Chapter 5

Characters introduced in Chapter 5 “The A Team”:

SFC Meadows -Senior radio man

SFC Morris and SSG Hadley - Heavy and light weapons

SSG Tweed -Engineer and demolitions

SFC Walls and SSG Johnson - Medics

SFC Barlow and SSG Engles - Intelligence

Captain Warren and 1st Lieutenant Sykes - Commander and XO

MSG Sawyer - Operations and Team Sergeant

The Thai Special Forces (TSF) Team:

1st Lieutenant Tamusarit - Commander

Sergeants Mon and Thu - TSF NCOs

The airfield was still on a heightened state of Alert when we arrived and we saw several Thai Army and Air Force patrols moving around the perimeter while we were there. We had also been stopped at the main gate, but had been passed through with no trouble.

Our driver, another young man from the Detachment, knew his way around the airfield and we were soon standing in the Operations section of the helicopter company there.

“You must be MSG Sawyer,” the Operations clerk said when we came in. “Your Operations called and said that you were on the way.”

“Yes, will we be able to get out today?” Sawyer asked.

“The bird just got back from a test flight, we’ll know shortly,” the clerk told us.

“Go ahead and schedule that 1400 hrs. flight,” an older NCO said, as he came in the back door a short time later.

“OK, Sarge. The passengers are already here,” the clerk answered, as the older man, a Sergeant First Class (SFC) came over to the desk.

“Sawyer!” he proclaimed in amazement when he saw us.

“How’s it hanging, Johnson?” Sawyer answered, as he obviously knew the man.

“Same old shit,” Johnson answered. “You the passenger?”

“Yes, I’m taking my new radio operator out to camp with his radio. It weighs 300 pounds.”

“What radio? No one said anything about extra weight!” Johnson proclaimed.

“It should be in the orders,” Sawyer told him, as Johnson pulled out a bunch of papers to check them.

“Yes,” he said after a few minutes of reading, “it does include a radio, but we figured it was a PRC-25 or something similar. What the hell weights 300 pounds?”

“It’s in a shipping container,” I informed him. “And it’s classified,” I added.

“Oh shit! Where is it?” he asked, nervously. “How high is the classification?”

“Top Secret, Compartmented, and Pass-word protected,” I told him.

“Oh shit, oh dear!” Johnson mumbled. “Does this mean that you need an armed escort chopper, too?”

“Well, I haven’t so far,” I told him. “I’ve just kept it secure by myself or had it in someone’s secure care.”

“How many times has the supply chopper come under fire this month?” Sawyer broke in.

“Only this once,” Johnson answered.

“We should be OK without an escort then,” Sawyer told him, with a sigh of relief.

“OK, if you’re willing to chance it. It would only take an extra hour to get an escort ready,” Johnson said.

“It’s going to be late enough when we get there as it is,” Sawyer told him. “Another hour would only make it worse.”

“OK, I’ll get them on the pad outside shortly,” Johnson told us as he reached for the land-line.

“You got any help available?” Sawyer asked Johnson when he hung up. “We still need to get that shipping container out of the trailer.”

“Bob,” Johnson said to his clerk, “come on and lend a hand.” The five of us soon had the shipping container and its hand truck out of the trailer and moved over besides the operations shack. We retrieved our weapons and my duffel bag and ruck also, before the jeep headed back to the Detachment.

“Damn, how long have you been herding that thing around?” Johnson wanted to know as he examined the shipping case.

“Since I graduated from that school where they issued it to me,” I told him, “about two and a half weeks. There were twelve of us that showed up at OAT (Oakland Army Terminal) at the same time with them. You wouldn’t believe how upset they were. They put us in a separate building by our selves and all that we did while there was pull guard on those radios. They didn’t have anyone with a high enough clearance to relieve us. They were sure glad to get rid of us too,” I finished.

“Yea, I can believe that,” Johnson said before he returned to his office. A short time later, a SP/5 came over and asked if we were his passengers.

“Yes, if you’re with the supply chopper,” Sawyer answered.

“Chief doesn’t want to take off twice here with our load and the heat, so he sent me over to get you. The bird is over near the hanger,” he told us. “I’ll give you a hand with the baggage.”

He took my duffel bag. I pushed the hand truck and Sawyer brought his own things. I had the ruck and LBE on top of the shipping case, plus we all had our weapons. It was about a hundred and fifty yards over to the pad where the chopper was.

We got the shipping container into the bird with the help of the crew chief and the door gunner. After which the crew chief tied it down. The passenger compartment was now full of the radio and other supplies. The seats had been removed to carry supplies and we sat in the doorways with our legs hanging out of the chopper. Sawyer was on one side with the crew chief and I was on the other side with the door gunner.

