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| Paxina: 002 | Air Mobile Rhodesia RLI 1 Battalion Army Airborne Infantry |
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“Gentlemen! You are on A Ship of War! Designed to do Battle… Designed for Battle. YOU are trained to Battle,
Bzzt: Zambezi Air Traffic to AirMobile – acknowledge This account is written for my brother Michael Franco, lost friends, fallen comrades and forgotten soldiers everywhere... “I now know why men who have been to war yearn to reunite. Not to tell stories or look at old pictures. Not to laugh or weep. Comrades gather because they long to be with the men who once acted their best, men who suffered and sacrificed, who were stripped raw, right down to their humanity. I cannot say where we are headed. Ours are not perfect friendships; those are the province of legend and myth. A few of my comrade’s drift far from me now, sending back only occasional word. I know that one day even these could fall to silence. Some of the men will stay close, a couple, perhaps, always at hand. As long as I have memory, I will think of them all, every day. I am sure that when I leave this world, my last thought will be of my family, and my comrades... such good men.” Michael Norman - USMC Combat Helicopter Association A story of I, a machine amongst machines:
Fields of fresh craters and hedges of razor wire. Such a certain elegance and a balletic quiet. The ships look like carrion insects. With bulging eyes and whirling wings. Like fukken gods….
The scene is horrific, yet it has the purity of a stanza from a ballad sung to life. A ballad about some tragic events on the Border of Hell. If I had to paint it I would need a canvas as large as the scene itself. And I would have to include the slow, swirling boil of the mist. The hypnotic metronome of the rotors. The whine of the turbines, the ring of the chain-guns, the grunt of the mortars. No detail could be omitted. Musta been about 05:00 hours. We coming in steep over The Valley. Flying into the north, the blades of the Aerospatiales are chopping more war meat out of the lightening sky. The sound of Jimi Hendrix singing “Johnny B. Goode” is cranking off the portable tape deck. Cabin doors open on both sides. The rush of super-cooled dawn, pink as young girls nipples from my last memory…except shes been replaced by this high velocity nightmare. Here we go again eroticizing? No! not at all. We see what we choose to see. I see your face, your lower lip trembles each time we say goodbye. I can see you trying not to cry. Being brave so I don’t see you cry…. ”She wore – blu-u-u-u-e-e vel-vet…” dressing gown, still damp with your sweat from our bed “…………come back! I love you!” God! I hate this… your eyes in my back as I walk away and I have to go. No choice, love. I love you…
So I see part of you in the sky? That’s how my mind works. You are never far away from me my beautiful love. About 100m off our left flank, “Vato Loco”, is doing a little swoopy-doop ballet. Little left little right pendulum and each time just slacks off the tail-fan enough to let the ship swing out in a swerve to the direction he swings. You can tell Vieira’s style. ‘Ts his signature! The Vato Loco’s Dago Patrol…and other side flies “Puff” the Magic Dragon, Augusta heavy lift. All heavy laden and proud, burdened pregnant with the machines of our trade. War. From the door St Jons is blowing the “Revillie”. The sound for cavalry to advance. And so here we are eating omelette tacos from yesterday. No coffee. Just Benzedrix and Durophet M’s. Dysoxin to cocktail on the side. With Coca Cola. Small Amyl as a chaser and a joint of good ol’ Malawi Chapter Five to cool the edges of our desperacion.. Comprende? Ese? Qui se?! We dance…The world is made of Darkness, and all men must come to its End. I fight for my brother my captain my king. For I am brother captain and king to them. Somewhere. Even if we are out of our skulls on reds and amyl nitrates. Fuk – Ken – Po – Et – Ree. In Mo-Shunnnnn!
We drift out, nap of the earth… whap whap whap…rising… boiling in the early mist They been carpet bombing the landing zone for ten minutes before we get here. Its just smoke. All mirrors are broken now. This is IT. Shells still drop every forty secs, compliments of the lads manning the Loading Zone..
