The Incredible Hulk of Green Footprints

This from the Tennessee Center for Policy Research:

Energy Guzzled by Al Gore’s Home in Past Year Could Power 232 U.S. Homes for a Month Gore’s personal electricity consumption up 10%, despite “energy-efficient” home renovations

NASHVILLE - In the year since Al Gore took steps to make his home more energy-efficient, the former Vice President’s home energy use surged more than 10%, according to the Tennessee Center for Policy Research.

*snip*

In the past year, Gore’s home burned through 213,210 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity, enough to power 232 average American households for a month.

*snip*

After the Tennessee Center for Policy Research exposed Gore’s massive home energy use, the former Vice President scurried to make his home more energy-efficient. Despite adding solar panels, installing a geothermal system, replacing existing light bulbs with more efficient models, and overhauling the home’s windows and ductwork, Gore now consumes more electricity than before the “green” overhaul.

Since taking steps to make his home more environmentally-friendly last June, Gore devours an average of 17,768 kWh per month –1,638 kWh more energy per month than before the renovations – at a cost of $16,533. By comparison, the average American household consumes 11,040 kWh in an entire year, according to the Energy Information Administration.

*snip*

The Tennessee Center for Policy Research, a Nashville-based free market think tank and watchdog organization, obtained information about Gore’s home energy use through a public records request to the Nashville Electric Service.

Only a lefty can get away with this breathtaking hypocrisy. -Instapilot

H/T: The Blogfaddah

P.S. In Japan today (by way of Australia, the Philippines, Singapore and Hong Kong). First impressions--heated toilet seats are good. That said, there is something to be said about overdoing the morning constitutional experience.
There are four WARNINGS and two CAUTIONS listed inside the lid of my room's john. There are seven controls, including "Spray," "Stop," "Shower," "Bidet," Seat Temp-LOW," Seat Temp-HIGH," and "Deodorizer." There is also a flush handle. Found it after a momentary panic--"Damn, mebbe 'Shower' is a Japanese euphemism for 'flush'...ah, *whew* there it is."
The modern commode: like transistor radios, VCRs, DVD players and color TVs, the West invents it, the East perfects it.
So help me, I will never make fun of a Japanese tourist--I took pictures of my hotel crapper. -Instapilot

Castle Argghhh! American Gothic

[Kat]

So, there I was...some where in the hinterlands where people were bitterly clinging to their bibles and guns. Out past Ft. Leavenworth and the Leavenworth penitentiary where the signs helpfully advise "Do Not Pick Up Hitch Hikers!" It is unknown whether they meant potential escapees from the penitentiary or the base. It could even be referring to the locals.

Down a gravel road where city dwellers rarely go, past the outlying demesnes of lesser nobles and up on the hill to Castle Argghhh! LLC where the gun control folks and revenuers fear to tread. Signs in German point the way while one in English just past the Castle proclaims: 50 meters to the border. For Ry and me, the signs should have read:

Arbeit macht frei!

For What It's Worth...

...you've seen me give hat-tip credit for the atrocious puns and oddball jokes with which V29 and Doc E bombard me (thereby reinforcing my rep as a real stand-up, albeit strait-laced, individual) and you've "met" V29 via his semifrequent comments and the TINS Times Two we tag-teamed on a while back.

So, I figger it's time to introduce Doc E.

He's the guy on the left who forgot his sunblock. And, yes, he really *is* a doctor (even though he's never played one on TV), or, more precisely, he's now a *retired* doctor. But he prefers playing with his 'puter to playing with golf sticks -- he's a hi-tech hobbyist who's translated some of his pix from the Ol' Days into some YouTube vids, and I think you'll find his most recent effort a bit thought-provoking.

I'll link it after this caveat: although the pix and music are work-safe, there's a picture at the 6:35 mark you might want to view alone, or forego viewing altogether.

It's a shot of one of our cockpits after a typical day suddenly became a really bad one. The pilot was from my platoon.

It's a reminder that there's a price tag on freedom.

And so long as we would have freedom, there will be a price upon it, and so long as there is a price, there must be those willing to give what is asked, or we will no longer have freedom. Now transfer the image of that Huey cockpit to the interior of a Hummer or a sandbag checkpoint...

We're a fortunate people to have among us those who have given what was asked. We have the freedom for which they have paid -- and continue to pay.

It's only fair that we return them something in the way of repayment, isn't it?

Valour-IT: for what it's worth...

Carrying Coals to Newcastle. Or to the New Castle. Or...

...tossing lighter fluid on the coals.

Cassie got some mileage from her observations on the inequities -- and possible iniquities -- you can bump into when dealing with The System. Or, more properly, when dealing with the human beings who comprise The System. However, here's a li'l quirky option she didn't consider:

I was at semi-loose ends the first time I got out of the Army (October 1972 -- Stop that! You *know* I'm that old!), so I figured I'd use my GI Bill bennies to add a fixed-wing rating to my helicopter one. I trotted down to the county seat, popped into the courthouse and approached the kiosk with the big red-white-and-blue VA above it.

Me (producing copy of DD-214): "I just got out of the Army and I'd like to apply for my GI Bill benefits."

Kiosk Occupant: "Okay, you must be planning on starting high school in January, because the school year has already started."

Me: "*??* High school? Noooo, I've already got a BA -- I want to go to a flight school and get my fixed wing rating."

KO: "Well, if you've already got a college degree, you're going to have to wait -- we've got guys who haven't even been through high school. We're not committing funds for advanced degrees until we get everybody a high school diploma."

Me: "But I'm not looking for an advanced degree -- I want to go to a civilian flight school."

KO: "Same difference. We're not turning *any* money loose unless it's going for somebody's high school education."

Me: "Okay, so where does that put me on this educational waiting list?"

KO: "At the bottom."

Six months later (same kiosk occupant):

Me: "Hi, I'd like to check on GI Bill funding availability for a civilian flight school."

KO: "Nothing's available. We're not turning *any* money loose unless it's going for somebody's high school education."

One year later (still the same kiosk occupant):

Me: "Hi, I'd like to use my GI Bill to go to a civilian flight school."

KO: "You're out of luck, then. We're not turning *any* money loose unless it's going for somebody's high school education."

So, because I now had a job which had me working 60 hours a week (and on-call on weekends), I put off checking for a few years. Then I fell into a full-time job with the Guard and had even *less* spare time. When I finally got a breather and figured I now had the time to go after a fixed wing rating, I realized that I'd waited too long and had lost my eligibility.

The quirky li'l option I mentioned? Well, it seems the VA kiosk occupant wasn't even a fed from the Veterans' Administration. He was a New Jersey state employee from the Veterans' *Affairs* office and used to hang out in the -- unmanned -- Veterans' *Administration* kiosk. 'Nother words, he was somebody outside the system (or only involved at the periphery) who had a personal agenda.

Why? I'll never know -- he'd been fired a couple of years previously for cause...

...'way before I could get down there with a riot baton to beat the answer out of him.

TINS! Numbah Ten!

I smacked Real Life on the snoot and it hasn't come to -- yet.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Số mười, GI. And this one was definitely a Number 10 for the ground participants:

As you recall, the mission was a combat assault.

And if you don't recall, well, it was *still* a combat assault.

The Plan called for a five-ship insertion into the southeastern green quadrangle after the morning monsoon ended and, after the troops began moving westward into this neck of the U Minh, a second five-ship insertion would make an insertion into the quadrangle just west of the WR0 line. Those troops would move into the U Minh and take up blocking positions along the trail bordering the Rach Xen Bau canal -- when they were in position, the troops from the first insertion would re-orient and sweep towards them through the jungle, driving any VC they'd flushed toward the blockers. A heavy fire team of Copperheads would be patrolling between the shoreline and the trees on left flank security detail. After the action was over, everybody was supposed to procede to the western quadrangle for extraction. Sounds like a plan, right? But did I mention the jungle was the U Minh Forest?

Nasty place.

The morning monsoon ceased right on time (you could set your watch by the rainshowers if you didn't mind being maybe ten minutes off every couple of days) and there were still some broken clouds layered at about 2,500 and 7,000 feet. I was flying C&C, enroute at two grand to scope out the LZs; the Copperheads would do the close-in recon, and they were trailing me at about a mile, staying on the treetops. If there was anybody home to hear the noise, they'd associate it with me until the guns appeared. We'd left the flight at Ca Mau, about ten minutes away; they'd crank in another five minutes and bring in the first lift, because I'd have a decent LZ brief by then. We figured that if it took you more than five minutes to formulate the approach path, approach type, enemy situation and obstacle warning, touchdown point, egress route and suppression instructions, you were snoozing -- these days, they spend *hours* on "The Mission Plan: Actions Approaching the LZ" "...Actions In the LZ" et cetera -- usually with the same results that we got in five minutes.

*shrug*

The aircraft are six times as expensive, so I guess you've gotta spend six times longer on The Plan.

Visibility beneath and between cloud decks was great -- I identified the LZs when I was still a good seven miles to the southeast (the lower right corner of the map, ry) and, when I got closer, I could see something else.

Four guys un-camouflaging something.

"Hey, Three-One, One-Five on Uniform -- I've got people on our side of the north-south blue just short of--"

A 12.7mm Soviet heavy anti-aircraft machinegun. Aka, a .51 cal. See the red circle on the map?

"Owwww! Fifty-one! Fifty-one! Fifty-one! Break south -- One-five is going for the clouds!"

When concealment is closer than cover, opt for concealment. I'd already figured if I turned to run or dove, they had an excellent chance at nailing me, but I could climb 500 feet and be inside the scud before they could get a shot off. I yanked the cyclic back and the collective up, and went from straight-and-level at 100 knots to climbing in bat-outta-hell mode with zero knots forward airspeed.

Yours Truly to pilot: "Keep your eyes on that .51 -- lemme know when they start elevating it."

Pilot to YT: "Like they're doing now?"

*jink left, right pedal turn 90 degrees, keep climbing -- they don't have radar, and the jink 'n' pedal turn will skew his lead angle -- I hope*

Into the clouds. Six seconds later, out of the clouds.

"Hey, One-Five, Three-One, Uniform -- you sure you don't want company up there?"

"No, you'll just -- waitaminnit. Head south for three more minutes, then frag off one of the guns to Ca Mau for fuel -- have him tell the flight to hang loose and monitor Victor. Then you and your wingman head west to the Gulf, then turn north along the shore until you're over the PZ. Fly a long orbit and make noise, but keep the trees between you and the .51."

"Roger that. I sent Three-Three back. Don't get a nosebleed way up there."

YT: "Okay, how do you figure we're gonna get those guys?"

Pilot: "By that, I take it that we're not going to do something sensible, like go away from something designed to shoot down friggin' Messerschmitts?"

YT: "What's sensible got to do with it? I didn't get up at 0430 just to enjoy cold C-rats at Ca Mau at sunrise. Think."

