"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.

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