It was not Hawaii as mainlanders imagined it. Kahoolawe was a pockmark on the face of paradise--the home of Kanaloa, Brother Death. As we approached from Maui over the Alalakeiki Channel, the island eroded before our eyes. A brick red plume streamed off the top of Mount Lua Makika, iron oxide dust offered to the skies of the Pacific, a ghost of the eruptions that the volcano could no longer disgorge. Steep cliffs sheared off the eastern shore. Dramatic ravines cut the central highland, giving way in the west to an undulating peninsula fringed by tide pools, beaches, and rocky islets. It looked lifeless and stark--even the scattered masses that I knew to be vegetation seemed nothing more than blemishes on a cracked mound of clay.
I pressed my camera lens against the chopper window, trying to avoid the grease and dirt, and pressed the shutter release. "Ka-ho-o-LAH-vay," I said to myself. Like most of the place names in the islands, this one warped the lips of anyone accustomed to Indo-European languages. Sometimes I thought my tongue would go spastic.
The noise of the chopper rattled on, constant and inescapable. I scooted between cartons of C rations and shifted twice, trying to find that magic place that didn't make dents in my flesh or vibrate it off my bones. The dust motes danced.
The doors bugged me. In Vietnam, Hueys hardly ever had doors--at least, not ones that were shut. Three times I'd flown open as a tin can over green waves of jungle, sphincters clenched, knowing that nothing but atmosphere separated me from hillsides where the last slick through had taken unfriendly fire. Seems like after that I should've been glad for doors in choppers, but all I could remember was how blissful it felt when we touched down and nothing stood between me and the safe, firm ground. One small window couldn't banish the perpetual suspicion that somehow that jungle still yawned below, waiting to swallow me.
Just keep those eyes open, I told myself. Those combat flights belonged to the past. Now my vision was filled with fuselage, cargo, and two grunts in freshly laundered fatigues. This was Hawaii. Helicopters needed doors here. Without them, Kahoolawe's winds would have blown us out in the first three minutes. The trades. Set out a sail and you'd end up in Tahiti, three thousand miles due south.
Beside me, Potter's face alternated between chalkish white and pale green. I could just picture hot, cheesy puke rolling around under my boots, the smell quadrupling in the enclosed space. Nothing brings up my own stomach like the odor when somebody else loses it, just like a school bus chain reaction. I took another hit off my joint: preventive measure.
Potter had one of those baby faces that made you wonder if he had really been old enough when the Marine Corps nabbed his ass. Beard too wispy to fight a razor, he looked exactly like a pimply, scrotum-head recruit. In actual fact, he was a lance corporal. Potter thought being an E-3 made him a man. He wouldn't admit the ride was getting to him. I'd given him some dimenhydrinate earlier, and practically had to open his jaws myself to get him to take it.
"We're almost there," I told him, voice constrained as I tried to keep in the marijuana. The racket drowned me out. I held out the joint to him.
He shook his head. Automatic gesture. Get thee behind me, Satan.
Jones accepted, though, reaching across Potter's lap. He toked once and transferred the remains to his roach clip. We shared a knowing smile. When Potter glanced at me I pretended I was tracking a butterfly up out of sight. Jones was one of the better breaks about this trip. He had been with me on three of my previous excursions. He was big and black, with lips like Mick Jagger's--sheer joy to watch him suck a reefer--and looked just as ugly, dumb, and mean as you'd expect of a Marines Corps private, but once you caught the twinkle in his eyes you knew that was camouflage. He'd been around. Dumb he wasn't.
It was my sixth trip. The others had been weekenders, mostly routine training runs for the pilots out of Kaneohe Marine Corps Air Station. This time we had ships coming through. The other corpsmen at the base hospital felt sorry for me--no Hawaiian pussy to chase during off-duty hours, no bars, no television. I was laughing behind my teeth the whole time. Kahoolawe was a whole different trip; a man couldn't beg, borrow, or steal the same experiences on Oahu.
We were part of an ANGLCO squad. Air and Naval Gunfire Liaison Company. Kahoolawe was one of the USA's biggest target ranges. Sooner or later, the gun crew on every ship headed for Vietnam, and every pilot stationed in the islands or on an aircraft carrier, had to put a piece of this rock in their sights. Every year ships went out with one-third of their men barely out of basic training camp; every year pilots had to be re-certified. No one who handled the big stuff wanted a virgin next to him going into a war zone; this was where the boys lost their cherries. Kahoolawe was forty-five square miles of clay pigeon.
Anglco's coordinate the bombing, shelling, and strafing of target ranges. The teams sent to Kahoolawe typically numbered five or six. There were nine of us this time. The added personnel were trainees learning how to be forward observers. The regulars included the head FO, one or two shit-detail men, a corpsman or medic like me, and the bomb disposal people.
That was the official story. It's true we had work to do. But the work didn't last forever. I was churning out the hormones so fast the joint didn't even cool me out. Vacation time. Disneyland.
Even Jones didn't know the half of it. I would have committed murder to be included on a trip to Kahoolawe.
Jones leaned over until his face settled next to Potter's. The lance corporal didn't notice at first. He was too busy watching a loose rivet in the fuselage--as if, by staring hard enough, he could repair the seam. Jones hung there, smiling, teeth wide and brilliantly white, like a beast of prey waiting at its leisure for the moment to pounce. Finally Potter turned. Their eyes locked. Jones just smiled. Suddenly, violently, Potter pushed him away.
"Get outta here, Jones!" he yelled.
Jones laughed. So did I. This was one of those times when I could see through his façade. Jones could play it to the hilt, complete with black grammar and jive. On our first trip I'd been convinced he was nothing more than a Peter Pan lost boy who refused to grow up. But he always knew more than he let on. He'd given Potter exactly what was needed--the kid was so red in the face, he'd forgotten to be nauseated.
