"Magnetic
Bullets"
By Don Langlois, War Wagon
Crewchief/Gunner
Edited by
Don Callison
Copyright
2003, All Rights Reserved
It
was sometime in September 1969, shortly after Conrad Wheeler began
taking
lead position with the War Wagons that Conrad and I discovered that the
bad guys must have had some type of new magnetic bullet.
I can't recall the AO we were in, but it was west of Vinh Long.
We were flying low-level at a pretty good clip, crossing rice paddies
and enjoying the scenery. We came upon a canal where we found one
position next to the canal that had been completed and a second that
was being completed. It was open with the entrenching tool still
visible inside.
Well, we knew that somebody was inside the position that had been
covered over with nipapalm trunks. We did a 180, made a slow pass and I
tossed out a frag. The damn thing bounced like Michael Jordan taking
the ball down court. Yep. it bounced right back into the water of the
rice paddy.
So, we made another pass. This time we were so slow
in passing that we could have been given a illegal parking ticked by
the MPs.
Wouldn't you know it. The second frag made just as good a bounce as the
first. So, we went around a third time. This time we hovered directly
over the target and I leaned out and dropped it right on top. This time
the frag didn't bounce off. We got the hell outta there before it went
off, and returned after the blast.
Conrad and I hovered about forty or fifty feet off from the target. We
were debating if the frag had done any significant damage to the
occupant(s) inside. When all of a sudden, Conrad says "does that look
like a gun barrel sticking out." I'm looking, trying to see something,
but I ain't seeing crapola.
All of sudden we're taking fire from the AK47 the guy is trying
desperately to nail us with.
I swear. I could feel bullets passing right next to my right knee. As
soon he started firing, I returned fire and Conrad took off over the
middle of the rice paddy. While he hovered, waiting for the Guns to
have a little fun, Conrad asked if I was all right, to which I affirmed
that I was. I asked Conrad the same question and he affirmed that he
was all right also. Neither of us were hit.
While the Cobras were still doing their thing, Conrad says he's pissed.
The guy shot the shit out of our console, taking out everything but the
FM, as well as putting a few through the instrument panel as we were
dee-deeing the hell outta Dodge.
The Guns finished having their fun for the morning, and it was time to
go back in and take a look at the damage to the tqrget. We stuck out
our chests and made sure that our yellow Cav scarfs were hanging in
front of us. (It was during this time that the unit was told they could
no longer wear the scarves, but we kept them under our shirts until we
got over the perimeter then took them out.)
As we made the first pass over the position, I
pulled the double pins on a homemade bomb and as we approached, tossed
it out where surprisingly, it stayed.
After the blast we returned. The bomb blew the shit out of the position
exposing one bad guy's body, which was the back side. His head buried
in mud. Well, we knew he was KIA and we set off into the rising sun to
pick up another Loach, because we'd done a pretty good number on the
one Conrad was driving.
We knew that there must have been magnetic bullets that the guy in the
bunker was shooting at us, because he hit just about everything that
was metal and managed to miss the both of us.