LBJ's Hired Gun by John J. Gebhart

Author:John J. Gebhart [Gebhart, John J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bisac Code 1: HIS027070
ISBN: eBook ISBN: 978-1-4804-0648-3
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
Published: 2007-12-13T05:00:00+00:00

THE DYNAMIC DUO: CAPTAIN THRILL AND LIEUTENANT SEEKER

Every outfit in the Air Wing had a Captain Thrill. Ours was a danger to the Free World who wanted all the medals, glory and praise that could be dished out. This selfish bastard came complete with a flunky: copilot Lieutenant Seeker. Together we called them “The Dynamic Duo.” Each enhanced the other’s tales, until everything they did sounded like the battle of the Alamo.

Captain Thrill gave you no credit. It was always, “Gebhart, how the fuck did you miss that zip?” or “Cross, what the fuck are you doing back there, sightseeing?” We put up with this day in and day out. In shootouts he did wild rocket shots and sideways machine gun runs. It was a miracle he didn’t kill any good Marines.

One particular day, we received an urgent call for assistance. A hill was being overrun with zips. We arrived on station and the ground Marines told us the zips were too close to them for a full attack. They marked the zips’ position with a 60mm Willie Peter round, and we could only shoot our inside machine guns one side at a time, because there were only 75 to 100 yards between the Marines and the zips. I started to open fire, but my M-60 would only fire single shots. The Captain went nuts on me, yelling that I was a stupid idiot who must have put the gas piston in backwards. I asked if I could take an outside barrel off our outside fixed machine guns and use it. He answered, “Absolutely not, we need the fixed machine guns working. Take the gas pistons out of the barrel.” Captain Thrill was driving this UH-IE like a Cobra attack helicopter, not a UH-IE gunbird. Just try taking a barrel apart with a maniac driving—we could barely hold on in the rear seat.

Finally Captain Thrill told the ground units to fall back 200 yards so he could use rockets and machine guns without endangering them. Before he got the okay that all the ground units had moved, he started his gun runs and blasted the zips lying down in the tall elephant grass. It was a miracle no ground Marines got killed by this loose cannon. He shot the living shit out of the high grass the 7th Marines had marked with their WP mortar round. He bitched and complained about my M-60 not working and how I was an idiot. I sat there and had to listen to his bullshit.

He then landed the chopper at our base, but instead of parking it, he drove it over to the ordnance bunker. He got Gunny Sergeant Bang to personally show us all the different 2.75 rockets available to a gunship, as if this was an ordnance problem. If he wanted special rockets loaded, he needed to request them. It wasn’t the responsibility of the crew chief or the gunner. Captain Thrill believed we could park by the ordnance bunker and personally go in and pick and choose our rockets.

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