Solo (18 page)

A main surprise was the OV-10’s rapid acceleration. Its top speed was around three hundred miles an hour, and it could land quite slowly and stop very quickly. It was designed for short, rapidly built dirt landing strips.

The props on the OV-10 were reversible. When the throttles (called power levers in the OV-10) were pulled all the way back to idle, lifted, and pulled back even farther, over a little bump, the propellers would turn in their sockets so that they provided reverse thrust. This force, along with the brakes, brought the airplane to a quick stop after landing, and it was always fun to see just how quick. We’d have contests for the shortest landing distance.

After checking out in the OV-10, two of us, in different aircraft, with an instructor in one backseat, flew to a practice area and directed each other in simulated air strikes. We each carried practice bombs to drop when we were the pretend fighter-bomber.

If I was the FAC and the other guy was simulating being the fighter-bomber, I’d make sure I saw him and he saw me, and then I’d let him know that I was going to “mark the target.” Say the other aircraft was Falcon 4 and I was Trapper 66.

“Falcon Four, this is Trapper Six Six. I have a tallyho [I see you]. I’m at your three o’clock position low. I’m above the big S in the road and I’m rocking my wings.”

“Roger, Trapper Six Six, I have a tally. Falcon Four.” (On an initial radio call it’s customary for the calling party to end with his call sign—in this case, Falcon 4.)

“Roger, Falcon.” (The number is often dropped after contact is established.) “Do you see the S in the road beneath me?”

“Roger that.”

“Your target is that road. I’m in for a smoke.” That meant I would shoot a smoke rocket to mark the target.

Generally, before shooting the rocket, the FAC set up his flight path so that the target was positioned off the left or right wing. Next came a ninety-degree turn and a dive toward the target from a predetermined altitude at a predetermined angle and airspeed. Controlling these variables increased the chances of an accurate smoke. But such planning was not always possible. I’d have a pipper setting (gun-sight setting), which would allow me to shoot
an accurate rocket from a certain altitude and speed. I would roll in for the dive toward the road segment to be cut, my throttles in idle, and at the right instant I’d press a rocket-firing button on the hand grip of my flight stick. Then I’d pull up as quickly as possible because I would want to avoid ground fire. I’d move the throttles forward to 100 percent power, and as I climbed I would turn the aircraft one way and then the other, unpredictably (jinking, it was called) to prevent easy enemy gunnery tracking.

I would look back down over my shoulder (my nose would be pointed skyward) and see the smoke rising up from the ground near the area of the road that was supposed to be cut, and I’d make my next radio call: “Falcon. Do you have my smoke?”

“Affirmative.”

“The target is the road, thirty meters north of my smoke.” I would have missed the exact spot, which I knew from the coordinates I was assigned and from the description of the target, by thirty meters to the south. The procedure was complicated by the fact that I’d have to ensure that the fighter-bombers were flying over a safe area, and if I was directing them onto enemy troops, I’d have to be able to ensure that they did not attack friendly troops. “Falcon Four is cleared in.” I’d clear each fighter-bomber for each pass if there were more than one. No bombs were to be dropped without the FAC’s clearance. While the bomber dropped bombs, I’d have to remain clear of the bomber. I’d set up a figure-eight pattern near the target, sometimes directly over it, so that I could almost constantly monitor what was going on.

O
UR TRAINING WOULD
prepare us for air war over either Laos or Vietnam. To fly over Laos, we’d be stationed in Thailand. In Laos, large antiaircraft guns were stationed along the Ho Chi Minh Trail to protect supplies being shipped (by truck, bicycle, and foot) from North Vietnam along the trail into South Vietnam. While we directed air strikes there, we would be required to stay at least forty-five hundred feet—almost a mile—above the ground to reduce the chances of being hit by fire from those guns.

In Vietnam, on the other hand, there were few large antiaircraft guns, but there was plenty of small-arms fire and plenty of north Vietnamese and Vietcong troops engaging Americans and South Vietnamese. FACs there often flew at treetop level, directing fighter-bomber fire onto enemy troops.