The whine of the engine changed pitch. "What's that?" Potter shouted.
"Get ready," I yelled back. "We're going in." We grabbed for handholds as we hit hard air.
Potter craned his head to see out a window. "Where's the tarmac?"
"Ain't any," I answered.
"Where are we supposed to land?"
I ignored the question. The floor suddenly fell out from under us. The rear of the Huey banged against something solid. Through the little door to the cockpit I saw the senior pilot jabbering instructions to his partner. We rose again, tilted at an odd angle. Out the window, we caught glimpses of hillsides and of grit propelled by the Huey's backwash. My knuckles whitened where I gripped the safety strap. Jones laughed like a son of a bitch.
We dropped more smoothly and came to a relative halt, though the chopper's rotors beat furiously and the whole craft shuddered with each gust of wind. Irregular thuds, some not so gentle, continued to come from the rear. The floor remained slanted, tail section low.
"Okay!" Jones shouted.
He grabbed the handle of one door; I got the other. We slid them back simultaneously, opening both sides of the Huey. Dust enveloped us and vanished, sucked out by the rotors. The ground below romped chaotically. The fuselage teetered. I knew that from the cockpit, all the pilots could see was a white-out.
"Throw this shit out!" I yelled at Potter, and began tossing out packs, cartons, blankets--whatever I could get my hands on. Jones did the same on the other side. Potter shied away from the opening, but managed to hand a few things to me. A gust nearly knocked me down. One glance at the rippling landscape underneath me--only a few feet down, but threatening nonetheless--and I remembered why I wanted out of this fucker.
"Hey, Short! Help me with this!" Jones called. We had cleared all the cargo except the three fifty-five gallon drums. Potter and I moved to help him.
"Easy, easy," Jones said as we maneuvered the first one to the opening. We weren't cautious for the sake of the drum; it had to be dropped like everything else. We just needed to make sure we weren't in the way when it went. We set it on its side and pushed. The other two went even faster.
The chopper was empty. We started rising.
"Where're we going?" Potter demanded.
I didn't answer. We flew clear of the shit we had just dumped, and came down again over a broad area of open ground. Churned, the surface lacked solidity.
"Jump," I told Potter.
"But--"
I didn't bother arguing with him. I just pushed. As soon as I could be sure where he was going to end up, I followed. The earth, uncompromisingly hard under its blanket of dust, met me sharply. Instantly filthy, I spat out grit, tried to keep more of the same out of my eyes. The backwash whipped my clothes until I thought it would raise bruises, bathing me in the sweet kerosene smell of turbine exhaust. In a few seconds, but seeming much longer, the chopper noise faded to a more tolerable, more distant klap-klap-klap.
The landing zone was a raked circle of dirt, marked by white-washed chunks of rock. A road led off across stark, dry hills toward the tiny base camp. The land met the ocean a few hundred yards to the west. This was it. LZ Kahoolawe. Follow the yellow lines to the baggage claim area, please.
The next chopper came in. We headed for cover. Moderately protected by the drums and cartons we'd brought, I showed Potter why our landing had been so unorthodox. The second Huey settled in as ours had, at an angle, forward end high. It couldn't land. The winds and the improper surface made it almost impossible to get the machines in the air again should they sacrifice their lift. With the tail section a few inches off the ground, the pilot had to hold the chopper steady by banking against the wind. It was a good trick. They didn't send Mickey Mouse pilots to Kahoolawe.
This guy was hot. Must have been just back from his tour. He laid her down on the first try, and kept her there. We watched a repeat performance of our own show. It took surprisingly little time. The choppers weren't heavily loaded. The base camp, though uninhabited between trips, had an ample supply for most of our needs. We had brought mainly what we required for the next two weeks: drinking water, C rations, personal items, a mortar, and some ordnance disposal stuff.
The three passengers bailed out, ducked low in respect of the blades, and ran toward us. The third Huey came in immediately, as if to make up for being last, but didn't have nearly the luck of number two. The tail section bounced awkwardly on the LZ. Harassed by an obstinate series of gusts, the pilot rose, tried again, failed, tried again.
"Island spirit don' like de machine," Jones said sagely. "Bad voodoo."
Suddenly Potter pointed past the LZ. "Look at that!"
He'd spotted the goat. It was less than a hundred yards away, perched on a boulder, as old, scraggly, and beat-up as the brush that hid its bottom half. At first glance it passed for part of the shrubbery, motionless except when the breeze rustled its beard. It seemed to be watching the chopper.
"That's Old Billy," I said.
"Old Billy, he de welcomin' committee," Jones added.
Potter took another good look at the eyeless sockets and the stained horns that hung from the rock like a propitiatory offering. I don't know which ANGLCO had skinned the animal and left the hide and skull to guard the LZ, but the jokers had to have done it within the year. Another few months in the weather and the remains would have been so desiccated they would have blown away. Potter was so fascinated I think he would have walked up and stolen an ear if we hadn't been with him.
The third Huey successfully settled in; perhaps because the other pilot had taken the controls. The guys on the cargo deck played it smarter than we had. The first thing out was the heaviest: the mortar base plate. It dropped like a guillotine, landing on edge, cleaving the ground with such efficiency that it remained upright. The men stared for a moment, considering, no doubt, what might have happened if someone had been beneath it when it dropped.
As if the island were satisfied that its point had been made, the gusts slackened and steadied. The passengers hurriedly emptied their craft, surrounding the base plate in ammo and containers of drinking water. Then they jumped, too. We had arrived on Kahoolawe.
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