My son-in-law is an Air Force fighter pilot. The following conversation between him and me is a conflation of several such. They usually took place late at night, and always when I was way, way deep into my cups. But the events described are not a conflation. They happened just as described.

* * *

Also, here's a little glossary for you. I'm told that it will make the story go a lot easier if you know what I'm talking about beforehand.

* * *

"You remind me a lot of myself in my younger days."

My son-in-law looked up, a semi-pained expression beginning to form itself on his face. Probably suspects I'm going to start preaching him a sermon.

"How so? And is that good or bad?"

"Oh, it's not bad, not bad. It's just you're always reading, studying your aviation stuff, watching flying videos, etcetera. But that's ok; I was pretty much the same way when I was a young infantry officer .... "

"Hey, man, you can never know too much about this stuff, you know?"

"I'm not saying you shouldn't try to master your stuff to the very best you can, but you should also be aware that no matter how much you try to learn beforehand, no matter how much you try to work it all out, get it all down pat, there's always that element ..."

"The element of chance, the random factors. I know. But you can take *that* into consideration, too."

"That's what I thought too. And did. But even when you do, sometimes .... well, sometimes things still kinda creep up on ya and take you unaware .... in ways you would never ever suspect ... until afterwards ... mess with your mind, even; you know?"

My son-in-law frowns. "What do you mean?"

"Let me tell you a story."

* * *

I had an RTO once. His name was Jaeger. He was the best there was, or, at least, the best that was available to *me*. That's why he was my RTO. See, a smart platoon leader, or patrol leader, for that matter, will always make his very best man his RTO. 'Cuz when the shit hits the fan, a good RTO can make your life one hell of a lot easier: he can call in a sitrep to your higher; he can get on the correct push and get you a dustoff for any hits you've taken; hell, if he's really good you can probably train him to call fire missions and adjust fire for you. And Jaeger was *that* good. He, too, remind me a lot of myself. College grad, gotten drafted, took all that military stuff seriously, always trying to learn as much about it as possible, always trying to think ahead; you know the type - you've seen 'em; hell you *are* one, or least, you're trying to be one! Hell, it was even his idea for me to teach him the elements of fire and all that good cannon-cocker stuff. The guy's shit was tightly wrapped. *Very* tightly wrapped. Almost as tightly wrapped as I thought mine was.

Anyway, I got a mission one day - to take some ARVN rangers out. You remember I was there during "vietnamization"; when instead of us doing it, we were supposedly teaching them how to do it. I don't remember the details, probably a LRRP since there were only six of us, probably just taking them out to get their feet wet; hell, doesn't matter any way any more, it turned into such an A-1 certified mongolian clusterfuck with double-dripping gore.

I took Jaeger with me. OK, so get this: you've seen the big model of the huey I've got out in "The Shrine", right? On the day in question, we're di-di-ing along, all six of us, in a huey, at tree top level, on the way to some totally unknown LZ in the middle of goddamn nowhere, me, Jaeger, and the four ARVNs. I'm in the troop compartment, seated on the deck, behind the pilot, leaning against the back of his seat, facing to the rear; on my right, the open troop compartment door. Jaeger is same-same but on the starboard side, behind the co-pilot, also facing to the rear. The four Viets are ... well, they're in the troop compartment too, but where doesn't matter. At this point, they don't count.

The crew chief/door gunner is opposite me, on the other side of the doorway, manning the 60. After an indefinite period of time, the crew chief catches my eye and holds up a hand with three fingers extended. We're three minutes out from the LZ. Or, at least, the pilot *thinks* we are. I look over to the Viet who is my APL and nod. Then I pivot 90 degrees to my right and swing my legs around, leaving my feet hanging out toward the skid bar. I'm now facing out. I feel/sense Jaeger scooting across the deck towards me and without thinking, shift over in the door frame to my left. In the doorframe, from left to right (when looking *out* from *within* the chopper), it's the door gunner, me, and on my right, Jaeger. One of the Viets scoots up behind us. On the other side, in the doorway, is the APL and two other Viets, and another door gunner.

