Top Gun (32 page)

Greene looked out through the A-7’s canopy to where the flight-deck director in his yellow jacket was standing with his clenched
fists upraised. Now the deck director opened his fists: This was Greene’s signal to release his brakes and bring his throttle
up to full military power. Greene also scrutinized his instruments and panel trouble-light indicators and worked his flight
controls, so that the white jackets in their checkered helmets could look over his airplane for malfunctions. Meanwhile, the
red-jacket-wearing weapons handlers gave his ordnance a final check.

Greene’s A-7 was loaded for bear. Her ordnance was all the more impressive due to the A-7’s small size: With a wingspan of
under thirty-nine feet, the A-7 was hardly larger than the four-seat Cessna GAT company airplane in which Grandpa Herman had
used to take Greene for rides when he’d been just a kid.

The A-7’s 20
MM
M6I cannon was crammed with one thousand rounds for strafing. Her wing pylons dangled triple clusters of Snakeye bombs, twelve
in all, to crater runways and flatten hangars. Her outer-wing pylons carried a brace of rocket pods: six 100
MM
rockets packed into each launcher. The only weapon system the A-7 was lacking as far as Greene was concerned were Sidewinder
air-to-air heat-seekers. The A-7 was equipped with fuselage side rails to carry a pair, but none of the A-7s had been issued
any. The Mud Movers’ orders were to take care of the enemy aircraft on the ground. If any gomers got airborne, the A-7s were
to let the Phantoms take care of them.

Greene saluted the cat officer, signaling that he was ready to be launched. He had his engine spooled up to full military
power and the bird trimmed for flight with his control stick full back. Greene saw the cat officer give him the final okay
signal. Greene braced himself, pressing his helmet against his headrest. It would be only a few more seconds before the signal
to fire the cat was relayed to the cat controller below the flight deck. Even now the catapult was reaching full pressure.
Greene glimpsed the tendrils of steam rising up around his trembling bird—

And then he was launched! The heavily loaded, twenty-one-ton A-7 was hurled off the bow of the carrier as if it were a child’s
toy airplane. Green’s stomach braided itself around his spine as he was catapulted to 170 miles per hour in less than two
seconds. Greene, grimacing from the stress of the launch, eased forward the stick, bringing down the A-7’s stubby nose to
aid his shrieking bird in her quest for the sky.

Airborne, Greene banked as the carrier rapidly receded in the distance. The A-7 was subsonic, but in her low- or moderate-altitude
combat element she could do 560 knots and turn on a dime; specifically, her turning radius was 5,500 feet, which was an attack
or fighter jet’s equivalent of a ten-cent piece. As Greene came around over the flattop, he saw the sun glint on the glass
windows of the air boss’s station just below the carrier’s bridge. Greene felt the force of Gil Brody’s warrior spirit going
along with him for the ride.

Greene rose to 10,000 feet and took his place off the starboard wing of the flight leader. The three-abreast formation of
A-7s then began beelining it for Tien Air Base. Up above, a duo of the ship’s F-4 Phantoms flew protective escort.

“Wolf lead to Wolf flight,” Lieutenant Ernesto “Taco” Rodriguez radioed, cutting through the random ship-to-air communications
that cluttered up the frequency. “Wolf flight check,” Rodriguez demanded, wanting to make sure that everybody’s radio was
working properly and that it was tuned to the proper flight frequency.

“Wolf two—” An ensign by the name of Sweeny sounded off, his A-7 flying off Rodriguez’s port side.

Greene clicked his own mike, saying, “Wolf three.”

“Roger, Wolf flight,” Rodriguez said. “Papa lead, you with us?”

“Roger, Wolf lead,” the lead Phantom driver, a lieutenant named Saunders radioed. “Over target we’ll stay high to make sure
you’re not bounced. After you’ve dropped your ordnance, we’ll come down to lay our own eggs.”

Greene, listening, nodded to himself. The Phantoms were carrying bombs as well as air-to-air missiles.

“Twenty minutes to target,” Rodriguez said.

* * *

Wolf flight’s ride to the Cambodian mainland passed uneventfully. As they closed on the coastline, they gradually reduced
altitude to five thousand feet. The escort Phantoms remained high, so they were first to spot the signs of the battle going
on at Tang Island.

“Wolf flight. Papa lead,” Lieutenant Saunders radioed. “Check out the fire works on your port side.”

Wow,
Greene thought as he tipped his wings to get a better view of the action. From his perspective. Tang Island looked like the
mossy green shell of a tortoise rising up out of the blue water. Fires were sprouting all over the island, and gray clouds
of smoke were wafting in the breeze across the beach: The island had taken a pounding from the Phantoms, A-6s, and A-7s that
had gone in to soften the Cambodian resistance for the Marines.

