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(ENQUIRER EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the second in a series of articles explaining the encounter which lasted from 7 a.m. until 10 p.m.)
LONG BINH, Vietnam - A Charlie Model Huey without doors is one of the windiest vehicles invented by man. It cruises at 80 knots or so and the resulting hurricane is whipped and eddied into the passenger compartment.
I sat on a small seat with a plate of steel zipped into a canvas cover for a cushion - it was comfortable, it was armor, it was where one feels most absolutely vulnerable in a helicopter. I approved of it - with a bag of spare machinegun barrels hung on the wall behind me about where the small of my back felt them if I leaned back.
There was a box of smoke grenades on the right side of me, a row of smoke, CS teargas, and White Phosphorous ("Willie Pete" as it was called in the trade) grenades hung in a row on a wire behind my neck; a can of 7.62 mm machinegun belts by each foot, a water cooler between them, some C-rations and a tool box under them, and a view to either side and straight ahead between the pilots of whatever war came our way during the day.
SP/4 John Russell, the doorgunner was on my left. SP/5 James Reese on my right: I was leaning ahead, trying to find a quiet spot in the currents and cross winds of the back of the ship to get a lighter to work, when Maj. John D. Jenks began talking about business. His co-pilot, Lt. Ralph Barber, solved the lighter problem by handing his cigarette, already lit, back to me.
We were just going to work, 7:30 a.m. or so, just fairly out of the landing pad at Tan An where we had stopped to lay out the day's operations with the 2nd Battalion 60th Infantry of the 9th Infantry Divisions 1st Brigade, when Jenks suddenly whipped into a tight, low circle.
I saw a small village beside a fairly good-sized country road, paddies to the east, the road north and south, the village indented by a finger of paddy running beyond the road to the west. A narrow paddy extended on up the road on the west with the village scattered in hedges and trees beyond that. All of the paddy dikes seemed full of hedges and brush and were old, highly built up walls.
Conversation is mixed in with radio calls in the rubber-padded earphones of the helmet. A jet at Bien Hoa talking to the tower, a helicopter gun platoon in a fight and ground units make a background.
"Witch Doctor Three-Eight taking off from Tan Son Nhut...Pin Boy Six Two-Three, this is Pin Boy Six One, over... Alpha Sir... Mayfair, Six... damn it, get on the push Alpha Six..." the channels being monitored on the helicopter's complex radio system chatter in a dozen different tinny voices.
Over the chorus, Jenks' drawl came on the intercommunication system.
"Hey, watch that cat in the brown trousers. Keep your eye on him, he looks too skittish to me," Jenks says.
Furtive Man
I spotted the skittish man. There were half a dozen women trotting along the dikes within view, a couple of boys with water buffalo, then this one man in khaki trousers and off-white pajama jacket with what looked like a khaki shirt under it. He was furtive, walking quickly, sneaking looks over his shoulder at the chopper.
Jenks quit the circle and acted as if he were flying off. Then he jerked the helicopter around.
The man was just ducking down into the big eastern paddy, scurrying off the dike and diving into the water under the thick, green rice plants.
"Look at that, he's going to play hide-end-go-seek," Jenks said "Lets not disappoint him. We'll go play too."
We flew over there, 10 or 12 feet off the paddy, the blades flattening the rice, one helicopter at some village 21 miles southwest of where I'd eaten breakfast at Long Bien.
The man had opened a swath in the stuff, floundering and crawling, he lay very still, face down his face pressed into his arms, turned aside to keep his nose above water, the rest of him pressed into the mud and water of the paddy.
He ignored us as we circled and circled over him.
Jenks moved a few feet to the right.
"Door gunner, shoot some rounds right in front of him, Don' t hit him, let him know not to run. See if he'll came on out and talk like a gentleman," Jenks drawled.
He hardly was done talking when the shattering racket of the M-60 doorgun fired by Russell added to the other noise available.