Pilot: "Well, using the guns would be stupid -- they'd get killed before they got the first rocket off. Ummm -- you planning on dropping stuff on them?"

YT: "In a manner of speaking. Where were we yesterday?"

Pilot: "At that Marine Tiger Team fort. The one with the -- ooooh, artillery!"

Continued in Flash Traffic, so I don't blow all kat's Monday/Tuesday stuff through the bottom of the blog...

TINS! You Picked It (Again)

Well, the voting was close, in keeping with the spirit of the TINS!, in which *all* the calls are close. And at least nobody said, "Hey, all that stuff happened while you were still in Flight School!"

Nooooo, they *didn't*, and I have the best witnesses a quart of muscatel can buy.

Unfortunately, Real World reared it's misbegotten multiple heads so often I didn't get the chance to write anything for the past two days. *But* -- because I like ya, and you've waited so patiently to see me get my ass shot off yet again something tangible, here's a preview of what Numbah 10 was all about:

Yup, all those pretty colored kindergarten shapes actually *mean* something. I won't tell you exactly what, of course, until I figure out how to keep from getting my ass shot off actually type up the story. I'll give you a couple of hints, though.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Off to Bollimer. With any luck, I'll be there before any of you can wake up, read this, and ask me to retrieve a certain stuffed marmoset...

Sundry Sunday

An old farmer in Georgia had owned his farm for several years. He had a *huge* pond in the back, fixed up real nice; picnic tables, volleyball net, a horseshoe pitch -- like I said, real nice. And he'd properly shaped and graded the pond for swimming when he built it. One evening, the old farmer decided to go down to the pond, as he hadn't been there for a while, and look it over.

As he neared the pond, he heard voices shouting and laughing with glee.

As he came still closer, he saw the noise originated from a bunch of young ladies skinny-dipping in his pond. He coughed to make the ladies aware of his presence and they immediately swam to the deep end of the pond. One of them shouted to him, "We're not coming out until you leave!"

The old man replied, "Calm down, now, hon -- I didn't come down here to watch you ladies swim or make you get out of the pond nekkid--

"--I'm just here to feed the alligator..."

V-29 swears he *didn't* make that up.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
So far, the Kill Bill Match the TINS! to the Radio Call Contest has produced some enlightening results: Brab and NinjaFluff (with Pogue flying CAS) want to see me crisped, the starch-wing contingent wants me to go trolling for flak, Sis wants to see me ventilated, ry's opting for a Blue-on-Blue and Two Who Shall Remain Nameless want me to go up for a rematch with the heat-seeker. At least Cassie hasn't shown up to fling the trivet. Or engage in rampant foot-tapping, followed by a faire la moue et la flounce.

However, if the trend holds, *most* of you will be able to -- ahem -- brag about your prescience...

Friday Two-Fers

Yesterday, ry walked all over it with golf spikes was kind enough to remind me that I walked all over it with football cleats hadn't yet announced the winner of the new tagline contest from a couple of weeks ago.

Ahem.

According to the rules of the contest, which you *all* read, agreed to, and then consigned to memory -- with the evident exception of ry -- nobody won. There were some really, really, *really* good one-liners that *nobody voted for*. So, it looks like I'm stuck with answering the once-a-month e-mail with "It's an OH-58D" in the subject line. For the time being. And it's all your fault, slackers.

Eeeep! I'm channeling John...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
However, with me, you always get a shot at redemption. First, for those of you who have been stuck in a two-year time warp remember this one from a little while ago, congratulations on your admirable ability to restrain your curiosity for this length of time. Second, for those of you who are new to the site (and we *all* know who you are, but like you a lot anyway), here's the synopsis:

Every once in a while, regardless of what your particular job happens to be in the military, you hear a comment or a call over the radio that makes you realize how badly it sucks being you at that particular instance and in that particular point in space. One morning, I shook a bunch of them out of the *Ohhh-Boy!* compartment and listed them -- there's a TINS! that accompanies each -- and I asked you to vote for the particular one you figured would bore you the least deemed most interesting.

1. "Ooops!" [#1] -- from a gunship, two seconds after his rocket hit the (flooded) paddy I was just about to land in. Right underneath me. Instant concussive waterfall.

2. "Holy sh*t! They said Charlie didn't have any flak down here! One-Five, are any of you guys still alive in there?"

3. "Ooops!" [#2] -- from a different gunship, one nanosecond before my crewchief screamed that a rocket had just passed between our right skid and the belly of the aircraft.

4. "Hey, One-Five, you look like Niagara Falls. I thought those fuel cells were supposed to be self-sealing."

5. "Aaaaah! One-Five's dead!" -- from my copilot, right after I took a direct hit in the chicken plate that slammed me flailing off the controls while we were at flat pitch in an LZ. I thought I was dead and his squeak didn't do anything to lessen my depression.

6. "Sir? The world's biggest tracer just came offa Nui Coto an' -- geez, it's following us!" -- my introduction to the game of helicopter vs. heat-seeking missile. I won. Barely.

7. "Chalk Four, you've still got a tailboom. Couldn't say for how much longer, though."

8. "The SEALs are ready for pickup, sir. Along with about a platoon of VC on the other side of the treeline they're in."

9. "Sector TOC wants you to check out a possible 37mm site west of Nui Hon Soc. The others they sent there never called in."

10. "Hey, One-Five -- uhh, ya do know yer on fire, don't ya?"

Number 6 won. 'Fess up. You guys wanted to see if I really *did* get out of these things alive, didn't you...

However, there are still nine more to go, each one a bigger yawner than the last leading to a small vignette of a TINS! Pick a number and pop it into the comments -- the biggest vote-getter gets posted. And remember, one legit addy,

*glowering at a certain Denizenne blogtwin with multiple persona disorder*

one legit vote.

And then we'll do it again. And again, and again, and again until I figure you're ready to take on the sidebar -- again.

Two-Niner's allowed to pass, although he'll probably pop in to snark, because he either made some of the calls or knows the story already.

He *thinks* so, anyway.

Heh -- you don't think I only have *nine* stories left, do ya?

The Problem with Mangoes...

...is that you've gotta peel them before you can eat them. At least, us furriners do, otherwise you're just asking for a dance lesson -- the Taliban Two-Step. Soooo, because mangoes have a skin like a pear instead of something sensible, like an orange, you either need a long, sharp fingernail (which possesses its own issues, unless you have a really wild guitar-pickin' style) or a knife. And, since mango juice is kinda like superglue when it dries, I figured I needed something a bit easier to clean than my Swiss Army toolbox.

There are other things for sale in the local armament bazaars than bang-sticks (and replicas thereof), which is convenient, because I wasn't planning to peel any mangoes with a Khyber rifle. Got myself a Khyber knife, instead. Welllll, okay, it's a Kashmiri folder, but it *could* have been a Khyber knife if it really, really wanted to.

This one wasn't the biggest one of the bunch (I didn't need an Ilbarsi three-footer and I *don't* have Freudian hangups), but all I needed was a decent mango-peeler, so I got the pocket-size. The decorative extension of the spine is what keeps the peeler from slicing your pocket (and thigh) to ribbons when it's folded -- it serves as the edge guard.

It ratchets open nicely and locks like a champ (the seller made a slashing feint at my jugular to prove it wouldn't flop closed); the latch flips up to unlock the blade when you've finished the mango massacree.

Heh. After the seller took his swipe, he grinned and said, "Hah! You are an officer, yes! Not a flinch! Civilian *always* jump back when I do that!" I just grinned my trademark boyish grin at him and told him, "*Retired* officer." What I *didn't* tell him was he telegraphed his move with a windup, he couldn't have stuck me unless he stepped forward another two feet (and his table was in the way) -- and, since we'd already spent a half hour drinking tea and talking flintlocks, I knew he wanted to make a sale, not a dead gringo.

Besides, I couldn't have backed up even if I wanted to -- I was already leaning against his wall.

I did get the lowdown on shipping arms out of Pakistan, though. The gummint doesn't really care *what* you buy, as long as it's not post-WWII and you pay a couple of bucks export tax. If you know an exporter who ships mass quantities of -- say, carpets -- to the US, you can avoid a lot of the usual red tape at both ends.

"Okay, what's your brother shipping today?"

"Two hundred Nepalese carpets, a functional replica of an SMLE and a Baluchi flintlock shotgun."

"Hmmmmm -- I want to examine those carpets..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Heh. Maybe poor Joe gets stuck in the decision loop,

but I made all of *my* decisions along those lines instantaneously. Comes from years and years of analyzing the situation then-at-hand and asking this simple question:

Do I drink one bottle or two?

TINS! Whatever Can Go Wrong, Will Do So

And it will do so at the worst possible time, even if you've done everything to insure it wouldn't.

This one's for you folks who pop in on weekends. Remember Fuzzybear Lioness agonizing over her Excellent Gate-Crashing Exploit? Wonder what she'd have had to say if she'd been along on this particular magic carpet ride...

Every year, every Army Aviator gets a birthday present from Fort (aka "Mother") Rucker -- his (okay, okay, or *her*) very own Flight Physical. However, just to insure that unwrapping this particular present isn't all beer and skittles, Mother also sees to it that some units don't have ready access to an Army Flight Surgeon and must make do with the services of an Air Force Flight Surgeon (and who knows where *their* hands have been).

Army Flight Surgeons habitually sit patiently in their dank lairs corner offices in the local Clinic - Wellness Center - Whatever, patiently awaiting the arrival of whomever happened to have the misfortune of being born during that particular quarter of the year. Generally speaking, they're usually accessible except, of course, on Wednesdays, when they're out on the links with every other doctor within six counties. Visiting one is relatively simple -- hop in your car, find a Fort, slow to a crawl so the gate guard can see your access decal, produce your ID card for scrutiny and you're over the major hurdle.

Air Force Flight Surgeons view their demesne from behind massive desks of exotic wood situated in the center of their I Love Me offices, situated at the hub of their brightly-lit suite of examining rooms. A reservation for an appointment is, naturally, de rigeur; but since they golf on Mondays (to avoid the crowd of lesser docs), they're pretty much Doctor-Is-In on Wednesdays. However, availing oneself of the services of an Air Force Flight Surgeon entails travelling to the ethereal realms of -- an Air Base.

Which means getting past Base Security. The guys who are firmly convinced every Army Aviator has a burning desire to steal a multiengine, starched wing, fuel-bladder-with-a-cockpit.

So, the optimum solution is to fly *over* the APs, have a ground guide direct you to nestle the helicopter 'midst the aluminum overcast, get picked up by the crew bus and deposited in the vicinity of the Flight Medicine Edifice.

Weeeeelllll, that's how it's *supposed* to go. Nip back upstream and re-read the first sentences. I'll wait...