Air power did its best,
Greene thought.
But it’s just like Vietnam. When the planes were done shooting their wad, it still remained for the foot soldier to do the
messy and dangerous mopping up.

Despite the extensive air strikes, there was still orange 50-caliber tracer fire rising up from out of the trees near the
beach. The Cambodians were shooting at the big CH-53 and HH-53 troop carrying helicopters hanging in the air above the surf
in preparation for off-loading the Marines. The Jolly Green Giant helios were returning fire with with their door-mounted
M-60 miniguns. People on both sides were definitely getting killed down there, Greene knew.

“There’s the
Mayaguez,’’
somebody said. Greene looked down at the rather modest-looking freighter wallowing in the ocean just offshore the island.
The
Mayaguez
was a container ship. Her bow deck was stacked high with drab aluminum boxes, each the size of a truck trailer. Approaching
the
Mayaguez
was a USN destroyer carrying a Marine force.

Not much of a boat to start a shooting war over,
Greene thought. Up ahead he could see the looming Cambodian coast, a line of tan beach backed by an emerald wall of jungle.

“Wolf flight, green ’em up and go to strike frequency,” Rodriguez ordered.

But what the hey,
Greene thought as he activated his weapons systems and tuned his radio to channel seven.
This was the only war he had, so he might as well enjoy it.

“Rubber Duckie, Wolf flight’s feet are dry,” Wolf lead transmitted back to the
Sea Bear
as the strike force crossed over to dry land. “Wolf flight, go to angel three.”

Greene and the rest of the A-7s dropped down to three thousand feet. The flight was traveling at five hundred knots. The Cambodians
had likely been expecting an assault on Tang Island and the
Mayaguez,
but there was no reason for them to expect Tien Air Field to be hit. Accordingly, it was Wolf flight’s strategy to hit and
run before the Cambodians could marshal their defenses. Up until now, the pilots on board the
Sea Bear
had been making light of what the Cambodians might have to throw back at their air assault, but after seeing the effort the
Cambodians were making to defend Tang Island, Greene, for one, didn’t much feel like laughing.

“Here we go,” Rodriguez radioed the flight.

Greene got ready for action, dropping down with the rest of the flight to treetop level to initiate the strike. Tien Air Field
was situated in a cove. The plan was for the Mud Movers to go inland and then bank around, to attack from the land as opposed
to from the sea, in order to further increase the element of surprise. The order of attack would be as follows: Wolf lead,
then Wolf two, and Wolf three; two passes each to drop their ordnance. Both Wolf lead and Wolf two piloted by Rodriguez and
Sweeny were carrying AGM-62 Walleye TV-directed smart bombs in addition to their Snakeye load, so they were going in first
to lessen the strain on their A-7s. Greene didn’t have any Walleyes because as an Air Force fighter pilot he’d never been
trained to use the complex air/ ground Electro-Optical Guided Bombs, and he hadn’t had time in his abbreviated RAG tour flying
the A-7 to become acquainted with the EOGB system. The Walleye was designed for surgical strikes, to take out a specific target.
Wolf lead and Wolf two had Walleyes on board in case the Cambodians tried the old North Vietnamese trick of surrounding its
military targets with “noncombatant civilians” in order to sway world opinion against the United States. The Walleye was a
one-ton bomb with a TV camera in its nose. The camera transmitted a cross hair-type picture of what the bomb was “looking
at” to the five-inch black-and-white Sony mounted on the pilot’s panel. The pilot locked the Walleye on target by sighting
in on the cross hairs superimposed on the TV screen. Once the bomb was released, it guided itself to aim-point as long as
those cross hairs stayed aligned. It was a good weapon, but not at its best during low-level attacks, because it needed time
to make course corrections. Also, clouds could fuck it up: if the Walleye couldn’t see it, it couldn’t hit it.

After the A-7s were done dropping their ordnance, the Phantoms would go in to drop their bombs. Then, if there was anything
left of Tien Air Base, the Mud Movers would go back to mop up with cannons and rockets.

Wolf flight was approaching Tien Air Field. It was a compound cut into the dense jungle. There were a half-dozen rusting,
white and orange hangars and several interlocking tan airstrips angled to lead out over the water. There were maybe a dozen
U.S.-built, dark-green, combat-modified, prop-driven T-28 trainers parked in muddy, earth-embankment revetments along the
runways, but none of the airplanes looked to be in a state approaching takeoff status.

