VLVL2 (15): "Death From Slightly Above"

[dedalus204 at comcast.net]

375.13:  But [Prairie] was already on her way, on into the trees till she reached a piece of the woods that she'd never seen, a small clearing inside a grove of Sitka spruce and alder, where she spread her bag and, enjoying the solitude, must've drifted off to sleep.  The beat of helicoper blades directly overhead woke her.  As she stared, down out of it, hooked by harness and cable to the mothership above, came Brock Vond, who looked just like he had on film.  For about a week Brock, whom his colleagues were calling 'Death From Slightly Above,' had been out travelling in a tight formation of three dead-black Huey slicks, up and down the terrain of Vineland nap-of-the-earth style, liable to pop up suddenly over a peaceful ridgeland or come screaming down the road after an innocent motorist, inside one meter of the exhaust pipe, Brock, in flak jacket and Vietnam boots, posing in the gun door with a flamethrower on his hip, as steep hillsides, thick with redwoods, the somber evergreen punctuated with bright flares of autumn yellow, went wheeling by just below, as the rotor blades tore ragged the tall columns of fog that rose from the valleys."


Sitka spruce

"The Sitka spruce is the tallest conifer in North America. It grows to an average height of between 55 and 80 metres, and has an estimated life span of from 700 to 800 years. [...]  Its high quality wood has been used in aircraft construction. During the Second World War, aircraft, including the famed Mosquito bomber, were made from Sitka spruce."

http://www.domtar.com/arbre/english/p_epsit.htm

http://www.cnr.vt.edu/dendro/dendrology/syllabus/Psitchensis.htm


Alder

[...] "The few species constituting the genus Alnus are shrubs or trees, seldom reaching a large size, and range from Japan through Asia, to the north of the Himalayas, throughout Europe, North Africa, and North America, and along the Andes into Chili; and one representative of the group is confined to the Old World. Its distinctive feature is its leaves, which are roundish, with a wedge-shaped base, a wavy and slightly-toothed margin, and a short stalk, whilst they are hairy and glutinous when young--whence the specific name, A. glutinosa--and glossily dark olive green on both surfaces later on."

http://www.2020site.org/trees/alder.html


Huey helicopter

"The most widely used military helicopter, the Bell UH-1 series Iroquois, better known as the "Huey", began arriving in Vietnam in 1963. Before the end of the conflict, more than 5,000 of these versatile aircraft were introduced into Southeast Asia. "Hueys" were used for MedEvac, command and control, and air assault; to transport personnel and materiel; and as gun ships. Considered to be the most widely used helicopter in the world, with more than 9,000 produced from the 1950s to the present, the Huey is flown today by about 40 countries."

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/uh-1.htm


By the way, I love the juxtaposition of "war" and "peace" images in this section.  Amusing.