Chickenhawk(c.1) by Robert Mason

Author:Robert Mason
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: histor_military
Published: 2012-01-21T12:32:10.611734+00:00

Chapter 7 - The Rifle Range

The verdict on the First Cavalry concept was in last week. Stepping out of an olive-drab tent at An Khe, after an hour-long briefing on the division, Secretary McNamara was brimming over with praise. The division, he said, was "unique in the history of the American Army .... There is no other division in the world like it."

Newsweek, December 13, 1965

January 1966

Not long after Resler and I talked of disappearing with a Huey, a ship from the Snakes, tail number 808, took off on a foggy morning to go out to Lima with C rations and supplies, and never arrived.

The pilots called once before crossing the pass to say that the visibility was almost zero, but they could make it. By 0900 I was involved in the search. By dusk they had not been found, not even a clue.

"Do you think they did it?" Resler asked.

"Nah. It was a stupid idea."

The next day, half a dozen ships from the battalion combed the jungles for miles around the pass looking for signs. Nothing.

The First Cav - the helicopter division - lost one of their own Hueys in their own back yard. It was bad for pilot morale.

Meanwhile, supply sergeants throughout the battalion were keeping their fingers crossed. This was a rare opportunity to balance the property books-once and for all. Let me explain. In the army, specific amounts of military equipment were allocated to the company supply sections. Once or twice a year, the inspectors general, agents from the brass, came through to check that all property was in the supply depot or properly accounted for. If it wasn't, mountains of paperwork had to be done, including explanations by the commander and the supply officer. Searches were made. That was the formal army system.

The informal army supply system worked around such rules. The supply officers simply traded excesses back and forth to cover their asses, and the IGs never knew. Unless, of course, they had once been supply officers. The informal system made the books look good and protected the supply people, but we still had no jungle boots or chest protectors. Certain things you had to get for yourself. I was able to trade a grunt supply sergeant some whiskey for a pair of jungle boots. The chest protectors, though, were still not available. There were only a handful of them in the battalion.

All supply people dreamed of a way to balance the books-once and for all-without all that trading and shuffling. Flight 808 looked like the answer.

After two more days of searching, a Huey was found. It was the wreckage of a courier ship that had disappeared on its way to Pleiku a year before. The search was abandoned, and flight 808 was declared lost.

Declaring the ship missing started paper gears working all over the battalion. One of the questions the supply people loved to hear was "Did you have anything aboard the missing helicopter?"

"Well, now that you mention it, I did have six entrenching tools on that ship.

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