Into Cambodia - Keith Nolan [194]
Chapter 35: YOU WIN SOME, YOU LOSE SOME
Lieutenant Colonel Ianni and a young lieutenant named Dolan, whom / he had just picked up at the replacement center, were flying back into Cambodia when Ianni's headset came alive: B Company was in contact again. Bravo had recently lost a string of platoon leaders, and Ianni called to Dolan over the thumping of the helicopter engine, “Look, the only thing I want you to do is get up there and help get it organized.” Ianni named the captain and the sergeants who were left. “I've got somebody else engaged, so all I want you to do is consolidate. Don't try anything fancy.”
The radio took his attention again: Mayday! A Huey had been shot down in the general vicinity of their route to Bravo Company, so Ianni had the pilot divert over. They found it burning in a clearing, and cork-screwing in, they could see a motionless figure still strapped into the copilot's seat. No one else was in sight. The C&C Huey set down to one side of the burning Huey, and Ianni ran around to the copilot's side as shots began cracking past from the wall of jungle facing that side of the wreck. The copilot was unconscious in his armor seat; his flight suit was smoking. Ianni frantically unfastened the seat straps and grabbed an arm to haul him out. Burned flesh came off in Ianni's hands. He was finally able to heft the man on his back, and clambered aboard the waiting command ship.
The pilot pulled out under fire. From a safer altitude they tried to locate the rest of the crew, but broke off as fellow aviators homed in on the spot (they found the crew hiding among the trees at the edge of the clearing). The C&C chugged for the nearest aid station. The copilot lay burned and unconscious on the vibrating metal floor and, with the wind flapping through the open cabin doors, Ianni and Dolan placed their fatigue jackets over him. The Huey touched down momentarily at a large firebase, then Ianni and Dolan resumed their flight toward B Company. Popped smoke marked their position and enemy fire greeted the command ship's landing. Dolan scrambled to the ground. A few hours later Lieutenant Dolan was hefted back inside, his back pocked by fragments from a rocket-propelled grenade that had slammed into a tree near him.
Things were definitely popping. The double canopy that roofed the flatlands, foothills, and ridge lines of the Belly hid an intricate maze of footpaths, bicycle paths, and truck trails that had been painstakingly carved out of the jungle to link the various caches. The maddening undergrowth was also home to the NVA squads that had been left behind to guard the bulging supply bunkers. Every day there was a firefight here, and almost every day a cache discovered there. Colonel Clarke of the 2d Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, lived by the brigade commander's motto to husband his troops' lives like a miser and waste ammunition like a millionaire. They were cache counters now, not body counters. It bothered no one that when the first HE round slammed in, the NVA usually slung their rice socks, unshouldered their AK47s and RPGs, and retreated from their spiderholes. Still, the 2d of the 12th Cav and the 5th of the 7th Cav had found enough to keep them busy, so Clarke, a meticulous and cautious manager, decided to bring up his reserves: namely,