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David Mitchell
“DAMAGE FIVE-NINE ALPHA” - My Longest Day in the Cockpit
conclusion - sorry it's taken me so long long Mark and Mike
About a month later I was called into the TOC one evening. The TOC was “The Operations Center” - a sort of bunker/office that served as the Troop’s nerve center - radio room - flight scheduling room - important meeting room - and all-around place that I will describe as the place of “tactical importance, mission planning, blackboards, wall maps, and file cabinets”. It was made much stronger than the other “Hooches”, with a steel girder structure and then sandbagged all around the outside and on the roof.
I was introduced to a young infantry First Lieutenant named O’Brian (or O’Reilly). He was from another unit and would be learning to fly as a “Backseat Trainee” with our C&C the next day. A “Backseat” was an officer in an infantry unit who would occasionally ride behind and between the two pilots in our C&C with his own radio headset - to help communicate with his troops on the ground - (if we were supporting troops that day) - and with our Air Mission Commander in the cockpit seats in front of him. He was going to bunk with someone in our Troop that night and I was ordered to take him to dinner at the Officers Club - not just the plain old Mess Hall - he was our guest.
Lieutenant O’Brian and I walked the short distance - maybe 200 yards along the dirt “street” to the Officers Club. Our “O-club” had been a warehouse in the early days of the airfield, so it had high ceilings and a flat roof - which leaked like a sieve during the rainy season. It was divided into halves - a large “bar” side, and a “dining room” side. I led him through the bar over into to the dining room side and we grabbed a table in a back corner near the kitchen.
We started some light conversation, and I asked where he was from back home. “Pittsburgh”, he answered. That grabbed my attention because I knew a bunch of people from Pittsburgh. I explained that my family owned a cottage up on Lake Erie that was in a small private colony of eight cottages known as “Little Pittsburgh” (near Port Clinton - where we had our summer cottage). All the families were either from Pittsburgh or Columbus, and one of the Pittsburgh families - the McKennas - were about 6 brothers (and a few sisters) who had six to twelve kids each – many, including a set of twins, around my age. I explained how we swam, and water-skied off our dock and played hours and hours of baseball in the McKenna’s front yard over those summers on the lake.
“Oh, I think I know those McKennas”, he responded. I dated one of the daughters in the Bill McKenna family. Did you know Betsie?” “Oh my gosh, yes, she was about the fifth oldest, just a bit older than me, and a real cutie!” “That’s her!”
So, O’Brian and I hit it off right away. We ordered dinner and continued to chat.
I asked where he was from “here, in country?” He answered, “I’m from over in My Tho sector”.
“My Tho? (mee-toe)” I asked. “Oh man, we had one hell of a day over that way about a month ago”. We were trying to cover a squad in deep trouble up above Cai Lay. Do you know that area?”
In a very excited voice, he responded "Oh my Golly. We got into in a hell of a mess over there last month.”
Then, suspecting the connection, I asked him what his call sign was. He gave me some name that didn’t match what I was hoping it would be, and I said “Oh, then that wouldn’t have been you.”
And he responded, “Well, we change call signs every month for security reasons”.
(Note: Ground troops did that. We did not.)
“What was your call sign last month” I asked. And he said, “Damage Five-Nine Alpha”.
My heart jumped into my throat!
Then he asked me. “What’s your call sign?” And I responded, “I’m Comanche-Two.”
At that he jumps up straight, knocking his chair over backward with a loud bang on the floor, and yells, “You’re Comanche-Two? The F- - - if you’re buying my dinner. I’m buying your dinner. And I owe you every dinner for the rest of your life!”
And leans down and gives me a hug around my neck.
*
He went on to explain to me that we had done enough damage that the NVA troops had pulled back out of those wood lines and made their way out of the area before sunrise. As he and the other ARVN troops went through the two wood lines next morning, there were bodies and pools of blood all over the place - mostly in the north-south tree line where the Napalm strikes had hit.
I would never experience that large of an enemy contact again.
Thank God!
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