Okay, cutting to the chase: I'd made the reservation for the appointment, gotten the reservation, confirmed the reservation, refrained from eating anything containing cholesterol for 72 hours (followed by a 12-hour water-only fast), notified my Ops I'd need a Loach, computed the weight and balance form, did the aircraft performance planning, filed the Flight Plan, obtained the PPR (it means Prior Permission Required, Barb) to land at The Air Base, notified Base Ops that I'd be shutting down and would not require fuel, that I planned to be there for at least three hours and would request a Fire Guard when I was ready to depart.

I preflighted my trusty OH-6 and launched from home station. Ten minutes out from The Air Base, I called Base Ops on UHF to notify them I was inbound and gave them my PPR number. Five minutes out, I called Tower on VHF and announced that I had the numbers; I'd been listening to ATIS (not ADIZ -- whole different ball of wax) for wind data, landing runway, altimeter setting -- gotta do *something* when you're solo in a Loach, so you might as well find out what's going on at your destination before you get there. Tower cleared me to land and taxi to the ramp, where I could expect a ground guide to park me someplace I wouldn't contaminate the F-16s.

I entered the ramp and hovered in place, then spotted two blue boxvans approaching from different areas of the Jet Farm. Converging, actually. On *me*. With extreme rapidity. Just as I thought, "Well, gee, this is really nice of 'em, but I don't *need* a ride to the -- "

*screech of brakes* Out of each van popped

a. an AP with M9 in one hand and a Motorola Brick in the other,

b. two APs with M16 magazines firmly inserted into M16A1s and

c. one AP with an M60 attached to a fifty-round belt.

Ain't a single blank adapter on nuthin'. Copper jackets twinkled from the fifty-round belts, with orange noses in the appropriate locations. "Swell," I thought. "After they ventilate me, the Flight Surgeon can fill out the paperwork for my physical at the same time he does the autopsy..."

"Put your hands up and get out of the helicopter," comes The Voice of Doom from the ninth AP, hiding behind a van with a Brick in one hand and a loudspeaker in the other.

Bear in mind that I'm still at a three-foot hover, looking down the barrels of six automatic weapons.

"Put your hands up. Get out of the helicopter. This is your last warning!"

I key the mike on UHF and ask, "Hey, Ops, Guard 267 -- do you have commo with the A-Team out here?"

"Roger that."

"Could you please tell Hannibal Smith that I've gotta *land* before I get out? This thing doesn't have a Hover Button."

"*snort!* Roger, 267. Don't rip them too much after you get out -- they were just briefed that there's an alert pending and this place is secure against all threats except helicopters..."

*sigh*

Howsomever, I *did* pass my Flight Physical, and with no sign of elevated blood pressure.

Probably because my heart didn't start beating again until a couple of hours later...

TINS! Smoke Gets In Your Eyes...

Well, since John started recycling my war stories under the "everything old is new again" premise, here's an old one that's new -- it never appeared in Flightfax because real life intruded before it got published.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Sometimes I think that every Army aviator old enough to remember reciprocating engines has a little tale about an emergency procedure that didn’t quite address the problem or had an emergency for which there was no written procedure. I met CW5 Roger W [those who know, know] (Flightfax, July 1998, “Crew Commo: UH-1 lesson learned”) last year and got the soup-to-nuts version of his own “crew-modified” emergency procedure--care to guess what happened to me about a month later?

It was a perfect night for honing NVG skills in the AH-1F--nice and dark, with just a hint of urban haze. It wasn’t quite so perfect for conducting NVG Refresher Training, though--which is what I was doing. At about 800 feet on climbout from our helipad, the Master Caution, Alternator and Rectifier lights decided that I had been heretofore underworked and cheerily made their presence known. “Aha--this takes care of Task 1068!” [note: Task 1068: Describe or Perform Emergency Procedure] I thought. My backseater (after a subtle hint or two) correctly identified the problem and performed the appropriate emergency procedure--alternator switch OFF, then RESET, then ON. (No big deal, unless the alternator doesn’t come back on line; in that event, it’s a “Land ASAP” situation due to the alternator’s location--it’s mounted on the transmission main case, and a dead alternator will produce a goodly number of unpleasant things, ranging from FOD’ed tranny gears to an in-flight fire.)

You’re absolutely correct! Not only did the alternator not reset, but white smoke (definitely not NVG-compatible) and a smell like fried socks decided to join the party immediately after I made a diving 180 to return to the helipad. The haze inside was rapidly compounding the haze outside and I had a fleeting thought about inventing the recovery procedure for inadvertent interior IMC...

By this time, Flight Ops had exercised the Crash Plan and the race to terra firma was nip-and-tuck between a smoking Cobra and the CFR foam truck. We won, but not by much (that truck is fast!). The seal on the alternator quill had blown, so hot oil had been spraying into a hot electrical component, and an armament bus had toasted itself in the tailboom electrical compartment--lots of smoke and stink, but no fire, as we (a fireman, a mechanic and yours truly) discovered after I popped out of the cockpit and scrambled to open the transmission cowl (yeah, I peeked first--just in case) while my backseater shut the aircraft down.

“Well, jeepers, Tuttle--you could’ve saved yourself considerable emotional turmoil merely by following the emergency procedure for cockpit smoke and fume elimination,” you observe.
Well, sir-or-ma’am, just what is the AH-1 Dash Ten procedure for that particular situation?
“‘Vents--open,’ of course,” you reply.
Correct, again! Just one teensy problem with that--and our mechanics are still scratching their heads over it--because, in complete violation of all the laws of physics, the smoke and fumes were entering the cockpit through the vents...

TINS*! There I was...

[Since Bill is about to re-enter the cockpit, it seems a good time to republish this bit of his - which will make some of the Denizen's comments on Bill's announcement yesterday take on a clarity for the new readers among us. -the Armorer]

Military aviation is an unforgiving vocation -- it's just as easy to get killed flying the friendly skies as it is flying the hostile ones. The following tale was originally published in Flightfax, Army Aviation's safety 'zine, in September 1997. I've added some short notes for clarification purposes, since we don't have a whole slew of former AH-1F pilots dropping in to visit. Most of it will be in Flash Traffic/Extended Entry, 'cuz John'll get his trousers torqued if I blow the rest of the site out the bottom of your monitor.

The entire flight lasted less than ten minutes. For those of you who need instant gratification, we lived.

There I was...in the front seat of a Cobra with a number-one hydraulic system failure, halfway down a 4800-foot runway, doing 50 knots about three inches above the pavement. Just the normal emergency procedure for this particular situation, with one pesky little difference -- we were flying sideways.

Gee -- glad you asked...

Posted Sans Commentary.

From Iran Daily.

Researchers Build Micro-Submarines

TEHRAN, May 23--Researchers at the University of Tehran have built two types of micro-submarines, the project director said Wednesday. Aqil Yousefi-Koma added that the two submarines can be used in reconnaissance and rescue operations as well as for monitoring the health of marine structures and suicide bombing, ISNA reported.

Yousefi-Koma said these submarines can also simulate the movement of marine animals.
“Today, robots and underwater vehicles are devised by simulating aquatic animals. This simulation will boost the efficiency of robots and reduce the possibility of interception by enemy radars,“ he said.

The researcher noted that advanced software programs were used for simulating the movements of sharks, adding that the project is aimed at building unmanned submarines with a lower probability of interception.

Yousefi-Koma noted that each submarine weighs 1,100 grams and has been tested successfully.

Okay, I lied. Love the dual-use capability being contemplated.

TINS! Except for Once an Hour -- When It *Was*...

Given the recurrent threads of Wally World, the VA and the State of Military Health Care In General this past week, it seems kind of appropriate to finish this off today. 'Specially since the only e-gram I got was from BCR

hmm. No 24-hr Ebola? Then it *has* to be an intestinal parasite about 6ft long. With fangs. And it detached because you weren't feeding it enough. It wanted to evacuate a la Aliens but the 27" zipper defeated it.

Heh. Close, but no kewpie doll, Doll.

While the Mekong Delta wasn't exactly a fever swamp (only about a third of it qualified for that title), we *did* get sick every so often. With one or two pilots knocked on their keisters, Ops had to do some creative flight scheduling -- wasn't like we were anywhere near full strength to begin with. But when everybody got smacked with a bug, Ops got downright creative.

If they strapped you in the seat and you didn't turn to mush and dribble into the chin bubble, you were good to go. And if you could actually make it out to the flight line under your own steam, you could count on getting a single-ship Ash And Trash mission, on the theory that you wouldn't disconcert the groundlings by collapsing at an untoward moment. As in, immediately upon entering the Navy Mess at My Tho (Those Who Know...).

For some reason known only to the Vietnamese Deity of Little Imagination, the 162d was subjected to the whims of a luvverly bit of microbacterial malignancy we christened "the Dong Tams" in honor of the airfield where we first made its acquaintance. An incipient case of the Dong Tams announced itself with a headache that would stop Were-Kitty in full charge. Following the headache within an hour or so, everything within your gastro-intestinal system that was *above* your belt buckle moved north con brio. And thirty plus-or-minus minutes later, everything remaining in your g-i system (no matter where) went south, explosively. Visualize achieving low Earth orbit without external boosters.

And thirty plus-or-minus minutes later, the cycle began again. And continued, regular as clockwork -- which is what gave the Ops guy the idea...

Everyone who had just suffered a projectile burp within, say, the same five-minute span, could be considered in synch with each other and got pegged for CAs. In theory, everybody would land at the PZ, fertilize the rice paddies, then depart with their pax for the LZ and either chum for birds inbound or suppress-with-bile in the LZ. Then lift off and head back to fertilize the paddies some more, pick up another load of troops -- okay, you've got the picture.

Out-of-synch got single-ship on the theory that it didn't much matter what kind of cycle you were on or which orifice was next on the exercise list -- as long as you were in the air,

a. you could either lean 'way out into the slipstream and -- ummmmm -- do a visual check of the tailboom or

b. you were within thirty seconds of landing on the Biggest Bathroom in Asia and the paddies needed fertilizing, anyway.

When the headache hit me, I knew what was next out of the chute, so to speak. I reported to the dispensary, got my tempatcher took, and obtained ten one-pint containers of kaopec (you fill in the rest -- I can't find the li'l *TM* I'd have to tack on the brand name) powder, hereinafter referred to as "k-p." Next stop was our PX, where I purchased a six-pack of orange soda and ten nickel-packs of cherry Kool-Aid Tee-Em. Halfway back to Tent City, the cycle started.

After I spat out the taste of coffee-flavored stomach lining, I poured half an orange soda into a pint container of k-p, shook it up and chugged it. Then mixed a second pint and sipped it down.

Half an hour later, I was relieved to discover that a lot of it had made into my intestinal tract -- at least my sphincter didn't feel like I'd just spent eight hours as a guest of Vlad Tepes. And a half an hour later -- hoo-ah -- gulp down another pint of k-p 'n' orange and a half an hour later -- Rocket Man -- and a half an hour later -- call the Borg -- gulp down another pint of k-p 'n' orange and a half an hour later...

