FNG

Hiding behind my cigarette, the ash kept short by the 100 mph slipstream of the helicopter I was sitting in as door gunner, I watched the approaching L.Z. This was one of my first C.A.s, the biggest combat assault I had witnessed to date. It looked like a scene from Dante's Inferno.

Small fires were burning in different places, started by rocket blast from gun ships, thick columns of smoke curled up into the air, turning the air hazy. Gun ships rolled in on LZs just before slicks landed with their deadly human cargo. All of the LZs were "hot" at first, some getting return fire.

"Incoming fire, incoming fire from 3 o'clock," was heard on the headset. It was repeated, different voices meaning different helicopters during the first part of the mission.

As we descended, entering into short final, the pilot said, "Guns hot – open fire." I leaned out, into the slipstream, firing my M-60 into tree lines and brush lines. My heart was pumping, gun smoke and brass trailing off behind me. Feeding the 60 by letting the belt slide over the back of my left hand, I figured in the curve of my tracers, and was dead on target.

The big clump of brush on a hill line I was firing at suddenly blew up. "Secondaries," I thought to myself, with more amazement than satisfaction. Swiftly switching targets, a tree line was next. Watching my tracers rip into line, it too blew up. "WOW," I thought, "I can't believe this is happening."

Getting on the radio as I kept up my suppressive fire, I reported to the pilot that I was getting secondaries. Hearing a noise behind the ship, I noticed a gun ship rolling into the LZ behind us. As I glanced at the gunship, and me still firing the 60, he sent a rocket exactly into the tree line where my rounds where hitting. Another explosion resulted.

Sheepishly, I got on the radio and told the pilot it was gunship rockets and not secondaries. My pride was totaled and a capital F was used in fng to describe me that day.