Midnight Requisition

‘Hey, you guys,’ called the Rattler Operations officer from the flight-line operations hootch. ‘Division (AMERICAL Division) is rationing your rockets. Better watch how many you shoot and be careful not to use’em all up, don’t know when we’ll be getting more,’ were his final comments as we walked out the door. ‘Just great, how in the world are we supposed to fight without rockets!’ I thought. A quick inventory of the Firebird flight line CONEX didn’t offer much hope – available rockets were dwindling and conserving rockets was something we had never dealt with before. Hey, this is supposed to be a shooting war – but without rockets, what are we going to shoot?

Back in the Rattler company area that evening the Firebirds were still griping about not having unlimited supplies of rockets. After evening chow, we headed back to the Firebird’s party room for an evening of Budweiser entertainment with a visit from Jack Daniels and his friends. The evening wore on into late night when all things imaginable are dreamt into possibility. The dream rolled on the road to reality when Jack Daniels said, ‘let’s go to the ASP (ammo supply point) and get some rockets!’ A loud cheer erupted from the group of late-night revelers, ‘Yeah let’s do it! – But WHO is gonna do it?’ As one with a sometimes-sinister mind I said, ‘I’ll DO IT!’ More cheering and encouragement from Jack Daniels’ and his pals.

‘OK,’ ‘How are we going to do this and who will go with me?’ Our Firebird platoon ammo officer said we needed the proper ‘paperwork’ to get anything out of the ASP (ammo supply point aka the ammo dump). ‘OK’ I said, ‘Where do we get the paperwork?’ ‘From the orderly room’ came the reply. I trudge off with our ammo officer Kelly McHugh to the orderly room where we locate the requisition forms with the required information and DODACs (Department of Defense Ammunition Codes). The overnight staff duty officer and sergeant manning the orderly room are thinking ‘these guys are drunk Firebirds, and some things are better left unasked’ (especially when dealing with the ‘Birds’ in their usual nighttime euphoria). Paperwork done – almost ready to go.

Back at the Firebird’s party room my fellow Firebird ’97 – Kelly McHugh and I are ready for the humanitarian wartime mission to resupply Firebird firepower. As we devise the scheme someone says, ‘Hey, you guys are officers – you can’t go dressed like that! No one would believe two officers showing up at the ASP after midnight to get a load of rockets.’ No problem – we’ll wear shirts from our crewmen and be Spec Fours (Specialist Fourth Class rank) – that’s (un) believable. A couple of the guys give us their shirts and just for the heck of it, their military ID cards (as if a gate guard is really going to believe this!).

Now we need a truck. No problem. Kelly and I head to the company motor pool, locate the Firebird’s assigned Deuce and a half (2-1/2 ton) truck and I start’er up. The Jack Daniel’s gang is cheering us on and wishing us well on our midnight sojourn to the inky depths of the Chu Lai ASP. Off we drive, Kelly, riding ‘shotgun’ and holding his clipboard of forms, is encouraging me to keep the Deuce and a half pointed properly down the roadway. Although Chu Lai is a large military base there are few roads – with the main road making a wide circuit around the base. It’s almost impossible to get lost because sooner or later the main road eventually leads back to any beginning. We soon reach the ASP turnoff. I grind the truck gears down as I make the turn into the ASP checkpoint. This will be the real test – two ‘pretend’ Spec Fours wearing Jack Daniels cologne using ID cards that hopefully in the surrounding darkness will allow them entry into the explosive’s capitol of Chu Lai.

The Chu Lai ASP is a huge place that stores ALL the ammunition used for every weapon from small arms up to and including 500, 1000, and 2,000-pound bombs. Every bullet, bomb, flare or hand grenade used, flown, or fired from a weapon in the Area of Operations is either bunkered or open stored between large earthen berms inside this ASP. Because is it so large the ASP is networked with its own roadways between ammo storage areas.

I stop the truck at the guarded ASP checkpoint. Kelly cautiously clanks open his door and climbs down to greet the guard. Kelly tells the guy we are here for an emergency load of rockets – ‘We need them immediately!’ he says. The guard checks the documents, asks Kelly for our unit designation, wants to see his ID, etc. The guard goes inside his small checkpoint shack and after a few short minutes a heavy-duty forklift roars up to us in the dark. ‘Hey, you guys! Follow me’ the forklift driver tells us. Well, neither Kelly nor I believe this one! We have just bluffed our way into the Chu Lai ASP in the middle of the night.

Off we go into the ASP following the lights from the forklift through the maze of roadways. We stop in front of a large open area surrounded on three sides by high-walled earthen berms. ‘Back it up in here’ calls the forklift driver. I push the truck into reverse gear and Kelly guides me backward into the storage pit. I hop out, we drop the back truck gate, and the loading begins. Quickly, one/two/three/four full pallet loads of 2.75” rockets are placed aboard the deuce and a half. Kelly and I wait nervously for the loading to finish. ‘OK you guys, that’s all. See ya,’ yells the forklift driver as he speeds off further inside the darkened ASP. Wasting no time, we hop into the truck, I engage first gear and in a few minutes’ drive past the checkpoint and out of the ASP.

We arrived at the Firebird flightline after a short drive from the ASP and phoned the Firebird hootch from the Operations office to deliver the good news. After a few more minutes several of the guys arrive at the flightline to help off-load the truck. Everyone was laughing and enjoying themselves over the prank that Kelly and I had gotten away with. No one would ever have believed this! But, yet we did it and got away to boot. No one ever questioned us, no calls from ‘high headquarters’ about ‘missing midnight inventory’ or anything else. Next morning, we built up and stored the four pallet loads of rockets. The Firebirds were once again ready for war!

(c) Copyright – 2023 Vic Bandini