Okay, you've got the idea. Now extend that over about thirty hours.

Oh, yeah -- for the excessively-curious among you, k-p and orange soda tastes like a Creamsicle Tee-Em made with chocolate-flavored gypsum.

While my copilot for the swing ship mission to Moc Hoa via My Tho (see above Navy Mess reference above) and I indulged in mutual commiseration in the pilots' outhouse -- three holes, minimal waiting -- the crews for the morning's CA had been dropping the pH of the North Swamp. Except for the AC of Chalk Two, who was plugging his posterior into the third hole of our al fresco commode.

I mixed a pint of k-p and cherry Kool-Aid (I was out of orange soda by now), chugged it and walked to the flight line. Later, while I was turning the POL point at Moc Hoa a revolutionary red, the flight had landed in a paddy PZ to load troops and offload fertilizer. Except for the AC of Chalk Two...

To be continued...

Didn't think I'd leave you wondering about the Rest of the Story, did you?

A little obscure history - Helos shooting down fixed-wings.

On 12 January 1969 four An-2 gunships from the VPAF 919th Transport Regiment attacked the USAF Phou Pha Thi ELINT station in northern Laos. The base also housed a TSQ-81 radar/TACAN used to guide the airstrikes against North Vietnam. The An-2s caused moderate damage by firing 57mm rockets and dropping 120mm mortar rounds but three of them were lost; one was shot down by an Air America Bell 204 while the two others collided in mid-air by trying to escape the pursuing helicopter! This An-2 was recovered by an USAF HH-53 to be displayed at Vientiane. When the Hmong guerrillas reached the wreckage they found inside the cockpit an agonizing North Vietnamese pilot that they quickly executed. (Photo: Ken Conboy via Albert Grandolini)

[Armorer's note - I'm pretty sure the picture and the story below are the same event - even if the timelines diverge by years. Of course, then there's *this* account...]

FREEDOM BIRD
by Lawrence E. Pence
Colonel, USAF (Ret)

For most servicemen who served in Vietnam, the Freedom Bird was that civil airliner which took them back to the land of the big PX at the end of their tour. Mine was a bit different sort of Freedom Bird.

In mid-1967, as a junior Air Force Captain, I was detailed to 7th AF Hq in Saigon as an Air Technical Intelligence Liason Officer, short name: ATLO (the “I” gets left out, as people look strangely at anyone who calls himself an ATILO, thinking he is somehow related to Atilla the Hun). My job was to provide 7AF and the air war the best technical intelligence support that the Foreign Technology Division of AF Systems Command (my parent org­anization) could provide, in whatever area or discipline needed. Also I was to collect such technical intelligence as became available. This was a tall order for a young Captain, and this assignment provided much excitement, including the Tet Offensive.

At that time, Operation Rolling Thunder was underway, the bombing of military targets in North Vietnam. The weather in NVN was often lousy, making it difficult to find and accurately strike the assigned targets, so a radar control system was set up to direct the srike force to their targets. This system was installed on a remote, sheer-sided karst mountain just inside Laos on the northern Laos/NVN border. The site could be accessed only by helicopter or a tortuous trail winding up the near-vertical mountainside, so it was judged to be easily efensible. The mountaintop was relatively flat and about 30 acres in size.

On it was a tiny Hmong village called Phu Pha Ti, a small garrison of Thai and Meo mercenaries for defense, a helicopter pad and ops shack for the CIA-owned Air America Airline, and the radar site, which was manned by "sheep-dipped" US Air Force enlisted men in civilian clothes. Both the US and NVN paid lip service to the fiction that Laos was a neutral country, and no foreign military were stationed there, when in reality we had a couple of hundred people spread over several sites, and NVN had thousands on the Ho Chi Minh trail in eastern Laos. This partic­ular site was called Lima (L for Laos) Site 85. The fighter-bomber crews called it Channel 97 (the radar frequency), and all aircrews called it North Station, since it was the furthest north facility in "friendly" territory. Anywhere north of North Station was bad guy land.

The Channel 97 radar system was an old SAC precision bomb scoring radar which could locate an aircraft to within a few meters at a hundred miles. In this application, the strike force would fly out from Lima Site 85 a given distance on a given radial, and the site operators would tell the strike leader precisely when to release his bomb load. It was surprisingly accurate, and allowed the strikes to be run at night or in bad weather. This capability was badly hurting the North Vietnamese war effort, so they decided to take out Lima Site 85.

Because of the difficulty of mounting a ground assault on Lima Site 85, and its remote location, an air strike was planned. Believe it or not, the NVNAF chose biplanes as their "strike bombers!" This has to be the only combat use of biplanes since the 1930's. The aircraft used were Antonov designed AN-2 general purpose 'workhorse" biplanes with a single 1000hp radial piston engine and about one ton payload. Actually, once you get past the obvious "Snoopy and the Red Baron" image, the AN-2 was not a bad choice for this mission. Its biggest disadvantage is, like all biplanes, it is slow. The Russians use the An-2 for a multitude of things, such as medevac, parachute training, flying school bus, crop dusting, and so on. An AN-2 just recently flew over the North Pole. In fact, if you measure success of an aircraft design by the criteria of number produced and length of time in series production, you could say that the AN-2 is the most successful aircraft design in the history of aviation!

The NVNAF fitted out their AN-2 "attack bombers with a 12 shot 57mm folding fin aerial rocket pod under each lower wing, and 20 250mm mortar rounds with aerial bomb fuses set in vertical tubes let into the floor of the aircraft cargo bay. These were dropped through holes cut in the cargo bay floor. Simple hinged bomb-bay doors closed these holes in flight. The pilot could salvo his bomb load by opening these doors. This was a pretty good munitions load to take out a soft, undefended target like a radar site. Altogether, the mission was well planned and equipped and should have been successful, but Murphy's Law prevailed.

[The rest is below the fold, in the Flash Traffic/Extended Entry section]

A TINS! of a Different Color

Remember the Serial Thriller from a couple of weeks back (if you don't, ask FuzzybeeEll for the links -- I think she made an antimacassar out of 'em)? Well, one result of the torrent of e-mails from everyone -- uhhmm -- intermittent spate of encouragement from the Denizennes awfully nice comment I got from NevadaDailySteve, was that it gave me an idea. Since you guys were so anxious to see how it was gonna turn out, this time, you'll *know* the ending -- 'cuz you're gonna write it.

It's been a while since we had a contest with some literary merit. This probably won't break the dry spell, but it'll be good for some giggles. And you'll have *alllll* weekend to work on it!

I'll start the story, then stop at an appropriately suspenseful point and you pick it up from there. E-mail me the narrative and I'll add it / them in during next week (it's in your own best interest to contribute -- I can plug in "...and then I died. The End." --MajMike or "...and then I died. The End. Cheers!" --the Armorer all. week. long.)

Caveat: Anybody who *does* kill me off gets his or [ominous glare] *her* electronic addy posted on the "spam me" bulletin board of every cyber café in Lagos, Nigeria...

Ready? Ahem...

It was the smoothest landing I'd made in my entire aviation career (all six months of it). Even got a compliment from the Green Beanie major who'd been directing the op from the jump seat behind the radio console. I rolled the throttle to the flight idle stop and (after a couple of tries) flicked the spring-loaded RPM warning switch to the "OFF" position, then unfastened my shoulder harness.

Big mistake. It had been the only thing holding me upright.

Dimly aware that I was slumping to the right, I half-twisted toward the big opening in the cockpit that was normally occupied by the door and coughedvomitedcoughed about a pint of thick liquid onto the perforated steel matting of the runway. I remember thinking that the rusty orange of the steel planking provided an interesting counterpoint to the dark red I'd puked...

Okay, kids -- you've got the controls...

Defunding the Defenders

Now that the anti-uniform War For Oil mob in Congress is frantically skittering to distance itself from the scheme to bleed-down The Surge, I can probably write this without being accused of posting a partisan political polemic in the guise of a TINS.

One of the (many) squawks of outrage I heard concerning Monsieur Murtha's Modest Proposal went something like, "This is the first time in the history of the United States that politicians, in a time of war, intend to rob soldiers of the tools they need to fight that war!"

The first time? Heh -- maybe so or maybe no. How 'bout I tell you a little story and let you decide for yourselves, okay?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Time: Early-to-mid-1970

The Place: Tent City, aka Circus World, aka the Company Area of the 162d AHC.

There must've been a dozen of us -- pilots, crewchiefs, doorgunners -- gathered around the bulletin board outside the Orderly Room.

DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY HEADQUARTERS, 164TH AVIATION GROUP (CBT) APO SAN FRANCISCO XXXXX "THE DELTA GROUP" ORDER NUMBER XX

1. Due to recent funding constraints imposed on USARV, all units under this command will implement ammunition conservation measure as stated below.

2. Effective immediately, units will be limited to drawing five hundred (500) rounds of linked 7.62mm machine gun ammunition per machine gun barrel per day.

FOR THE COMMANDER:

Twelve helicopter crewmen with a single thought. We do about ten CAs on a good day.
[Note: On a bad day, the number of CAs you flew depended on what time you got shot down]
We're gonna get killed because some effing bean-counter wants to save a buck...

Twelve helicopter crewmen with a single vision: five wrecked Hueys scattered around in a clearing.

1st Platoon 1LT: "Emory."

1st Platoon Doorgunner: "Sir?"

1st Platoon 1LT: "How many rounds do you burn up going into a hot LZ?"

1st Platoon Doorgunner: "About six hundred. Maybe a thousand, if the grunts are slow unassing the ships. Or if we have to shoot our way out."

Six hundred rounds for one M60D. We mounted one on each side. Two hundred rounds shy of what each ship needed to fight it's way into a hot LZ -- and a thousand short of what each needed to fight it's way out. We're all dead...

1st Platoon 1LT: "Hey, Geoff -- when was the last time we went into a cold LZ?"

1st Platoon CW2: "Last week, southeast of Nui Hon Soc, but that was because we caught Chawles-baby with his drawers droopin'. The second and third trips in were hot."

Copperhead Crewchief: "We worked that LZ all morning after the flight got fragged to clean out that ammo cache the SEALs found. We had to re-arm three times..."

We're gonna get killed. First hot LZ, we're gonna get killed...

Second Platoon WO1: "Cripefire, even the kamikazes got protection on their last flights..."

1st Platoon 1LT: *studying the order* "Hah! I think we may be in better shape than we think. This doesn't say, '500 rounds per machine gun,' it says, '500 rounds per machine gun barrel.' Doesn't even say they have to be good barrels..."

We didn't have one single gunner who hadn't squirreled away at least six spare barrels -- not counting the burned-out ones decorating the tent interiors.

Copperhead WO1: *wolfish grin* "Minigun's got six barrels. And we have twelve minis in the Supply hootch."