“Damn, Sawyer, what have you got there?” the pilot, a CWO 3 (Chief Warrant Officer 3) demanded when we were seated.

“A radio, Chief,” he answered.

“Damnedest radio, I ever saw,” the Chief replied.

“It’s inside the shipping container,” Sawyer told him.

“Can’t we leave the shipping container here?” Chief asked.

“No can do, Chief. It’s classified at about ‘Eyes Only’ level,” Sawyer told him.

“OK. Get strapped in. We’re about ready to leave,” Chief told us. The crew chief and the door gunner were checking things on either side of the ship, and the crew chief had already removed the red tags from the blades.

“Clear left,” the crew chief said.

“Clear right,” the door gunner followed.

I could hear the turbine start to wind up then, and shortly the blades started to rotate. We sat there for what seemed like a long time, while the pilots checked things out. We finally started to lift a little, but you could tell that the ship was having a hard time with the load and the heat. It shimmied and shook, and we were only a couple of feet of the ground.

The pilot dropped the nose to try to gain some forward speed, and the landing struts contacted the ground and spread. Then it sprung back as we bounced, and we were soon five feet above the ground and gaining forward momentum.

“They don’t teach that at Ft. Rucker,” the door gunner shouted at me over the noise of the machine.

We circled the field, once we were airborne, as it appeared the pilots wanted to see how the aircraft handled with all the heat and the load they had on board.

“Here we go,” Chief shouted back at us, as we left the field behind.

I was startled at how rapidly we reached the mountains. They were visible from Ban Lung, but appeared to be much further away. Now in the helicopter, we were above their foothills and then their peaks in short order.

“Impressive aren’t they?” Sawyer boomed at me over the noise of the chopper and pointed at the rugged landscape below us.

“Yes,” I acknowledged, but wasn’t sure if he could hear me, so I shook my head also, indicating assent.

It was well over forty minutes after take off that Sawyer tapped my shoulder and pointed at something in the distance to our front.

“Camp,” was all that he shouted.

I could make it out better later, as we approached. The camp was located on a small plateau with rather steep sides, which became evident as we drew closer and circled the camp before setting down. The camp perimeter looked like a fat oval rather than a circle and there were small half circles attached to it at the entrance and exit points of the plateau. These were where the watchtowers were located on each side of the two narrow approaches to the plateau.

Chief put the chopper down in the saddle below the camp on the main approach to the plateau. We were met by two 5/4 trucks and two platoons from the camp. One platoon provided security while the other unloaded the chopper and loaded everything on the two trucks.

“We’re sure glad that you’re back, Sawyer,” one of the Americans with them said. “Did you get a radio operator?”

“Of course. This is Baker,” Sawyer answered and pointed at me.

It didn’t take long to unload the chopper, and Chief was soon airborne again and on his way home. We in the mean time made our way up to the camp behind the trucks. The security platoon followed us after a short time, covering our backs.

As we approached the floor of the plateau, I saw how quickly the sides fell off and how steep the slopes were. Any enemy would have a hard time coming up those slopes. It was apparent that any attack would have to come from the direction of the two saddles, and the one at the rear of the camp was quite steep also, I learned later.

The team commander, Captain Warren, met us at the camp gate along with a number of others.

“Good to see you back, Sawyer. We were beginning to wonder about you.”

“There was a little transportation problem, sir,” Sawyer explained.

“Yes, we heard about the supply chopper being shot up,” the Captain said.

“Yes, and there was an attack in town last night,” Sawyer added.

“I thought that area was secured,” the Captain said.

“The TC (Thai Cong) wanted to flex their muscles some and decided to attack Major Kung. Somebody warned him ahead of time and he and his people were waiting for them.”

“How did they do?” someone else asked.

“The highway police got four of them. They came in through the bamboo groves behind his compound. The snakes there got another six of them,” Sawyer told them with a laugh. Everyone else started to laugh also.

The troops were staring at us wondering what was so funny. One of the sergeants explained it to the interpreters, who soon began to laugh also and then went on to explain it to the various platoons in their own languages. Soon word had spread through out the camp, and everyone was laughing as they all thought it very funny that the snakes had killed more terrorist than the police.

In the meantime, we had been busy. The trucks went to the supply bunkers first to unload. Then the first truck went to the main commo bunker to unload the radio.

“What the hell is that?” the Sergeant there on duty asked as the shipping container was removed from the truck. There was plenty of help here to manhandle it.

“New radio,” both Sawyer and I said.