BACK Part 1: Across the Fence
Peter Alan Lloyd
PAL Publishing
BACK Part 1
© 2013 Peter Alan Lloyd.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-9575921-1-7
Publisher: PAL Publishing
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher.
This copy must not be recirculated in any format.
www.peteralanlloyd.com
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Preface
Chapter 1: Surprise
Chapter 2: Bright Lights
Chapter 3: Buddies
Chapter 4: Nicknames
Chapter 5: A Poisoned Chalice
Chapter 6: Prairie Fire
Chapter 7: Staring Into the Abyss
Chapter 8: The Unwanted Guest
Chapter 9: Anna
Chapter 10: Rank
Chapter 11: All Kinds of Dangers
Chapter 12: Flight Risk
Chapter 13: Brad, Belinda and Sheldon
Chapter 14: Big Beasts
Chapter 15: Change of Plans
Chapter 16: Two Down
Chapter 17: Bad Dreams
Chapter 18: Concealment
Chapter 19: An Uncomfortable Announcement
Chapter 20: Startling Discoveries
Chapter 21: Stern Warnings
Chapter 22: Firefight
Chapter 23: Singapore
Chapter 24: Hot Pursuit
Chapter 25: Phnom Penh
Chapter 26: Night Fight
Chapter 27: Pure Evil
Chapter 28: Dawn Chorus
Chapter 29: The Brits
Chapter 30: Napalm
Chapter 31: Vang Vieng
Chapter 32: War Wounds
Chapter 33: Unhappy Pizza
Chapter 34: Extraction
Chapter 35: Fun on the River
Chapter 36: The Trail Ambush
Chapter 37: Ambushed in Pakse
Chapter 38: Red Mountain
Chapter 39: An Unexpected Request
Chapter 40: Three Weeks Later
Chapter 41: Fancy That
Chapter 42: Back to the Cave
Chapter 43: Attapeu
Chapter 44: Postscript
Chapter 45: Into the Jungle
For More Information
Preface
I need to thank a few people for their help during the writing of this book.
First is Jack Jolis, who served in the CIA in Laos in 1970. He patiently read the manuscript and made some invaluable comments and suggestions. I also reworked a couple of his wartime anecdotes into the story.
I am also grateful to Jim Bolen, a highly decorated SOG Veteran who went on over forty reconnaissance missions into Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam War and who was extracted under fire by helicopter from over thirty of them. He made some invaluable suggestions to the 1968 chapters, and also recounted some hair-raising anecdotes from real SOG missions. (Jim's own book, No Guts No Glory can be bought on Amazon and elsewhere).
The writer Duncan Stearn (Chronology of Southeast Asian History 1400-1996) also generously gave me his time and helped edit the manuscript, although any subsequent errors are mine.
Some people gave me technical help, including Paul Bishop of the Modern Forces website and others who asked not to be named because of the nature of their work.
Martin Haynes provided advice and research on certain aspects of the book and he also created the covers. Ged Allen readily gave me feedback, while other people kindly read some or all of the manuscript.
While Back is a work of fiction, the 1968 chapters are based on fact.
During my research I read many accounts of SOG veterans who risked their lives running reconnaissance missions to the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam War. Some of these missions inspired scenes in the book.
Finally, on my travels in Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand, I have met all the modern-day backpacking characters who appear in this book - including the dodgy ones.
Chapter 1
Surprise
Under a dark, moonless sky the North Vietnamese attackers fanned out, completely surrounding him. He was exhausted, low on ammo, and he'd already been shot. Up ahead, in the jungle, only the sound of cicadas and crickets broke the silence.
Suddenly an AK47 opened up on him. Sheldon replied with a burst of M16 fire, waxing one of his attackers.
“Come and get it you Gook motherfuckers!” he shouted.
Unfortunately for him, they did.
Four of them rushed from the jungle, firing rifles and hurling grenades. Sheldon backed up against a hut, knowing these moments would be his last, although he wasn't going down without a fight. He pulled out a sawed-off Mossberg shotgun and was about to waste his would-be killers, when he was slapped over the head by Mark, and his headphones fell off.
“Hey, I've been hollering at you. We're going for a surprise birthday lunch with Brad. Are you coming? I've left Anna waiting outside in the cold,” said Mark.
