Hamfist Over the Trail (11 page)

Finally, there was a letter from his mother. It had been written on December 28
th
, three days after we left for Vietnam. It was written in real ink, not ballpoint pen, with the kind of careful cursive script that indicated the letter had meant a lot to the author:

“My Dearest Son,

Words can't describe how proud your father and I are of you. You were always the one we counted on whenever we needed anything. I know it wasn't easy for you to help us on Second Lieutenant pay, and we really appreciate it.

Your sister really feels bad about the way she treated you right before you left. I don't think she really meant all the things she said, I think her boyfriend put some of those anti-war ideas in her head. Right after you left, she got in a big argument with him and broke up with him, and I heard he ran off to Canada. Good riddance, I say. She's better off without him. She said she's planning to write to you soon. She wants to send you some cookies she's planning to bake, but she's worried they might go stale before they get to you. What do you think?

We love you very much. We think of you every day, and we pray for your safe return every night. Please stay safe!

Love,

Mommy and Daddy”

I put down the letter from Mitch's mother and cried uncontrollably.

25

January 7, 1969

I was signed off for day solo operation after my first mission with a CTIP, and flew four missions in rapid succession.

At first, I pretty much retraced the route I had flown with Boss, just to become familiar with the area. Since I was solo, I kept the trail off the left side of the aircraft, so I could VR with the gyro-stabilized binoculars.

Slowly but surely, I started to get comfortable with the AO and started picking up on hints of enemy activity. Subtle things like finding wheel track marks leading off into the jungle, indicating a possible truck park.

There was always air support whenever I requested it from Hillsboro, and I put in airstrikes on anything and everything that looked like it might be a target. I was gaining experience quickly, but not getting anything in the way of significant BDA. Mostly, making toothpicks.

By the end of my fourth solo day mission, I had gotten to the point that I didn't feel nervous any more.

When I finished my Intel debriefing after that mission, I finally met my Flight Commander, Major Withers.

“You must be Hamfist,” remarked a tall, balding Major. “I'm Warthog Withers, your Flight Commander. Let's have a chat.”

He motioned to some chairs in the corner of the small squadron lounge. “Have a seat. Sorry I couldn't be here to welcome you when you arrived. I just came back from R&R in Honolulu.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“It was. My wife and kids met me at the Hale Koa, and we had a great time. It was really tough getting on the airplane to come back here.” He paused. “Enough about me. I hear you're all checked out for day operations. Do you have any questions, or concerns?”

“Not really, sir. I'm just trying to learn the AO as quickly as I can. I've put in a few airstrikes, but haven't gotten any real BDA yet.”

“That's pretty normal. A lot of our missions are pretty much hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror. It's really important for you to keep doing exactly what you're doing right now, getting to know the AO intimately. You're going to be like the neighborhood cop on the beat, who can spot something that's out of place because he knows the area so well.”

“I want to give you the Withers theory on risk. Flying combat is kind of like walking along the top of that wall that goes around the top of our hooch. You've been up there, right?”

I nodded.

“Well, if I told you to walk around the building along the top of that wall, the first time you did it you'd be in a lot of danger, because you wouldn't be used to walking along a narrow ledge. You'd be real careful, but your risk would be pretty high. After about twenty times, your risk would be decreased a lot, because you'd get the hang of walking along a ledge, but you'd still be real careful. After about a hundred times, your risk would actually be higher, because you'd be so comfortable walking on a ledge that you'd get cocky, and prone to making careless mistakes.”

“Flying combat is a lot like that,” he continued. “Most of the guys who get shot down are either on one of their first or last scheduled missions. You wouldn't believe how many guys just never return from their champagne flights. Keep that in mind. There's nothing out there worth dying for.”

“Yes sir,” I answered, “I understand.”

After I left the squadron, I walked back to the hooch, took a shower, and went to the Doom Club to have dinner. I saw Speedbrake sitting alone at a table, and asked him if I could join him.

“Sure,” he answered, “Have a seat. How's your flying going?”

“I'm starting to feel pretty comfortable. Haven't gotten a lot of BDA yet, though.”

“It comes in spurts. I've gone for weeks with nothing at all, then had five missions in a row with incredible secondaries. It'll come.”

I was a little hesitant to discuss the subject of nicknames, but Speedbrake seemed really approachable. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

“Sure. Shoot.”

“Does it bother you that once you pick up a nickname, it follows you around? I'm not really all that thrilled to think I'll be called Hamfist for the rest of my career.”

Speedbrake chuckled. “Well, it may be a big Air Force, but it's a small tactical community. You'll always be running into somebody from your past life. You're going to be Hamfist for a long time. Get used to it. Hell, I feel like Pierre the bridge builder.”

“What do you mean?”

Speedbrake feigned a French accent. “I beeld a hundred breedges, but do they call me Pierre the breedge beelder? No! But I suck
one leetle deek
, and I am forever called Pierre the cocksucker!”

He continued, without the accent, “I was a pretty good fighter pilot. My bombs were always right on the fucking target. One mission, I was coming off the target in pack five, and there, right in front of me, was a fucking MiG-17. I don't know who was more surprised, him or me. Almost by instinct, I armed up the gun and blew his ass out of the sky. I was so pumped! I rejoined my flight with a ton of smash, and had to go to idle and extend my brakes just to keep from overshooting. All I could think about was that MiG I had just killed, and I forgot to stow my boards. It took a ton of power to stay in formation, and I pissed away a lot of gas.”