We were learning all of this in classes and by word of mouth at Hurlburt Field in Florida while we decided whether to request Vietnam or Thailand. In Vietnam we might be living in tents some of the time. From over Laos we’d be able to return to our Thailand base and our BOQ after each flight, and visit the officer’s club for food and drink, but the mission there, because of the big guns along the trail, was considered more dangerous.

I was undecided and saw no need to hurry my decision.

B
ECAUSE JET FIGHTERS
were stationed at nearby Eglin Air Force Base, we had to be on the lookout for them when we were flying to and from our practice missions. They almost always flew in pairs, a lead and a wingman,
and the wingman often flew about thirty yards behind and perhaps fifty yards out from the side of the lead. We never worked with these fighters in simulated air strikes—we always worked with each other—but because they were around much of the time, we had to be careful to avoid collisions.

One day I was heading out from base alone at about forty-five hundred feet when all of a sudden, at exactly my altitude, from left to right, came a fighter, about fifty yards in front of me. As it zipped across, I thought, Where’s the
other
one? With that, my whole windshield was filled with the other fighter, and my airplane jerked violently up and back down from the jet wash (the turbulent air following a jet). He barely—
just
barely—missed me. On landing, he reported that he thought he’d struck another aircraft that he hadn’t seen until the last second.

Shaken, I flew the rest of my mission and returned home to tell my story. No one had broken any flight regulations. We’d each had a lesson reinforced: Keep your head out of the cockpit.

I remember another flight at Hurlburt Field just as clearly. Sometimes we’d fly with one instructor for only a flight or two and then switch. One day I was assigned Captain Moore. Captain Moore was old enough to be a colonel. There were rumors that he’d been demoted for some unspecified bad incident or incidents. He seemed like a ne’er-do-well—loose, undisciplined, too talkative. During the preflight briefing he explained that he was going to show me how to find specific geographic spots on the ground very quickly. “Edgerton,” he finally said, “I’m
going to teach you navigation—dead reckoning—like you’ve never been taught before. All you need is a compass, a watch, and a map. The compass is in the aircraft, the watch is on your wrist, and here’s the map. Let’s go fly.”

We arrived in the practice area. Captain Moore talked me through (1) determining wind direction, (2) confirming wind direction by flying from one known point to another, (3) calculating speed, distance, and time, (4) properly flying over a starting point, and (5) finding the destination point with a watch. He demonstrated the use of section lines on a map to help me simplify dead reckoning. After a short demonstration of a part of the lesson, he’d give me control of the aircraft and ask me to accomplish the procedure he’d just demonstrated. Then he’d explain more, give me control, and ask me to perform again, and so on.

Finally, in about an hour, I was a master of dead reckoning. I had never flown a better-instructed flight. Nor would I.

A
T THE END
of our OV-10 training, we turned in our choices for our next assignment. I asked to fly over Laos rather than South Vietnam. After each mission I’d be able to return to a comfortable base. I wouldn’t chance living in a tent. Maybe it was more risky than flying over Vietnam, but maybe not.

I was given my first choice: I’d be flying out of Nakhon Phanom Air Base in northeast Thailand. I vaguely remember my romantic notions about it all. My earlier letter to my father was a clear statement of my beliefs about why
I was going into the war: I was part of a military arm of my nation and I was acting to prevent enemy troops from landing on the shores of America and taking over my country. I was needed. Besides all that, and maybe mostly, I wanted to fly the OV-10 in combat. I wanted the adventure. I wanted to see myself doing something like that.

B
EFORE GOING TO
T
HAILAND
, I attended a survival course in the Philippines. Unlike the general survival course at Fairchild Air Force Base, this course was specifically geared to the jungle. A new group of pilots and I sat through classes on evasion techniques and spent time in the jungle. We were shown plants to eat and plants to leave alone; in fact we were given a deck of cards with photographs of jungle plants, labeled.

I met Dan “Hoot” Gibson, a dry-witted captain my age. Hoot was a career officer, but he had an informality about him that I liked. We shared a kind of unconscious distance from what we were doing, a distance that allowed room for humor. I couldn’t have said why I liked him back then, nor could I have said that about Johnny Hobbs or Jim Butts, or other good friends in Yokota, but looking back, I see that our shared distance somehow supported our friendship. We weren’t as serious—in a gung ho, careerist way—as many other pilots.

