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A Little Something For The Rest Of Us by Bob Church
I'll never forget the anticipation I felt as I waited for the Captain to attain the proper altitude and assigned flight coordinates for the trip. I sat in the crew cabin of my first Boeing 707. I say 'mine' because I honestly felt I was a part of this glorious bird, not that I'd have had any idea how to start it up, much less fly it. I'm convinced that 123 other passengers also felt the same way. I was allowed to sit in the crew cabin because I was a transport pilot, holding the rank of captain. What's the old saying? Rank hath its privileges? Truthfully, the invitation came as a result of a camaraderie extended one pilot by another, not because of any particular rank or career status I held. I was twenty-seven days short of my twenty-second birthday and because of the kindness offered me by these guys, the war suddenly became a little less of a reality. Anything short of being shot down because the crew got drunk and flew us into Russian air space, in a few short hours I would be home. Home… the very word carried a heavy burden. The concept, until the last few hours when I picked up my orders, seemed unattainable. If they'd have given me a set of orders to Mars I wouldn't have been any more dumbfounded. After awhile, it become cliché to even suggest it, as if by uttering the word, you would jinx your chances. Short-timers refused to speak of it, lest disaster should befall them. How many times had I heard the word in the last nineteen months? Certainly it had to be thousands. Every crewman, every squad leader, every artilleryman, every corpsman, every grunt carried the word as a holy grail. Home… that magical place that existed as nowhere else. For fifty-eight thousand Americans, it took on entirely different meaning as it existed only in the religious sense of being 'carried home' to meet with departed loved ones. Even so, I doubt there was a single man killed there who didn't have home on his mind as he took his last breath. Listen, I don't mean to make my job sound like drudgery… far from it. Every mission I ever made promised a high unlike anything ever experienced on any drug. Moving the collective and feeling the pure power jerk us off the ground, listening to the radio crackle into my headphones, feeling the inverters turn electricity into power enough to launch a strange green capsule (complete with door gunner) skyward, and realizing I held the future of at least four other Marines in my hand, was a thrill unlike anything else I'd ever experienced. And that was just the start. Depending on whether we were flying into an unsecured landing zone or not, my adrenalin levels went off the charts, especially if the accompanying zing of enemy rounds trying to pierce my aircraft's shell added to the commotion in the cockpit. But mostly, it was the satisfaction derived from returning safely, knowing that someone might have gotten to go home because we were able to get him to a field hospital, or that a few grunts would live to fight another day because we got them the extra ordinance they needed to do their jobs. No, it wasn't the danger that made me love it, it was the expectation that I could do it that made me love it. But, there I was, strapped into a leather-detailed crew seat, a set of headphones over my ears, listening to the ICS as three veteran jet jockeys monitored instruments, scanned gauges and set course headings for a voyage I honestly didn't think I'd ever get to take. Something would go wrong, inevitably. Nervously I ticked off the seconds in my mind, counting 'wheels-up' time, the amount of 'roll' an aircraft requires to lift off the runway. Twenty-one seconds… I had no idea if that was the correct amount of time or not and it mattered little, but I filed it away for extraction at some future take-off when I was so nervous that if I didn't count seconds, I'd pass out from the sheer terror of anticipation. As many take-offs and landings as I'd completed, I never got used to it. Giving control to another pilot seemed foreign… and dangerous. Even as I felt the thrust of the four huge Boeing turbines force me back into my seat, I suspected that we'd lose two engines on takeoff and fall into the ocean in a spectacular orange fireball or blow a tire upon landing, causing us to skid off the end of the runway at LAX and drown in the shallow waters off Hermosa Beach, scant yards from home- fulfilling life's ultimate irony. Once we attained our 30,000 feet of elevation
over the South China Sea, the bar would be open, the smoking
lamp would be lit and so would every passenger on that aircraft.
It had been a long time since most of us had experienced American
liquor… too long, in our estimation. Even a guy who received
the occasional warm San Miguel beer while 'in country' could
build up a thirst for decent booze. I didn't drink too much in
Vietnam, not because I felt any sort of moral restriction against
it, but because I simply couldn't afford to take the chance.
Many of my missions were unscheduled, and I needed to be as alert
as possible. It was easy enough to die under the best of combat
conditions without adding insobriety to the equation. Too many
Marines counted on us for rations, medical assistance and close
air support. A drunk pilot was a stupid pilot and if I was going
to die in that God-forsaken rice-pattied cesspool, it was damn
sure not going to be because I didn't have command of my faculties.
In fact, if I suspected one of my crew was under the influence
of alcohol or drugs, I'd have grounded him in a heartbeat. They
all knew how I felt and, as far as I know, always respected my
wishes. Esprit de corps has long been talked about in reference
to Marines. I like to think that it went deeper than a few recruiting
poster slogans. I always considered it to be the simple respect
and care offered a family member. To me, it was esprit de crew.
Yes, we're Marines, and that's interesting… but we're also
a team, and that's important. In hindsight, perhaps the warmth I experienced
was my body's mechanism for applying a salve to my mind, a mysterious
balm that allowed me to lick my wounds away from prying eyes;
altering my reality slightly and forcing the demons temporarily
back into the Hades of my sober mind. They'd return, of course,
but for now, Anheuser Busch and an army of brewers in St. Louis
had kicked their ass and I found the peace of oblivion. Bob Church©2008 For more from Bob visit his other stories: March, February, January, December, November, & October; his columns: March, February, January, November, October |
Cheshire Cat
Nothin' Better
Songs
of
I disappeared in the summer of 1969. It was a sunny
day in August, and Los Angeles International Airport became the
perfect venue. The Continental Airlines flight from Danang offered
hours to reflect on my experiences since I'd last departed U.S.
shores almost nineteen months previous. I suppose I did reflect
some, but mostly I just drank. Some Marines opted for flights
to Sydney or Honolulu, choosing to spend a little time in paradise,
a buffer zone between the horrors of combat and the rigors of
trying to explain the unexplainable to family and friends. I'd
heard the stories of vets who'd gone to Australia on R&R
and never returned. I think I chose to go home because I knew
that if I didn't go home now, I might find an excuse not to ever
return. I wanted to see my family, but Lord knows I didn't look
forward to the questions I knew would come. People don't seem
to understand that each inquiry about the war is a wire brush
digging scabs off wounds that are only now beginning to heal.