“I expected to pick up the nickname Killer Kane, or something like that. Instead I became Speedbrake. Just like Pierre.”

26

January 23, 1969

There was a really good MARS station at DaNang. MARS was an acronym for Military Affiliate Radio Station, and it was a great way to get a free phone call back to the States.

The base MARS station would place a radio call to a ham radio operator in the States, and the ham would get a phone-patch to the number we wanted to call. The MARS operators would try to get through to a ham close by the place we were calling, but sometimes there would be long-distance charges involved.

Besides the cost, there was another big problem with making a MARS call. Everyone in the MARS station, including all the people waiting to make calls, could hear your call, since the incoming signal was played over a loudspeaker.

Both the MARS operator and the ham operator needed to listen in to the conversation so that they would know when to switch their radios from “transmit” to “receive”. At the end of every transmission, the person talking needed to say, “over”.

More than once I was in the MARS waiting room and heard, “Will you marry me? Over,” and then, usually after a heart-wrenching delay, “Yes. Over.” And we'd all cheer.

I had called Emily a few times already, and she seemed a bit uneasy knowing that other people were listening to our conversations. And she had a really hard time saying “over”, so there were often long pauses during our conversations.

But, eventually, she got to the point where she would say, “I love you. Over.”

I placed a call to her at Colonel Ryan's office right before I went to fly. Due to the time difference, it was often hard to time our calls properly. It was early evening in Vietnam, so it would be morning in Texas.

We made small talk, and I had an opportunity to remind her that we were getting closer to the time when we'd get together in Hawaii. I'd already been away from her for a month. In all honesty, the time had gone by really quickly because I'd been so busy. I hadn't had all that much time to sit around and think about how much I missed her, and, although I really wanted to hear her voice, I was making the call more for her benefit than for mine.

After the call, I went to the squadron for my scheduled 2100 departure. This was going to be my first night flight. Like my first day flight, I'd be in the right seat, performing the duties of a FAN.

Boss was my CTIP again, so we dutifully peed on the revetments before flying. Our ordnance was different from a daytime load. In addition to rockets, we had one station, under the right wing, outfitted with parachute flares, and another station, under the left wing, with ground marking flares.

The parachute flares had arming wires attached to the mounting pylon. When a flare was dropped, the wire would pull a pin out of the flare's fuse and start a 30-second timer that would trigger the deployment of a parachute and the ignition of a very bright, very hot flare that was several million candlepower in brightness. When we dropped a flare, it would light up the target area for about five minutes.

The ground marking flares, called “logs”, weren't as bright. The would free-fall to the ground, then illuminate for about thirty minutes. Typically, we would drop two logs at a time, usually on a cardinal heading, and then talk the fighters to the target by reference to the two lights on the ground.

The flight to the AO was uneventful. We both went to great lengths to not mention anything about our previous flight together. I think we were both pretty embarrassed. I sure was. On the way to the AO, Boss showed me how to operate the starlight scope. He also pointed out the many flashes on the ground that indicated small arms fire.

The first order of business was to adjust the focus to the “infinity” position. The best way to do this was to point the scope at a distant bright light, such as a star or one of the many flares illuminating different parts of South Vietnam. Since the city of Hue, off to the north, was usually under flare illumination most of the night, it was easy to find a light source to focus on.

As we got to the AO, I started practicing looking at the trail with the starlight scope. It was amazing how well I could see features with the scope when everything just looked pitch black to the naked eye.

Suddenly, I saw one, then another, very bright light directly below the right side of the airplane. The lights appeared to be fairly stationary, but they were slowly moving apart.

“Hey, Boss, I've got two bright lights that are staying in the same place, but getting further apart.”

“Shit!” he shouted, “they're tracers!” as he violently banked the airplane to the
left
.

As soon as he raised the right wing, the tracers zipped by, close enough to touch. They made a slight popping sound as they went past us. And, through the open window, I smelled the distinctive odor of cordite. It reminded me of a fireworks display I had seen from close up when I was a kid, when the wind had blown the smell of the fireworks in my direction. Shortly after they missed us, the tracers exploded with a loud report.

“That was a 23 mike mike,” Boss commented. Mark our location on the chart, and we'll report it to Intel. There haven't been any reports of 23's in this area before.”

We looked around, and couldn't determine where the ground fire had come from. Boss wasn't satisfied to let it go.

“We need to get some air and see if this guy opens up again.”

He switched over to Moonbeam's frequency on VHF.

“Moonbeam, Covey 212.”

“Covey 212, go ahead.”

“Covey 212 in the area of Delta 51. I need air immediately. We have an active 23.”

“Roger, Covey 212, we're sending Magpie 11 flight over to you. Strike frequency Delta.”

“Roger. Thanks.”

Boss pulled his KAK wheel out of the leg pocket of his flight suit, and listened up on strike frequency.

“You need to go to the BX and get yourself one of these,” Boss remarked, as he held up a small rectangular flashlight. “It's a Sanyo Cadnica.”

“What's so special about it?”

“It's a very low illumination level, so it won't blind you or ruin your night vision. Also, you can use this switch” he held up the flashlight so I could see the sliding switch on the side, “to change from white to red light. You'll need the red light for most of the things we do, like using the KAK wheel, but you need the white light for reading contour lines on the map. Watch.”

He moved the sliding switch to turn on the red light, and held it over the map. The orange contour lines on the map totally disappeared. Then he slid the switch over to white light, and I could see the contour lines again. Yes, I definitely needed a Cadnica.