First In, Last Out

Combat Controllers
First In, Last Out

by Capt Ken Kashiwahara
Tan Son Nhut AB, Vietnam
November 1968

Combat Controllers TSgt Mort Freedman and Sgt Jim Lundie, And their airlift mission commander, Maj John Gallagher, lay in a ditch along what was left of the Kham Duc runway. Sweat poured from their dirt-caked bodies and etched tiny rivers of grime down their beard-stubbled faces. Their flak vests and steel helmets provided protection on the outside but kept the heat on the inside swirling into a built-in steam bath. They had been this way for three days. There was no hint of the typical, spit-and-polish, Combat Control image. No starched fatigues topped with a blue beret nattily cocked to one side. Not that it mattered now.

They squinted hard into the glare of the Vietnam day, searching for some sign, any sign, of a rescuer who would pluck them from this nightmare.

Kham Duc. Until a week earlier, it had been just one of many Special Forces camps dotting the Vietnamese countryside. Now it was destined to capture the attention of the entire country.

For two days, the two combat controllers had labored under a fierce barrage of enemy mortar fire, directing Air Force C-130 'Hercules', C-123 'Providers', C-7 'Caribous' and even Army helicopters into and out of the airstrip. Their MRC-108 radio jeep had been peppered by deadly mortar shrapnel, and had almost taken a direct hit. The jeep trailer was completely destroyed. During the attacks they had dragged wounded from exposed areas to cover, where they could give first aid. They had even directed fighter strikes on enemy positions around the perimeter until an airborne forward air controller (FAC) arrived.

It was now coming to a foreboding climax. They had come close to death during the past two days. Now, they thought, their time had indeed come. Earlier that afternoon, the entire camp had been evacuated in one of the most harrowing and spectacular airlifts ever carried out. One C-130 was hit by ground fire on landing. It lay crumpled on the side of the runway. The runway and camp were strewn with the wreckage of helicopters, bulldozers, vehicles and other aircraft.

Now the relative silence was deathly. Gone were the sounds of aircraft landing and taking off. Gone was the evacuees' high-pitched banter as they waited to be picked up. The combat control radio jeep had been destroyed in preparation for a quick air evacuation. The survival radio was out. Everything was gone. Everything, that is, except the three Americans. And the North Vietnamese soldiers who were closing in around the camp. The three men could see the figures darting back and forth between gun emplacements, waiting for the order to charge down and take the camp.

It was normal for the combat controllers to be the last out of a camp. They were always the "first in, last out", according to their unofficial motto. But where was that last plane? The one that was to take them out? Have they left us? Have we been forgotten? Despair quickly answered their question.

The sound of airplane engines ("the greatest sound in the world") snapped them back to reality. A C-123 swooped in low and touched down. The combat controllers sprang to their feet and made a dash to the taxiing plane. Enemy automatic weapons blazed away. Tracers lighted a deadly path toward the moving plane. Mortar rounds were landing all around the aircraft.

The plane picked up speed. It wasn't stopping!

Lundie and Freedman yelled at the tops of their voices, but it was to no one. Their pleas were lost in the thunderous roar of the engines and jet boosters. "They didn't see us. They didn't see us," cursed Lundie.

NVA tracer bullets from machine gun emplacements at the end of the runway followed the C-123 as it climbed out of range. Quickly the enemy gunners pivoted back down on the runway where the three lonely figures stood, their hopes of rescue now dashed. And just as quickly, the controllers bolted for the relative safety of the ditch, firing their M-16s from the hip as they ran, silencing at least one of the guns.


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