”Airmobile to Loading Zone…we are on station…on station, repeat…stand down…request stand down…over”,,, before we fall to our own fire. I can hear guys singing in the back of the cab start to chant the battle hymn I started: “To the ever Lasting Glory of the cavalry… Gentlemen! You are on a Ship of War! Designed to do battle… designed for battle. You are trained to battle, and you WILL to DO or DIE - in battle. This is your only purpose… the words of our training Sergeant. Master-at-Arms Etheridge I, myself ? I feel like Rodger Young today... “Do you want to dance with meeeeee” And here: “On-the-Go – 00 -od Ship Air – Mo - byle”…sung to Shirley Temple’s “ Good Ship Lollipop”, we’s awl just Fine. Maybe tired a little…strung out on these fine little ol’ red and brown Duraphet M’s and a hit Dysoxin. Porra! Fatigued a little…18 straight days of hard times….six fire-fights…eight cas-Evacs… four emergency supply drops… two air strike support stand-offs. 18 drunken nights. 18 packs of cigs. 18 whores. 18 bad breakfasts. 18 shit dinners. 18 nights of bad sleep. 18 fukken days in Hell’s Gate. An we aint dead yet? Riding under the spinning wheels of God’s Clock. We tick each tock… With a bowel-loosening, fear inducing, dream poisoning metronome of advancing inevitability. When you can hear this sound, this special symphony that talks to your lizard limbic system, speaks directly to your anus. An you’re onna ground? You got about 10 to 15 seconds, perhaps less… I pull on my yellow cow hide gloves… There is no sound like it in the world. A sword drawn every eighth of a second. And you Will Know. That Death And Vengance. Surely Walk Amongst You. This Day. The END OF DAYS. ”Shari Adonai” – It is Begun… I made the choice between my Captain and my Conscience.. I will never live with my Captain… Amen Fok! We are taking fire………”traffic we’re taking fire… incoming… WE’RE TAKING FIRE”………………My Conscience! “We have One Ef Zee… not the obligation that we would have wished for, Gentlemen… “ Green light comes on…*Dink*… *Dink*… *Dink*… *Dink*… In my parents house we had a vinyl record of Burl Ives.An American singer of Ballads. There was always one particular song that stuck with me all these years. And particularly at the time that this story is set. It was the story of a brave young man, Rodger Young, a Private, 148th Infantry, 37th Infantry Division (the Ohio Buckeyes); who died 31 July 1943, on the island of New Georgia, in the Solomons, South Pacific, while single-handedly attacking and destroying a Japanese enemy machine-gun pillbox. His bold and gallant action, in the face of overwhelming odds, enabled his team-mates to escape without loss; he was awarded posthumously the Medal of Honor." The song went like this: “No, they've got no time for glory in the Infantry. “Shines the name--Rodger Young! I was a young hippie then. Went into this bedlam. Got out alive. I wish I knew then what I understand now. *Dink*… *Dink*… *Dink*… *Dink*… Two casualties on this ship. And I’m not one. Yet. And I never been so scared in all my life. Well I maybe exaggerate. At times like this scared keeps you alert and alive. Hopefully. Maybe it’s the ground fire, yesterday. maybe it’s the good old Chris “Dizzy” Desfontein, pilot of this Vomit Comet. That’s his siganatura. Drop steep, level out fast, sideways swerve that lifts the out going side of the K-car up, like the dress of a fandango dancer as she gracefully swirls out … then back in easy like, on the center line, back to the arms of her lover. Like you step back in to me. Oops! Erotic again. See what you do to me lady But for the guy on the door at the inside sweep? If you’re not braced and holding on – you’re gonna go out. Big time. Maybe only a 50m fall. I don wanna do it, man. So do all who live to see such times. But all you have to do is do with the time that is given to you. Put her down gentle as a feather. On this boat – each other is all we are, all we have One of the commandos we’re taking in passes me the joint that’s going around: “Here’s to the Fukken Air Fukken Ca- val-ree -Yeeee---haaa!”. These guys are SAS. You don’t even wanna know where they are going. Where ever it is –‘s not gonna be nice, man. I hand out the Black Bombs with a belt of scotch. We are Stoned Immaculate…
