Friendly Fire (58 page)

Cameron had made radio contact with the Cobra gunships, and from them he learned the medical evacuation helicopter was at last inbound.

“Bayliss! Make sure that as soon as dust-off gets close you turn off that strobe light or you'll blind the pilot.”

“Right, sir,” Bayliss called back. “Shall I turn it on now?”

“Turn it on!”

The gunships were still dropping flares. Every now and then they would call down to Cameron to ask if he had had any enemy contact. Cameron would answer, “Not yet.” Lieutenant Bayliss, in the middle of the cleared landing zone, turned on the strobe. The light began to pulse, shooting an intense beam visible for miles. Cameron soon heard the dust-off approaching. Its engine made a different sound from the gunships; the med-evac noise was more a piston beat than turbine, and there was something strange about its pitch.

“He's really beating the air!” Cameron's radio operator said.

“Yeah,” Cameron said, realizing why the engine's pitch had seemed odd. “He must be coming in at max speed.” He had given the med-evac a vector off Hill 410, a compass direction to follow. He knew the medevac would be familiar with Hill 410; they were out there every day flying around. The men with the redlensed flashlights were properly stationed at the corners of the LZ; Bayliss was holding the strobe light up as high as he could. Cameron believed the med-evac might even be able to see the strobe from 410. He took the hand mike from the radio operator and began talking to the med-evac, telling the pilot where Charlie Company was, what the LZ was like, and waited for confirmation. There was no response.

“For chrissake! Dust-off doesn't answer!” Cameron swore. He called the Cobra gunships. “I can't talk to dust-off.”

There was an electronic crackle; then the pilot of one of the gunships identified himself and explained that the med-evac's UHF radio had malfunctioned again. The helicopters could talk to each other over VHF, but the dust-off couldn't talk to the ground. “Tell me the details,” the Cobra pilot said. “I can relay.”

“Roger,” Cameron replied. “I have four corners marked with red lights, strobe marks my center. I've got five packs: three ambulatory, two litter.” Cameron was still describing the LZ when the medical evacuation helicopter came screaming in, low and fast. Bayliss wasn't able to extinguish the strobe, and the helicopter suddenly banked sharply, dropped down over the side of the hill and disappeared.

“Oh my GOD!” Cameron said and waited for the crash.

“I can't get the strobe off!” Lieutenant Bayliss shouted. He was shaking it and banging it against his palm.

“Put the goddamn thing in your pocket!”

The helicopter shot up in the air on the other side of the hill and swung back around to the LZ. Cameron positioned himself in the center of the LZ and held his arms out horizontally to show the pilot he would be the one to guide him down.

The pilot headed directly toward Cameron, then hovered while Cameron, waist-high in the tall grass, slowly lowered his arms to put the helicopter on the ground. The instant the skids settled, the litter detail hurried forward, and the pilot motioned Cameron closer.

“How many you got?” the pilot asked.

Cameron was surprised to see the pilot was an Oriental. “I've got five,” he said. “And listen, tell the doctors two of the men have been given morphine.”

“Right,” the pilot acknowledged. “Let me know when everyone's on board.”

Cameron walked around to the side. Samuels had been loaded headfirst, the litter pushed as far back as possible to make certain his leg was completely inside. “Well, Prince,” Polk said, “at least you're getting out of here.” Samuels nodded and gave a little wave.

Ivy's litter was loaded next. Culpepper helped Schumacher push the litter in and stepped back. “Hey, Pep,” Schumacher said. He was pointing at the nickname painted on the helicopter's nose. “Did you notice what it's called?” The nickname was Tired Angel.

Sergeant Gonzales was helped inside the helicopter; Cactus and Staff Sergeant Wetsel were able to board by themselves. Cameron checked with Abe Aikins. “Is that everybody?”

“Everybody who's going,” Aikins replied.

Cameron went to the pilot's side and held his thumbs up. The helicopter jumped up into the air, fell off to one side down the hill, picked up momentum and was gone. As soon as the helicopter disappeared, Cameron returned to his radio to report that the medical evacuation was completed. The Cobra gunship pilot called back to ask if he needed anything else. “No,” Cameron told him. “I appreciate what you've done.”

