I wrote Marilyn a couple of times a week, and she returned the favor. She was still pretty mad at me, and I was starting to wonder about making the Army a career. At some point later in the Eighties the military was going to be seeing a lot more action, and one way or another, I was probably going to catch a piece of it. She was no longer threatening me with divorce, but it did seem likely this would be our last child, and I wouldn’t be getting any more chances to start another!
On October 12th Lieutenant Colonel Wilcox tracked me down in the commo bunker. He was the battalion commander of the 1st of the 505th. He had a shit-eating grin as he handed me a radiogram that came in through another route. Charles Robert Buckman weighed 7 lb. 14 oz. and was born at 0305 that morning. Mother and son were doing just fine. The final line read, ‘Divorce cancelled. Justifiable homicide being planned.’ It took me another 48 hours with the MARS guys, the Military Auxiliary Radio System civilian auxiliaries, to get a call into her. I think I was grinning for two days!
Two weeks later I got a heavy package mailed to me. Marilyn had sent down a bunch of photos and a long letter. It turned out that her mother flew down to spend a week with her, and the following week Suzie did another ‘seashore’ trip and visited. It was the first I could see of my new son, and it was very disconcerting! All along I had been planning on Parker being born all over again. He was a good boy, a son any father could be proud of, and I certainly was. This child wasn’t Parker! He didn’t look at all like him. I had just figured on calling him Charlie and thinking of him as Parker, but that just wasn’t the case. It was actually very depressing to realize that Parker was gone, a piece of my past totally lost. Alison had died, and now Parker was gone, too. So was Maggie. I was rejoicing over my new son and distraught over the loss of my other children. Very disconcerting! Were they alive somewhere or somewhen in a different timeline or alternate universe? I just didn’t know.
A month later we had our last exercise. Hawkins decided that we would do a combat drop in conjunction with the Hondurans and utilize their assets as well. Okay, I suppose that made sense. Fortunately, we weren’t going to drop the battery, but would land them on an improvised runway after the company of the 505th and the Hondurans secured a landing zone. Pretty routine stuff. The next day we would clean our gear and pack our bags and get ready to get the hell out of Dodge.
At least that was the way it started out.
The first inkling I had that things weren’t working out was when I got called into Lieutenant Colonel Wilcox’ office Monday morning, November 9. The brigade commander had flown to Washington the day before, and Wilcox had taken command. He was working out of a Quonset hut, and one of the parachute company captains was already in with him when I got there. It’s not as spit-and-polish in the field as it is back home, some I simply knocked on the colonel’s open door and said, “You called for me, sir?”
“Yeah, come on in, Doc.” He pointed at a chair next to the one occupied by Captain Bob Donovan, C Company, 1st of the 505th.
I sat down and said, “What’s up? You in on this, too, Bob?”
Donovan nodded, but it was Colonel Wilcox who answered. “You know Lieutenant Bulrush?”
It took me a second to think of who Bulrush was but it came to me. “FIST Chief with the 505th?” He was artillery, but attached to the infantry as the team leader of the attached 10 man Fire Support Team (FIST). “Yeah, I suppose. I’ve met him in passing but that’s about it. Why?”
Donovan answered, “He’s my FIST, and was supposed to drop with us in the exercise, but he just went off to the hospital with a hot appendix.”
I nodded at that. “Well, he won’t be dropping any time soon.”
The colonel nodded and then asked, “I need another forward observer for the exercise. You’re the arty boss. Who’s available?”
“What about the guys with the other two companies”? I was a little curious, since the FIST Staff Sergeant was normally second in command and would take over.
The colonel shrugged. “Already committed. Besides, I want an officer to go along, since we are doing this with the Hondos.”
Well, that didn’t leave me with a lot of choices. Every infantry company has an artillery observer element either embedded or designated, and they’re regularly trained artillery officers. The only other ones deployed were me and my lieutenants. I shrugged. “That leaves me and my boys.”
“I thought so,” agreed the colonel. “Make a choice.”
I grinned over at Donovan. “What the hell, why not! I’ll do it. Let’s see how Max handles the battery while I’m away.” I’d act as the forward observer. It was a job for a second john, not a battery commander, but Max needed to be able to handle the battery himself. If it was real combat, I’d sacrifice a second lieutenant and keep the battery myself. “This will be my last jump before I leave the division. Time for a break!”
“HOO-AH!” replied Lieutenant Colonel Wilcox, and Bob and I both laughed. He looked over at Captain Donovan and asked, “Anything else?”
“Nope.”
“Then get the hell out of here.”
Bob and I stood up and left. I followed him over to where C Company was billeted and went into his office/bunk, where we discussed the planned deployment. It was for Tuesday morning, the next day, and we were jumping from Honduran airplanes, while the Hondurans would jump from the C-130s we had deployed with. “The Hondos have Hercs?” I asked Bob. I hadn’t seen any C-130 Hercules around without US Air Force markings, but maybe they had some at another base.
“I guess. I haven’t seen any, but they must. Maybe they’ve got some C-123 Providers. They’re similar to the 130s but about two thirds the size. Same operational characteristics, though.”
“I guess we’ll find out tomorrow,” I replied. I headed out to tell Max and the battery sergeant the news that they were on their own. I wasn’t even going to help. I would tell them that I just died after my chute failed and they had to run the show. The battery first sergeant was fairly new, too. It was time to see how both of them shaped.
Well, we sure found out the next day! Mid morning a string of donated deuce-and-a-halfs showed up at the Quonset huts C Company had been assigned to. I had already made my way over to the company with my gear. Donovan and I curiously looked at the trucks, since it didn’t seem likely that they would be sufficient for the men and the gear. They weren’t. We loaded everything and everybody up anyway, and headed towards the far side of the field, where the Honduran Air Force was set up.
The plan was that the American Air Force would drop the Honduran paratroopers, and the Honduran Air Force would drop C Company. It was supposed to be a drop in the early afternoon, but things were moving very slowly. Now it looked like the late afternoon at best.
It went from bad to worse just about as soon as the trucks stopped. We came around the corner of a row of hangars and found our airplanes. No, the Honduran Air Force wasn’t operating C-130s. No, they weren’t operating C-123s. The pride of the Honduran air transport fleet was four gleaming C-47s! We must have given them these things right after the Second World War.
“Are they what I think they are?” I asked, staring at the vintage airplanes.
“They can’t be!” replied Donovan.
The men were all climbing off the trucks, and they were staring as much as we were. The company sergeant, a first sergeant, came up to us, and asked, “Is this for real, sir?”
“I devoutly hope not!” replied his captain.
“My father probably jumped out of one of these things into Normandy!” said the sergeant. His name was Hightower, and he was the oldest guy in the company, at 32. He actually had seen service in Viet Nam, as had Bob Donovan.