“Roger that Zambesi…” “ Airmobile airmobile we have hostile zinbound your position ETA six minniits… youave two minnits of air, Mission…” “Back Up? Werezour fukken, backup?” “Zero. That is a negative, Airmobile. Closest air strike iztwenny minnits” Fuck puss shit arse rat fuck. We got three minutes of dancing in all fire. Angels of desire. *Dink*… Beeeeeeeee… “On the Ready Line Soldiers…” “O Lord. Bless this Thy Holy Gunship. In our Hour of need that you will Protect us as we Strike down Your Enemies with Fire….Wonder if that will work. Minchia! I’m as high as a kite. Meanwhile….by the grace of God Almighty, there’s a crawling King Snake in the room upstairs…inbound 15 tons of hurtling high kite boys all locked and loaded, primed and humming with the pure Zen of ready to live by the sword. All goes quiet, No talking. Clip. Snik. Lok. Chikka…chik.. . . . . . klik…. * No looking at each others eyes…private time now. We never look. No faces. No eyes. No memory. But I just gotto wonder how many times we gotto land on the letter “H”. “Ready Line….”
We got no spare gear. We been in the same clothes for 18 days. Cast Iron Underpants, also Went out one morning on a Med-Supply drop and got reeled into this god-awful nightmare…in the Room uPSTAIRS So the joke goes: “Its “casualty camoflage”. We put it on so that the enemy wont be able to tell whether we bleeding or not”. “?” So here we are in this alien craft doing a maneuver you can only ever do in a flying saucer – over all this alien vegetation you can hide a whole fukken battalion of Boogs down there…or if you are really stoned, If you loose it out here, you’re in a whole world of hurt. In the blood bath behind we got six commandos who are soooo speeded up and raring to rock. All singing along to Santana’s Black magic Woman… “Got a Black Magic womaaaaannn….” yeah rite on man. We all got a black magic woman some where… I got mine. My sweet little Chiquita, hair the color of deep space. Small hard round arse, with a dancers muscles. Hard round breasts to match. And the eyes. Dark and smouldering. Fire burned so deep I never coulda imagined that such a young creature could have so much fire. So much passion. It makes me burn. For her. I thank God each day that she lives in this world. Thank God for her. I cannot mess up here, man! Cannot die. Not now. I jus wanna be there. Just lay my face down on her stomach and just listen to her breathe. No time for that now. The recoil from the gun is like a kind of bizarre sex. It pumps back every time you squeeze off a shot. Just like a woman on you, on every stroke. Just like you. Bang I am so casually flicking the gate of my door mounted MAG open and cutting my name on to the first round in the belt with my bush knife. “Live in the Air. Die by Fire”. We all chant… Gate closed…closed and locked…Locked and loaded and ready to Get It ON!… One of the commandos wants to know what I am doing. So no one out there has got the bullet with my name on it…comprehede? They all checking me like I am some kind of crazy person. Laugh. Then you see realization dawn on their faces. Then they not laughing so much anymore. Caralhos! They have no bullets with their own name on? Then some one must have. Sim? Then the buzzer goes >>Dink>>>dink>>dink>>>dink…and the flashing light comes on for
I heft the weights of the rappels in my gloved hand. We all laugh… Then we not laughing anymore. We gotta work now. Someone leads the chant:: Pat on the shoulder…”Bring down Fire my friend. We covering yore ass!” “Soldiers! I am your Jump-Master-r-r-r-r.. They are all on the skids and falling on a 50 meter trail. We swing in hard…dropping fast, spin out the tail, bank to station. “Three. Two-o Away-y-y-y!” “On orestas mano… Go…speed of God…For us and ours…” I intone like the priest I am s’pposed to fukken be. Why me? I not cut out for dis jaab, mon! Foders the job… They may not come back. Hmmmm…. We live by The Grace Die by the Fire. Our guys’r just down when “Puff” – the Magic Dragon, with the heavy equipment pulls in. In the door I can see “Vlaga” Gregory Yanakis, the chain gun keeping watch. I