(EDITOR’S NOTE: Charles Black, Enquirer military writer, has returned home after four months in Viet Nam. He was with men of the 1st Cavalry Division during many of their recent engagements with Communist guerrillas, and his articles on the war as he saw it will continue in The Enquirer daily.)
By CHARLES BLACK
Enquirer Military Writer
I left the Catecka Tea
Plantation for one last look at the First Brigade’s share of the Plei
Me
campaign even as Col. Thomas Brown, commander of the Third Brigade, and
Lt.
Col. Harlowe Clark, commander of the First Brigade, were conferring
over an
operations map.
Joe Gallaway of United Press
International had achieved a ride with Lt. Col. John B. Stockton in his
command
ship, decorated with four machine guns because Lt. Col. Stockton likes
to
pursue a hobby while flying through the trees, and I got aboard with
Sgt. Maj.
Lawrence Kennedy and Sp5 Steve Lannigan, constant companions of the
First
Squadron Ninth Cavalry’s commander.
A third newsman, a
photographer who had newly arrived in the country, came over and asked
if he
could join the group. While room was
being made for him Vo Hynn, NBC-TV photographer, and Robin Mannick, the
goateed
Associated Press representative, spotted the group and came over.
Somehow, the helicopter had
become so crowded with the gathering clan of reporters and
photographers that
an additional chopper had to be put into the fleet, this one flown by
CWO John
Goldenfein.
Sp4 Reginald McTerr was
handling an M-16 rifle in the door of this craft and there was also a
full set
of machine guns mounted. The new
photographer joined Gallaway, Hynn (an imperturbable Vietnamese) and
myself in
the second ship.
“Since you want to take some
pictures of the area, you ride on the outside.
I’ll loosen the strap for you so you can lean out,” McTerr said
to the
new man.
CWO Goldenfein turned around
and grinned.
“Low and green! We’ll shoot
some contours for you and see what we stir up,” he said.
He shot some contours. He
contoured the trunks of trees and
careened through branches, banking the UH1B helicopter as if it were a
fighter
plane.
“Welcome back to the
Cavalry, Charlie,” he shouted over his shoulder, topping a rise in the
ground
by inches and hurriedly slamming the chopper toward a minute opening
between
some towering trees which appeared on the other side.
It was good, honest 1st
Cavalry style flying, but even though I was a fairly hardened veteran
it was
exhilarating and I felt like giving cowhand whoops and slapping my hat
on the
Huey’s flanks.
The effect on Vo Hynn was
surprising, more, it was almost shocking.
Vo Hynn is possessed of one
of the most inscrutable poker faces in the Orient renowned for such
visages.
I have seen him shot at with
no change in his expression and have seen him win a respectable pot in
a
25-cent limit poker game without a flicker showing in his eyes even
though I
knew he had bluffed his way through.
A man who can conceal his
feelings under those circumstances, who does not give even a hint of
nervousness on the one hand or triumph on the other, and who suddenly
beams a
big white grin at you has to have reason.
The reason I found when I
looked at our photographer friend.
He had come to South Viet
Nam on a wave of publicity concerning his exploits on other risky
assignments,
but this was his very first helicopter ride and he was getting the full
course
with appetizers and garnish.
He had three cameras flying
around his neck in abandoned disarray and one hand clutching the
helicopter
ceiling while the other was clenched on the squirming arm of poor
Gallaway.
He was shouting in
Gallaway’s ear as the UPI reporter tried vainly to release the grip on
his arm
and restore circulation.
“Tell them to stop this
thing! Tell them I came here to take
pictures,
not to fight their war! Get this thing
down,” he was screaming.
Gallaway tried to placate
him by pointing to various memorable scenes which flashed by a few feet
below.
“That is the Plei Me Special
Forces camp right there, no it’s back there now, no it’s up front now.
. .
nuts. . . turn loose of my arm! Look,
this is the way to fly these things come on, turn loose,” Gallaway was
shouting
back.
Vo Hynn looked politely out
the other side of the helicopter as the landscape swept by or sometimes
around
us. He made a magnificent effort and
concealed his grin. His shoulders kept
shaking, however.
He leaned over to me.
“Some people are very
nervous in here,” he said gravely.
A startled man with a rifle,
plodding along a path near a Montagnard village, threw one wild shot at
our
chopper as we swept by. The advantage of flying low in forested and
rough
country came to me again.
He had actually not seen the
helicopters until they were over him and when he fired they were
already
zipping through trees ahead of him and his bullet didn’t have a chance.
The two helicopters, both
heavily equipped to enter into duels of this kind, went back after him.
I
missed what happened because of a horrendous scream from our
photographer
friend. I thought possibly he had been wounded in an especially
sensitive
portion of his body, in fact, and was worried.
What happened was that the
M-60 machine guns right outside the open door by him had opened up all
at once
and the wild chain of noise from them was swept into the poor man’s
ears all in
a jolt. It was too much for him. He almost clambered over Gallaway at one
point trying to get to the center portion of the helicopter but the
loose belt
kept snapping him back.
Gallaway finally got him
calmed down enough to sit in his seat again and jerked the seat belt
very
tight, very firmly, and then offered to bribe me to change places with
him.
“This guy is either going to
make a nervous wreck out of me or cripple me!
He has yelled in my ear until I’m deaf and my right arm feels
like it
has been sprained,” he yelled.
I told him that any good
airline stewardess was able to handle small nervous tensions among the
passengers and that he would have to turn in his wings if he didn’t get
his
side of the helicopter calmed down enough for a landing.
We got back to Catecka
finally and I still didn’t know the outcome of the shooting - it turned
out the
VC were killed - or have very many memories of that swing over the old
battlegrounds except for the green of jungle and the green of the
photographer’s
face.
He got out of the
helicopter, we were riding it on to Pleiku but he turned down our
invitation,
and said that he would try to catch a jeep.
It was a very brave thing for him to do. The Viet Cong had been busy exploding land mines just south of us on the highway and I wouldn’t have ridden a jeep down it except as an absolute last resort!
© Columbus Ledger-Enquirer