Word: gunship
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...hastily-built bureaucratic contraption within which the warrior must eke out a petty and sadistic existence profiteering promotions, medals, and love-making. Wry but bitter, Sloan's hero constantly visits the base's dentist while worrying about continual gonorrhea, and enjoys pissing into the flak around his helicopter gunship. Amid the war's psychic viciousness the hero maintains his uneasy sanity by means of his crudely cynical opportunism and angry mischief...
Only for an interim period, ending perhaps in 1973, will American pilots continue to fly B-52, fighter-bomber and C-130 gunship sorties over the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Once these sorties cease, so will U.S. air losses. With further troop withdrawals in 1973, the U.S. may lose no more than a couple of men a month on the average, though enemy terrorists could well inflict heavy casualties in isolated attacks...
...countryside, the guerrillas' "fish-in-water" base. People were warned by leaflets or loudspeakers to leave; all those remaining were presumed to be enemies and subject to attack in "free-fire" zones. Air raids, artillery shelling and chemical crop destruction ensued. There followed search-and-destroy infantry sweeps, including gunship bombing and "Zippo" burning of villages from which troops had received sniper fire...
Mission Accomplished. In mid-afternoon the first chopper, a Cobra gunship, swinging low to check the landing zone, came under heavy fire from the ground. It tried to roll out, but nosed into the jungle and exploded. The second, a Huey troop carrier, managed to land and evacuate 17 men. The third was hit by machine-gun fire and crashed. Two hours later, two more helicopters landed and rescued the downed chopper's crew and the last ARVN troops...
...units like the 101st, they decorate their machines like so many jalopies-or minibuses. Wicked-looking to begin with, Cobras are even more fearsome when shark's teeth, skulls or lightning bolts are painted on them. And naturally, there are names. One Huey sports THE GRIM REAPER. A gunship is emblazoned with KILLING IS OUR BUSINESS AND BUSINESS is GOOD. Then there is the black pilot, possibly mythical, who flies a UH-1 named-what else?-FREE HUEY...