BATTLE STARS, BATTLE SCARS AND THE LITTLE BIG HORN RE-VISITED
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It was a dark and stormy night...
...actually, it was not night, nor was it stormy. It was a normal hot, hot, hot dry day in the garden spot of Southeast Asia, Cam Rahn Bayh, Republic of VietNam.
Pete Ogaard, AMS of record, and his COMFY ECHO crew had crawled out of bed at oh-dark thirty, checked out their survival gear, attended the pre-mission briefing, and jumped into the skies onboard an E-model C-130 trash hauler. These birds had been specially configured for reconnaissance missions by taking two Little John mobile communications huts and chaining them to the floor of the aircraft, wheels, axles and all. There were four operator positions in each hut. The analyst position, if you want to call it that, was a folding chair with a piece of plywood between the AMS position and the position opposite the AMS. I was on that position and Pete was in the AMS seat. The wirebenders hung out somewhere outside the huts. Needless to say, with a parachute, helmet, oxygen mask, walk-around bottle and survival kit, there was not much room inside. I always said if we had to bail out, we would probably increase our survival chances if they unbuckled the huts, pushed them out the aft cargo hatch, and let us bail out of the huts. Later on, the wheels and axles were removed, and that helped a bit, but it did not increase the inside space.
It was a normal, routine mission in the continuing battle against NVA and Viet Cong commie aggression. We all had a few missions under our belts and we expected nothing unusual, just another chance to cheat death and rack up another Air Medal point.
Somewhere on orbit over Northern Laos (it had to be Laos, remember, we didn't fly over Cambodia, North VietNam or Thailand) I felt a slight tingling in my fingers. It turned to the analyst in his folding chair and almost simultaneously we both realized what was happening. Yes, just as it was in the altitude chamber - we were losing oxygen and losing consciousness. We were, I think, at 28,000 feet, so our TUC (time of useful consciousness) wasn’t too bad. Since the huts were so crowded, the analyst left his parachute, helmet, oxygen mask and walk-around bottle outside the hut. Upon realizing what was happening, he headed out the door to retrieve his survival geat. He didn’t make it.
I grabbed my mask, took a couple of gulps of oxygen, then pulled on my helmet. I then looked around and noticed the AMS, Pete Ogaard, turning a certain shade of blue.
He was staring straight ahead, apparently frozen in position. He had his oxygen mask in his hand, about four inches from his mouth, and was making no move toward donning the mask. I grabbed Pete’s wrist and forced the mask forward. After a few deep breaths, Pete returned to normal. Apparently, Pete had tried to don his helmet first, then the mask, and ran out of time. I didn’t realize it until after landing, but I had put so much force on Pete’s wrist that I broke the leather watchband he was wearing.
Outside the huts, the analyst and the co-pilot, who was on his way to the back when the de-compression hit, both collapsed from lack of oxygen and were revived by the maintenance technician. All other crewmembers, both frontenders and backenders, made it on oxygen with no problems.
Seems we had had a slow decompression caused by a faulty seal of the aft cargo hatch. We aborted the mission and returned to Cam Rahn Bay.
Fast forward to about three hours into the second, and most important, part of every debriefing - the NCO Club. Several of us were sitting around the table and had consumed the ubiquitous copious amounts of beer. In other words, we were pretty much snockered. Tales of the incident had been told and retold for several hours, with Pete getting more than his share of ribbing. After all, he was the Airborne Mission Supervisor, he was the honcho what was in charge, he shoulda been the one to help others on oxygen, yada yada yada.
And the Chief said, "C’mon Pete, you know I saved your life!"
Well, you’ve all heard about the proverbial straw that broke the water buffalo’s back - this was the jibe that brought Pete to action.
Pete jumped up, took a swing at the Chief, hit him square in the jaw, knocked him over a couple of chairs. The fight was quickly broken up, I was kicked out of the club (never could figure out how’s come I was kicked out, being a totally innocent victim of aggravated assault). The last the group heard as the Chief was being escorted out the door sounded something like: "Paleface sumbich, you gonna die just like Custer!"
Somewhere between the club and the barracks there was about a three-block area that was totally dark. The Chief was staggering along, mumbling imprecations and vile threats to Pete and vowing vengeance against the entire Mean White Guy race. I had my vengeance all planned. I was gonna wait at the top of the stairs, then when Pete came up them, I was gonna knock him back down them.
Suddenly, a voice out of the darkness asked,
"Hey, you got a cigarette?"
I checked my flight suit pocket, had nothing but an empty pack and a cigarette lighter in it. I was about to say I didn’t have any when !BAM, !WHAP, !SOCKO, somebody hit me in the jaw just above where Pete hit me. I then noticed three dark shapes beginning to encircle me. My first thoughts were, "Oh, crap! I’m dead!"
About that time, a jeep came around the corner and when lights hit the scenario, I saw that the three shapes were three Black guys (remember, this was 1969, racial tensions were a bit high). They had intended to inflict grievous bodily harm on the Chief, but when the lights hit them, they headed in one direction and I headed the other. I didn’t stop until I got back to our barracks.
As I came to a screeching halt in front of the bar, the bartender at the moment, Jack Riedel, didn’t say a word, poured a drink, then said, "You’re the whitest Indian I've ever seen!"
I finally went to bed that night, having forgotten totally my plans for revenge against Pete. I saw Battle Stars that night, I have the Battle Scars to prove it, and I never did return to the Little Big Horn.
Pete still owes me a beer.
This is a true war story.
I was there.
Honest Injun