Word: gunship
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...Spectre gunship was in night combat over the Ho Chi Minh Trail in December 1972, when ground fire punctured its fuel line. The plane was limping back to base in Thailand when it exploded and plunged into the jungle about 25 miles northeast of Pakse, Laos. Two crewmen parachuted to safety, and a rescue helicopter recovered the partial remains of a third airman. That left 13 Americans on the plane presumed dead but designated as missing in action, a classification that encompasses 2,483 other Americans unaccounted for in Southeast Asia...
...Camino Real hotel in San Salvador, where most of them stay, the 200-odd foreign journalists in El Salvador daily swap stories of near misses and miraculous escapes. In one episode a photographer rolled under his car just in time to elude bullets blasting from a helicopter gunship overhead. In another, a van carrying an NBC crew had its windows blown out; the passengers got away unhurt save for cuts from flying glass. Such adventures are often recounted with black humor, and justified on the grounds of competitive pressure. Says one U.S. newsman: "If another network gets a story...
...fighting around the Guazapa volcano was observed firsthand by TIME Photographer Harry Mattison, the only journalist permitted to accompany the Salvadoran troops for three days during the fiercest combat. Mattison's account begins as he boards a helicopter gunship...
When we land, one of the wounded tries to disentangle himself from the limbs of the dead. A soldier in regular uniform starts throwing gear onto the ground, then the dead. The corpses are arranged around the gunship, one here, one over there, one face up, another face down. A medic leads the stowaway off. The crew still stands by the craft, but no one wishes to move or speak. It is a moment of shock and disgrace. I squeeze the pilot's shoulder. "You see," he says, "here there really is a war going...
...anecdotes may be composites from various sources. None of those interviewed is identified, though a glossary reacquaints us with the language of the war: busting caps for firing a weapon, cherry for inexperience, hooch for shelter, No. 10 for the worst, klick for kilometer, slick for helicopter, Spooky for gunship. Santoli's approach is more traditionally documentary, though both books reveal a deranging truth: memories of war's exhilarations often outlast the horrors and revulsions...