“Uh-roger,” the gunship pilot acknowledged, and before the last flare had sputtered out, the Cobra gunships, too, were gone.

The litter details and the other men at the clearing slowly made their way through the jungle back to their night defensive position. They moved wearily, heads down, depressed. No one felt like talking.

Captain Cameron gathered his platoon leaders around him to reorganize his defenses and to make certain his rifle company was secure for the night. Lieutenant Joslin was still shaky, so Cameron told him he would set up the 1st Platoon's defense for him but wanted Joslin to come along.

Cameron appointed the 1st Platoon's single remaining sergeant platoon sergeant. He next repositioned some of the 1st Platoon's men and shifted three men from the 3rd Platoon to cover the positions previously occupied by Hamilton, Ivy and Michael Mullen. Leroy Hamilton's foxhole had been so flooded by blood the men shied from going in it. Cameron had the men dig a fresh foxhole nearby.

Culpepper and Schumacher sat on the lip of their foxhole. For a long time they did not speak; then Schumacher sighed, saying, “What a way to die, you know? You go through all this and then you turn around and your own men kill you.…” He shook his head bitterly.

“A guy gets killed by rifle fire or an ambush, you expect that,” Culpepper said. “But by your own artillery?”

Schumacher picked up a clod of dirt and tossed it over the edge of the cliff.

“It isn't the way we're supposed to die,” Culpepper said.

Willard Polk came over and dropped to the ground beside them. “Man, I was sleeping right between them!” he said.

Culpepper looked at him coldly.

“I heard a big noise,” Polk was saying, “I woke up, and all Mullen did was sigh one time, ‘ahh-h-h-h' … but Hamilton? He didn't die that quick. He died a little hard. He made a lot of noise before he died.”

Culpepper noticed that Polk's hands were shaking badly.

“Man, I don't know how it happened,” Polk continued. “I was sleeping right dead between them, and I didn't even get hurt!”

Culpepper rolled back a little to look Polk in the face. “It's just God's will,” he said. “Leave it at that.”

“I'll tell you one thing,” Polk said. “After I helped load Prince in the helicopter, the only thing in the world I wanted to do was get in there with him. Get on that bird, get out of here and be gone!”

Schumacher finally spoke: “It's no different for the rest of us, Polk. We're here just like you. The only difference is we've been here longer, and you'll still be here when we're gone.”

“Hey, Pep,” Polk said, looking first at Schumacher and then at Culpepper. “Who's your honky frien'?” He got up and went to find someone more sympathetic to be with.

Captain Cameron walked among the survivors from the 1st Platoon speaking gently and quietly with each of the men. When he was satisfied they all were all right, he moved to the 2nd Platoon and asked Sergeant MacPhearson to have some people from his platoon take care of Hamilton and Mullen.

MacPhearson chose three men and had them gather ponchos. MacPhearson had them wrap Leroy Hamilton's and Michael Mullen's bodies carefully and moved them up to the CP area. MacPhearson made certain that the ponchos were neat, that the bodies were wrapped tightly and were well covered. They were left there for the night.

Cameron found Aikins sitting on the side of his foxhole with his head lowered. He thought Aikins was probably upset, but asked, “What's wrong?”

“I'm a little sick.”

“How? In what way?”

Aikins held up his right hand; it was covered with blood. “I took a piece of shrapnel,” Aikins explained.

“Why in the hell didn't you say something about it before?” Cameron asked. “I could have had you evac'd out!”

“More important things needed to be done.”

“I'll get you out first thing in the morning. Is it bothering you enough to take a shot of morphine?”

“Naw,” Aikins said. “Anyway, we don't have any morphine left. I'm all right, sir. I'm just going to sit up here for a while. You get some rest.”

Cameron nodded and went back to his radio. He and Lieutenant Colonel Schwarzkopf spoke for a while, and the battalion commander said, “I'll have a chopper out there at first light to get your killed-in-actions out.”

Cameron returned to his sleeping position and sat down. He was suddenly terribly thirsty. He drank and drank and drank, then lay back and attempted to get some sleep.

Abe Aikins remained sitting. He was trying to calm himself down, mindful of the two dead men close by. The instant the dust-off had lifted Aikins had felt his first rush of panic. Ever since the shell had exploded Aikins had operated on spontaneous, instinctive reaction. Only when the wounded had been evacuated did he suddenly realize how close he himself had come to being killed.

