up from the “basketball” flares the Spooky is
dropping on the way in to our location. Like
Christmas, my birthday and 4th of July all rolled
into one. All right Godammit, we know now that
we’ll see the sunrise!

I can overhear the
conversation between the pilot and 6. I guess that
he’s an old LTC, who has been flying since WWII
but in any case, he knows his stuff. After
checking his night vision sights and IR sensors he
tells 6, with the practiced calm and laconic tone
of experienced pilots, “Well sir, it looks like
you boys have a bit of a problem down there. I
think I’m going to give you all three guns.” In a
typical fire support mission, Spooky fires only
one of his 7.62mm Gatling guns while cooling the
other two.

This is clearly a bad situation and
CPT Gibson agrees with the pilot, who verifies the
approximate size and location of our defensive
perimeter. He tells 6 to pass the word that
they’ll walk the fire 360’ around the perimeter