The clearing in the mangrove was so tiny, though, that the chopper couldn't land. Instead it hovered nearly 4 feet above the ground. Jim Stephens, a Charlie Company original drafted out of a poor family from Morro Bay, California, worked with several other 1st Platoon troopers to get Lieutenant Black aboard the medevac. As the men, mired in knee-deep mud, lifted Black onto the deck of the chopper, Stephens could feel Black's slick, warm blood coating his arms and hands; it even got into his eyes and obscured his vision. As he strained with Black's weight, Stephens wondered if the officer he admired so much from training was going to make it. Then the job was done; Black was aboard, followed by Danny Bailey. Hunt and Spain were able to climb aboard under their own power. The helicopter slowly rose out of sight, and just like that, the wounded were gone.
A few thousand yards away, just near enough for the explosions to be barely audible, 2nd Platoon under Jack Benedick continued its search pattern. Their morning had been much less eventful, with no Viet Cong in sight and no hints of traffic to be found anywhere. For 2nd Platoon April 9 was just another dreary day of slogging through the endless mud. In mid-afternoon the platoon reached another of the Rung Sat's limitless supply of small, nondescript rivers. In what had settled into a normal routine, Benedick swam across the 30-foot-wide stream and tied a rope to a mangrove tree on the far side. While Benedick was in the water, the other men busied themselves with blowing up air mattresses and getting their gear ready, while some stopped for a much-needed smoke. As usual, Willie McTear and Ron Schworer stood near the back of the group talking while they blew up their air mattresses. They would cross in the middle of the pack, flanked by some of the better swimmers, and pull themselves across hand-over-hand along the rope while floating on their air mattresses.
World History