“Um, yeah. I was just finishing a project.” Sheldon was studying Computer Science and Engineering at New York University, but his Vietnam War computer game had nothing to do with that.
“It's good to see you again. When did you get in?” Sheldon asked, as he shut down the computer.
“An hour ago. Anna met me at Penn Station, and we just walked over here,” said Mark.
'How is Spike?”
“Not good. I don't think it will be long now.”
“That sucks,” replied Sheldon.
He grabbed his coat and the two friends took the service elevator to meet Mark's girlfriend, Anna, who was waiting impatiently outside the apartment building.
“What kept you?” she asked when they finally appeared.
Mark kissed her and stroked her long blonde hair. “Sorry honey. I had to pull Sheldon away from one of his 'assignments.'”
“Did you remember to organize the drinks for tonight?” she asked Sheldon, as they walked towards the restaurant on the corner of Crosby and Broome.
“Yeah, of course I did,” he replied, looking hurt, but thinking: 'I must get on that this afternoon.'
They entered the restaurant and spotted Brad and Belinda sitting at a nearby table. Belinda saw them enter, but said nothing, as Mark sneaked up behind Brad, covered his eyes and said, “Surprise, you asshole.”
“Jesus! What are you doing here?” asked Brad, evidently extremely surprised. “I thought you'd be too busy looking after Spike to make it. He's still hanging in there isn't he?”
Spike was Mark's grandfather. It was an old army nickname he'd gotten attached to, and which was still used by everyone to refer to him. Spike was gravely ill, which is why Mark hadn't been to New York in a while.
“He practically ordered me to come. He said to tell you when he turned twenty-four he was getting his ass shot off in the jungle, not having some fancy college party.”
Brad smiled, “I can believe it.”
Brad had been Mark's friend from childhood and he'd known Spike all his life. He and Spike shared a special bond, having both seen combat in very different wars; Spike as a Special Forces operative in Vietnam and Brad with the Marine Corps in Afghanistan.
Mark kissed Belinda and gave her an affectionate hug.
“Now we're complete,” she said, as the five friends sat down to order a quick lunch, before returning to the apartment to prepare for Brad's birthday party that evening.
“So, what have I missed?” asked Mark.
“Well, we're still talking about a trip to France and Italy this summer,” said Belinda. Mark looked up and caught Brad stifling a comedy yawn. Belinda dug him in the ribs.
“I've invited everyone to come to Asia. We can all stay in Singapore at my parents' house,” said Sheldon, “But I reckon Anna and Belinda think Singapore's only half a cocktail.”
“We've got plenty of time to decide on our holiday destination,” said Anna, calling the friends to order as a waiter impatiently hovered behind them, “But a lot less time for lunch.”
Mark looked around the table. His friends were an odd bunch, he thought, as Sheldon, a slightly rotund, half-American, half-Singaporean, put on his glasses to read the menu.
Sheldon was sitting next Belinda, who was Brad's girlfriend and Anna's law classmate. Belinda was, as usual, expensively groomed and immaculately made-up; her lustrous black hair was perfectly cut in a stylish bob. She came from money, and she always looked the part.
Mark often joked that Brad was her bit of rough. He was a muscular, blond, square-jawed, handsome ex-Marine, now an American History student at NYU, and he and Belinda made for an unlikely couple.
Next to Brad sat Anna, Mark's gorgeous girlfriend, who was at NYU Law School. Mark was the only one of the group who actually worked for a living.
Mark smiled. For the first time in weeks he felt totally happy, being back in New York with his friends, and with Anna, the love of his life.
Chapter 2
Bright Lights
14 June 1968. Recon Team Athens, Kontum Forward Operating Base, Vietnam.
Dawn was breaking as I headed towards the unmarked Kingbee helicopter which was parked on the ramp, being serviced by its South Vietnamese crew. They were fearless pilots and had saved us more times than I can remember out there in the jungle, coming in to pick us up on what must have seemed like suicide missions, when we were surrounded and taking heavy fire from all sides.
In the distance, the first rose-orange rays of sunlight struck the tops of the Annamite mountains, marking the border between Laos and Vietnam. At this time of year the mountains were usually shrouded in low cloud, making flying through them hazardous, but today I could see them clearly. We'd be OK on our short trip across the fence, as we called our incursions into Laos.