F
ROM THE
P
HILIPPINES
we were flown to Cam Ranh Bay, South Vietnam, for “orientation” to Southeast Asia. I remember walking off the cargo plane. I sensed a voice saying, You are here. You are in Vietnam. This is it. You are here.

I was silent, overwhelmed, alone, looking over a tall chain-link fence bordering the airfield at surrounding mountains pockmarked with bomb craters. I sensed that “the enemy” was out there somewhere, brooding, waiting for my blood. I was afraid, but I felt safe, somehow confident that bad stuff would happen to the other guy.

Part of our several days of orientation was a course on maintaining good relations with local populations. I saved one of the handouts:

DOS AND DON’TS FOR AMERICANS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

1. Do not make unfavorable comparisons between the way things are done in the U.S. and Vietnam.

2. Do show interest in history and culture of Vietnam to include religion, folklore and holidays.

3. Do avoid controversial subjects in conversation. Personal views are taken as those of your employer or government.

4. Do be modest about your possessions.

5. Do accept courtesy and respect with dignity.

6. Do be patient. A Vietnamese behaves very reasonably by his own standards.

7. Do be quiet and dignified at all times. Any loud or exaggerated behavior is considered vulgar, especially in public.

8. Do maintain self-control at all times. Do not get upset or show temper if things go badly.

9. Do laugh heartily at comic actions or dragon dancers when laughter is praise.

10. Do not boast about physical prowess. Vietnamese associate strength with lowest classes of their own society and make a virtue of avoiding physical exertion. They are sensitive about their small and slender physique. They resent anything which could be interpreted as a challenge.

11. Do not laugh at a Vietnamese or put him in a position to be laughed at by others. This causes him to lose face—a very serious matter to Chinese and Vietnamese.

12. Do not ridicule a student if you are the teacher.

13. Do keep hands off people’s heads, particularly children’s heads. The head is the most sacred part of the body.

14. Do not be offended if a Vietnamese man holds your hand. For Vietnamese this signifies nothing other than friendship and should be interpreted as a compliment.

15. Do not put your feet on a table, desk or chair.

I never considered the tone of the handout. I just read it and put it away.

I remember the beach at Cam Ranh: a U-shaped bay of white sand up against low, steep green mountains. I remember thinking it was one of the most beautiful beaches I’d ever seen.

C
OMBAT

N
AKHON
P
HANOM
A
IR
B
ASE
in Thailand was about what I’d expected. Some buildings seemed hastily constructed. The flight line area, where airplanes were kept, had a kind of steel netting on the ground rather than asphalt. The netting covered taxiways and places for the airplanes to sit while not flying; the runways were paved.

I lived in a room in a long, narrow building with identical rooms side by side—a kind of very long, one-story motel on low pilings. A narrow boardwalk extended the length of the building, and across a grassy area sat another building, identical to ours. In the grassy area sat the Nail-hole, our thatched-roof bar.

There were two groups of fliers in our squadron: the night fliers, who flew 0-2s (small push-pull propeller aircraft) and the day fliers, who flew OV-10s. My roommate was a tall, thin, redheaded night flier from South Carolina, Rick Sizemore. Within a few days of my arrival we hung a dark, heavy cloth curtain across the middle of our room so
that the window and door, along with my bed, desk, and chair, were on my side. He’d sleep most of the day on his side, where he also had a desk and chair as well as his bed, and while he flew at night, I’d sleep. On my desk were envelopes, writing paper, a journal, good-luck charms, a portable cassette tape recorder for messages to and from home, my Super-8 camera, and sometimes cigarettes.

Hoot Gibson, whom I’d met in the Philippines, ended up at Nakhon Phanom also. On the first night of the day that he and I and a few other new pilots arrived in Nakhon Phanom (NKP), a welcoming party was held in the Nailhole. The hut housed one large room with a Ping-Pong table, dart boards, and the bar, run by a Thai bartender, Paul—surely not his real name.