The World According to Opa

On a solo mission in Vietnam to observe the effect of a battalion FA (Field Artillery) TOT (time on target), I came as close to death as I ever want to come. I had navigated to what I thought was a safe distance from ground zero, but there were no landmarks or distant reference points available to me for resection to confirm my location. The area was covered for miles by a triple canopy of vegetation. As I orbited, listening to the battalion’s countdown for the first of four battery fire commands, it occurred to me that I was crazy to even be there. But hey… that was the mission.

The time of flight from the battalion’s first battery salvo was seconds away when I heard the second fire command, then the third and the fourth soon after. Barely a breath afterward, all hell started exploding around me, and it lasted for what seemed like several minutes. It was only seconds, actually, but I didn’t expect to live long enough to hear it end. Fortunately, I was several hundred feet above the trees and above the blasts, but I was close enough to them that I could see tree limbs blown up to my level and above. Most of the rounds had obviously detonated in the trees. Thank God one of them didn’t hit the aircraft on its way down.

There was no way that I could assess the mission’s effectiveness on the ground. But, if there had been enemy forces below, it would not have been a good day for them. It wasn’t a good day for me either. But my Loach and I escaped any damage. Maybe God had more planned for me to do.