As I walked towards the bird, Mike “Caveman” Porter lumbered up. He was six foot three, broad-chested and a real tough bastard. He and I had fought our way out of many tight spots, and he was my first choice for today's mission. The Viet Cong and soldiers of the North Vietnamese Army (and I'll lump both sets of shitbirds together and call them 'NVA' from now on) were terrified of him and called him 'the Giant.' Unfortunately for Caveman, that just meant they tried even harder to kill him. As well as being our primary target for incoming, Caveman was our explosives expert.
“Are you good to go?” I asked.
“Do bears fuck in the woods?” he replied.
Never having snuck up on them to watch, I guessed he meant yes.
“Where's that useless A-hole?” Caveman asked, referring to the unexpected and unwelcome guest who'd been forced on us for today's mission.
“Probably saying his prayers,” I replied. At least he should have been, because I didn't expect him to be coming back.
On today's mission I was taking only seven men - two Special Forces Americans, an unwanted Intelligence Officer from Saigon, and three tough, combat-trained local Montagnard fighters, nicknamed 'Yards', and our interpreter/guide, who we called 'Monty'.
Monty spoke Vietnamese, Laotian, English, French, a smattering of Khmer and a local hill tribe language. He'd studied at a French-Catholic missionary school before his village had been overrun by the NVA. He was five foot nothing, slim, and he sported a pair of large, gold-rimmed aviator sunglasses, worn indoors and out, under a shock of thick black hair. He'd been with us for two years, and it was hard to believe he was still only eighteen.
For reasons of operational security our Special Forces unit was called the 'Studies and Observation Group', or 'SOG'. It made us sound like a bunch of lame-ass scientists, but that was the point. We operated in total secrecy and went into places we should never have been in the first place.
Like Laos, which is where we were heading that morning, to locate, and hopefully to rescue, men from two of our own reconnaissance teams who'd been ambushed and overrun on a recent mission. We believed we had a mole somewhere, because our SOG teams were routinely being attacked when they landed in the jungle.
When we were hit out there, it would often be by hundreds of NVA, against a handful of our guys, and if that doesn't sound like much written down, when you're in the enemy's backyard, surrounded by a screaming bunch of them wanting to kill you, firing everything they've got at you, and the only way out is by helicopter, holding them off while you wait for extraction can be pretty damn life-affirming.
In spite of the increased risks, we were certain in our belief that running covert reconnaissance missions behind enemy lines was a privilege. We were highly trained, highly armed, highly motivated and highly effective at what we did.
And today we were highly prepared for some serious trouble.
Chapter 3
Buddies
The morning after Brad's party in New York, Mark traveled back to Grafton, Vermont, to help his folks look after Spike. Mark's grandmother had died some years earlier and Spike had been living on his own, but as his condition had deteriorated, Mark's parents insisted he move in with them, and they converted a ground floor room, where Spike now lay, hooked up to a respirator and complicated-looking medical equipment.
Every evening, when he wasn't in New York, Mark would come back from work, have dinner, and sit with his grandfather while he slept, using the time to read textbooks on business administration to help the flourishing family garage business, or to send emails and chat to Anna, who he missed desperately when he was back in Vermont.
The evening Mark returned from New York, Spike had his only other visitors with him. They were three of his old army buddies, Mr. Jones, Mr. Porter and a well-built black guy, Mr. Lawson. From a distance they seemed harmless enough, but up close, when Mark looked into their piercing eyes, he could see they all shared his grandfather's deadly stare, and he wouldn't have messed with any of them, in spite of their age. They were also full of scars they'd picked up in combat. His grandfather once told him they’d all been wounded in the same intense engagement.
A long, thin scar ran from Mr. Lawson's forehead to his chin, on the right side of his face. Mr. Porter bore a round scar in the middle of his throat, which made him talk like he was hoarse, and Mr. Jones also had wounds, including terrible scars on his chest and upper arms. Mark had seen them once, years ago, when he'd taken off his shirt to chop wood out back with his grandfather. Mark couldn't take his eyes off them, and Mr. Jones had quickly put his shirt back on.
Later, Mark had asked his grandfather about the scars.
“Mr. Jones got them in a cooking accident,” was his reply.
“What was he cooking, rocket fuel?” Mark had asked.
“He's also got a bullet wound on his ass.”
Fortunately, Mark never got to see it.
