Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 82341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 412(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 412(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
When we landed back on base and handed the injured men over to the hospital staff, Moline met my eyes. “We need to find a way to keep these two. They know what the hell they’re doing.”
We flew three more missions during that shift, and by the time we were due to hand over the bird to the next crew, the fuselage floor was thick with blood. I stayed to help wash it out and was surprised when Specialist Rusnak clapped me on the shoulder.
“Major, that was some good flying today. You’re a legend back at Fort Sam Houston. I’m Fred, by the way. It was an honor to work with you today.”
That was when I realized I’d spent so much attention on finally meeting Second Lieutenant William Wilde that day, I hadn’t even bothered to introduce myself to my own crew chief.
Chapter 3
Liam “Doc” Wilde
I never figured out how Major Marian had made it happen, but suddenly instead of having the pilots rotate through our helo, we were assigned a steady pair.
Once Major Marian, Moline, Rusnak and I were in a permanent dustoff crew together, it was like the puzzle pieces of my time in Vietnam slid right into place. The four of us worked together like a dream, and it got to where we could damned near read each other’s minds. Over the course of the next few months, where Major Weston Marian went, so went Moline, Rusnak, and I.
The base commander once referred to us as the Dustoff Beatles since Rusnak had a voice like Paul McCartney, and the nickname stuck. It became a kind of superstition. If one of the four of us was unable to pull a duty shift for some reason, the rest of us were on edge until safely landing back on base.
We were lucky as hell. Even the dicey missions we had were nothing compared to some of the stories I’d heard. The worst we saw was in the injuries we picked up. Men whose lives were irreparably changed forever and who were honestly lucky to even be alive.
That wasn’t to say that everything was hunky-dory, because it certainly wasn’t. In those months, we came under heavy fire multiple times, almost lost an injured soldier in a hoist retrieval, and failed to arrive before many, many men died. But the number of soldiers and civilians we did save were in the hundreds. I learned emergency medicine while the hot Vietnamese wind blew through open bay doors and Moline and Rusnak argued over whatever poker games they’d played the night before. And every moment of every rescue, Major Marian sat sentinel over all of us, making sure we did our jobs, but more importantly, making sure we got home.
Moline flew that bird like a dream, and Major Marian had a sixth sense for when we needed to abort and when we needed to stay and tough it out. There was obviously a reason the major had earned a Distinguished Flying Cross although he’d never told us what it was.
At first, Major Marian wasn’t much of a talker. He was more of a grunter, a commander, a stoic authority presence like a gruff school principal or parole officer keeping watch and judging silently. But before long, Rusnak, Moline, and I were able to break him out of his shell.
It started on a mission to pick up the base commander’s mistress from a nearby village. While completely against the rules, this kind of command from on high wasn’t uncommon. But boy-oh-boy did it piss off a certain major.
“What’s the damned point of this? So he can take the clap back to his wife? Leave fatherless babies all over the goddamned Vietnamese countryside? The man has a different woman every goddamned week,” he muttered under his breath as he did the final preflight checks. “I’d rather be shot at trying to rescue a pack of cherry grunts. Christ.”
Moline looked back at me and winked. “Major Pain in the Ass, why don’t you tell us how you really feel?”
Major Marian glared at Moline for a split second before coughing out a laugh. “Fuck you.”
“Not tonight, dear, I have a headache,” Moline quipped in a high-pitched voice before turning back to grasp the cyclic. “Now get your ass in gear, Major. We’re airborne.”
Major glanced at me with a straight face. “Did you bring the antibiotics and sedatives?”
I pretended to nod off and then jerked awake. “Sorry, did you ask if I’d taken my sedatives? Affirmative, sir.”
Major grinned and swiveled back around and spoke through the comms. “Rusnak, maybe you can loan the good general some of the rubbers your brother sent you from home. Wait. Did I say brother? I meant mother.”
Rusnak’s response was clipped. “Major, I told you that in confidence.”
The four of us lost it, laughing and teasing each other until we were several thousand feet above the base and heading east. Rusnak and I kept watch out our respective bay doors while Moline flew the Huey and Major Marian navigated and watched out the front.