know its him tapping the start button on his gun. Light flickering off the barrels as they spin and lock. Spins and locks. I c’n justa’bout hear the whine from here.Brrrr=eee. Must be my imagination. Fukken Vlaga crazy Greek. He just waiting to shoot at sumthing. Any-fukken-thing. The only guy I know who can click the trigger with out loosing off a round. Reminds me of a sergeant we had in basic training telling us: “Remember out there! You fukken shoot any thing that moves! ‘Fits not moving, then fukken shoot it ‘til it duz move!” Gregory is one trigger-happy Greek. Our guys are down safe on the money, in seconds. We dust off. “Vatos Locos” dusting off to the far side facing in the opposite direction and we are following each other tails around in a big anti-clock-wise circle around the “Puff”, dropping to off-load the heavy goodies. We keep frosty for the next few seconds. Space keeps the ckers in the bush to keep them down. Loosed off a few Zulu grenades from his FN. I am on the inside of the circle so I have to pull in all the rappels and stow them. All of this life is in slomo: Fields of fresh craters and hedges of razor wire. And overhead, half-hidden in the mist and refraction – us. So magnificent and perfect. Such a certain elegance and a quiet. The choppers look like carrion insects. With bulging eyes and whirling wings. Like devils. Like fukken gods. Whispering amongst themselves in a language as ancient as men have made war. Whispering of the feast they were soon to have. Whispering Death. The scene is horrific, yet it has the purity of a stanza from a ballad sung to life. A ballad about some tragic events on the Border of Hell. If I had to paint it I would need a canvas as large as the scene itself. And I would have to include the slow boil of the mist. The hypnotic metronome of the rotors. The whine of the turbines, the ring of the chain-guns, the grunt of the mortars. No detail could be ommitted. The slow, swirling drift of smoke. The shimmer of rising sun reflected off the insect like flight visors of the pilot and navigator. The lazy swirl of the chopper blades in time with the flamenco castanet chatter of the door mounted MAG’s…the secret, magical splendour of war - all of it a glimpse into the heart of the devil of all hells… and of course as a joke I will paint myself in this picture, so that every one can see, as some sort of irony, the artist painted into his painting. I remember green. Green fields…green as your dress… and a sky as wide as your smile… spread to infinity like your dancers legs… ai ai ai ya-a-a-a-iii…spread so invitingly wild – calling me on to prove my Self Holy Moses! Fukkyah! Fukken revenge or wotteveryou wanna callit. Clit. Clit. Clik…clikkk..chhikka.. Bowel-loosening roar that seems to be happening inside my bones and the floor is generating its own wave cycle. The ship does a quick half pirouette left and then right. Rounds off the performance with a darting jette in a high arc. Drifting to reverse. I am so freaked out, Space is yelling about the tree line about the tree line the tree line inna fukken treeline…and I bring my weapon to bear on the tree line at the edge of the basin with out even hearing him clearly. We are all psychic now – tuned to each other. All times and men must have known this in dire circumstance. You see it in football matches you see it in your life when things just fit. Psyche set free for her spell amongst mortals. Swing the MAG, so smoothe in the swivel, just like with you, before your small, whimpering, pre-orgasmic gasp…aa.aa..and…klik…p..re..sS!. b r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r….. Loose off two thousand rounds, 076, penetration, hard case, threee bursts.. into the rising tell-tale swirl from the enemy launcher. Dizzy swings the ship ‘n locks onto my tracer path, swinging hard and falling with the grace of a hawk, along the dotted line… “Sign here asshole!” Two contrails…small white corkscrews going into the tree-line. ”Birds away”! from the pod under my feet as Schultzie pops off two Sky Bolts. Like Lucifer’s dream set free… “I bet this fiddle of gold against your soul…” And the air is full of trees and mud and body parts