Bullets Churn Water
I leaned over and watched the bullets churn water and muck in front of the man, spattering mud on him when Russell got his fine adjustment made. (The guns aren't aimed, they are hosed by the line of tracers, shot by pointing and adjusting in one long burst.)
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The man closed his eyes more tightly, I could see his left foot jerking with a rhythmic reaction to the bullets near him, but his eyes were squinched shut and no other movement came.
"All right, we'll just have to get him there. O.K. now when I land, Crew Chief, you move smartly out to the right of the chopper with your machinegun and cover Russell. Russell you take your pistol and you move out then and scoff him up and bring him back," Jenks said.
"He had something in his held, like a grenade or something," Barber said.
"Is that right?" Jenks said.
"Yes, air, I saw it, too" Russell said, not implying anything, just offering information.
"OK, you watch it. A man can get into a world of trouble out here, I think, so don't take any chances if that guy has something and moves wrong," Jenks said.
We went down, Reese, the crew chief moved out to the right of the chopper. Russell was getting out on the left, the rotor wash beating at him as he struggled through the mud.
The thought of one men going out on that chore - I'd seen whatever it was he was holding gripped in his right hand, too - got to me, I tapped Jenks pointing at myself. He nodded. He also didn't like sending Russell by himself. I jumped out and ran off to his right. Russell zigzagged through the paddy, I went over to the dike and ran along it to be a little out of range of whatever happened and still be close enough to help - and because I always like to move close to dikes in those flat paddles, they are comforting to me.
Man Still There
The man was still lying there, eyes still screwed shut, hand still holding whatever he had. Russell come in on him straight up. I stopped to the right. Russell yelled something, there was too much rotor noise and I had that plastic helmet pulled down around my head muffling my hearing. Then he fired his .45 into the mud, yelled again, fired again.
The man suddenly stood up and almost got shot. He brought both hands up high - one of them clutching a bath towel.
Russell indicated the rag of a towel and the man dropped it. Then the gunner grabbed his arm and ran him toward the chopper. I delayed until he got close then I ran as fast as all that bulky stuff would let me and fought the mud and rotor wash to get aboard.
The man sat between my feet, I kept a hand on his collar, thinking about all of those grenades and things. He. was wiry, young, sad when I twisted his shirt and jacket collar to get a hold I could see the raw marks knapsack straps make on his shoulders.
He looked ahead, very sullen, very angry, but still jumpy and full of terror. I could feel him trembling, He was wet, muddy, with his shock of black hair browned by paddy muck, rice stalks stuck to him, barefooted.
"Watch him. He's one. We'll take him back to Tan An and let the G-2 find out which one," Jenks said.
The day had started.
I was puffing, as nervous and jumpy as the man whose collar I held identifying the same feelings in myself which he had to have.
The helicopter full of war captives was lessened by one at Tan An. A G-I wearing rubber shower shoes, jungle fatigue trousers cut Bermuda short length, a slouch jungle hat, but with nametags, patches, etc. all neatly in place on a brand new jungle fatigue jacket, took over my collar hold and led the man to his jeep.
We took off again.
Confession Swift
We had almost gotten to the first search area, some scrofulous patch of swamp outside of Saigon in the Rung Sat Zone, when a call came for Jenks, identified as "Silver Spur Six" on the radio.
"Silver Spur Six, your prisoner is a Viet Cong. He is a squad leader. He is a real hard core. He got shook up being snatched out of that paddy by a helicopter like that, though, and he was ready to talk. You guys scared him to death! There's about 12 more of his boys right where you got him. Six-one (the battalion commander) says go get'em," the caller said, obviously the S-2 of the battalion and feeling good at these quick results from his own morning's first chore.
Map coordinates, locations of critical huts (always "hooches") and paths, all followed. The man had talked very long, very quickly and very much in detail.
Jenks was already talking to his scout helicopters and the two Cobra gunships between calls to the battalion.
We were over there, I believe, by 9 a.m. and Jenks drawled on the intercom again.
"Well, that was a hooch. It has a red roof right there."
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