That was too bad,
Greene thought. He knew the combat-modified T-28. The Air Force had used them during the Vietnam War for close ground-support
work when the job called for a rugged bird that could operate out of a primitive airfield. The T-28 had self-sealing fuel
tanks, armor plating around the cockpit, and underwing pylons capable of mounting 50-caliber gun pods, napalm, bombs, rockets,
and so on. The T-28 could be an agile and dangerous bird at low altitude in the hands of a competent pilot. Knocking the enemy’s
planes out of the sky one by one would have been challenging, enjoyable work for Greene and his buddies in their gun-toting,
subsonic A-7s.

The Cambodian airfield began bustling with people and battered-looking, olive-drab military vehicles as the strike force closed
in. Beyond the field Greene saw the timeless, peaceful, blue-gray ocean lapping the sandy beach.

“Looks like we got us a welcoming committee,” Ensign Sweeny said matter-of-factly as the Cambodian antiaircraft emplacements
around the airfield commenced firing.

Greene said: “Not surprising now that I think about it. The Cambodians must have anticipated we’d try something, and put this
base on alert.”

He stared mesmerized at the tracer fire lanquidly reaching up to caress his bird. The incendiary display was as lovely as
it was frightening, and watching it, Greene was immediately enveloped in an intense déjà vu. It was 1965, and he was back
over Hanoi in his Thud, about to put the hurt on Uncle Ho—
Watch out for SAMs!

“Wolf lead, Papa lead.”

“Go ahead, Papa lead,” Rodriguez told Lieutenant Saunders in the lead Phantom circling high above them.

“We picked up a mayday transmission,” Saunders said. “A couple of Marine choppers went down off the coast of Tang Island.”

“Enemy fire?” Ensign Sweeny in Wolf two asked, concerned.

“Negative,” Papa lead replied. “Both went down from rotor malfunction.”

Goddamn,
Greene thought, listening.
If God had wanted helicopters to fly. He would have given them wings.

“The rescue operation could use our help flying RES-CAP,” Papa lead said. “We thought we’d mosey along that way… ?”

“You do that,” Rodriguez agreed. “We’ll be fine here. It’s obvious the Cambodians have no planes ready to fly” Wolf lead paused
as the duo of Phantoms banked away from the airfield to join the air net searching for survivors from the copter crashes.
“Okay, Wolf flight. Let’s do it. I’mgoing in.”

Greene watched as Wolf lead’s A-7 attacked fast and low. Rodriguez expertly weaved his way through the antiaircraft tracer
and cannon fire arcing up like scarlet, jeweled beads from the sandbag emplacements scattered around the airfield and from
the gun sites hidden in the surrounding jungle. When Rodriguez was over the runways he released his load of Snakeyes, which
fell leisurely toward the target. The Snakeye retarded bomb was especially designed for low-level delivery. It was equipped
with automatically extending tail fins that acted as air brakes on the falling bomb, slowing its descent so that the aircraft
dropping it would have time to clear the explosion.

The Snakeyes erupted in fireballs and gray smoke well after Wolf lead had banked away from the airfield. The initial explosions
began a chain reaction of blasts as the parked T-28s’ fuel tanks began to ignite.

“Your turn. Wolf two,” Rodriguez said.

Greene watched as Ensign Sweeny made his pass. The airfields were now pockmarked with smoking craters, but there was still
plenty of antiaircraft activity tearing up the sky. Greene was amused when Sweeny took the time to go chasing after an olive-drab
truck careening around the airstrip complex with maybe half a dozen twin .50-calibers bolted to its flatbed. It wasn’t as
if Sweeny was in danger from the truck. The flatbed gunners didn’t have a chance in hell of hitting anything as long as their
chauffeur kept driving his frantic circles. The gunners were bouncing like jumping beans and hanging on to their guns for
dear life. Greene guessed that Sweeny just wanted to have a little fun….

Wolf two popped his speed brakes so as not to overshoot the truck too quickly. When the gunners saw that their truck had attracted
the A-7’s attention, they jumped ship, hopping off the flatbed. Greene thought Sweeny would open up with his cannon, but instead
Wolf two rippled off a salvo of 100
MM
rockets. The rockets left the pod trailing flame, which transformed to wiggling tails of white smoke as the rockets streaked
toward the truck, which was entirely sans gunners now; the silent .50-caliber machine guns mounted on the flatbed were swinging
in the breeze. The truck driver must have seen the rockets coming. He tried to get out of their way, but he didn’t have a
chance since the salvo had spread out to effectively cage his vehicle. The rockets impacted in a high-explosive curtain around
the enemy truck, transforming it to tortured, flaming scrap metal.