More about the vietnam war

“Chaplain xxx would sometimes schedule chopper flights to non-engineer sites on Sunday afternoons, supposedly my only half day off during the week. The only thing good about these trips was that the air was much cooler at the flying altitudes than the 100˚ heat on the ground, but on several occasions, they only got us in trouble. One Sunday afternoon, the chaplain decided we needed to fly to a special forces (green beret) outpost up north, apparently unannounced. As we approached the landing pad just outside the outpost, mortar rounds started exploding a few feet away. Coincidentally, as we landed, a cargo plane landed on the short airstrip near the helipad, saw the incoming mortars, quickly turned the plane around at the end of the runway near us, opened the rear door, goosed the plane sending the cargo crashing on the ground, and beat it out of there in one fast motion. Impressive piloting! Why we didn’t take off out of there, I will never know, but instead we landed. A second lieutenant green beret came driving out to the pad as fast as he could under fire, picked us up, and drove us the few yards to the outpost. In the short trip to the outpost, the lieutenant in no certain terms cussed out my lieutenant colonel chaplain and asked why in the world were we there. They had been under mortar attack during the night before and sporadically that day. The gooks should have had that pad bracketed. While being driven into the outpost under fire, I had this sick delight seeing my lifer Lieutenant Colonel chaplain being cussed out by a second lieutenant green beret infantry soldier. We got into the outpost and quickly into a bunker where the green berets began exchanging mortar fire with the gooks who were on the side of a nearby mountain. After about five minutes of mortar exchange, a big explosion with a ball of fire and smoke rattled the mountainside and the shelling immediately stopped. One of our mortars had apparently hit the gooks’ ammo supply and probably took some gooks with it. We were immediately invited to leave the premises and, if it wasn’t too much trouble, take two wounded Vietnamese with us to the hospital in Long Bien, plus a civilian that had been exposed to the bubonic plague. I was about a month past-due on my plague shot, so the first thing we did when we arrived at the infirmary at Long Bien was get a plague shot.”