His grandfather also bore scars, he said from bullet wounds and grenade fragments from the same engagement.
“The amount of metal I've got in my body sets off airport detectors at a hundred feet,” he'd joke.
When Mark would ask how he'd got them, he'd always change the subject, but Spike had once told him the troops he'd fought with in Vietnam had taken the highest percentage of casualties of any American fighting unit since the Civil War.
“That must have been some kind of unit,” said Mark.
“It was,” his grandfather replied.
“What kind was it?”
“I can't tell you.”
Spike never did talk much about the war, or his experiences out there. Mark only knew he was a Special Forces Veteran, a Green Beret Sergeant, and he'd won a ton of medals fighting the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army.
Oddly, Spike's war still lived on in Main Street, where a yellow ribbon was tied to a tree to remember Ed Evans, the lost son of Grafton, who'd been missing in action for over forty five years.
He was Mark's grandfather's closest buddy and they'd served together until Ed had been taken prisoner. Spike had tried to rescue him in the jungle and failed, and he'd never forgotten it.
He believed Ed was still alive, but as time drifted by, the only things coming back from that war were bone fragments, dog tags and rusted Zippo lighters, still being found every year in the jungles of Asia by dedicated MIA search teams.
“There aren't any POW teams bringing living folks back,” Mark once pointed out to his grandfather, “because there weren't any left behind.”
Mark's grandfather vehemently disagreed, called him a know-nothing asshole, and said he believed Ed Evans, and many others, were still alive, hidden deep in the jungles of Asia.
Mark would shake his head and diplomatically drop the subject, not wishing to antagonize his grandfather further on a subject so close to his heart.
Chapter 4
Nicknames
As Caveman and I walked towards the chopper we were joined by Phil 'Crazy' Jones, a wiry, red-haired soldier from Silver Plume, Colorado, an old mining town. His nickname came from some of the stunts he'd pulled when his teams had been surrounded in the jungle, and his audacity under fire had kept his men alive many times when the opposite result had seemed certain.
He was also our medic on today's mission.
Unfortunately, Crazy had a short fuse and a volcanic temper, and he was pissed about having to take an unproven Intelligence Officer with us.
“What the fuck's he doing?” he asked, as our guest needlessly dicked around with his equipment.
I shrugged, unwilling to inflame the situation.
“I've got a bad feeling about him,” said Crazy.
Caveman nodded in agreement. “We'll have to come up with a suitable nickname for that dumb fuck as well.”
Our nicknames weren't just us assholeing around, they were also our radio call signs, for greater secrecy on operations, but they stuck for everyday too.
I was nicknamed 'Spike' on account of my short spiky hair when I first arrived at the base, in contrast to my buddy Ed 'Hippie' Evans, who I'd grown up with back in Vermont.
Ed and I had joined up and gone through training together at Forts Benning and Bragg, seen considerable action in Vietnam and, having both been assigned to the 5th Special Forces Group, we were now deployed at one of its outposts in Kontum Province, Vietnam, a stone's throw from Laos.
When we'd arrived in Kontum, Ed's hair was slightly longer than mine. Our commander took one look at me, one look at him, and officially christened me Spike and him Hippie.
As we mustered that morning, I knew Ed may already be dead, along with another buddy of mine, Robert 'Killer' Lawson, a powerfully-built black guy from Yuma, Arizona. He was a member of my former squad, who'd gotten his nickname because of what he could do with an M60 machine gun, his signature weapon.
Until now, we hadn't had any success in recovering POWs in Laos, even though we knew they were there. Often the NVA seemed to know we were coming, and the POWs were quickly moved someplace else. We thought we had a mole, tipping off the NVA about our activities, either in Saigon or in the US embassy in Vientiane, so today's mission was highly classified, and very few people on the base knew about it.
We were going into Laos because a couple of weeks earlier, two of our SOG teams, codenamed Sparta and Troy, consisting in total of sixteen men, had been sent on separate recon missions to the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Monty, our guide on today's mission, was the only member of the teams who'd escaped, and on his journey through the jungle, he'd seen some survivors being held as POWs in a small, lightly-defended camp, deep in the jungle along the Trail.
When we lost soldiers in Laos, they were usually never seen or heard of again, because the NVA knew how effective our covert missions were in bringing a shower of almighty shit down on them and the Trail, and they extracted a vicious revenge when they caught up with us. A close reading of the Geneva Convention was usually the last thing on their minds.
