The Aviators Read online

  The Aviators

  BoW 08

  Griffin, W.E.B.

  [ONE]

  Pleiku,RepublicofSouth Vietnam

  1205 Hours 15 August 1963

  When the glistening twin-engine Beechcraft U-8D, painted in the peacetime U.S. Army glossy white, black, and olive color scheme, touched down on. the runway at Pleiku, Major Warren H. Hightower,Infantry,USA , the commanding officer of the 170th Assault Helicopter Company, was on the parking ramp waiting for it.

  Hightower, a stocky; tanned, and open-faced man of thirty four, was dressed in a gray tropical-areas flight suit, a brimmed cap, and flight boots. A Model 1911Al Colt .45 ACP pistol in a leather holster hung from a web belt on his hip. Because he himself had just returned from flying, he'd decided he was not going to change into a more formal uniform just because the battalion commander had gotten on the horn to announce that he and the Battalion S-3 [Plans and I Training] were inbound on their return from Saigon and would the Major please meet the aircraft in the parking ramp.

  When the door of the U-8D opened, he regretted his decision. There turned out to be more people on the plane than the two Hightower had expected. Specifically, there were two full bull colonels, one a Green Beret and one in tropical worsted, obviously a member of the palace guard at the Pentagon East, inSaigon .. There was also another Green Beret, a captain, a black guy.

  Hightower went through the expected routine.

  "Sir," he barked, as he raised his hand in a crisp salute, "Major Warren Hightower, commander of the 170th Assault Helicopter Company." His salute was returned. The battalion commander introduced the colonels and the captain. Hands were shaken.

  "Gentlemen, if you'll come with me, we've got coffee, Cokes," Hightower said.

  "Where's Lieutenant Oliver?" the Green Beret Colonel asked.

  The question surprised Major Hightower.

  "Sir, he's on a mission," Hightower said, making a vague gesture toward the Laotian border.

  "We wanted to see him," the Colonel from the Pentagon East said. "Weren't you told?"

  "No, Sir," Hightower responded. "I wasn't."

  "Christ!" the Colonel from the Pentagon East said, impatiently, angrily.

  "Something apparently got garbled in transmission," the battalion commander said. "Hightower, how soon can you get him back here?" Hightower considered that. He had no idea where Oliver was. To get him back now would mean trying to reach him by radio, which might or might not be immediately possible.

  "About an hour, Sir. Maybe a little more."

  "I don't have that kind of time," the Colonel from the Pentagon East said.

  "Is there something I can do, Sir?" Hightower asked.

  The Colonel from the Pentagon East looked disapprovingly at Hightower for a moment, then said, "Yes, there is, Major. When you see him, would you please ask him if he will volunteer for a classified mission involving a high degree, of personal risk? "

  "Yes, Sir," Hightower said. He saw in the Green Beret Colonel's eyes scarcely concealed contempt for the Colonel from the Pentagon East.

  "If his answer is in the affirmative," the Colonel from the Pentagon East said, "please so inform Colonel Augustus. He will take it from there."

  "I'll be in Dak To," Colonel Augustus, the Green Beret, said. "You're in on their net, I suppose?"

  "Yes, Sir," Hightower. said.

  Colonel Augustus nodded. "I'm Polar Bear Six," he said.

  "Well," the Colonel said, "since there is nothing more we can do here without Lieutenant Oliver, I suppose the only thing to do is make our piss call and then get the rest of this show back on the road." Fifteen minutes after the U-8D touched down, it was airborne again, presumably headed for the Special Forces camp at Dak To.

  Once it was gone, Major Hightower had an insubordinate thought: With a little luck, Charlie would throw some mortars at the U-8D at Dak To. And, with a little more luck, the Colonel from the Pentagon East would have to seek cover in a ditch half-filled with the green slime.

  Fifteen minutes after that, two Huey HU-IB gunships came fluttering down. One of them, Major Hightower saw, was flown by the twenty-five-year-old first lieutenant of Armor named John S. Oliver, Jr.

  Whenever Hightower had occasion to call to mind this young lieutenant (which was more often than he thought of most other lieutenants in his command), his thoughts were almost always positive, even 'fond. And yet,' in addition to whatever the hell was going on with the battalion commander the Green Berets, and the Colonel from the Pentagon East, Major Hightower had a problem, with First Lieutenant John S. Oliver, Jr. Reduced to one word, the problem was tolerance. Major Hightower suspected, correctly, that Lieutenant Oliver simply looked at him with toleration-as opposed to, say, looking at him with respect. In other words, Major Hightower had come to believe that Lieutenant Oliver regarded him-tolerated him-as a well-meaning guy with the best of intentions who just didn't know what he was doing, and that Oliver considered himself far better qualified to command the 170th Assault Helicopter Company than Major Warren H. Hightower.