Willard Polk was too nervous to sleep. He was speaking with Razzle-Dazzle, a black in the 3rd Platoon. Razzle had just said that Lieutenant Rocamora had been the man who had called in the shot.

“He called it in?” Polk said. “I'm gonna kill that mother. I'm gonna lay my M-79 upside his head!”

Razzle smiled lazily. “Aw, no, you ain't.”

The next morning, a little after seven o'clock, the sun had risen hot enough to burn off the morning fog. A light utility helicopter from the 176th Aviation Company, the unit which normally flew resupply and utility missions for Schwarzkopf's battalion, approached Charlie Company's hilltop clearing and set down on the LZ. Michael Mullen's and Leroy Hamilton's bodies were gently loaded on board, their rucksacks and equipment slid in next to them. Aikins had awakened with his finger too swollen to move, and at Cameron's insistence, he, too, was placed in the helicopter to have the wound looked after at the rear. No supplies were brought in this trip; only Aikins and the dead men were taken out. The 176th Aviation Company's resupply and utility missions were known as Hash & Trash.

A few moments after that helicopter departed, Lieutenant Colonel Schwarzkopf, Lieutenant Colonel Valentin Kuprin, the artillery battalion commander, and Colonel Joseph Clemons, the brigade commander, landed at Charlie Company's position. Clemons asked to see the company's defensive perimeter. The men had filled in their foxholes in preparation for moving out and were standing on the hilltop with their gear packed, awaiting orders. Schwarzkopf told Cameron his company was to remain on the hill a second night. The artillery investigators would be coming soon and would need time to complete their survey.

Following his tour of Charlie Company's position, Colonel Clemons asked Cameron to report on what had happened the night before. Cameron told his brigade commander that Charlie Company had taken a short round. The shell had exploded in a tree directly above the 1st Platoon. “Two men were killed and six wounded,” Cameron said and explained the sort of wounds received. Colonel Clemons next asked the forward observer, Lieutenant Rocamora a few questions, then announced he had seen what he had come to see. Schwarzkopf, Clemons and Kuprin climbed back into their helicopter and left.

The artillery investigators landed next. They surveyed Charlie Company's position, measured the trees, searched for pieces of shrapnel, asked a lot of questions and took a lot of notes.

The men of Charlie Company watched the investigators warily. When one of the artillerymen asked, “Are you sure it wasn't the VC shooting at you? That it wasn't a VC mortar?” a man in Charlie Company answered, “It wasn't no mortar.”

“Are you
sure?
”

“You fuckin' well know what it was!” the enlisted man answered. “You know goddamn well who fired it and where it hit!”

“All right, take it easy,” the man's platoon leader said. “They're only trying to do their job.”

“We have to look at all the possibilities,” the investigating officer explained. “Maybe it wasn't an error. It might have been the enemy.”

Everyone in Charlie Company knew it had been their own gun.

That same morning, in the middle of the operation on his leg, Samuels awoke from the anesthetic and asked, “Is it off yet?”

He was put back to sleep.

On February 20, two days after the shell had hit, Samuels awoke to discover Lieutenant Colonel Schwarzkopf standing beside his bed. Schwarzkopf explained he had been able to put a telephone call through to Samuels' mother in Caldwell, New Jersey, and he would be able to speak with her soon. Thirty minutes later Samuels was on the phone with his mother. He told her that he was all right and that he was going to Japan. He did not tell her his leg had been amputated. She later received a telegram from the Army to that effect.

On February 23 Charlie Company was walking back out of the mountains toward their bunker line. No trace had been found of any North Vietnamese rocket battalion command, nor had Charlie Company made any contact with the enemy. Their secondary mission was now to search out rocket caches. Late that morning the men were hot and tired and were given a chance to bathe, cool off and rest at a stream. When they started to move out again, Willard Polk slipped and accidently discharged his M-79 grenade launcher. There was a hollow
toop!
as the round was fired. “GRENADE!” Cameron shouted, and the men hit the ground. Fortunately the grenade exploded out of range, but a sergeant in the mortar platoon dislocated his shoulder diving for cover and had to be med-evac'd out.