That's why we had to get in and find them, fast.
Our unwanted guest had confided to me earlier that he believed Monty was the NVA mole. I laughed and told him that was bullshit. I'd fought with Monty for two years and seen him in the heat of battle; but it made no difference, this 'Unintelligence Officer' asshole obviously knew best - as they usually thought they did.
Chapter 5
A Poisoned Chalice
After Spike's army buddies had gone home, thinking Spike was asleep, Mark crept into the white-painted room, settled into an armchair next to the bed, and fired up his laptop. He was bathed in the circular glow of a low-wattage reading light and the rest of the room lay in darkness. Outside it was darker, the weather miserable. Rain battered the windows and a strong wind shook the house and whistled around the roof space.
Mark nearly jumped out of his skin when Spike tried to sit up in bed.
“Hey, lie down. You need to rest,” said Mark.
“I've got something important to tell you, and I haven't got much time.”
“Ok, but pleased lie down.”
Spike stayed sitting up and turned his head towards Mark.
In a rasping whisper, he said: “I want you to have something of mine. It's very important you read it. I always wanted to go back to get something, but now I never will. I want you to do it for me.”
Mark stood up to assist his grandfather. “Save your strength…”
“No goddamnit. This is important. Listen to me.” Spike gripped Mark's arm with surprising strength.
“OK. What is it?”
Spike released his arm. “I want you to go back to the jungle for me.”
“Where?”
“Vietnam …or Laos; on the border with Cambodia.”
Thinking he was delirious, Mark said, “Do you want more morphine?”
“No I don't want more morphine. I'm dying anyway. What's a bit more pain? I just need you to listen very carefully to me. Please… I haven't got much time left…”
Exhausted, he began to cough.
“What exactly do you want me to do?” asked Mark.
“I want you to go back to a place I planned to return to with my army buddies. It's a mountain. It was in Laos, but every time they have a border fight it changes countries. You have to check. Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam; all their borders meet nearby.”
Mark had little idea where these places actually were, but he could check later.
“If I can,” he said.
“You can,” Spike grabbed hold of Mark's arm, more weakly this time. “Promise me.”
“OK. I promise.”
Spike gestured towards a thick, mottled, battered book lying on the bedside table on the opposite side of the bed.
“Pick it up.”
It was a journal, densely but neatly hand-written, from 1968.
There were later additions, loose leaf pages folded inside, containing drawings, notes and satellite images of a jungle, a mountain, a cave. Some old black and white photographs of young, heavily-armed men in combat fatigues, including a large black guy, all smiling and fooling around, fell out.
In the photographs, Mark recognized his grandfather as a young man - a handsome, dark-haired soldier, brimming with self-confidence, his face caked in black and green paint, holding a large machine gun aimed at the camera.
“I was twenty-four years old when that was taken. I think I look a lot like you.”
Mark could see the resemblance.
“What's the gun?” he asked.
“An M60. Using one of those was how my buddy Mr. Lawson got his nickname.”
“What was it?”
Spike coughed. “I'd better not say. Some things don't translate well these days.”
“Try me.”
“Killer.”
“Really? Mr. Lawson? He was an expert killer?”
“You better believe it. If he hadn't been so good at it I wouldn't be here now, and neither would you. He saved my ass many times.” Spike chuckled, wheezed, lay back on his pillow.
Mark thumbed through the photographs. “Where were these taken?”
“On the ramp in Kontum, our operations base in Vietnam, before we went on a mission. The guys behind me are Caveman, Crazy and Killer, better-known to you as Mr. Porter, Mr. Jones and Mr. Lawson.
“You wouldn't believe these are the same guys, to look at them now.”
“It's called getting old. Prepare yourself.”
Spike gestured towards the photographs.
“The only one missing was my buddy Ed, Ed Evans. We called him the Hippie. He was taking the photographs that day.”
He shifted his position, obviously in pain. “I wrote that journal after a very difficult mission. It was like therapy, only this way was more effective, and without me having to tell it to some army shrink asking dumbass questions and putting all kinds of asterisks on my record.”
Interested, Mark continued leafing through the pages of the closely-written journal. “Where did you write this?”
