Specter

By David Barth

Written May 31, 2001

It was a bright, May morning as Edward Raptors awoke to the sounds of birds chirping. He had slept fitfully, but he was as rested as could be expected under the circumstances. As he sat up, he noticed he was a bit stiff. He knew it would help to get up and move around to get the kinks out of his back and legs. Edward hoped this day would be better than yesterday.

Yesterday had begun as, "Another day, another dollar" for Edward. Had he been an accountant or a computer programmer or even a ditch digger, today would probably be just like yesterday. But not for him. His work was a bit different from those kinds of jobs. And Edward was glad of that because it made life very interesting at times. Times like yesterday and right now.

He felt a bit hungry. It was time for breakfast, he decided, so he reached into his flight suit and pulled out a Snickers candy bar. Edward always carried a Snickers on missions. As he munched on the candy, Edward lay back and looked up into the triple canopy of the jungle and remembered that the name, "Snickers," was that of the horse owned by the daughter of the owner of the candy company that developed the Snickers bar. She had insisted that her father name the bar after her horse.

Here he was out in the middle of nowhere. Well, actually, he was out in the middle of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). At least it seemed safe enough for the moment.

He began to reflect on the events that transpired to put him here, on the ground, in the Vietnamese jungle, alone. Yesterday evening he had boarded the unmarked Lockheed C-130 Specter gunship for a mission to orbit I Corps area, just south of the DMZ to wait for targets of opportunity that might pop up during the night. The gunships only flew at night to keep them safe from ground to air missiles and antiaircraft guns, although everyone on the ground who was near or in close contact with the enemy wished the big black dragon ships, as the enemy called them, could be on station, overhead, all the time.

When he was new at this job, Edward always hoped there wouldn't be any need for the gunship's services, but over time, as a crewmember of a gunship, he had become bored watching his visual imaging repeater. As actions were assigned to the C-130 by a command center on the ground, Edward had slowly became addicted to the adrenaline rush that camer from finding and shooting the bad guys. Of course, Edward didn't actually press a trigger. His job was to monitor his sensors and if he acquired a target, to report it to the controller on board.

When the ship directed its firepower at a target, the results were startling, especially because it happened at night. The bright stream of tracers from the guns looked like fire hoses spewing white-hot molten metal to the ground. On the ground, anyone or any thing that got in the way of that stream of bullets was chewed up.

As he lay on his chute, Edward continued eating the Snickers, taking small bites and chewing them well to make it last longer, as he remembered the distress call they had received. A five-man LRRP (Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol, pronounced "LURP") had made contact with a large enemy force. It had executed an immediate action drill to confuse the enemy and, hopefully, eliminate his will to fight, but the enemy force was much larger, and it began to flank the team. The LRRPs had no recourse other than to extricate themselves from the melee. What began as a slow retreat became a trot, and finally, a run as they attempted to outdistance the enemy pursuers. Their ammunition was getting low. The radioman called for help. They were out of range of artillery support, and helicopter gunships were unavailable. Their only hope was the C-130 Specter gunship that Edward was flying on.

The mayday call was picked up by a radio relay team on a mountaintop, and forwarded to the LRRP's base of operations. The operator on the base contacted a support facility that gave them access to the C-130, and it contacted the breathless LRRP radioman. The LRRPs were still running, but they were getting tired. The enemy was closing on them, and they needed help, fast. The radioman gave Specter their approximate coordinates.

As the Specter pilot approached their position, he asked the LRRPs to show a strobe light. The LRRP radioman reported that when they had to run, they had dropped their rucks to reduce the weight they had to carry, and all they had taken with them were just guns and ammo. They had to leave the signaling device in the rucks. The pilot called Edward and asked him to try to find them with the sophisticated night vision equipment.

Onboard Specter, using his infrared equipment, Edward began searching the area ahead of the plane for some sign of people. At first, there was nothing that showed up on his screen except for a few small animals on the jungle floor. Then, off to the right of the plane's track, he saw a large body of moving troops. He reported it to the aircraft commander, and continued to look for the Lrrps. Then, ahead of the large body of people on the ground, Edward spotted the small group of LRRPs moving just ahead of the large enemy group. The enemy was beginning to surround the small LRRP force. They would be overrun in a few minutes if something weren't done right away.

Edward patched his visual display into the cockpit for targeting information. The captain radioed the LRRPs that he had 400,000 rounds that he was going to lay down on the enemy and for them to prepare to hold their position. Suddenly, the ship shuddered as the high-volume guns began to fire. White streams erupted from the plane and flowed downward into the darkness. The enemy who was not immediately incapacitated by the incredible firepower began to run to get out of the area. They knew what the "dragon ship" could do, and they didn't want to be anywhere nearby.

Edward reported that the enemy was retreating. The captain stopped firing, and the ship began to orbit. When fuel got down to the "bingo" point, the plane left station for a few minutes to tank from a C-135 that had been directed to provide fuel for the Specter. Then it returned to its station, orbiting over the very relieved LRRPs.

Just about 2 AM, the plane's ECM operator reported the warble of a surface-to-air missile (SAM) radar locked on to them. Edward heard the ECM operator report two Sams that had been launched and were heading for the plane. Then he reported there were three. Then ten . . . and then sixteen. The enemy had launched a massive strike of surface-to-air missiles in an attempt to saturate plane's countermeasures, and that at least one missile would knock it out of the sky. Most of the missile guidance systems were confused by the countermeasures, but one exploded near the plane, knocking off the outboard portion of the right wing. Engine numbers three and four quit due to blast damage.

The heavily loaded C-130 began to spiral down. The captain gave the order for the crew to bail out. Edward had, thankfully, kept his parachute on during this flight, so he was ready. He uncoupled his harness and worked his way past various electronic consoles to the ramp at the rear of the plane. He saw the ramp operator jump off the ramp and disappear into the blackness. He waited for a moment, looking into the gloom below, wishing he could see as well with his eyes as he could with the night imaging equipment he was leaving behind. Then he walked off the end of the ramp with his right hand on his D ring, ready to deploy his chute.

The wind force felt like jumping into a pile of bricks. Edward tumbled in the turbulent air behind the plane, pulled the D ring, and finally stabilized under the chute that had jerked open. In the blackness, he plunged through the trees and hit the ground. Fortunately, his chute hadn't caught on any trees as it came down through the triple canopy. He had been careful to keep his knees slightly bent as he plummeted through the blackness. Thankfully, the landing had been a safe one, and he gathered his chute, made a bed out of it, and went to sleep. There wasn�t much else he could do.

As Edward finished the Snickers bar, he heard a faint "wop, wop" of a helicopter. The signal from his emergency locator beeper had apparently been picked up, and his "ride" was on the way. He hoped that his buddies had also escaped the stricken ship and had parachuted safely. It would be a happy homecoming if all of the crew made it back to base. He also hoped that the LRRPs were safe after a harrowing night on the run.

After spending the night in the jungle, Edward realized that he felt much safer flying in the Specter than being on the ground. He hoped he would never again touch his feet to the soil in enemy-held territory.