Fourth and Forever Read online

  Fourth and Forever

  (a story of war, football, and love)

  Bert Carson

  To retain possession of the football, a team must advance it at least ten yards toward their opponent’s goal within four plays, or downs. If they succeed, they get a new series of four downs. If they fail to move ten yards in three plays, they face a fourth down. If the yards required for a first down are excessive, the team is facing a fourth and forever situation.

  Republic of South Vietnam – 1969

  From three thousand feet the jungle looks like an ocean: thousands of shades of green, moving in the wind, sparkling as they reflect the sunlight. At ground level, there is nothing about the jungle that reminds one of the sea. It is a damp, thick, moldy place, filled with strange noises, separated by long moments of absolute silence. The sunlight that dances on the canopy barely filters through to the ground. The light that does fall through is weak, shifting, and misleading.

  *******

  From beginning to end, jungle twilight lasts only minutes. It is light, and then it is dark. The shadows, long at noon, deepened and lengthened visibly, until they claimed the helicopter and the small clearing where it crouched, making it all put invisible from more than fifty feet. Josh and his crew watched the late afternoon light rapidly give way to total darkness. The earsplitting whine of the turbine turning the main rotor at flight idle canceled the invisibility offered by the gloom.

  Chief Warrant Officer, Josh Edwards, the twenty-one-year-old pilot-in-command, and Warrant Officer, James Browning, his twenty-year-old copilot, had their eyes focused on the edge of the jungle. Their heads moved, sometime in unison, sometime independently, as they scanned the tree line, searching for the Green Beret A-team they were there to extract.

  Eight feet behind Josh, Specialist 5 Bob McKinney, the crew chief, also gazed at the jungle’s edge. Bob’s stare was over the barrel of an M-60 machine gun. The M-60 swung with every movement of McKinney’s head. The crew chief and the machine gun were one.

  On the right side of the helicopter, eight feet behind James Browning, Specialist 4 Stephen Clancy, the door gunner, viewed the jungle over his machine gun. Clancy, garbed in a nomex flying suit, chicken plate, gauntleted gloves, boots, and flight helmet, was a carbon copy of McKinney.

  Josh, and his flight crew, had been in this position many times before, but that didn’t make it easier. They knew that two gunships were slowly circling the jungle, just out of sight, waiting to back them up. They also knew that no backup in the world would save them from a mortar or rocket or rapid assault from the blackness of the jungle.

  Their position was indefensible, yet they waited. They waited because they knew they were the only hope for the six-man Special Forces A-team, or what remained of them. They had inserted the team in this clearing less than twenty-four hours earlier. The team, half the size of a normal A-team, was on a routine recon sweep. They were scheduled for extraction 48 hours after insertion. Eighteen hours after leaving the team in the clearing, their headquarters picked up a faint garbled radio message. Only a few words were understandable: “AMBUSH, ….casualties, …pursuit, large force …. North Vietnamese Regulars….moving to the LZ now – …. Need immediate extraction...”

  The radio transmission, marked by the sound of mortars and light weapon fire, ended as quickly as it had begun. All efforts to reestablish contact with the A-team failed. 5th Special Forces Headquarters immediately requested an emergency extraction.

  ********

  Five shadowy figures suddenly separated from the jungle in front of the helicopter. As they began slowly moving toward the ship, all eyes on board the helicopter locked on them. Two of the Green Berets aided two others. A fifth man, clearly in a daze, shuffled slowly behind them. Josh could not see a single weapon among the five. They moved as if they were wading through waist deep water.

  As Josh watched the Green Berets struggle toward the chopper, he instinctively increased the engine revs. Over his headset, he heard Bob McKinney, “Sir, the team has pursuit, one hundred yards behind them, at ten o’clock.” Without asking or waiting for approval Bob added, “Clancy and I will give them a hand and some cover. Maybe we can speed this show up.” In seconds, McKinney and Clancy were out of the ship moving toward the A-team.