  Oliver's opinion did not come about because he was a lieutenant possessed of an overwhelming ego. Major Hightower, who was in fact a well-meaning guy with the best of intentions, was also honest enough with himself to acknowledge that Oliver was right about him. For one thing, Major Hightower had been In Country about four weeks, and he was perfectly willing to admit that he didn't have one hell of a lot of experience. Lieutenant Oliver, on the other hand, was nearing the end of his twelve-month tour. During that tour he had won the Distinguished Flying Cross, two Bronze Stars, eleven Air Medals, a Purple Heart, and the usual Vietnamese decorations, including the Cross of Gallantry, with Palm. It could therefore be reasonably argued that Lieutenant Johnny Oliver knew what he was doing. More importantly, Lieutenant Oliver based his unspoken, but sometimes evident belief that he was better prepared than Major Hightower to command the 170th Assault Helicopter Company on the fact that for a month and a half he had been its commanding officer.

  He had acceded to command after the then commanding officer and the then executive officer had, within three days, been shot down. Though the commanding officer had been seriously wounded, they'd managed to pull him and his crew out of enemy-held territory and shipped them off to the hospital in thePhilippines . The exec, who had gone down inLaos , wasn't so lucky. They'd seen him go in, but a diligent search of the jungle canopy later had failed to find his downed aircraft. He was either (probably) dead or (worse) a prisoner of the Viet Congo Which meant they were carrying him around in the boonies in a wooden cage like a monkey, thus affording the natives the opportunity to spit or throw stones at him, or jab at him with pointed sticks.

  Once it was clear that the exec was missing and wasn't going to turn up soon, the decision had been made to give temporary command of the 170th to Lieutenant Oliver, pending the arrival from the States of an officer of the appropriate rank (which would take maybe two or three days, it was then thought). There were no captains currently in the l70th, and while Oliver was not even the senior first lieutenant, he was, in the opinion of the battalion commander, the best man for the job. So, for a couple of days, they would close their eyes to the regulation which decreed that the senior officer present for duty was entitled to the commanding officer's title.

  The best-laid plans of the paper pushers nevertheless went awrey; and the couple of days became six weeks. First, the Pentagon decided to change the Table of Organization and Equipment of aviation companies like the 170th. The new TO&E provided that the commanding officer be a major, rather than, as previously, a captain. Next, other aviation companies were being formed In Country, and these had to be filled. Since captains were no longer permitted to command aviation companies, the captains who were arriving In Country
were farmed out to the newly formed aviation companies.

  Thus it was six weeks before Major Warren H. Hightower arrived at the 170th Assault Helicopter Company and signed his name to the General Order stating that, effective this date, he had assumed command of the 170th Assault Helicopter Company, vice 1st Lt J.S. Oliver, Jr., Armor.

  Along with Major Hightower came one other major and five captains. Consequently, when Hightower assumed command, Oliver moved from top man on the chain of command to eighth.

  He became, in other words, de jure just one of thirty-odd lieutenants. But, in the eyes of most of the lieutenants and all of the noncoms, he remained The de facto Old Man who had been fucked out of his job by some bulls hit decision by the REMFs inSaigon . REMF is an acronym for a phrase the first three words of which are Rear; Echelon and Mother.

  Before they'd run him through a quickie Huey course at Fort Rucker, promoted him, and sent him to Nam, then Captain Hightower had commanded an aviation company in Germany. He was thus able to judge with a qualified eye how Lieutenant Oliver had commanded the 170th. And his judgment was that the Lieutenant had commanded it well, perhaps even superbly. Morale and motivation were both high. The officers and men liked Lieutenant Oliver, and he had taken good care of their living - conditions. As a result, the 170th was a proud, efficient, unit. And it manifested what so often is talked about but so rarely realized: cheerful, willing obedience to orders-including those obviously sent up by some REMF inSaigon who had been smoking funny cigarettes.

  Major Hightower, who had been around (he was out of Texas A&M and had been in the Army since the Korean War), suspected, of course, that some of the waitresses in the enlisted men's mess/club provided social services beyond opening beer cans and emptying ashtrays, and that the splendid refrigerators in both the officers' and EM clubs may indeed, as rumor had it, have been "borrowed" from a PX warehouse in Saigon in a midnight requisition; yet he could find no evidence that the men were either suffering from social disease or ingesting prohibited substances, and he was wise enough not to kick a sleeping dog.

  And he found that Lieutenant Oliver had not abused the prerogatives of his command-beyond doing what he would have done himself. The 170th was made up of three helicopter platoons: two" slick" platoons, equipped - with unarmed Bell HU -I D "Huey" helicopters, which were used to transport personnel and equipment; and a "gun" platoon, equipped with -B Model Hueys. These carried all sorts of armament, machine guns, 40mm grenade launchers, and 2.75-inch rockets, seven to a pod, with a pod mounted on each side of the ship.