as we flash by overhead . Whole field on fire. I can almost hear screaming. Dave the Rave and Space start off singing: “why was he born so beautiful, why was he born at all…” We Are God! Amongst you now… Space is swiveling his MAG around – alert, but still got the joint hanging on his lip. S’we go back in – clean this nest out till it is just dirt and blood. Clean. The Cleaners are Back! Dizzy all anorexine wired high watchful, Schultzie calling in all clear: “Area sanityized”, ‘n reloading, mouth yammering on the comm.. the click chatter of the chain guns dropping their belts, chambers cycling to re-arming position clik …spin and whine…drr-r-r-r-r-r—r-r-r-r-r—r-rr—r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r- “Puff” lifts out of the drop zone…up…up… tail drops as she lifts the nose to reverse out of the tree line in front, rises above us to cover us… and we jet out of there. All shouting “Up! Up! And Awaaayyyy!!!!”… and Space is at the door with his bugle. Doing the Batman Theme: Da da da da DA DA dada.. Da da da da DA DA dada..” and we go in ”BAT MAAANNN”… Every time we pull out of a drop zone, Space does his Batman Theme Shells start to whistle in from the Loading Zone. Falling about a click away.. our brothers in arms calling in a baptism of fire on their own target. Theres so many different worlds. And so many different songs. When the nightmare call comes: “AirMobile. AirMobile. Thissiz Zambezi Air Traffic…please state your position.” …. … clik … .. “Dominus vobiscum. Et cum spiritu tuo… Schultzie is on the mike. Space and I already complaining…”o fuckit shit damn blasst piss rat-fuck!!!” “ I hate this JoB!” And in that time its already: “copy that Zambezi Traffic”, and we are peeling off, away from the sunrise, dropping into the river, and in about 2 minutes we are flying nap of the earth along the bank of this sheet of glacial crocodile flavored water. Heading toward the Mocambique Tete direction and I know we’s gonna meet a whole bunch ‘a trouble. Medals in this. Only. After we are dead! The water looks like ice but you can see the hippopotami moving so big and graceful and they get the sound of our rotors and dive. Likewise crocodiles off the banks. This is not a river to fall into. Out here you can see more crocodiles in 5 minutes from a gun ship than any person alive will see in a life time. Evil that does not sleep, Swims. – even if they are on safari. After about 10 minutes flying, we down river a hundred or so clicks almost to Tete Province an spot a tupperware [patrol boat] coming up the river and we have our contact. I pull out the stretcher winch, strap the girdle on and step out on to the skids as we drop. Space is on the winch drive and he drops me slow and surreal like, to the deck of the patrol. I feel like Superman…and I am humming Donovan’s “Sunshine Superman” to my self and flying down to the boat…trust the man trust The Man Trust mah lahf in yo han’s honkey. I get the first guy – he’s all taped up with a blanket and a drip and I connect the stretcher to the hoist and he is air-borne to the ship. And while that is going on I am inspecting the second casualty. He’s on a ventilator. He got a hole in his chest I can put my fist into. He’z some one I use ta go to school with. Used to… He sees me like a long los frend, mano! He thought I was a dago grease-ball. Fukken ass-hole - All Porras are ‘Grease balls”, al Jews’r Jokes…because we are laminated hair with Brylcreeem… I thought he was a wanker wyte dutch fuck-pig. I have my ship…he aint got none. I got:… “Carry me caravan Where is the love. I think of her. Her hair. I can still smell her hot breath…She sings to me for me: “Foi por vontade de Deus
