Holding the Line in I Corps:

“Check fire,” Argo bellows at Bucks. “Target down, break, new target, over. Dug in NVA, over. Stand by for new coordinates.” He quickly works up the second fire mission. The acetate cover over his map is already marked in red wax pencil with the coordinates. He reads the eight-digit refined grid square coordinates and elevation back to Bucks and gives him their estimated position. “Request immediate willie-pete for adjust, hotel echo for effect. Target one reinforced squad of NVA infantry dug in old fighting positions. No overhead cover, over. Request shot out, at your command, over.”
“Professional Six, Whitefish, standby, you are doing good work, son.” It is Pearman. “Take a break, we’re working up something a little bigger. Stay down, you got a flight of Marine alpha-fours inbound, E-T-A two minutes, over. Call sign Mustang. They can’t hear you so hunker down. Look to your three o’clock. We got a FAC (Forward Air Controller) orbiting about a mile from you. He is coming in now.” The FAC is shepherding four Marine Douglas A-4 Skyhawks, called Fords. The attack jets are small and extremely nimble aircraft carrier capable, subsonic attack aircraft that has been in use by the Marine Corps since 1962. Everyone on the DMZ knows what Fords are. The delta winged Skyhawk is powered by a single turbojet engine. The single-seat Skyhawk has a maximum takeoff weight of 24,500 pounds and top speed of more than 670 miles per hour. It is capable of carrying a two-ton bomb load on five underwing hard points; think a B-17 bomb load delivered at 570 knots. Its intrepid Marine pilots are insanely brave. Their brother Marines down there in the mud rely on them. No histrionics, it is just the way it is. Smitty is hoping for Spads. The lumbering Douglas A-1 Skyraider, a piston-powered, late World War II relic of the Navy’s Pacific carrier war, proves deadly in Vietnam. It is beloved by every grunt on the DMZ. The Fords were fast and sleek. The Spads were slow and dependable. They are capable of carrying enough weapons to destroy a battalion. The pilots fly them so low, one story goes, that a Spad pilot ripped a NVA soldier’s head off with his landing hook and brought it back to Chu Lai.
Smitty sees the forward air controller aircraft first. It is a little tandem-configured Cessna, single-engined, green Army OV-1 “Birddog”, a fabric-covered throwback to early aviation that guides fast-moving attack aircraft on to its targets. The pilot sits up front and the observor behind him. They are frequently seen buzzing around the DMZ in circles, dipping up and down in no apparent pattern. The Marines don’t know much about them except they are always glad when they are around. When the O-1’s crew sees something, they don’t loiter over it, they move on for a while, then suddenly wing over into a steep dive to mark the target with a white smoke rocket. Sometimes the crew strafes with their M-16s or drop forbidden hand grenades out the windows when nobody else is available to bomb the ant people. They know the gomers will otherwise be gone in five minutes, leaving only shadows where ant people used to be.
“FAC at three o’clock,” Smitty barely whispered. The other men nod. The team loves the forward air controller more than their mommas. This Birddog is piloted by Army Captain Roscoe “Buzzard” Huzzard, call sign Catkiller 2-1, from the 220th Reconnaissance Aviation Company (RAC) – that calls itself “Catkillers.” Its only mission is hunting NVA on the DMZ. In the back seat is 2nd Lt. Billy Bierman, one of the C Btry officers sent to the 108th Arty Grp to learn how to call in arty from a Birddog. Huzzard is one of the stern-eyed instructors. The Birddog circles Hill 81 at about 2,500 feet, flying up and down and here and there at a stately 100 knots. For one brief moment somebody stupid on the hill fires a long burst from an RPD that fell behind the buzzing plane. Bierman’s eyes lock on the top of Hill 81 where the green tracers originated. The location is next to the sheer east face of the lonely ridge. He can see inside the abandoned fighting positions dotting the barren top. Enemy soldiers are trying desperately to make themselves invisible inside them. It seems abandoned. I’d hate to call an air strike on one stupid stay behind private.
“Hey Buzzard,” Bierman says into his boom mike. “You care if I confirm the target is still there? It might just be a few shitheads with AKs. Maybe we should make sure so our guys ain’t out of air cover too soon.”
“Knock yourself out,” Buzzard answers. Smart kid. “I’ll get us close.”
Honey Bun One advises Con Thien COC that he is taking a look to confirm that the NVA platoon is still occupying the hill top. “Standing By, Honey Bun One,” Bucks says, stifling a snicker. “That’s what I call my wife, sir.” Pearman laughs out loud. “I’m so glad I’m a mud Marine. Don’t you love our job?”
“Semper Fi, sir.”