Saturday, December 29, 2007


JAKE BARNES, USAF (Episode One)


(The following is fiction, but it is based on a true story)


Jake was the kind of guy you liked right away. He never complained, he worked hard and he was supremely honest. He was large in stature for a guy of 25 years and the sort that always seemed to do the right thing. He was a Master Sergeant and first sergeant in our outfit and I had known him since we went through boot camp together, six years previous.


After Jet Engine training school and one tour stateside, we had both found ourselves assigned to Da Nang Air Base, Republic of Vietnam. My names Bradley, Jim Bradley, Technical Sergeant, and if I had not seen what I am about to tell you, I would never have believed it could happen. It was January of 1968 and we were a long way from home.


Jake & I didn’t see each other much anymore, since he had been made first shirt. He did his thing in the orderly room and I worked the searing heat of the aircraft flight line. Everyone worked at least six days a week, twelve hours a day and after a while one day ran into the next, but not for Jake. He always seemed to know when Sunday came and would get permission to attend church. That was OK for him, if that’s what he wanted to do, but if I had time off, I would find better things to do.


Not that I held it against him or anything, he was a great guy, I just wasn’t ready for religion. If I died, I died and that was the end of it. Life never made much sense to me anyway. Once a month we would have a squadron meeting, called Commander’s Call, where all of about 800 of us would meet in some available building and listen to the latest squadron news; things like safety briefings, enemy movements, and news from home.


The Commander, Colonel Stone, and his assistant, Captain Walters, would talk to us and Jake would always be up on the front row, ready to provide necessary support in the form of duty rosters, those A.W.O.L., leave procedures, ways to avoid discipline problems and so forth.
If I saw Jake, I would wave, but that was about it. I fixed airplanes, he aided the Colonel. I didn’t know it then, but all this was about to change. It happened the following night, shortly after 1AM or 0100.


The concussions from exploding incoming rockets, coming from hundreds of yards away, began to go off all around me. The sky looked like the fourth of July, with flares and incomings all about us. Right on cue, the warning siren, that was supposed to warn us before the enemy attacked, began to blare. Instead, it only added to the noise. The sound of hundreds of G.I.s running to the bunker shelters was everywhere and the smell of explosives began to fill our noses.

I was on my way to the bunker when I spotted Jake. “Get to conex and grab your gear, we’ve got a Red Options Two circumstance! Bring as many of our guys as you can and hurry!” He shouted. The conex was a small, corrugated steel, storage building, about 50 yards away, where we kept our flak vests, rifles and ammunition. Red Option Two was a code word for base being overrun, which meant the enemy was attempting to get by the 101st airborne, camped outside the base perimeter fence and penetrate our position to destroy aircraft and personnel. We didn’t know it then, but the N.V.A. Tet Offensive had begun.


I alerted as many of the guys from our group as I could, went back to my bunk and grabbed my boots, helmet (with the Ace of Spades under the strap, to the enemy it meant bad luck), helmet liner and jungle fatigue shirt and then headed for the conex. Explosions were going off all over. I had been in country about six months and we had at least twenty attacks since then, but I had never seen it so bad as this night. Confusion reigned all around us. It was dark; we were all perspiring badly from the activity and humidity. Jake got out his flashlight, took out his key and got the conex unlocked.


He then, systematically, began to distribute supplies and I suddenly realized that he was very much in control of his emotions. While all the rest of us were in a state of panic, he was calm and collected. In the middle of all this, SSgt Buckman, Jake’s clerk appeared and said loud enough for all of us to hear, “Jake, Jake, did you hear? Colonel Stone and Captain Walters took a direct hit in their jeep…they’re dead!” “What! Are you sure; are you sure?” Jake quizzed. Buckman said, “I never would have believed it, but I saw it myself!”


Explosions continued everywhere but we were suddenly silent and stared at Jake. He paused but a moment. “Buckman, stay here and make sure everyone gets their gear, everyone else, follow me.” Jake then took off at a trot, heading for the perimeter fence.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home