  McKinney, heading directly toward the North Vietnamese Regulars, a 200 round bandoleer of ammunition around his neck and his twenty pound M-60 machine gun grasped easily in his right hand, like a kid with a BB gun. He passed the Green Berets without slowing. Clancy grasped the fifth man about the shoulders and began helping him toward the chopper as he urged the other four to move faster. Even with Clancy’s aid, their progress was nightmarishly slow. In his headset, Josh heard Browning, the newest member of his team, pleading, “Come on, come on, come on, come on, JESUS!” His final word was almost lost in a mortar blast.

  The explosions, like a hound who has struck a faint but fresh trail, began to walk with purpose toward the Huey. From somewhere between the helicopter and the tree line, McKinney’s M-60 suddenly answered the mortar.

  The mortar rounds stopped exploding and Josh felt the ship rock as the A- team, with Clancy’s aid, pulled, pushed, and crawled on board. Then the mortar challenged again. This salvo was much nearer as the NVA redefined their range. Josh flinched and mentally urged Bob back to the ship. Again, the crew chief’s M-60 responded to the mortar. Tracer rounds revealed that McKinney, firing his machine gun from the hip, was now less than fifty yards in front of the screaming helicopter. Josh made the final power increase and began lifting the cyclic. The new power and slight change in rotor pitch lightened the helicopter on its skids and it rocked like a flag fluttering in a stiff breeze.

  In thirty seconds, each of which seemed like an hour, Josh heard Bob’s voice in his headset, “We’ve got them all on, Sir. Go! Go! Go!” Josh lifted the cyclic sharply and the ship jumped into the air like a startled quail. He heard two more mortar rounds explode in the clearing as they cleared the tree line. Over the intercom, Josh heard his crew chief, “Good timing, Sir. That last one definitely had our name on it. It hit right between our skid marks.”

  As the Huey rose out of the clearing, Josh saw tracers reaching up to them. He held his breath and brought all of his attention to flying the rocketing helicopter. On the distant edge of his focus, he heard McKinney and Clancy returning the ground fire. Suddenly Bob’s machine gun was silent. Josh thought, ‘his 60 must have jammed again.’ At that moment, he had his hands too full to comment.

  The ship careened out of the opening in the jungle, and roared through 1,500 feet. With the safety of altitude between him and the jungle floor, Josh breathed for the first time since taking off, then he keyed the intercom, “Hey, Bob, what happened? Did your favorite weapon jam again?” He smiled as he waited for McKinney’s sharp reply, knowing how much his veteran crew chief hated the M-60.

  After a moment, he realized that Bob had not responded to his dig. “Hey, Bob, can you hear me?” Again, the only sound was faint static and behind the static, the whine of the turbine. Josh addressed Clancy, “Clancy, check on Bob. There must be something wrong with his headset, or else he’s so mad at his ‘wonderful’ machine gun he isn’t talking to anyone.”

  “He’s probably asleep, Sir,” Clancy responded. There was laughter in his voice when he added, “That mission was pretty boring. I’ll just go wake him up.” Moments later, Clancy, the laughter gone from his voice, said in a near whisper, “Bob’s dead, Sir. He must have been hit as we pulled out of the LZ…”

  Josh didn’t say anything. Instead he clicked his transmit button twice to let Clancy know that he understood. As he guided the helicopter through the darkness toward the base camp, he cried. His tears blew into the deepening dar
kness, unnoticed in the dim red glow of the instrument panel.

  Bob McKinney’s mother once sent Josh a box of brownies. In the tin, she had included a note that read, in part, “…Bob thinks the world of you and I do to. He thinks it because you are a wonderful officer, a great pilot, and because you are his friend. I think it because you take care of my son…” Josh thought of that note as he once again found himself trying to explain the unexplainable to those who would never understand.

  Late that night, after he had written the letter to Bob’s parents, he wrote one to his wife, Kathy. He wrote to Kathy every day, no matter how many hours he flew or what happened during those hours, and every day Kathy wrote him. Though they were on opposite sides of the world their letters connected them, and neither of them would consider the day complete without writing.

  About the events of that day, Josh, simply wrote, “I lost Bob today. He only had a month left and he would have gone home. He was the best, Kathy, the very best. I don’t try to understand anymore, because I know that I never will.”

