Ron Luikart

Ron retired from Jackson High School in 2002 after 31 years and is currently an instructor at Stark State College and Kent State University. He and his wife Laura have two married children who reside in Ashland, Ohio and Chicago, Illinois. He was in the U.S. Navy from 1963 to 1967 where in 1965 he spent nine months in Viet Nam.

It Was One of Those Days
2010 Winner, March

The Huey Charley was riding in dove for the landing zone like a hawk after its next meal. He hung onto the door frame with a death grip sure that the chopper was going to auger in. But, at the last minute, the pilot pulled up on the cyclic. The Huey flared and came to a hover, the skids just five feet from the ground and the down wash from the rotors flattening the tall grass of the LZ. Instantly pinging sounds echoed through the cabin, and the craft began to shudder. The door gunner opened up with his M60 and sprayed a nearby tree line. Charley was momentarily disoriented. He looked at his squad. Some had their eyes closed. Others were praying. The newly arrived FNG was crying. Hell, the kid was only nineteen. Maybe. Why shouldn’t he cry? Charlie felt like crying himself, but he was their lieutenant, and he couldn’t. Not now, anyway. More pinging sounds shook the craft. The door gunner brought Charlie back to the real situation.

“Get the hell off this craft! Ya think this is a damned sight-seeing tour!”

Charlie looked at the ground. The Huey was starting to move forward, readying itself for flight.

“Come on guys!” Charlie shouted. “Time to bail!”

His squad jumped out of the open doors leaving Charlie as the last man out. He slapped the door gunner on the shoulder.

“Thanks for the lift!” he shouted into the gunner’s ear.

“Go to hell!” the gunner shouted back as he hosed the tree line again.

As Charlie jumped, his heel caught on the skid of the Huey and threw him off balance. He landed hard on his back, knocking the air from his lungs. As he lay there struggling to breathe, he watched the olive drab chopper rise into a deep blue sky. He wished he was on it. But, at that instant a rocket from the tree line impacted the tail of the craft and exploded. The orange explosion flipped the Huey upside down, and it fell to the ground on its roof and burst into an angry fireball.

“Lt! Lt!” shouted a voice above him. His eyes focused upon Murphy, his sergeant. “Get up! We gotta go!”

Charlie rolled onto all fours and took a deep breath and inhaled the damp, putrid smell of Viet Nam, and then he puked.

He then became aware of angry buzzing sounds, like bees flying past his helmet. Little fountains of dirt erupted around him.

“Come on Lt!” Murphy shouted. They got us zeroed in!”

Charlie jumped to his feet and sprinted across the open field with his men to a clump of trees just as mortar rounds began to fall on them like rain drops.

“Whump! Whump!”

The rounds exploded with teeth rattling concussions. A round landed close to one of his men and sent the solder cart wheeling through the air in slow motion like a rag doll.

“Damn,” Charlie thought. “Wonder who that was?”

Once inside the trees, the VC’s fire slackened.

“Whata we got?” Charlie shouted.

Murphy took a quick head count.

“Four missing!”

Charlie looked back to the open field and saw four bodies in the tall grass. Three of them were still moving.

“Stay still!” Charlie shouted at them. “We’ll come and get ya!”

Charlie checked his immediate location and saw that he was pretty well pinned down. Mortars still saturated the open areas, and machine gun rounds ripped through the trees, showing his men with twigs and small branches.

“Murph, get on the horn, and tell ‘em we need a couple of gunships on that tree line.”

In the meantime, they waited and hugged the ground. After about five or ten minutes, Charlie heard the thumping sound of the approaching helicopters. The choppers swooped in and hovered above his position. Rockets screamed from their pods, and the tree line mushroomed into a curtain of fire and explosions. M60 fire was added to the inferno. The Hueys departed quickly and a quietness settled onto the scene.

“Murph, take the guys and check the tree line. Send Nelson with me. Make sure he has his med bag.”

Charlie and the medic went back to the wounded and checked each one. Three of the men would survive their wounds. But, the fourth man was the FNG. The mortar round had done terrible damage, and Charlie hoped that he had died instantly, but it suddenly dawned upon him that he didn’t even the new guy’s name. He had only arrived yesterday, and there had not been enough time to get him squared away.

Then, Charley’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of another chopper coming in. He looked up. This one was bright and shiny. It touched down ten yards from where he was standing, and a Lieutenant Colonel in freshly pressed green fatigues climbed out and walked to where Charley stood.

“Fine job, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir.”