The crew chief nudges me with his foot and shows one finger. We're one minute out. I look over my shoulder, again catch the eye of the APL, and nod.

"Lock and load!"

A few moments after that the chopper shoots out over the clearing that is to be our LZ, begins to drop, and flares up when it's about 6-8 feet above the ground. At that point, we jump: me and Jaeger, side by side; the Viet behind us. On the other side, the other three Viets also go out, same way. Now, when you go out the door of a huey with a 60-80 pound ruck on your back, from 6 or 8 feet up, you do *not* float gently down like a feather on the breath of God. Ya drop and hit like a ton of shit; it buckles your knees; hell, it'll probably *knock* you to your knees. But the point here is to pop back up and run like hell for the nearest treeline. Which is what we proceeded to do. But somehow, in spite of the additional 25 or so pounds he was carrying due to the prick-25 -

S-I-L: "The prick WHAT?"

AN/PRC-25, official US Army nomenclature for the standard small infantry unit tactical radio; commonly referred to as a prick-25.

S-I-L: "Oh."

Like I was saying, in spite of the additional weight he was humping, Jaeger ended up about a foot ahead of me when we hit the ground, and was so located when we started for the treeline. What happened in the next few seconds happened a lot, lot, faster than it takes to tell. Believe me, it wasn't anywhere near as "laid back" as the telling of it all might give you the impression. Anyway, we'd probably only gone a couple of steps when the shit hit the fan. First thing I knew, I'd been hit full on in the face with a full load of christ-only-knows-what load of wet crap of some sort. I trip and do a perfect belly-flop, and immediately begin a frantic effort to get the shit off my face so I can see again. Of course, my glasses are wired to my face, so I can't take 'em off and clean 'em and so all I'm doing is just smearing the shit around and making it worse. The chopper opens up in response and pulls pitch out of there in a major fucking way.

"Jaeger, J - A - E - G - E - R, get that fire mission in here!" Before embarking on that day's hoped-for walk in the sun, I'd gone over to the FDC that was our direct support and had planned several on-call concentrations along our planned routes of entry and egress, to include the present treeline from which we were receiving fire. I'd briefed Jaeger on them all. I wanted Jaeger to call one in, the one that would save our asses. That's what I was screaming to him about. And he was good enough to do it. That's why he was my RTO.

I finally wiped enough shit off my face and glasses to regain some vision. Surprise! - no Jaeger in front of me. I looked around. Jaeger was on his back. But it wasn't Jaeger. Not any more. It was about 150 pounds of totally headless human flesh. Now, a man's head does not explode when it's hit by a .22 round; and hell, even a .45 up close will leave *something*. It was at that point that *my* pucker factor started to go up. Way, way up. Up like into-the-fucking-stratosphere up, because the .50 or the 12.5 that had disintegrated Jaeger's head could well have taken out the radio, too; and if that was the case, we were *all* going to end up like Jaeger, in v-e-r-y short fucking order.

I crabbed over to Jaeger and rolled him over, trying to get his ruck off, in an agony to get to the radio. The handset was entangled in his LBE and --

S-I-L: "So what's the point, huh, Mike? The guy caught a round and got killed. You're right; that kind of random hit, you can't do anything about. But you obviously managed to survive. Hey, man, if a round's got your name on it, there's nothing you can do. What's the point? "

"You don't get it, do you? You haven't figured it out? Well, I guess I don't really expect you to -- hell, it didn't hit *me* either until about two or three weeks later, late one night when I was pulling radio watch in the TOC, re-running the mission over and over in my mind, obsessing on account of some weird feeling I had about it that I just couldn't shake ....... Focus now, boy!! Think back: where the hell was I seated in the doorway when Jaeger came scootin' up? And where was I, though, when we *both* hit the ground? And where was Jaeger?"

.
.
.

"You can check out any time you want,
but you can never, ever, fucking leave."

rollingthunder6
born in the past, where he still spends a lot of time
Sun 21 deg Libra 96 / Moon in Scorpio

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• The Unknowing
• ALIVE or "A la recherche de ...."
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• Fire Mission RVN 1969-1997
• A Color From The Past
• SimpleSimon6 Goes to the Desert

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