  Through Josh’s letters, Kathy felt that she knew Bob, Clancy, Browning, and at least half of the company. When she read, “I lost Bob today,” she cried. Then she remembered that Josh had once written that Bob’s mother had sent brownies and a note. She recalled the words of the note and with tears still clouding her vision she went to the kitchen, put Josh’s letter on the counter where she could touch it, and began preparing a batch of brownies for him.

  *******

  In Vietnam, death always flew with Josh Edwards. He lived with it and he kept flying, strengthened by his dream of leaving this land of war and darkness and flying in the sunlight and warmth of home.

  Chapter 1

  I fell in love with Kathy Sutton just before 8 A.M., on August 29, 1960. I was in the sixth grade and it was the first day of school in Valley Head, Alabama. I always walked to school the first day, though it was four miles and the school bus came right past our house. I did that to make sure I got a seat by the window. I was the first to arrive that day. In fact, I showed up before Mr. Skelton, the black, gray-haired custodian, who looked like a sage from King Arthur’s court. He smiled when he saw me sitting on the front steps. As he unlocked the door he said, “Well, Josh, it looks like you’ve done it again.”

  I grinned, and said, “Yes, sir, it sure does.”

  I was alone in the sixth grade classroom, admiring my window view, when Kathy showed up. One second I was sitting there, watching a fat squirrel work his way through the branches of the big oak tree outside my window and feeling proud of myself for getting the choice seat. The next, all of that was forgotten. I even forgot how to talk.

  Two steps through the door she stopped, surveyed the room, looked at me, smiled, and said, “I always come early the first day of school to make sure I get a seat by the window.” She paused, pointed toward the desk in front of mine and asked, “Is that one taken?”

  I suddenly realized that I was staring at her and my mouth was hanging open. I closed my mouth, swallowed, and managed to shake my head, which, thankfully, broke my stare. She smiled again and said, “Good.”

  In a moment, she was sliding gracefully into the desk directly in front of mine. She put her books under the seat, turned to me, stuck out her hand and said, “I’m Kathy Sutton. What’s your name?”

  I was lucky to get anything out of my mouth. What I did manage to say sounded like a single word, “HiI’mJoshgoodtomeetyou.”

  She giggled and said, “Josh, I just moved here from Dothan. That’s about 300 miles south of Valley Head and everybody in Dothan talks real slow …. Like …. this” she said in an exaggerated southern drawl.

  I laughed and she did too. Then I managed to say, “I’m Josh Edwards and it’s good to meet you, Kathy.”

  She grinned, “That’s good, Josh. I could understand every word.”

  Suddenly, kids from a bus that had just unloaded came pushing and shoving into the room. That was the last chance I had to talk to her until lunchtime.

  ******

  When the lunch bell rang, I told her that I’d show her the way to the cafeteria and then I added that I’d like to eat at her table if that was all right. She smiled and said, “I was hoping you would.” I was a goner from that point on. I don’t remember if I ate or not, though I have an idea I didn’t, because that evening at supper mother pointed out that she had never seen me so hungry.

  During lunch, Kathy told me that she and her parents were living with her uncle, Matthew Sutton, until they could find a house of their own. They just moved to Valley Head, from Dothan, where Kathy had lived all of her life. She said they’d still be there if the plant where her daddy had worked hadn’t closed. Matthew had gotten her daddy a job in a sock mill in FortPayne, about ten miles from Valley Head. She said her Daddy liked the work but he didn’t like living with his brother, Matthew, so she expected they’d be moving again soon.

  Without thinking I blurted out, “I sure hope you don’t move away from Valley Head.”

  She smiled and said, “Now that I’ve met you I feel the same way.”

  As I write about our first meeting, I realize that it sounds like nothing more than a couple of twelve-year-old kids pretending to be grown up, but it was more than that. A whole lot more than that and we both knew it. We just didn’t know how to say it, nor did we feel a need to.

  ********

  My dad owned the local hardware store. Every day after school, I worked there. That afternoon I told him about Matthew Sutton and his brother. I mentioned Kathy without making an issue of it, but somehow he knew it wasn’t a casual conversation. I asked him if he knew of a house the Suttons could move into, something close by. He thought about it for a minute or two and then said, “You know, Josh, I just might; yep I just might know of a place.”