Long story short, we eventually counted over two hundred 7.62mm barrels, which we dutifully displayed for the local bean-counters. Of course, when the IG paid us a visit, we had to hide three-quarters of them. We dumped the sand out of the 55-gallon drums we used for counter-mortar blast walls, stuck twenty in each drum and then put sandbags on top. If we got mortared, we might definitely get wounded, but if the IG made us turn in those M60 barrels, we'd definitely get dead.

However, even though we could, by the strict letter of the edict, draw 100,000 rounds per day, we practiced ammo conservation and only drew the tens of thousands we needed.

Until we needed more...

And everyone -- except the enemy -- was happy with the solution. Of course, when the bean-counters from 'Way On High realized they were spending just as much on ammunition as they had been before the edict, they came up with a diabolically clever alternative target.

However, I'll save the saga of the Great Mekong Delta Toilet Paper Shortage for another day...

Dies Irae

The Time: 0530 on the morning of a day two weeks after the defoliation mission.

The Place: The bunker beneath the wayhouse constructed by the work detail from Tay Do Two battalion.

Phouc was finding it more difficult to maintain his Revolutionary Ardor with each basketful of earth he hauled from the bunker to scatter into the dead grass. Sergeant Van had been displeased with the implications of the message Phouc had relayed from Colonel Trinh and had placed Phouc in command of the bunker-construction detail -- which consisted solely of Phouc.

As he hauled what he had decided was this night’s final basket of damp dirt from the hootch to the grass, he misstepped and slipped, dropping the basket and losing half its contents. Fine, he thought. The load will be that much lighter. After he scattered the remaining dirt into the grass, he returned to the spill and halfheartedly spread the dirt with a handful of dead palm fronds. He glanced around and realized that he could now discern separate shadows. Ghost’s dawn, he thought. Time to go home before the Government soldiers manning the guardpost on the main road awaken…

“Heya, Tut.”

“Heya, Steve. What flavor is the bug-juice this morning?”

“Green.”

“My favorite. I think I’ll stick with coffee.”

“That’s green this morning, too. You AMCing the CA today?”

“Nope. Single ship COORDS mission. But with three Copperheads for company.”

“Ah-hah. Single ship and a heavy fire team? Sounds like the excrement is gonna hit the impeller -- wanna borrow my Swedish K?”

“No, thanks. If Sir Charles gets that close, I’ll beat him to death with the survival kit.”

As Pham Giang Xuan approached the newly-constructed wayhouse, he glared at the scattering of darker earth outside the door. Idiots. Why didn’t they just erect a sign reading “Occupied”? Pham didn’t bother to search the sky for the helicopters he had been hearing for the past hour -- the low muttering of the blades was well to the north, probably emanating from the American airfield west of the city. Stay up there, he thought. I have enough difficulties without your annoying presence. Pham scanned the entrance for the small knots warning of boobytraps. Seeing none, he entered the hootch, peering into the cool shadows. Very well, I am early. But it is still not proper that I should be unmet. He walked the few steps to the field table beside the newly-finished bunker, turned to face the doorway and struck a pose. Pham hadn’t risen through the Byzantine maze of Vietnamese politics to his present position without developing an appreciation of the theatrical.

We were at flight idle, waiting for our pax on the raised helipad outside the COORDS shack that sat on the eastern side of Can Tho’s soccer field, viewing the world through the semicircular bounce caused by one main rotor blade being slightly out-of-track. We figured any outfit called Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support had to be a front for spooks; the missions the COORDS guys came up with were either incredibly boring or brain-freezing scary. We’d learned that pax waiting on the pad usually meant the latter, because the planners would be anxious to get rolling, get done, and get back. The absence of pax did not bode well for our hopes of an interesting flight.

Senior Sergeant Ly Doan Chinh halted at the line of dried leaves and the file of men behind him froze in place. Ly quickly scanned the brown vegetation surrounding the clearing for movement and, seeing none, began a deliberate visual search. The tree-killers have been efficient, he thought. Even the pond scum is brown. When we built the wayhouse, it was invisible beneath the forest canopy -- now, it sits in the middle of a bunch of wooden pillars. He eyed the roof with distaste. Extravagance. The money for those tiles should have been spent for repair parts for the radios. Ly made a mental note to have the two youngest soldiers camouflage those portions that were not already covered with a layer of dead leaves.

He listened for a moment. The helicopters were well to the north, he decided, and presented no threat. Ly did not fear helicopters -- he had been awarded a medal for shooting a small one down three years previously -- but he had a great respect for what they could do. He raised his left hand and gave three signals that sent four flankers to opposite sides of the clearing, then mentally tracked their progress. When his mind told him they were in place, he stalked along the well-used trail through the clearing toward the wayhouse, carrying his AK-47 at waist level, right forearm braced against his hip. When he reached mid-clearing, he stopped, looking at the wayhouse but listening to the woods for untoward sounds.

If there were enemy troops in the area, they would not be able to resist firing at him.

Ly waited for the shots. He counted to one hundred, heard nothing to alarm him and resumed stalking toward the wayhouse. Five others emerged into the clearing and followed in a well-spaced file – his battalion commander, the major from Hanoi, their two bodyguards and Sergeant Van, the trailwatcher. As he drew closer to the wayhouse, Ly saw a shadowy figure within. Damn. The Junior Emperor is here already. Ly observed the damp earth as he drew closer and thought, The bunker detail has been exceptionally careless or Junior has a weak bladder…

“How are you guys doing this morning?” our passenger shouted as he entered through the left cargo door and sat down in the jump seat just to the rear of my seat.

“Just fine and dandy, sir -- where are we going today?” I hollered back.

Our passenger was wearing unmarked tiger fatigues and appeared to be armed solely with a map and a PRC-6 walkie-talkie. He placed the map on the radio console so I could see it without dislocating my neck and pointed to an area he had circled with a black grease pencil. “Right here.”

I blinked. It was the same Free Fire Zone we’d drenched with Orange a few weeks previously.

“Nasty area. I sprayed that whole place a couple weeks back, so whatever you’re looking for won’t be too hard to find.”

He gave me a grin and said, “You have no idea how much I hope you’re right.”

Ly assumed guard stance just inside the doorway of the wayhouse as Colonel Trinh and the Northerner major entered. Pham Giang Xuan had neither moved nor spoken.

“Good morning, Eldest Brother,” said Trinh, with a slight bow. “I trust you breakfasted well?”

“Good morning, Right Hand of the Revolution,” replied Pham. He ignored Trinh’s polite inquiry to reinforce his authority and added, “And good morning to our Brother from the People’s Army.”

“Good morning, Province Chief Pham.” Major Nghiem Trong Tri was equally blunt and unimpressed with Pham’s position as Governor of Phong Dinh Province. “What news of such import have you that could not be entrusted to a messenger?”

“News that must be closely held, lest it generate disaffection. Messengers are soldiers, soldiers talk, and soldiers’ talk does not always reinforce revolutionary zeal.” Pham proceeded to recount the litany of recent setbacks…

Senior Sergeant Ly frowned. The muted sound of the helicopters to the north had changed pitch, becoming clearer and louder. He could now discern three, possibly four, different helicopters. Frogs, not sharks, he thought. Too many for a resupply mission and too few for an assault landing. And definitely coming closer. He did not hear the higher pitched sounds indicating the presence of the small scout helicopters, which would mean a reconnaissance mission, but then he remembered that the heavily-armed gunships of one particular unit did use the small scouts…

“Ly-anh, see what manner of Frog becomes so intrusive and report their flight direction.”

Ly stepped from the door of the wayhouse just as the lead helicopter flashed past, not twenty meters away.

“Geez! Hey, Back Seat -- Chuck had a hootch with a red tile roof under all those trees!”

“That’s what--”

“Got fresh dirt in front of it.” “Footprints!” “Fresh trails all over the place -- ”

I banked hard right and saw a guy in black PJs and web gear step from the doorway and dart back inside. “Armed male in the hootch!” Hah! First time I’ve ever seen a VC’s eyes get that round…

Ly turned and shouted,“Nói thầm chết!” Muttering Death! He took in the sight of the three men scrambling to roll into the bunker, calculated his chance of getting inside through the press as less than zero and thought, Well, maybe I’ll get another one before they get me. He wheeled in the doorway --

As I rolled level and kicked the Huey out of trim to give my crewchief a clean shot into the hootch, I saw the VC turn and raise his AK just as the first rocket hit the red tile roof. The walls of the hootch flashed into four clouds of smoke, dirt and grass, the roof shivered, shattered and collapsed, and the guy in the doorway evaporated in a pink mist.

“Got two guys running --” “Bust ‘em!” “Got another one on the west side -- he just went into a spider hole!” Ten 40mm grenades from one of the M-5s followed him down the hole. “Got a runner in the treeline!”

A minute later, the only movement in the area was a thin cloud of drifting smoke.

The Time: 1340, three days later.

The Place: The office of the S2, 164th Aviation Group, Can Tho Army Airfield, RVN.

I glanced from the Captain to his Staff Sergeant to the civilian from COORDS who were all standing with their arms folded across their chests. “Were you the AMC on a mission three days ago that destroyed a hootch with a red tile roof about ten klicks south?”

“Yes. Is that why I’m here?”

The COORDS guy said, “Captain, you killed the Province Chief.”

Oh, crap! I’m going to jail!

He grinned. “You also killed an NVA major, the Tay Do Two Battalion Commander and six other VC.”

My heart crawled back down where it belonged. “So, I’m not in trouble?”

The S2 said, “No. This gentleman just wanted to see what somebody worth 500 bicycles looked like. By the way, did you ever figure out what you did to piss Colonel Trinh off?”

“His name was Trinh? No.” I shook my head. “Sorry, but I haven’t got a clue.”

As I walked back along the dirt road to Tent City, I noticed Rat Catcher Six fiddling with a yellow Nguy Hiem box and gave him a small wave.

Sergeant Van Lanh Thu returned the pilot’s wave and watched as he faded into the distance. Then he resumed his work with the rat-box, thinking, You should have offered five thousand bicycles, Brother…

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Postscript: The names of the Vietnamese characters are mixes of common Vietnamese names; except for the ARVN Captain in Sequel As Prequel, who flew with us on several missions and whose real name I did *not* use, I have no idea what any of their true names were. Their actions in the weeks preceding this final portion of the story is only conjecture on my part, but based on the events -- all of which happened pretty much as I've timelined them -- *something* brought all the players together at that place and time, and I think I crafted a plausible (and sorta-kinda entertaining) scenario.

I *do*, in fact, know for certain
1. why "Colonel Trinh" wanted me whacked,
2. why the COORDS spooks were adamant about sending a heavy fire team to the site and
3. that one VC -- most likely a trailwatcher -- escaped the area.

And I know the Green Beanie who led the patrol into the area after we departed. He recovered a money belt full of VC Liberation scrip that the Province Chief had been wearing and said it would have been just enough to buy 500 Peugeot bicycles...

