Involuntary Tour
Based on the author's first-hand experience, Involuntary Tour is a fictional account of the Viet Nam War experiences of the soldiers of the U.S. Army Security Agency (ASA), an intelligence entity that no longer exists. It is the first volume of a planned trilogy.
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Preview
From Chapter 12, "Point Taken," of Involuntary Tour, Book I in The ASA Trilogy. This scene is set at Tan Son Nhut Airbase, Viet Nam: October 1964.
Two days’ flight operations went astray, unfulfilled, during a period of heightened ARVN coup activity. Generals Nguyen-Han-Minh-Long-Ding-Dong-Dell called up their own personal cadres of troops—battalion, regiment, brigade, division, or Military District, depending upon their aspirations, and realistic expectations of just how much they could get away with—and made a play for some higher command. This was an old Ring 3 act in the ARVN circus, and often the coup just filtered away from disinterest, or became enmeshed in some other, more senior general’s parallel coup efforts; some of them led to quick, sharp bloodbaths, and then they went away. But while in progress, processing “THE WAR” was pushed to a back burner.
In this instance, Gen. Khanh, rotund little mandarin on the General Staff, went for the whole enchilada. Moved armor onto Tan Son Nhut, blockaded the roads, and brought in aircraft from nearby Bien Hoa airbase, flying A1Es low and slow over TSN to prevent his opposition from launching their own aircraft. The field was closed, by order of the ARVN high command. And Americans, avoiding taking sides, stood by and played pocket pool and watched the A1Es tooling back and forth over the field. 3rd RRU-Air stood down along with most everyone else.
On their way to lunch, Sergeants Four stopped to watch from the edge of the parking ramp. They noted a small, civilian-type Lear jet with indifferent markings, sitting in the run-up area at the eastern end of runway two-five-zero. Black exhaust from the jet in idle contributed to the noonday pollution that hung in a stifling fug over the field. “Wha’s the haps, Major?” Lessor asked, casually saluting Major Gibbs, the S-3 who’d stood on the ramp for over two hours now, smoking his pipe and taking advantage of the slowdown.
Gibbs, taciturn by nature, continued his part of the pollution project for a few moments, and then said, without turning, “That Lear’s C.I.A. gear, and they’ve declared outbound for Vientiane. Zip in the tower tells ’em they can’t take off. Spook says bullshit, he’s going. Zip calls the A1Es to orbit and ensure he doesn’t. Waiting to see it play out.” He puffed happily.
Didn’t take long. A black cloud boiled up behind the Lear as it turned onto two-five, and in a turning-roll-launch, throttle to the wall, the little jet scooted down the strip, the pilot yanked the yoke into his belly, and they headed for the heights, passing through the flight of three VNAF fighters attempting suppression, scattering them wildly to the winds. Before the fighters could get their ducks in a row, the Lear was just a smudge in the wild blue.
“So much for containment,” Major Gibbs murmured around his pipestem. “Spooks playing in a different game.”
* * *
In the last week of October, SP4 Archie Krebs hobbled into Air Section operations. On light duty for almost three weeks, Krebs had not flown since the night he and Nesbitt had attacked the front gate of Davis Station. Still in pain, his kneecap the color and size of an eggplant, he considered himself in dire straights.
“Sergeant Winter, you gotta get me a flight.”
“I don’t ‘gotta’ anything, Krebs. You off light duty?” Winter tore his gaze away from the tactical map where he was furiously plotting daily mission tasking, taking time he didn’t have to hear out the sad tale of his sidelined operator.
“Shit, no. They keep—Sarge, I gotta get my flights in. This is the last week of the month. I barely got enough days left to make my six. I can’t afford to lose my hostile fire pay again this month, man. You know I send money home to my mother.”
“Krebs, you lying sack of shit. Your mother’s in Vacaville, doing five to eight for grand theft-auto. You don’t send her diddly. You spend your hostile fire pay the way you spend the rest of your pay—on beer, Saigon tea, and whores.” There was no venom in the accusation; every outfit had its Krebs.
“Aww, man, Sarge. Cut me some slack. Get me a flight. I’m a good op. You know I am. I give you honest work . . . for honest dollars.” The specialist had the chutzpah to smile.
“Honest work, my bleeding ass.” Winter turned back to the map, looked down at the lengthy list of sked changes yet to be implemented, and told the imploring soldier, “I’ll regret this, but . . . tomorrow, oh seven forty-five. Take my mission. I’m up to my ass in ’gators here. You fly with Stoetzel, U-6 mission, likely one-five-one. Pick up your sked sheet at half-past . . . but only if you can walk from the hooch to here, to the flight line! Hear me? No hitching rides. You gotta be able to walk. I’m going way beyond my authority to do this, just because of your sad story, and I’ll be damned if I’ll risk it if you can’t even walk.”
“No sweat, Sarge. Don’t hafta walk on the mission anyhow, but O.K. You got it. And thanks.” The specialist hobbled out of the section, moving faster than upon his arrival. Brenner, sprawled back in a chair with his boots on the table, reading a SITREP, said, “You soft touch mutha, you’ll let that asshole leverage you into Leavenworth yet.”
“Hey, guy’s gotta make a living. Right? Third’s never lost a bird. Like he said, cut me some slack.”
For those to whom the military jargon, slang, acronyms and abbreviations may be unfamiliar, a glossary of such terms used in The ASA Trilogy may be downloaded here.