MEYERS

Getting shot at was something one accepted as a matter of course when flying in Cambodia or Laos. For the NVA on the ground it was no secret as to what we were doing. We were looking for them. And I never suffered from the illusion that somehow I was invisible. It didn’t take me long to figure out a couple of simple truths. The 1500 foot rule was to be emphatically ignored. If I was going to and from my area of operations I flew a lot higher than 1500 feet! And if small arms were deemed ineffective at 1500 feet, so was my ability to see through the jungle canopy. Between 750 and 500 feet worked a lot better for reconnaissance, and when I got shot at I knew that the Bird Dog could get down on the tree tops in a hurry, and staying down minimized my exposure. The only way you could get in trouble for being too low was if you took a hit from the top down. Charlie Liffick, known affectionately as Charles Le F—k during his tenure as a Head Hunter, had to do a rug dance in Major Deaton’s office (an almost weekly occurrence for Charlie) because he took a round through the top of the wing. This was shortly after Charlie took off right behind another Bird Dog; not shortly after, but a second or two after. I know I saw a big sign somewhere that said “No Formation Take-offs”. By the time he rotated home Charlie could do a pretty good imitation of Fred Astaire. I later learned through the Head Hunter grapevine that Charlie went on to fly for America West, an airline that spent its entire existence in and out of bankruptcy. When I found out that they let Charlie drive a 757 I understood why.

Charlie Liffick was fun-loving and irreverent. John Meyers was a nut log. He isn’t a nut log any more. He’s a Republican. But when we were in Vietnam he was a larger than life screwball, convinced back then of his complete invincibility, indestructibility, and immortality. He’s grown out of that; now he’s just infallible. Meyers was huge not only in stature but in every conceivable way. Kind of like a high risk, high reward golf shot. If he makes it, it’s historic. If he makes it…There was a bridge over the river that ran through Kontum City. We drove by it in Phil’s stolen jeep one day and John said in a very matter of fact tone that he intended to fly underneath it. As he said it he peered at me with his very oval, very dark eyes and his mouth in a demented grin. “Before I go home I’m flying under that bridge”. I looked at the bridge and did a quick calculation; he had about a foot of wingtip clearance on either side and the wheels would have to be skimming the water. And when he came out the other side he’d scare the hell out of the topless Montangard girls who were doing their laundry just down stream. What puzzles me now is that what he was planning didn’t surprise me. I didn’t grab him and challenge him with an “are you nuts?” rejoinder. Instead, I pondered the possibility of actually doing it. And if he did it maybe I’d have to do it too. Who was crazier?

I had to fly down to Holloway for something, decided to go into the Officer’s club for a real lunch and spied John sitting at the bar with what looked like a White Russian in front of him. It was actually Johnny Walker and milk. John thought he was getting an ulcer and figured that the milk would sooth his stomach. Right! Then he proceeded to tell me why his right hand was in a cast. Before I got to CCC John and another whacko E7 went low leveling along Highway 110 (the Ho Chi Minh trail) armed with a 30 caliber machine gun that the sergeant cradled on his lap. When they found a suitable target the sergeant propped the gun on the airplane’s window sill and opened fire. If they didn’t shoot the wingtip off, they came close. Time passed and the desire to augment the fire power of the Bird Dog was too powerful for John to ignore. Grenades, rockets, AR15 rounds were not enough. Meyers got his hands on an M79 grenade launcher and proceeded to cut down the barrel so that he could fire it with one hand. Like Chuck Connors in “The Rifleman”. And that’s what he did. He didn’t test-fire it. He “for-real” fired it. Had he test-fired it John would have experienced the recoil that the hitherto benign sounding pop gun generated. But not my Johnny. That would be like asking directions or admitting you’re lost. He aimed the sawed-off M79 out the Bird Dog’s window and squeezed off the first and only round he would ever fire with that thing. The recoil drove his hand up into the hinge that held the window open and smashed the bone from the knuckle of his thumb to his wrist. Thus the cast on his hand. But the airplane’s wing tips unconditionally surrendered that day.

I have had more contact with John over the years than anyone except for Arlie Deaton, our CO. I recognized right away that John’s take on life was just as skewed as mine; his went right and mine went left. Our common thread was that we could both quote entire paragraphs of Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 verbatim. What I loved then about John (and what I love now) is that he embraced life completely, was not afraid to try anything, and didn’t need anyone’s approval of what he did or said. John was and is his own man except when his wife Alvida says he isn’t. And, he knows all the lyrics to the “Ballad of Ira Hayes”. Unfortunately he taught the song to Deaton and a few others. When the daily evening fog of scotch enveloped the Dog House (our bar at Holloway), Ira Hayes would rise out of the mist in full throat. Really ugly…

John was e-mailing me regularly with Conservative Republican propaganda during the presidential election. I decided that instead of just replying to John I’d reply to everyone on his e-mail. This was a stroke of genius. I got hate mail from all kinds of people I had never met. I realized that aside from me, all of John’s recipients were in total agreement with him, which put “preaching to the choir” in a whole new light. I also realized that I was probably the only Liberal John knew, and therefore I had a solemn obligation to yank his chain at every opportunity. After an especially interesting missive from John’s niece, I called John on the phone and asked him if he ever worked. My question was greeted with a deep, slightly maniacal laugh. Nothing about him has changed in 39 years. Except that the older John has become, the better he was. If you ask him, he will tell you…