We always go back for our own. We Bring back our own. We Bury our own. He bought the farm before we made ground zero. Poor dumb asshole bastard. Out here fighting a secret war in a secret location. Against a secret enemy. For purposes that are always just a little blurred from the secret truth and the real truth which is what all the propaganda has been about since Genghis Khan. And Genghis baby did it with the same bunch of crazies on small, rugged Mongolian ponies. And got his name in history. This mano scared as hell. Fukken poor show arsehole! So was I. I don’t like for people to die on my watch. Because I have to report what was his last words. For his family and for just incase. Done that enough. I should be a priest “Tu absolvere meo figlo. In Nomine Patriis. Et Filis. Et Spirituu Sanctum.– and Fuck You Too” Amen… I always kissed the letter “M” in AirMobile – when I got off the ship. It was a ritual. Two weeks later on the same ship, in the same zone we were compelled to radio in: “Lucifer is Fallen”. Code to call an air strike. Covering artillery - would level Everything. Kill Everything. Burn Everything. Leave Nothing. Massive Retaliation. Air strike of Hawkers to put down all they could shit… Air Platoon 10 – Ground Forces – 0. And now this secret private war is real public. It would be news and a lot of people were going to die. For seven hours we pounded and punished every single position along both sides the Zambezi Bed. From Kariba to the Tete Border. Every village, every goat, every granny on a bicycle, every one. All of them. I clowed out three weeks later…And I was fled with you, in your mothers belly still. Left the country for outer space. Vanished. My gift of universe, Other wise how would you contrive to know so much, Sheva? My parents never knew about this. You never knew about this. And my own brothers who went in after me found out about it on their own time. Being a legend was not always financially gainful. Job of “private Enterprise” requires some steadfastness. But some times it paid off. I/we were adequately compensated. But never saved any of it. Easy come, easy go. Yes? Notes:The Name AirMobile = was acquired by the courtesy of the US Air Cavalry. We flew the French built Aerospatiale Allouette III’s. Aero [Aerospatiale]= Air? Mobil +Mobile – never standing still. Steel Beach Picnic Sunday. 10:00 hours landing after 3 hour sortie. The sun is fukken hot enough to be unfriendly. We gonna have ourselves a “Steel Beach Picnic” I coined the term from some article I had read about, concerning the U.S. Navy and aircraft carriers. And watching all these guys lying around on the roofs of all this heavy metal hard-ware. Over a matter of days way back. they shot and ate all the crocodiles in the pool and then fenced the pool off from the river. “No Crocodiles Allowed”, says the sign. The hides are all over the camp. I bought one and had boots made by Freddie back in Salisbury. And a Levi pattern Jacket and teensy-weensy shorts for my irmana Octavia. And a bikini for Heather K. And boots for Victoria McCorran-Campbell. Same Skin!! And a belt for Mac the Knife. Macky Mac. Here all the APC’s (armored personnel carriers) are parked. Bring them down to the river to wash them. Then lie on them to sun tan. To get away from the fukken ants, lizards and snakes. Two guys already pegged it from snakes so there’s no messing around with them… And all this steel you can cook on it. No joke. But they make a fire anyway. A barbecue is nothing if there is no fire, smoke and smell. Some one shot a big antelope from a gunship yesterday. So here we are. “AirMobile. Air Support with a difference…” The first joke was about me being a Star Trek fan and the “Enterprise”. The second joke was because I worked in the Quarter-Master Stores and I could sell you new gear cheap, replace so-so gear with new gear for a price – declaring your gear redundant when it was only okay. (Still sell the okay gear onto guys - cheap – when they had lost gear and would rather pay cheap for so so, when new was about 6 weeks away). Started off with uniform items from the QM. Then food and bevarage from the Gen Stores. Then cigarettes. Then Playboy and Hot Shot and Penthouse girlie magazines. Then alcohol. By the bottle. Finally by the case. Then Hookers. Then the Green lady “Maria Juana”… for a while, but the guys on Ops North had better dope. So we made a deal. We stuck to contraband and chicks, and they did the grass, speed and acid. And between us we set prices to cross deal. Like a bottle of scotch is worth so much dope. Or two playboys swop-back and a carton cigarettes get this much acid. So much this and that gets you a woman. Or so