“In Thailand, in '68, right after I came back from the mission. I wanted to go straight back into the jungle, but they sent me on R&R to Bangkok instead, where I wrote that. Take good care of it, and go back for me.”
“I'll look after it. And I'll go back for you, I promise… if I can find it.” Mark was scrutinizing the old satellite photos, a grainy jungle-clad mountain in an equally grainy jungle.
Spike winced in pain; clearly this conversation was a massive effort for him. “You'll see references to the mountain. There's a cave in it. It's right on the border….I even GPS'd the mountain. The guys and me were gonna go back, but this damn cancer got me… It's called Red Mountain, and Vipassana Cave is on its north side.”
“Vipassana Cave, Red Mountain, somewhere in Asia,” said Mark. 'Not much to go on, is it?”
Spike tried to laugh, but wheezed instead, and coughed up blood.
“I thought I was gonna die in that cave, but I was saved by a beautiful local woman…I almost killed her. I still think about her… wonder if she made it. There were thousands of the bastards chasing me…”
“Who? Why?”
“I had some stuff…”
He started to laugh, choked, coughed up more blood.
“What stuff?” asked Mark.
Spike was visibly weakening. “Stuff I buried in the cave…”
“What was it?”
He put his anemic hand on Mark's.
“It's all in the journal. You used to ask what I'd done during the war. The answer's in there.”
He lay back down and closed his eyes. There was a smile on his face.
Later that night, he was dead.
Chapter 6
Prairie Fire
The night before our mission, Caveman Porter, Crazy Evans and I met with Colonel Horwood, an Intelligence officer who'd flown up from the 525th Military Intelligence Group in Saigon to brief us.
He started by giving us a grim account of what had happened to teams Sparta and Troy the day they were lost.
Eight-man Sparta, including my buddy Killer Lawson, had been safely dropped deep in the Laotian jungle. Their chopper lifted off to fly back to base, but as soon as it left the ground, the team came under intense attack by a large number of waiting NVA.
The helicopter immediately returned to extract them, but before it could land, it was blasted out of the sky by heavy caliber 12.7mm machine guns, firing at point blank range from a wooden platform concealed under the tree canopy. The bird exploded as it hit the ground, and none of the three air crew survived.
The two gunships escorting the insert team were quickly taken out by intense and accurate anti-aircraft fire, and they both went down in flames over the jungle.
Lacking effective cover, facing a hundred well-positioned and heavily armed NVA troops, eight-man Sparta was deep in the shit and about to be overrun.
Under heavy fire, their team leader, or One-Zero, called in a red alert, codenamed a 'Prairie Fire' emergency which meant Sparta was about to be wiped out on the ground, and they desperately needed help to extract.
On hearing that call, every nearby available aircraft over Laos and Vietnam immediately diverted to assist the team, ready to drop whatever they carried on top of the enemy.
A Huey carrying another eight-man recon team, Troy, for insertion elsewhere along the Trail, had taken off from our base that day. My buddy Hippie Ed was on that chopper, and when the pilot heard the Prairie Fire call, he immediately diverted to help.
By now there were jet fighters and attack aircraft stacking up, ready to drop phosphorus, bombs, rockets and napalm on the enemy.
To manage all this air was a Forward Air Controller, or FAC, flying in a small, slow propeller plane above the jungle, all the while taking ground fire himself. His job was to talk to, and manage, all the aircraft as they rolled in to drop their ordnance, as well as to keep in constant communication with the team under attack.
He was flying with one of our battle-hardened SOG guys in the backseat, nicknamed a Covey Rider, who was better-able to read the situation on the ground and help teams safely extract from these extreme situations.
The FAC scheduled in all the fighters and fired a white phosphorous rocket into the tree line to show the pilots where to aim for. Then the NVA were blasted and bombed with everything the FAC could get on them, in some cases just fifty feet away from the pinned-down team.
When that massive air assault ended, the Huey carrying Troy and my buddy Ed Evans clattered over the tree tops and hovered over the Landing Zone (LZ), the bird's M60 door guns pouring suppressing fire into the jungle, as it tried to land the members of Team Troy, to help out their besieged comrades on the ground.
Another heavy machine gun opened up and the pilot and co-pilot were raked with bullets. The pilot was cut in half, and the co-pilot, mortally wounded, struggled to take control of the chopper to try and put it down safely.