BANK’S BANDITS

The Untold Story Of The Original

Green Berets

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CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

The flying boxcar dropping down like a roller coaster through the heavy winds and downdrafts coming off the mountains. Rain rattling across the roof and sides of the metal plane body. The small windows above our heads awash. Water teeming by the open doors at the tail of the plane, splashing in from time to time in icy sheets.

The jumpmasters at the open doors in the tail, kneeling and leaning out into that churning sea for thirty to forty seconds at a time looking for the DZ, pulling themselves back in like turtles, shaking their sopping heads. Clearing faces and eyes with soaked sleeves. Drenched to the crotch. Leaning out again. Where is that friggin’ DZ?

Over an hour since we took off from North Carolina. Pitch black sky around us and a solid bank of dark rolling thunderheads below us when we got down here. Like flying above filthy, exploded bales of cotton.

The pilot dropping down through them for a look every few minutes. Abrupt, swooping, elevator falls. The noise of the motors alternating between a whine and a screech. Hurting my ears. My stomach jumping. Breaking out below into the pouring rainstorm. Flashes of lightning cracking the night open for seconds at a time. What the hell is that? Mountains! Shit! We're flying up the goddamn Grand Canyon!

The whole world lighting up and then disappearing again in the rain and darkness.

Goddamn! Look at those sonsabitching mountains!

Water splashing past the jumpmasters and into the tail as the plane banked sharply to the left.

You'd better friggin’ bank, Baby! Looking like we were about to ram the peaks in front of us.

Climbing again. Sharply. The motors roaring. All the way up through the clouds. The plane leveling off. Two or three minutes, droning along.

Oh, my Christ, here we go again. Plummeting once more.

We had been doing this for twenty minutes, at least. Diving down and back up through those goddamn clouds. My stomach trying hard to keep up with my body. I looked down the tightly packed plane at the faces of the men banked against the fuselage in bucket seats, at the rise and fall of the doors beyond them. Half the guys already turning green. Wondering whether I looked as bad as they did.

I was at the very end of my stick, sitting near the front of the plane, just before the steps that led up into the cockpit. At my elbow, the crapper. The infamous square box, out in the open. The flat lid covering the hole beneath.

From my immediate left, a harsh, retching sound.

Hadley! Right next to me, cheeks puffed out. Pulling his helmet off and separating the steel pot from the plastic helmet liner. Leaning forward over the steel pot. Letting it all come up.

Noses crinkling all around us as the foul odor wafted through the plane. The helmet full of a lumpy orange-custard mess.

Across the aisle from Hadley, a few seats down, Mullins had his head tilted back and his eyes closed. One terrible groan and his head snapped forward. Whoosh! A geyser shooting out of his mouth as his body jackknifed forward. Spewing it all over the floor in front of him. All over his boots and pant legs.

“USE A GODDAMN STEEL POT, YOU ASSHOLES!”

Sergeant Casey Killian, looking like a belligerent bulldog, barking at all of us as he came down the aisle. “If you're going to hurl, use your helmets! And pass it down to the commode. C’mon! Get that shit into that hole before we all die from the smell!”

Hadley passing his contribution to me. Another barfing explosion and a second, brimful, passing from man to man down the aisle. To me!

Others, jaws working, holding it back and pulling their helmet liners loose from their steel pots at the same time.

Holding my breath and keeping Hadley’s potfull at arm’s length as Killian arrived in front of me.

Holding the helmet above nose level and reeling from the awful odor. Alas, poor Yorick!

Killian pointing past me to the commode. “Bang them out for cryeye, Fitz! And then give ‘em a fast rinse in that sink before you pass ‘em back. C’mon, goddammit! Move! You ain’t no friggin’ statue! That stuff is going to stink us out of here!”

Swell. Pisser. This was all I needed.

Emptying the dripping headgear. Yeecch! Pumping the faucet to produce a few spurts of yellowed water. Swishing that around. Banging it again.

“Hurry up, goddammit! You ain’t no friggin’ autoclave. Here’s another!”

“HEY!”

Looking up at Killian, my arm stopped in mid-air. What? What now for chrissake? Casey pointing to the crap still dripping off the helmet. Leaning toward me his eyes wide.

“You saving some of them large hunks, Fitz? Figure it's gonna be a long time till breakfast or what? Rinse that fucker clean!”

The steel pots coming and going. The box awash with all manner of disgusting flotsam. Screw it! Let the flyboys muck it out later. A nudge at my elbow. Jesus! Another one.

Rozzelli, up near the doors, pulling off the headphones he’d been using to communicate with the pilot, then coming down to where our team sat. Stepping gingerly over Mullins’ dinner on the way.

He hung onto the static line over his head by one hand as he bent over to talk to us. Bouncing up and down with the motion of the plane. Haven't I seen you at the zoo, Captain?

Cupping his mouth with his free hand, so we could hear him above the roar of the motors. “Pilot thinks he’s got our DZ located now. We can jump or we can go back to Bragg and do it another night. We’ve been circling, hoping it would clear off a little, but that’s not going to happen. The pilot needs a decision now. They way this plane is loaded, it’s drinking fuel like a bloody camel. Myself, I’d rather jump than fly this cesspool all the way back to Bragg! But you guys got a say in this. So, how about it?”

Colte yelling over the motors. “Let’s go Captain. Let’s get our asses out of this friggin’ outhouse!”

Connelly, “GO!”

Gomez, “GO! GO!”

Rozzelli moving toward me. All the answers the same. “GO! GO! GO!”

Are they shitting me? Jump out in this kind of crap? Can you do that? Right in the middle of a goddamned thunderstorm? I don't believe this.

Rozzelli in front of me. Everyone else on the team had already voted. It was down to me.

What do I want to do? Shouldn't I stay here and clean up this commode? We don’t want the flyboys to think we’re piggy!

Oh, crap. I heard myself barking it out through my phony grin. “GO, Captain. Let’s do it!”

The word "go" had exploded from me with surprisingly loud but entirely manufactured enthusiasm. Well, you friggin’ hypocrite, I told myself, there’s still one chance we won’t have to do this. We could still crash into one of those peaks.

The three other teams watching as we stood up, snapped our static-lines into place and shuffled past them. A symphony of colors staring up at us. Perspiring red through pasty white to sickly green.

See you later, fellas! They found our DZ. They think. Lucky, lucky us. I’m so thrilled I just might pee in my boots. Dear Mr. & Mrs. Fitzpatrick. We regret to inform you we found your son in a Georgia tree-top. We located him by the stink!

“GETTT ----REEEEEAAADDDYYY!”

Rozzelli at the door behind an equipment bundle that came up to his chin. His other hand already clamped on the outside of the door. Down by his knees, the soaking wet head and shoulders of the jumpmaster popped back in.

“GO!”

The static-line cable giving a fierce jerk in my hand as Rozzelli, pushing the bundle, leaps out. Jerking again and again as others swing into the door and vault out. Shuffling forward, last in the stick, staying right on Hadley’s backpack.

Faster, you bastards. Move it!  Jeeee-sus, not a chance I'll hit that DZ, I just know it.

Crowding Hadley. Sailing out the door on top of him. Riding him out. Spun away by the roaring wind and off into the stinging water. Eyes squeezing shut as a thousand icy needles jabbed at my bare face and hands. Tumbling to my left.

Jeeee-sus God Almighty! Sweet Georgia Brown! I'm coming home!