Camera Obscura

If you’re a new visitor and have a few minutes to spare, you can read the background posts here, here, here, here, and here. If you don’t, well, just lean back and enjoy the ride…

The Time: 0640 the morning of Colonel Trinh Vo Thanh’s meeting.

The Place: Dempsey Compound Gate, Can Tho Army Airfield, Phong Dinh Province, RVN.

Sergeant Van Lanh Thu waited while the gate guards performed their normal pat-down search of his trousers and the threadbare American fishing vest he always wore when he reported for work on the American base. Searching the vest always resulted in the guards finding and examining his cigarettes, his battered Zippo lighter and his lunch. The aroma from this last item dissuaded the guards from a further search of his person, which today might have revealed the 8mm film casette for the Minox camera he would shortly retrieve from its hiding place inside a rat-box.

Sergeant Van’s “day job” was stocking every narrow, meter-long, yellow box on the base with rat poison and removing the carcasses of the victims. It was, he thought, the perfect job for intelligence-gathering; everyone saw him and no one took notice of him. He could go anywhere because the yellow boxes with the red “Nguy Hiem” warning were everywhere…

Van knew where the tree-killing unit lived and began walking along the row of helicopters toward the ones with the blue and white insignia on the nose. They killed more than trees last night, he thought, glancing at the expended brass casings littering the revetments. Watch yourself, old uncle, or they’ll get you, too. Van knew that if he patrolled the area, eventually he would see one of the pilots with the metal insignia that many of them wore, and he would be very happy if the first pilot he saw was one of them. The Minox was metal, the sun was climbing, and if he was careless with the way he removed it from its pocket inside his vest, sunglint would betray him. Van squatted on his heels by a rat-box and pretended to examine it while he scanned the line of helicopters in their revetments.

Movement by the far revetment. Brown-green uniform, carrying torso armor with one hand and a helmet bag in the other.

Pilot, carrying weapon, water and little else. He fights light, as is proper, he thought with professional approval. Van saw a flash of metal on the right shirt pocket. Excellent. He’s from the tree-killer unit. He withdrew the Minox, using the rat-box to mask his movements. He’d wait until the pilot’s eyes were averted…

? I know that one!

As I walked toward my Huey-du-jour (I didn’t rate my own personal ship yet because we we didn’t have that many to go around anymore), I saw Rat-Catcher Six fiddling with one of the Nguy Hiem boxes and wondered (again) what garbage dump he’d scrounged his fishing vest from. I gave him a grin and a nod of recognition and went back to scanning tail numbers to find mine…

Van smiled politely in return and took the pilot’s picture as he turned his head and looked past him.

Van shrugged and baited the rat-box, then washed the poison from his hands in the pond behind the revetments. Later, he watched as the helicopter hovered past, crossed the runway and landed by the barrels of the tree-killing chemical. The pilot he’d recognized was at the controls.

At noon, he sought the shade of the north wall of the building where his cousin worked as the personal secretary of one of the American staff officers. He squatted on his heels, removed the plantain-leaf wrapper that contained his lunch with his left hand and leaned back until his shoulders touched the wall. He picked up the small wad of paper at his feet with his right hand.

He read the note from his cousin. “Sister Phoenix has sung and the fire casts a wider light.” Sister Phoenix was the Political Officer from the North who had been taken prisoner a fortnight previously when the Americans had surprised the Tay Do sub-unit commanders at their briefing. She had been reading the unit rosters provided by the commanders when the American helicopters appeared and, they had all hoped, she’d had the good sense to shove the rosters into the mud before she had been taken. The fire casts a wider light, he thought. It’s time to leave before the fire gets closer and fries my butt. The name of Van Lanh Thu was on one of those rosters, along with the name which appeared on his civilian-hire identity card.

Thirty minutes later, Van was walking briskly along QL4 towards the grove where Tay Do battalion’s sole remaining radio was concealed. In one of his inside vest pockets was a Minox film casette with a single exposure…

To be concluded...

Ab Initio: Muttering Death

The Time: 1500 on an evening roughly three months prior to the post that started this saga.

The Place: The Plain of Reeds, northwest of Moc Hoa, RVN.

Either the pace man had miscounted the number of streams they’d crossed or the compass man had oriented the map by placing it on the engine cover of the Ford tractor. Miscounting streams in the Plain of Reeds was excusable, especially during the interval between the end of the monsoon and the middle of the dry season – every stream, like everything else, was under two or three feet of water and a streambed was just another deep spot in a 10,000 square-kilometer marsh. Placing a map and compass on a ton of metal and believing you’d get a reliable course was inexcusable…

“Hey, One-Five, Three-Four – you won’t believe what I found!”

“Today, I’ll believe anything – I saw a pink rhinoceros this morning.”

“Are you still hung over?”

“Nope. The rhino was rolling in the red clay by Cai Cai and he came out pink. What’d you find?”

“I got fifty NVA marching along a dike, with a flag and a tractor towing a 106mm reckless rifle.”

“Whoooo! Where are they and where are you?”

“They just walked across the border, between BTT and Moc Hoa. We’re orbiting a couple of klicks south of them.”

“Okay, I see them. Geez, it’s a parade! Keep orbiting – they’ve either got the world’s ballsiest Lieutenant, or they think they’re still in Cambodia.” [break] “Reed Control, Vulture One-Five squawking 0533. What’s my exact location, Sugar Bear?”

“Hi, One-Five, you’re tracking one kay south of Never-Never Land, parallel to the border and the No-Fly Zone, eight klicks northwest of my house.”

“Give me a grid on my mark, okay?”

“You got it.”

I turned south for several klicks, then began a slow turn northward. I wanted to approach the parade from the south, which would lull them into thinking I had crossed the border to investigate them. They knew we couldn’t touch them if they were in Cambodia and I intended to convince them they were still inviolate. Until I was ready, anyway…

“Sugar Bear, One-Five – on my mark, five…four…three…two…one…mark!” I broke right over them at 500 feet – they’d had me in sight for at least a minute; because I wasn’t behaving in a threatening manner, they weren’t concerned. Half of them even flipped me the bird. I began a slow, right orbit at 500 feet, just being a stupid, curious helicopter pilot who didn’t want to cause an international incident.

The remainder of the segment gets somewhat dark, so I put it in Flash Traffic. No, it's *not* the final installment...

Occam’s Punji Stake

The Time: 2130 of the night following this incident.

The Place: The command bunker of the Tay Do Two Battalion Commander, twenty feet below the surface of a garden in Phong Dinh Province, RVN.

Colonel Trinh Vo Thanh placed Sergeant Van’s report on the field table, then placed both palms flat, flanking the message. He shifted his gaze to the rammed-earth ceiling and thought, Van is reliable and his employment as a day laborer for the American engineers produces valuable intelligence – and how he managed to smuggle that miniature camera into their base was a tale in itself. But sometimes he will intuit a conclusion without considering all the factors. Something is left unsaid in this report.

He called toward the anteroom and told his adjutant to send Phouc, the message runner, to him. Phouc ducked in through the low entryway, then stood at rigid attention.

Trinh smiled to ease Phouc’s apprehension. “Soldier Phouc, you have performed your mission well. But I feel that I may have missed something of import in the message. Now you may set Soldier Phouc aside and become Young Brother Phouc, as I will set aside Battalion Commander Trinh – we will sit together and my Young Brother will tell the tale of this morning’s events to his Eldest Brother…”

Phouc told Trinh of the work party’s interruption by the sound of approaching helicopters: “We could tell they were Frogs (UH-1s), not Sharks (AH-1s) or Bees (OH-6s) by the sounds, but we didn’t know if they were just Frogs or the Muttering Death (gunships, particularly UH-1Ds or-Hs in Nighthawk configuration). We dispersed to our fighting positions beneath the trees and pulled our covers over us…”

When Phouc finished his story, Trinh said, “That was a most excellent story. Thank you, Young Brother. Please wait outside.” Van decided that the Americans’ morale was low, but what Phouc described was either a highly aggressive reconnaissance or – oh, seven hells! – a very concentrated tree-killing. Trinh fervently hoped it was the former; he had personally chosen the site for the forward base because it was deep inside the woods and because it was in close proximity to his protector’s main cash crop.

Nuc mau. Tiger grass.

Which, in turn, was planted there because it was on land that bordered his protector’s holdings. And the American politicians had told their soldiers to keep their noses out of Vietnamese politics and leave the Vietnamese politicians to the American politicians…

Seven hells and the hells beneath the hells. If the Americans had indeed sprayed their chemicals on the nuc mau, he would have to placate his protector in a very visible manner…

“Soldier Phouc!”

Phouc bolted through the entryway, eyes wide. “Sir!”

“Soldier Phouc, memorize this message and repeat it to Sergeant Van: ‘You know the unit that flies the tree-killing missions. You said you saw the pilots. I want their pictures by tomorrow evening.’ Soldier Phouc, you are dismissed!”

“Sir!” Phouc exited at a crouching run.

Colonel Trinh looked at his watch. Midnight. Phouc would deliver his message by 0300 and Sergeant Van would be on the Americans’ base by 0630.

Trinh made a mental note to visit his protector at 0730 with a request…

To be continued...

Hang in there, kids (and just how many of you have been keeping up with the timeline, hmmmmm?

And Prequel is Sequel…

When I’d been map-briefed on the area I was scheduled to spray that morning, something small, cold and prickly settled between my shoulder blades and started to dig. I’d flown over the overgrown paddies and double-canopy woods at least fifty times, and always above 1,500 feet. It never ceased to amaze me that there were so many well-used trails in the middle of a Free Fire Zone, even though it was Tay Do Two battalion’s home turf.

I didn’t like the idea of flying through the area at treetop-level.

I didn’t like the idea of flying through the area at 40 knots.

I didn’t like the area, period.

Nothing personal, just an irrational desire to live through the next three hours…

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Some quick background: The Air Force defoliation program, Ranch Hand, used C-123s rigged with a pair of fifty-foot ag-spray booms bolted beneath the wings to lavishly drench large tracts of jungle with herbicides to expose major infiltration routes, large enemy base camps, bunker complexes, and so forth. The Army defoliation program, Autumn Mist [John and a couple of the Usual Suspects will find that an interesting choice of code name], used Hueys rigged with a pair of eight-foot ag-spray booms wired to the fuselage to surgically spritz individual treelines with herbicides to expose trails, VC/NVA overnight bivouacs, individual bunkers, and so forth.

The C-123s flew relatively fast, in straight lines and collected a lot of bullet holes.
The Hueys flew really slow, jinking constantly and collected even more bullet holes – because we also inherited those areas the Air Force considered too dangerous…

FYI, Agent Orange feels sticky and tastes oily. If the subject ever comes up at a party, you’ll dazzle ‘em...