  The company commander was, provided with a "slick" HU-1 D equipped with additional radios for command and control. Exercising the prerogatives of command, Lieutenant Oliver had decided that his mission could be best accomplished if he assigned the unarmed Command HU-ID to other duties. Major Hightower heard, but did not investigate, whispers that the Command Slick was thereafter-alleged to have made certain unofficial missions which had caused it to be popularly known as the pussy wagon. Lieutenant Oliver had flown instead one of the Gun Platonn's B Models. This was equipped with a turret-mounted 40mm grenade thrower, two seven-round 2.75 rocket pods, and an M-60 .30 caliber machine gun in each door.

  The truth was that Major Hightower would have been happy to serve under Lieutenant Oliver before assuming command himself. And he would have been delighted if Oliver could have become his exec. But that was impossible. Oliver was a lieutenant and he was outranked by five other lieutenants, all the captains, and the other major who had come to the 170th with Major Warren H. Hightower. Early on, however" Hightower had a quiet word with "the captains, in which he suggested that they could all learn from Lieutenant Oliver's broad experience. At the same time he had also made it clear that he himself intended to seek Oliver's advice and counsel whenever he encountered a situation that went beyond his own limited experience. And that, of course, meant just about every situation he expected to encounter. The unspoken point he made was that Oliver, like one of George Orwell's pigs, was "more equal" than other first lieutenants. It was no surprise to Hightower that Oliver took his reduction of authority gracefully-pretending he was glad to be relieved of the responsibilities. that went with command.

  Though Hightower didn't believe him for a minute, he appreciated the gesture. And he was even touched when word reached him of an overheard conversation between Oliver and a sergeant who had been at the sauce.

  It was a fucking shame what those REMFs had. done to him, the sergeant had told Oliver, relieving him and putting that asshole in command. But this was Oliver's reply: "Granting all majors are assholes," he said, "our asshole is in the top one percent of all available assholes, and we should be damned glad we got a good one who knows what he is doing." It was with this background that Major Hightower set out to handle the new situation the Colonel from the Pentagon East and the two Berets had presented him with.

  A fuel truck and an ammunition truck drove up to the just landing Huey gunships as Major Hightower walked over to them. The gunships carried a crew of four: pilot, copilot, crew chief, and door gunner. Hightower was not surprised to see Lieutenant Oliver and his copilot, a young warrant officer, manhandling rocket-ammo crates off the truck as the crew chief started to check and refuel the ship, and the door gunner began to examine the weaponry. It had been Oliver's long-established custom to assist the crew chiefs and door gunners in their labor. Some of the other, newer officers under the Major had not taken readily to that custom. Major Hightower had consequently found it necessary to correct the misimpression held by his executive officer and several of his captains that such assistance was beneath the dignity of officers and gentlemen.

  Lieutenant John S. Oliver, a tall, lithe, brown-haired young man, saluted when he saw Major Hightower. The salute was not especially crisp, but neither was it insolent. It was, Hightower thought, sort of a friendly, military wave.

  "How did it go Johnny?" Hightower asked as he returned the salute.

  "Two water buffalo and possibly an elephant," Oliver said dryly.

  The Huey gunships had just returned from what was officially called an interdiction mission. Technically, they had patrolled the border betweenVietnam andLaos . They theoretically stayed inside the Vietnamese border, while searching for supplies passing fromNorth Vietnam down the Ho Chi Minh trails to Viet Cong forces in the south. But they were permitted to engage any targets of opportunity.

  Major Hightower was not at all sure whether or not Oliver was pulling his leg with his crack about the two water buffalo and possibly an elephant, but he was damned if he would ask. They had expended their ordnance. They had shot at something. If that indeed had included water buffalo and a suspected elephant, Oliver had his reasons. It was likely, Hightower thought, that they had engaged probable targets: clumps of trees, for example, with truck tracks leading into them.

  "Got a minute?" Hightower asked.

  "Yes, Sir, of course," Oliver said. "Will it wait until I take a leak?"

  "Absolutely."

  "Corporal Williamson," Lieutenant Oliver said to the door gunner, who looked about seventeen, "I'm sure you will remember my comment about making sure the extra rockets don't go rolling around on the floor?"

  "Yes, Sir," Corporal Williamson replied, looking chagrined.

  Major Hightower and Lieutenant. Oliver walked to the latrine behind Base Operations, a wood-and-canvas affair erected above cut-in-half fifty-five-gallon barrels. It was sort of an elevated outhouse. Both officers wrinkled their noses at the smell of purifying chemicals. Oliver's stream made a ringing sound against the side of one of the cut-off barrels.

  "You just had some visitors, Johnny," Hightower said after he had finished and was waiting for Oliver to do the, same.

  "Sir?"

  "The battalion commander and two bird colonels. A Green Beret and an officer fromSaigon ."

  "To see me?" Oliver asked as he fussed with the stuck zipper on his flight suit. "What did they want?"

  "The Colonel fromSaigon asked me to
ask you If you would be willing to volunteer for a classified mission involving great personal risk." Oliver looked at him incredulously.

  "That's what he said, Johnny," Hightower said.