After a brief pause, the colonel said hesitantly, “But we’re pulling your squad out.”

“What?” Charley asked, somewhat confused.

“Yes, it’s been decided that we didn’t really need this piece of real estate after all.”

Charlie looked at his wounded and glanced at the still smoldering Huey. Anger built inside, and he took a step toward the colonel.

“You son of ..” he began.

“Easy, Lieutenant. Watch your words.”

Charley turned his focus upon the dead young soldier. A lump formed in his throat as he thought of the letter that he would have to write later. He didn’t even know this kid, or even knew where he was from. What could he say? Senseless words came to his mind.

“Dear Mr. and Mrs. So and so. I was your son’s Lieutenant. But, you know it was just one of those days.”

He stopped, and then he began to chuckle hysterically at the stupidity of it all. He dropped to his knees, buried his face in his hands and cried.

Second Chance
2010 Winner

Jason walked down the aisle of the airplane until he found his seat, J-13. He slid into his place glad that it was by a window behind the wings, so that he could see out. He glanced through the port-hole like window and saw the ground personnel scurrying about loading and readying the plane for its journey. He smiled. He was going home. He opened his backpack and took out his MP3 player, put on his earphones and began to listen to “A Trumpeter’s Lullaby”, his favorite relaxation tune. He leaned back in his seat, closed his eyes and began to reflect upon how he had gotten to this point.
The last several weeks or so had been really hellish. Getting laid off from his accounting job had been O.K. with him because it gave him more time to do what he really wanted, and that was to write. But, that hadn’t gone well either. Rejection notices and no responses to his query letters had not only frustrated him but had created tension between him and his wife. Bills piled up, creditors calling, and his wife’s hours at the local Wal Mart cut in half had turned tension into hostility until it simply exploded. One day while he was reading his latest rejection letter, his wife had stormed into his basement office and demanded that he get off his ass and do something productive. His frustration had caused him to say some vile things to her, and she had responded accordingly. Finally, she screamed, “Get the hell out!” So he did. He threw his cell phone and a few other things into his backpack, kicked over a lamp and left his five year old daughter cowering on the couch and his wife slamming the kitchen door behind him.

Just then, a slight commotion at the front of the plane caused Jason to open his eyes. Other passengers, along with two young men who he thought to be of Middle Easter descent, were boarding the plane. The two men were jabbering in a language that he didn’t understand, and they were each carrying a backpack. But, what caught his attention about them were their eyes. There was a hardness about them. One flashed a look of anger at an old lady who had dropped her cane in the aisle. The second man saw Jason looking at them and nodded and smiled. Jason returned the nod as they moved to the rear of the plane.

After they had passed, Jason closed his eyes again and went back to his thoughts. With some help from a long-distant truckers and a freight train he wound up in Newark, New Jersey, about as far East as he could get. But, it had been tough. No place to go and no place to stay. Panhandling and some petty thieving at grocery stores had fed him until a homeless man who had befriended him directed him to a mission run by a Catholic church where he could stay for a short time. His anger had disappeared. He had lost it while riding in a freightliner across West Virginia that was carrying strawberries into New Jersey. His pride, though, had been harder to deal with. But, one morning he woke up and looked at and smelled his dismal surroundings. In that moment he realized that the most important part of his life was slipping past, so he picked up his phone, took a deep breath, and dialed his home. His daughter answered.

“Hello,” he said.

“Daddy!” she screamed. “Are you comin’ home?”

“Yes,” he whispered. “Can I talk to mommy?”

Over the distant he heard his daughter call to his wife, “Mommy, it’s daddy, and he’s coming’ home!”

He spoke to his wife for a very long time. Between his sobs, he apologized for his words and for his actions. When he finally hung up, he felt like a great weight had been taken from him. The priest who ran the mission loaned him money for airfare upon his word that he would send a check back to the mission once he got home to San Francisco. Jason promised and swore upon a crucifix that he would.

The plane suddenly jerked, and Jason opened his eyes and saw that it was being pushed away from the terminal. So, here he was, looking at a fresh start. He smiled as the P.A. came on.

“Good morning,” a cheery voice said. “This is the captain. We’ll be departing Newark on time, turning West over Pennsylvania and arriving in San Francisco as scheduled.

Jason relaxed and felt happier than he had been for a long time.

“On behalf of the crew,” the captain continued, “we would like to welcome you aboard United Airlines Flight 93. We hope you enjoy your flight.”

Jason laughed out loud. He was going home.