Now, most Autumn Mist pilots flew at sixty knots and stayed about five feet above the trees, which minimized their time in the Dead Man’s Zone, but caused excessive spray drift when they were flying in a crosswind. Which meant incomplete coverage of the target. Which meant another trip into the area to clean up the missed areas. Which also meant they were traveling at the optimum speed for someone leading the aircraft by ten feet, which was pretty much what the VC Field Manual for Shooting Helicopters Down recommended. I flew at forty knots, dragging my skids in the treetops, which resulted in minimal crosswind drifting, so all the vegetation got the full benefit of the spray. Which also meant that somebody leading me by ten feet was missing my nose by about four feet. I calculated the increased exposure time and heightened pucker factor was worth not becoming a frequent flyer over a known nasty area. And I flew with the doors off, so I could track the treetops with my peripheral vision, too. Although, if they'd been bulletproof...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Time: About 0915, roughly a week after this incident.

The Place: Seven miles southeast of the city of Can Tho, Phong Dinh Province, RVN.

"Coming up on the first point in three…two…one…start spray."

"Roger, start spray."

The little donkey engine strapped to the transmission well changed pitch as it began sucking liquid instead of air. I was absorbed with keeping the belly of the Huey from hitting the trees but still realized that the small, cold prickly feeling between my shoulder blades had just crawled up to the nape of my neck. While my Peter Pilot covered our left front quadrant with his M-16, I kept scanning for tree limbs, muzzle flashes, tree limbs, RPG backblasts, tree limbs, tracers, tree limbs –

And then my gunner screamed, "SIR! Break left! BREAK LEFT! NOW!"

My heart grabbed my tonsils, small-cold-and-prickly gibbered and clawed its way into my skull and I slammed the cyclic left and aft to pull the ag-boom out of the trees.

"What is it? What is it?"

[Cripes, if it’s an RPG or a missile, I’ll have to dive to the other side of the woodline and tuck in close; if it’s small arms, I’ll have to increase speed to climb out of range; if it’s a fifty-one, I’ll have to stay low and get out of range as fast as possible. Oh-geez-oh-geez-oh-geez, if I screw up this up, we’re all dead…]

"WHAT IS IT?!?"

"Sir, she’s the world’s biggest pot plant – she’s huge! Must be forty feet tall and thirty feet around! We almost sprayed her!"

My heart sank down into my stomach, small-cold-and-prickly joined it, I started a slow climb back to treetop level.

"You. Scared. The. Living. H*ll. Out. Of. Me. For. A. WEED?!?"

"She’s not a weed, Sir, she’s the goddess Sativa! Just look at her – she’s beautiful! We almost killed her, Sir…"

I won’t even attempt to recreate the ensuing diatribe and the aerial gyrations. Suffice it to say that I saturated an area the size of Yankee Stadium with fifty gallons of Dow Chemical’s Liquid Bulldozer, cussing a blue streak the entire time...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The working party from Strive Valiantly Company watched in silence as the American helicopter with the odd, protruding tubes climbed skyward. When it vanished behind the trees, Sergeant Van Lanh Thu clambered from the half-built bunker and quietly ordered his squad back to work. They quickly removed the camouflage from the stack of red roofing tiles and placed their weapons nearby. Van examined the red-brown film on a nearby nipa palm; the film had formed soon after the helicopter had arrived over his position. It had flown so low, he had seen the pilots’ faces.

He rubbed the leaf between his fingers. He smelled his fingertips, then tentatively touched his index finger to his tongue.

Oil, he thought. Muttering Death leaks oil. Shoddy maintenance is a sign of poor morale.

He wiped his fingers on his blue fatigue shirt.

Eldest Brother will be interested. He signaled a man carrying a woodcutter's axe. "Younger Brother Phouc, I have a message which you have the honor of delivering..."

To be continued...

Sequel As Prequel

The Time: 0730 on the morning of a day three weeks prior to the vignette I recounted yesterday.

The Place: Flight Operations, 162d Assault Helicopter Company.

The Cast: The 164th Combat Aviation Group S2, three Copperhead Aircraft Commanders (gunship guys) and an Air Mission Commander (me) from the 162d, a Mission Commander from the 9th Division, Army of the Republic of Vietnam and his US counterpart.

“Gentlemen -- our old friends in Tay Do Two are at it again.”

Tay Do Two was what remained of the local VC battalion. The original Tay Do battalion had been all but destroyed during Tet ’69; the commander and his staff had survived, though, and were reconstituting, maintaining the original designation. We added the “Two” to remind them that their predecessors had been creamed, and we knew that they’d heard the message -- they had an *amazing* intel network. Tay Do Two "companies" had been fielding nothing larger than roving squad-sized elements for about a year, confining their activities to sniping at patrols (and sometimes at us during pre-dawn preflights), firing the odd mortar or RPG at the RVN forts scattered throughout Phong Dinh Province and generally making a nuisance of themselves.

“Agent reports indicate that they’ll be conducting a briefing for some visitors from up north this morning at 0900, and the meeting place is this patch of woods just across the river. If you climb up that water tower, you can see the area from right here. A three-klick long patch of woods extending from the riverbank to here has been designated a Free Fire Zone, beginning today at 0900 and ending at 1000. Beginning at 0800, civilian traffic southbound along QL4 will be held at a roadblock two klicks north of the Zone and northbound traffic will be held at the ferry slip on this side of the river. At 0830, two deuce-and-a-halfs will proceed from the north side roadblock to the ferry crossing to police up any stragglers on the road. At 0900, you guys will own the Zone -- no one except Tay Do Two and their guests will be in those woods, on the road, or in the paddies west of the woods. Captain Tuttle runs the show, but Dai-Uy Trung has final say on anything unforeseen that pops up. Questions?”

Yup.

I asked, “How far on either side of the woods does the Zone extend?”

“The edge of the woods is the boundary.”

Copperhead Three-Six asked, “How about evaders from the Zone -- are they righteous targets?”

“Anyone running along QL4 after the action starts will be picked up by 9th ARVN at the roadblock. And no one will take to the paddies -- nobody’s dumb enough to try to run through knee-deep swamp water to get away from helicopters.”

I looked at the Copperheads and they were trying hard to keep poker-faced. About two months previously, we’d caught fifty NVA west of Moc Hoa attempting to do just that…

At the aircraft:

“Back Seat, I’ll be flying from the right side, so you and Dai-Uy Trung can go ahead and strap in facing out to the right. I’ll take off first and the Copperheads will follow in trail, ten seconds later. They’ll be right behind us when we hit the Zone. We’re going in low and fast -- if you see anybody down in the trees, tell the crewchief to pop smoke on ‘em so the guns can engage.” We carried five red smoke grenades for marking targets. And two violet ones to mark our own position for the fast-movers in case we crashed…

We cranked at 0850, ran through power and commo checks, then stayed at full throttle until 0858.

“You’ve got the controls. Normal takeoff until we get to fifty feet, then level off, grab an armful of pitch and scream for the river. When you see the treeline, fly to the left of it and maintain speed and altitude, okay?”

“Roger that. I’ve got the controls.”

“Can Tho Tower, Vulture One-Five’s a single H-model in the Roost with a heavy fire team of Charlie-models in the Snake Pit – northeast departure in sequence across the blue, then we’ll be low, working the treelines parallel to the extended centerline.”

“One-Five and flight of three, from present positions, cleared for departure in sequence. You guys going after something I should be worried about?”

“Probably. One-Five and guns are on the go.”

Might as well let *him* sweat, too…

I saw the woods as soon as we passed through forty feet. Across 500 meters of muddy river, slight right turn to parallel the trees and--

“Geez! People, people, people!”

The woods erupted with running figures -- all splashing through the paddies toward the double-canopy woods a half mile away.

“Hey, Three-Six -- get some rockets into the Zone, fast!”

“Roger!”

“One-Five, Three-Three! Can we bust these guys in the open? I see at least seven carrying weapons!”

“Three-Niner’s got a guy with an RPG!”

Frack. The Zone ended at the woodline.

“Dai-Uy Trung! Can we engage those VC in the open?” I turned around and saw a very miserable ARVN back-seater grit his teeth and say, “They have escaped the trap.”

And he’d been put into one. If he allowed us to kill the runners, he would be crucified for disobeying orders. If he refused to allow us to kill them, he would be crucified for letting them escape unharmed.

“We can’t kill them? Even the ones who are armed?”

“No. No…”

I suddenly thought of a third option.

“Well, can we capture them?”

Dai-Uy Trung grinned. “YES!”

“Three-Six, take Three-Niner and see if you can scare Charles back into the woods! Three-Three, frag off and pick up an orbit on me – I’m going body-snatching!”

“I still have the controls, right?”

“You sure do! See those three running in a cluster at two o’clock? Come at them from behind, dust ‘em off and put us down between them and the trees! I want both -60s on the right side, now! Both Dai-Uy Back-Seats -- hang on to your weapons!”

And down we went.

Why did I pick those three? Well, the one in the white shirt and blue pants was obviously a woman by the way she was running and she was wearing sneakers, not sandals. That meant she wasn’t local and was someone important. The guy in the blue shirt and olive green pants to her right was helping her run, and he was wearing sneakers, too. That meant he was her bodyguard, which meant she was someone *very* important. And the guy in the black PJs to her left kept pulling ahead, then turning back to help, and he was barefoot. That meant he was local, he was their guide and babysitter and it’d be his neck if anything happened to her. Which meant that she was very important indeed…

Ever have a Huey slam into the ground directly in front of you? It can be disconcerting.

They were very disconcerted. And very confused. And very wet.

Three-Three roared past in a low orbit and the sight of the rocket pods, minigun and grinning gunners brought their confusion to a screeching halt. The woman appeared so relieved not to have been killed outright that she almost threw herself into Dai-Uy Trung’s lap. Her bodyguard shrugged and stuck out his hands to be pulled aboard, rather reluctan--

“Black shirt’s reaching for something behind his back!”

The local guide was trying to decide if he could grab whatever he had in his waistband, arm it and use it before he was shredded by the crewchief’s M-60. And he was wavering toward “yes”…

“Point the gun between his eyes, smile and wave at him!”

He stopped reaching for whatever he had and waved back. Works every time.

A sudden motion caught his eye. He glanced at the cockpit and saw my arm outstretched toward his head, with my M1911 attached at the end. His hands went behind his neck, very, very slowly. The gunner hopped out, removed the grenade from his waistband and helped him aboard.

“Holy…hey, Sir, Back-Seat’s been going through the female’s dittybag. So far, he’s pulled out a K-54 and a blade and about a dozen green GI notepads and some kind of ID booklet and a wad of cash that’d choke the Jolly Green Giant. We hit paydirt!”

“Good. Strap everybody in -- I don’t want these jokers trying for a high dive into the Mekong after we pull pitch. Hey, Back-Seat, did we make Dai-Uy Trung happy?”

“Hah. Every time he pulls out another document, his eyes get rounder and his grin gets bigger!”