  He turned toward his tiny office in the back of the store, calling out as he disappeared through the doorway, “You take care of the front and let me see what I can do.”

  I don’t know how long he was gone because as soon as he was out of sight the store magically filled with customers and I didn’t have time to think about it. Just as I finished checking out the last one, Daddy came back. “Well, I think your worries are over.”

  “What worries?” I asked, still believing that I’d fooled him.

  “You know, your worries about Kathy moving to FortPayne.”

  He looked at me closely, surprised that instead of denying it, I asked, “What did you do?”

  He explained that John Rankin, a longtime customer and the only realtor in Valley Head had been in that morning. As he was leaving, John told daddy that he had an empty rental house near the school and asked that daddy mention it to anyone who might be interested. Daddy said he had just called Mr. Rankin, confirmed the house was still available, and then he called Matthew Sutton. Mr. Sutton got Kathy’s dad on the phone and it looked like they were well on the way to having a place of their own, in Valley Head. I said “Thanks, Daddy,” and returned to my sweeping, putting my head down so he wouldn’t notice that I was blushing.

  The next morning Kathy was almost running when she came into the classroom, “You did it, Josh. You did it,” she said.

  I grinned as she continued, “It’s the greatest house and it’s only a block from the school.” She paused then hugged me, and my desk, since I was still sitting in it. I could feel myself blushing. It was the first time a girl had hugged me.

  She stepped back and said, “We’re moving in this weekend. Then I’ll be able to walk to town, the library, the drugstore and if it’s all right with you, I can even see you at the hardware store. Is it all right, Josh?”

  I managed to say, “Yes,” just as the bus kids came pouring into the room.

  ********

  ValleyHeadSchool included grades one through twelve, yet it had never had a total enrollment higher than five hundred. The school had everything the large county schools had, except a full sized football team. Because of its small enrollment,
Valley Head played 9-man football, and even then, it seldom was able to field more than seventeen men, so most of the players played both offense and defense. I would have loved to play football, but daddy needed me in the store after school, on Saturdays, and every day during the summer, so it just wasn’t possible.

  In the sixth grade, Kathy was 5’7” and I was 5’2”, but we never noticed that. Anyway, I caught up quick, and four years later I was 6’2” to Kathy’s 5’9”. Everyone said we were an impressive couple. All I knew was, Kathy was beautiful the first day I saw her and every day of her life she grew more so. She had pale green eyes and fine features, like a Barbie Doll. She was slender, blonde, and as graceful as a ballerina. Her smile, which she displayed often, was dazzling. She listened to everyone. She was always positive and she never failed to offer encouragement and support when needed. Kathy loved life and being with her was my greatest joy.

  From the day we met, we were each the center of one another’s life and I knew that I was the luckiest kid in the world. When we were seventeen years old and seniors, I asked her to marry me. She laughed and said, “Yes, I’ll marry you, you ninny. You knew that in the sixth grade,” and she kissed me.

  Neither of us wanted to go to college. Our sole objective was to marry and begin a family. Immediately after graduation, I took a job with a construction company that was building the section of interstate highway that would pass near Valley Head. I went to work at five every morning and was home at four every afternoon. After a quick shower, I went to work in the hardware store. Kathy worked in the bank five days a week, and on weekends, she worked at the drugstore. We opened a joint savings account and banked almost every dollar we earned.

  *********

  In 1966, the Selective Service drafted 400,000 men between the ages of 18 and 35. I was one of them. In late November, five months after my high school graduation, and one month past my eighteenth birthday, I received a letter from the local selective service board. That night Kathy and I talked until almost sunrise. The following day we invited our parents to meet us for lunch at The Tiger’s Inn, Valley Head’s only restaurant. We suspected they knew what the occasion was and we were right. We told them that we had two choices, marry immediately, or wait two years and that we had decided to marry immediately. The rest of our plan was that Kathy would remain at home in Valley Head and join me at the first opportunity.