Aero-Rifle Platoon
In the dim, wet oven of the Huey’s troop compartment, the corporal sat on a flak jacket behind the sweat-stained backs of First Squad. Simms, the big machine gunner for Fire Team 2, leaned back against him, jamming the corporal’s knees right up to his chest and pressing him and the radio on his back against the rear bulkhead.
The corporal rode with the Blackhorse, the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. Though Simms and the chopper’s noise and the heavy hot air and the funk of unwashed men all pressed down upon him, as did the leaden dread of what was to come, he was proud of his unit.
His AN/PRC-25 radio, the “Prick 25,” lacked frequency hopping or voice encryption, so the combat net was broadcast in clear. The handset at his ear tied him into bearing and range instructions as the Huey was vectored into the LZ. He yelled over the thutter of the rotor, calling out to the sergeant when they were a klick out.
The skids met the grassy LZ with a jolt. It sickened him as much from a belly-dropping burst of anxiety as from the impact of the chopper’s swift descent.
Before the first trooper could get to the doorway, a club he didn’t see hit the corporal in the head, the shockwave of a blast too loud to hear. The sturdy aluminum shell of the helicopter ruptured as easily as popping a giant balloon, leaving the entire length of the fuselage open to the sky.
More shockwaves washed over him as he tried to claw through the metal floor, and though he heard nothing of the ongoing thunder, he knew the entire LZ was getting hit. When he came back to himself and pushed his way from under Simms’s heavy warm carcass, there were no other men in the Huey. Torsos and gut piles and limbs lay tangled in a dark red pool that slopped across the entire deck. A metallic stink hit him.
He scrambled for the handset and wiped it on his thigh. He put it to his ear, knowing he would hear nothing.
He blew heavily after each statement, struggling to get his breath.