much every type of thing gets you some kinda armament or ammunition or guns ‘n stuff you aint supossed to have. But Want. We used to buy Soviet, Israeli and Italian made weapons off the Battle-Field Recovery Teams to sell to guys who just wanted those guns. As Extras you understand? By far the most popular weapon was the US M16 combat ex Vietnam rifle, and the Israeli Uzzi Sub-Machine gun. The Avtomat Kalischnikov 47 was popular in The Valley because it worked after you pulled it out of a river, It worked even if it been buried in dirt all year, it worked even if you pissed in the barrel, it took three calibers of bullets, it worked if you dropped it off a 20 meter rock, it worked covered in dried blood. It worked covered in dry shit. It worked like a gun should. When you pull th’ trigger…clik.brr.brr.brr….brr….brr….brbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbbr………… “Puff the Magic Dragon?” This is Muts, man! Who calls a gunship “Puff the Magic Dragon”? The Pilot and one of the guys are dope dealers. They deliver the stuff …”man….# #puff * * * puffpuff this izzz sum uth*r fukkin grass ma*nn!! “Take two hunderd ‘n forry six/// tswwww * twss twsss * tss www ***twwwioos aaaaah. MhI Puff the Magic Dragon brought joy to the hearts and minds of all the boys in the Valley. See this ship come in, and all the guys are humming: And now: “The smell of ganga in the air, Time For the Weekly Tupper-Ware Party Round about 15:00hours one of the guys from the river patrol gets out a “Tupperware” -fibre-glass patrol boat – and everyone is water skiing. The music is full blast Doors and there is no relief from the cerveca. When its not shooting , its high end beer and whiskey guzzling, pretty little whores and card games… Then after two or three sorties, they head out on their patrol boat to ski and we pop off a few Zulu grenades to try and knock their guy off his skis At the end of the afternoon we have to go out and repair any lines that might have been damaged and here we are floating out in the middle of the fukken river with the fukken enemy only about hundred meters away, smoking a joint of Malawi Gold or Chapter Five fixing marker buoy lines./ Next week end it will be their turn to fix lines for the border marker buoys. And tomorrow we will be shooting at each other. Firing commences at 08:00 and continues till 17:00. Just like a real job. Except with guns and launchers. And you really can get fired. And come back… “Back In A Jiffy!” A tongue-in-cheek phrase often used by guys going out on bush patrol. The quaint old phrase took on a rather sinister aspect, due to the fact that the body bags that were supplied to the army were made under contract by the Jiffy Bag Company, which of course was manufacturing all the nice little sandwich bags, that we had taken lunch to school in....”We’ll be back in a jiffy!” A throw-a-way line uttered with complete nonchalance, often by men who had only a day or so before been loading body bags containing their comrades, onto a Med-Evac cruiser or a Gunship.
Stone me. Rock me. Never leave me ‘Sept you Fok me… Shorter of breath and closer to death… So now I am out here deep unnnerground. Looks like stars and sky. But that’s all I ever see. I learned from a harder mistress than any of you. I learned by loving the One I have only imagined… I recall lifting off that green floral dress with trembling hands, my face aginst your young breasts (or was it your pale pink nightie) – with my mouth kissing your belly button. I cant remember…No thought control here. Drop to nap of the earth……tracking… “hunter tracker is on line, three thousand meters. Ten seconds to glide path. Gentlemen, we will be landing under fire. Do be careful. I expect kills… you will come back and you WILL be accountable. Stations…! Just Fire…
There's a little ivied ruin whose walls are crumbling low, Lt. Gen. William F. Butler. G.C.B “We are the Best – Kill the Rest!”
"Air Mobile" in 1972 was the call sign for Allouette ZWVQ 122nd B Company - 3 Air Supply Platoon Rhodesia Army Services Corps Out of King George VI Barracks Stationed at Cranbourne Airfield Salisbury - Rhodesia
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