Chapter One

[gallilaw]

The men thought they were dying in a fiery plane crash, but it was only a perfect landing at Tan Son Nhut.

?Jesus Christ!? Guy Lopaca swore.

?Jesus Christ,? Arthur Grissom prayed.

It felt as if their pilot had jettisoned the airliner?s wings. The plane suddenly pointed its nose straight down, took on maniacal speed, and headed dart-like toward Asia.

A moment before, as the intercom casually told them to get ready for landing in Vietnam, Guy Lopaca had experienced a moderate chill, and thought: "I might actually die in this war..." Now, as the plane abruptly rotated and the earth down below became the earth directly in front, and rushing closer, Lopaca began thinking: "I might actually die in this seat?"

Everyone expected an erratic flight path to minimize the hazard of enemy ground fire. But right now, to the planeload of frenzied soldiers hurtling down an impossibly perpendicular flight path, a few casualties from ground fire seemed to be a reasonable price to pay if it meant coming in with some survivors. Most of the frantic GIs held their breath, some closed their eyes, and one tried to vomit but, because of the awful speed, nothing came out.

At the last possible instant, the pilot pulled the nose up, and the plane crashed ? Screech! Whomp! ? safely onto its landing gear. The terrified young men had arrived in the war zone. They were not dead yet. As the troops shivered, thanked
their gods, and wondered what new and terrible feeling the war would inflict on them next, a 21-year-old stewardess pixie, with hips to die for, shimmied down the aisle and told them to keep their seat belts carefully fastened "for just a little bit longer, Y?all."

For a moment, she was everything the young men desperately wanted, and would have to do without. She was the girl some men had sought all their lives; the girl some men had left behind; and the girl some men would die without ever knowing. Arthur Grissom wanted to reach out and touch her. Guy Lopaca wanted to go home, meet her at the door, and tell her once more that he loved her. She left a froth of terrible longing in her wake.

Even before the airplane came to a stop, the young men felt as if they had been in Vietnam, dazed and lonely, for a hundred years.




Happy Veterans Day.