunships rose above the tree line and began heading east, the jungle clearing serving as the division base camp appeared on their left.

 

"Oh Shit!  This is NOT the place to be stopped.  East Bound from Pleiku to QuiNhon, truck on the An Khe pass loses its brakes, takes a curve too fast and overturns....  This is, most certainly, a VERY bad development"
Image: Steve Shepard vie VHPAMuseum

Human moments #s 62-67 (or I Could Have Died)

Hu·man mo·ment: -noun a time when you connect with a stranger on a more personal level than usual so as to develop at least a minimal friendship and better understanding of one another.

I had 4 minutes left of work on Monday when an elderly gentleman came to my register. "Hello, Lindsay, I'm Gene Walker."
"Oh, hello, Mr. Gene. Can I help you?"
"Did I meet you last week?"
"I don't believe so."
"Well, I met a young lady like yourself, affable and all, and she liked to type."
"Um, I don't know who you met, but... I like to type."

He continues. "I'm a Vietnam veteran, and I'm wanting someone to type out some of my writings for me."
"Would this be with through our copy and print department?"  We type pages for customers at an outrageous price.  $60 per full page.
"No.  This would be independent," he said directly.
"Weeeell, I get off in 4 minutes. How about I come find you when I get off work?"
"Ok."

I quickly found him once I clocked out and he said, "Wanna get some coffee?" I briefly thought about how strange this could be, but I said sure. We were trying to figure out where to get coffee since he didn't care for Starbucks because it's so fancy, and we settled on Burger King, but he didn't know how to get there. He said we could both go in my car. I briefly thought about how young ladies aren't really supposed to give rides to strange old men, but I said okay.

(Before you jump to conclusions, I promise that all this brief thinking does not get me hurt.  This is a happy story, albeit one where the heroine could have been killed.)

We walked over to my Explorer, and he points out his new Fusion to me as we pass it. "Ooh, it's beautiful," I say.

"Well, then we could take my car."
"All right!" I say without hesitation.  As we got in and as we were putting on our seat belts, I began rethinking my choice and I was hoping he didn't have any guns or knives.  I know, I know. It's terribly unwise, but I trusted him. That sounds so weird and foolish, but we had formed some kind of connection in the 25 minutes that we knew each other.  And, his beard was really cool.

 

Seriously, this is what Mr. Gene did.  He also got to fly John Wayne!

Anyway, at Burger King, he opened the door for me in gentlemanly fashion and bought my coffee, then we sat down to talk. He told me about how he had graduated from the University of Arkansas with a degree in geology, but he couldn't do much with that, so he went into the Army for 20 years as a helicopter pilot. "I never lost a soldier. I'm very proud of that." After the Army, he went into business management, became a professor @ Clayton State where he taught economics, management, leadership, and basic computer, and then he retired.  I told him about myself (family, education, work) at his request, and, really, I just enjoyed chatting with him over coffee.  I also felt just a little sheepish because the story of my life was only 22 years long instead of 73; I didn't have much to say.

Eventually he said, "Well, now, I want you to talk with your parents about all this, or your brother or whoever... and here's my driver's license, military license, and my health insurance (now you know how old i am)... The next step would be for you to follow me to my house to pick up the manuscripts. I sure hope Barbara [my wife] is home..." I explained to him that I'd be calling my parents as soon as I got into my own car to follow him on the way to his house, and I did. When I got a hold of my dad on the phone, I told him all the information I knew.  I gave him Gene's address, told him that Gene had purchased his new Fusion from the dealer shown on his "Applied for" tag, etc.  Dad listened very quietly and, when I finished, said, "Well, I'm trusting God.  Be safe.  Call me when you get there, and when you leave.  I love you."

"I love you, too, Dad," I said smiling.
 

Mr. Gene took me back to work so I could get my own car, and I followed him to his house which was only 5 minutes away in a thankfully familiar neighborhood. His wife was at home, and she was so pleased to see me! She was glad Mr. Gene had found someone to do the typing for these precious treasures, and she asked me about myself and asked me to sit down. Very friendly.

After chatting with Mrs. Walker, Mr. Gene went over pricing and logistics with me. He offered to get a legal document for all this, but he told me that, the way he sees it, he's purchased my skill of typing. There would need to be a deadline, but he was willing to let me set it, and the price would be at least $200. He told me that, if the project took more time than expected, I could haggle up, but $200 was the floor. "And be sure to spend this money on something for yourself. You gotta pay yourself sometime."

"Deal."

So now I have two new friends and four tablets of Vietnam stories on the table beside me.  I've already typed out the largest two, and I'm really happy with my quick progress.  It's been so interesting to read and to be absorbed in what was happening to Mr. Gene.  His stories shocked me, intrigued me, and made me laugh.

Tada!  Isn't that a wild and cool story?  I love it when things happen like that, when they just fall into your lap and you don't get screwed for being spontaneous and carefree.

I talked with three of my friends after the fact, all guys, and all of them chastised me for getting in the car with this stranger, but they all laughed a bit, too.  At least, I hope they all did.  One of these conversations led to discussing human moments a bit more, and I wondered: how many people who sit alone at the coffee shop want to be interrupted?  Good question.  I know I would like to be.  I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Bucket List II

(The new additions are at the bottom under the line.)

• Spend New Year's Eve in Times Square
• Scuba dive
• Stargaze under the biggest sky on the darkest night
• ------------------------
• Attend ComicCon
• Roadtrip to Maine and/or Canada
• Have a restaurant give me food for singing
• Be on the radio, sometime, somehow

Now this sixth one... vocal quality hopefully won't matter.  In my imagination, it will be the moxy and the spunk it takes to sing in front of the ice cream dipper that will hopefully convince them to give me some mint chocolate chip for free, not sounding like Mariah Carey.

P.s.  You'd think after two English courses with Dr. Jones, I'd have learned how to site my sources...  The wisdom from my last post came directly from Millie Jones, accompanied by perfect timing, I might add.

Bucket list

I've been inspired.

Bucket lists aren't necessarily supposed to be completely accomplishable, right?  Why bother dreaming if you don't dream big?  So here are a few things I want to do before I die.

• Spend New Year's Eve in Times Square
• Scuba dive (preferably in the Great Barrier Reef)
• Stargaze under the biggest sky on the darkest night -  I guess that means Montana, but there are other big skies out there, too, so I'm not that picky.