The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 161: Excess Baggage

Episode Date: June 23, 2020

A helicopter filled with evacuees tries to get off the ground as the shooting intensifies.  What could possibly go wrong?  

The ocean delights us as playful otters restore coastal kelp forests. The ocean teaches us how our choices impact even the deepest places. The ocean connects us. Visit Monterey Bay Aquarium.org slash connects. This is the way I heard it. The war in Vietnam is coming to an end. America is a country in retreat. And once again, Lieutenant Colonel Gene Boyer is strapped into a helicopter getting shot at.

Pop, pop, pop. It never sounds like it does in the movies, Gene thinks, and he would know, with two distinguished flying crosses, a bronze star, and a Legion of Merit, Gene Boyer is the personification of courage under fire. But this flight is different. This time, victory is not an option as the whole country looks on, watching in disbelief as the evacuees crowd into the back of his V3C king. Pop. Pop, pop. Off to the side, Jane can see the morning sun gleaming off the barrels as the shooters reload. Behind him, more people climb into the big bird.

Some weep and Jean feels their pain. They're leaving home forever. Better than the alternative, but still, the tragedy of the moment is a palpable thing. So, too, is the plight of those about to be left behind, because this is the last flight out, the final piece of a full-blown retreat moments before a complete and total collapse. Pop, pop, pop. Jean keeps his eyes on the crew chief and waits for the wheels-up signal. He's distracted, however, not only by the shooting, but by the sight of one particular evacuee,

slowly climbing aboard. This man doesn't look beaten, nor does he appear resigned. In fact, this man turns to face his enemies, raises both arms, and extends the middle fingers of each hand in a defiant gesture that needs no translation then or now. Pop, pop, pop. Gene is impressed the balls on this guy to stand there in the line of fire, smiling, no less, daring his enemies to take their best shot. Incredible. Finally, the last evacuee enters the overloaded helicopter. The crew chief gives the wheels-up signal, and Gene Boyer waste no time.

He pulls back on the stick, gently, and works the pedals at his feet. Slowly, the mighty beast begins to hover, and then lumber towards the tree line 100 yards away. But then something goes wrong. A sudden lurch, an unexpected spin, a terrible groaning sound that. makes Jean's heart skip a beat as the rear of the chopper dips back toward the ground. Too much baggage, yells Jean. Too much goddamn baggage. Unbeknownst to Jean, the evacuees had come out early that morning and loaded their possessions into his cargo hold. Too many possessions, as it turns out. Now it's Jean who's in danger of flipping the bird. But Lieutenant Colonel Jean Boyer

does not panic. He simply does what he's done countless times over the battlefields of Korea and Vietnam. He pulls back on the controls and shifts thrust to the rear. The groaning intensifies and the airframe shudders, but slowly the big bird begins to right itself as the evacuees sit silently behind him white with fear. A hundred yards up in the air, Jean can no longer hear the shots, but down on the ground, he can see the late morning sun glinting off the barrels, the barrels of their many lenses. There's Bob Schiefer from CBS, pop. Bill Pierce from Life magazine, pop, pop, even a young Annie Leibowitz from Rolling Stone, pop, pop, pop, cameras. They never sound like they do in the movies, and they rarely capture the truth of the moment.

not the whole truth anyway, because if you look back at the many photographs taken on that fateful morning, you won't find any photographic evidence of that terrifying near-miss. And if you listen to the sound on the video, you won't hear the dreadful groaning that followed the takeoff on that historic flight. Thanks to Gene's skill in the cockpit, history has forgotten just how close that final flight came to ending a disaster. disaster, and just how close the country came to enduring another national embarrassment. What we remember instead is that one final gesture captured for posterity on that fateful day in countless photographs. Pop-pop, you know the gesture.

Arms outstretched, middle fingers extended, tall, and proud, right next to the index fingers which were also extended and splayed alongside, a defiant gesture that needed no translation then or now. And so, with a double V for victory, Gene Boyer's notorious passenger told his enemies in the press corps precisely what he thought of them, before leaving the White House lawn for the last time, in the back of a V3C king, they called Army 1. The presidential helicopter, a very big bird, dangerously overloaded on that particular day with the weight of a doomed administration

and the excess baggage of Washington, D.C.,'s most famous evacuee. Richard Nixon. Anyway, that's the way I heard it. When you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters. But when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Granger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why Granger offers millions of products in fast-dependable delivery,

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