“Good. Take a break -- I’ve got the controls.”

“You’ve got ‘em!”

“Three-Three, One-Five’s pulling pitch. Three-Six, it’s time to git outta Dodge…”

To be continued…

Heh. Surely you didn't think *that* would'a been enough to hack off a VC battalion commander, did'ja?

In Medias Res

The sun was just rising, so the temperature was only about 110F as I slogged along the PSP taxiway bordering the North Swamp. I passed a Scout pilot single-mindedly preflighting a Loach in the Cav revetments and loosened the underarm fasteners of my chicken plate to let some of the heat out. I wanted a drink of anything cold and wet, and I wanted a shave and a shower to get rid of the night’s accumulation of sweat, dust, blood, jet fuel, gunpowder residue, grease and hydraulic fluid -- aka, Vietnam Helicopter Pilot Flight Funk. I crossed the packed dust of the airfield boundary road and ambled toward my tent, mentally shedding flight gear and praying that the local VC wouldn’t mortar the shower shed while I was in it.

I had just divested myself of armor and armament when the company clerk trotted up and said, “Hey, Dai-Uy, Six wants to see you as soon as you get presentable -- he said take your time, but hurry up.”

*?*

I did a quick-strip, grabbed my soap and towel and dashed to the shower. I wasn’t in trouble, or the invitation to the CO’s office wouldn’t have been delivered so casually. It sure wouldn’t hurt to be prompt, though. Ten minutes later, I was freshly-shaved, de-funked (but still slightly damp) and suitably attired in clean jungle fatigues as I rounded the corner of the admin hut and almost collided with the Boss.

“Well, that was quick -- is the cobra back inside the showers again?”

“No, Sir, but the immersion heater’s out of gas. Not that I don’t enjoy a cold shower as much as anybody else, you understand…”

“Hah. Well, at least you’re fit for polite society, for a change.” He gave me an odd look, then said, “Take my jeep and get on over to 164th Group -- the S2 wants to see you. You’ve got trouble, but not with us.”

*?!?*

I parked the jeep in an empty slot in front of Group HQ, looped the you-can’t-steal-me chain around the six o’clock spoke of the steering wheel and secured the loop with the padlock. I still hadn’t the vaguest idea why the intel staff would want to see me, and my CO’s warning had me just a wee bit apprehensive (Did I dust off an ARVN GO? Did those SEALs go bragging in the wrong bar? Did that TV crew figure out where the CS cloud came from?)...

I stopped before the closed door with the “S2 -- Knock, Then Enter” sign. I knocked, then entered. A captain looked up from the tattered piece of paper he was perusing, rose from desk defilade and peered at me. He turned to the staff sergeant at the desk behind his and said, “Yeah, it’s him, all right.”

*!!?!!*

The captain picked up paper by one corner and held it in front of me. I looked at it and saw --

Me. Walking along the flight line, looking slightly to my left. With a couple of paragraphs of Vietnamese below.

“Do you remember anybody taking your picture recently? Do you know where it was taken? When?”

“Well, judging by the flight gear I’m wearing and the helicopters in the revetments, I’d say the picture was taken on the flight line. And I don’t remember anybody pointing a camera at me, but it had to have been within the past month, ‘cuz you can see the railroad tracks on my collar and I just got promoted on 2 June.”

“Who do you usually see on the flight line?”

*shrug* “Other pilots. Crew chiefs, gunners. Locals with PA&E (Pacific Architects and Engineers, aka Promises, Alibis and Excuses). Why? What’s this (pointing at the paper) thing, anyway?”

“VC ‘Wanted’ poster. We found another one with two other pilots’ names on it, but this one is the only one with a picture. And it’s the only one personally signed by the Tay Do Two battalion commander.”

“A ‘Wanted’ poster? *grin* What’s the reward, a lifetime supply of nuoc-mam?”

The E-6 grinned back and said, “One thousand piastres for your dogtags and that metal unit patch you’re wearin’. Two thousand piastres for your dogtags, patch and nametape. Five hundred Peugeot bicycles or the cash equivalent for your dogtags, patch, nametape and -- your head.”

Okay, the South Vietnamese piastre was then worth about eleven cents, US -- but --

Five hundred friggin’ *bicycles*?

“How much if they get me alive?”

“Nothing. This VC colonel wants you very, very dead. You got him royally p*ssed, whatever it was you did, Captain.”

“I guess so. Uhhh, any chance I could have that as a souvenir?”

“No.”

*sigh* “Okay. Anything else I can help you with?”

“Yes. Let us know what you did, if you figure it out.”

“Sure.”

I left and walked back to the jeep. Now, it’s one thing to realize that the enemy, generically, wants you, generically, dead -- that’s just the way things are. It’s something else entirely to realize that the enemy battalion commander, personally, wants you, personally, dead. But --

Five hundred friggin’ *bicycles*?!?

I parked the jeep near the “O” Club and walked in to sort things out. Since I hadn’t eaten anything since my usual midnight supper of C-rat tuna fish, I figured a shot of JD and three beers would jumpstart the surviving brain cells. As luck would have it, I spotted Two-Niner in the corner, nursing a cold can of lunch.

“Pull up a chair -- you look pretty bent.”

“I just discovered what I’m worth.” I then recapped my meeting with the S2 and the five hundred bicycles.

He grinned, “I’d be extra careful, if I were you. In this country, a man could start his own trucking company with five hundred bicycles.”

“Or the cash equivalent. What’s a Peugeot bicycle go for around here, anyway?”

“About thirty bucks. But around here, that’s two month’s pay.”

“Okay, so five hundred bicycles would -- geez, *twenty years’ pay*?!?”

“Yeah, roughly. That VC colonel must really hate your guts.”

“I guess so. I just wish I knew what it was I did to p*ss him off.”

“Why?”

“So I can go do it some more…”

To be continued…

The Ghost of (A) Christmas Past

Earlier in the morning, we�d inserted five ships'-worth of Ruff-Puffs into a warm LZ (scattered, inaccurate ground fire) about fifteen klicks west of Bac Lieu in the �way-south part of the Delta; we�d refueled, opened our cans of breakfast and were now enroute for the extraction, listening to Christmas carols on AFVN-AM (the nice thing about your ADF nav radio is that it will pick up commercial radio stations). I was flying Chalk Two, which tucked me right next to Lead.

Late December is two months after the last of the monsoons, so the paddies were still thigh-deep in water, the treelines were thick with fresh understory growth and the indigenous bad guys had their minds more on growing enough food to stash for the dry season than on mounting any decent-sized offensives. And besides, the Annual Christmas Truce (�Don�t shoot back unless they�re getting really, really accurate�) was in effect. At least it was in effect on our side -- the VC were either Buddhists or good little Fraternal Socialist Peaceloving Anti-Imperialists and couldn�t care less, a fact which seemed to have passed over the heads of the galaxies in Saigon (�I dunno, sir, maybe MACV figgers they�re all Presbyterians �er sumpthin���)

So, the local 21st ARVN Advisor had decided it was the perfect opportunity to give his attached (and newly-minted) Puffs some training in real, live Enemy Territory, searching for food and weapons cached in the area. The theory was that the Puffs�d be on the qui-vive on patrol due to the possibility of contact and in sufficient numbers to take out whatever stragglers were foolish enough to initiate contact.

Good training.

In theory.

Three miles out, fifteen hundred feet up, not a sign of the Puffs, who should have been assembling in the PZ (the former LZ) after completing their patrols -- the PZ was a large paddy sandwiched between a shallow river to the south with a dozen wooded islands in it and a good-sized patch of jungle to the north. I flipped the nav monitor toggle switch off in the middle of �Deck the Halls� so I could listen for any radio calls from the ground. We were on short final to the PZ before one of the gunners spotted them forming up in the treeline.

�Little People at nine o�clock, sir -- along with a zillion chickens.�

Oh, Balzac. They�d been foraging instead of patrolling. I remember hoping that they�d found at least one weapons cache and blown it�

�They�re taking their own sweet time about catching the bus -- cripes! They went fishing, too!?!�

Sure enough, the Puffs who weren�t loaded down with scraggly chickens were loaded down with the local version of catfish. I shrugged and flipped the nav monitor toggle switch on.

Siiiiilent Night, Hoooooly whumf

Mud-dirt-smoke a hundred yards south. The Ruff-Puffs started trotting toward the ships.

�Hey, Copperheads, Lead -- are you guys popping rockets to suppress?�

�Negative. We�re just orbiting about three klicks north.�

Allll is calm, allll is whooompf!

Mud-dirt-smoke fifty yards north. The Puffs are now pelting for the ships, fish flapping, chickens thrashing, purple helmet liners bobbing.

�Hey, Lead, Chalk Four -- Flight�s taking mortars in the PZ.�

�Yeah, looks like they�ve got a really decent bracket on us, too.�

"Hey, they broke the truce!"

"Why are you surprised?"

"'Cuz it's supposed to be *our* turn to break it!"

�Round yon viiiiirgi BAAMPF!!

Mud-dirt-smoke-flying debris-pting-zizzz! right through my door. The Puffs pile inside, to the accompaniment of the Copperheads flashing overhead, screaming south to look for the mortar team.

�Lead, Two -- they�ve got the range. Next round�s gonna land in my lap.�

�Lead, Five. Flight�s up.� Good. Everybody�s on board and it�s Time To Git Outta Dodge.

Five Hueys come unstuck and nose over to gain speed as multiple mud-dirt-smokes erupt from where we had just been.

Sleeeeep in heav-- I flick the nav toggle off.

Seven hours later, in the 'way-north part of the Delta (which is nonetheless still the 'way-south portion of Vietnam), we were proceeding inbound to pick up an ambush patrol from Moc Hoa. Just as I reached down to flip the nav toggle switch off,

Siiiiilent Night, Hoooooly pok! pok-pok!

Green tracers everywhere, coming from about thirty muzzle flashes right out my door.

Allll is calm, allll is pok!pok!pok!

�Chalk Three�s goin� down. Our engine's gone.�

�Chalk Five�s right behind you. Don�t forget to grab the radios and shoot the battery when you leave.�

�Hey, sir, there�s fluid on the deck. I think it�s oil, but it might be tranny fluid. It�s too dark to tell for sure.�

Oh, joy to the world.

pok!pok!pok!pok!pok!

�Lead, Two�s got fluid on the deck. My gauges are still normal, but I don�t think that�ll be the case in a couple of minutes.�

�Roj. Break off and head for Moc Hoa. Four, you hang with me and we�ll cover Five when he lifts off and pick up Two if he goes down enroute.�

I made it to Moc Hoa, barely. Oh, yeah -- it was tranny fluid.

Thirty-odd years later.

�What did you get for Christmas in Vietnam, Bill?�

�Shot down. For the *first* time.�

Heh. I still flick the radio off when "Silent Night" comes on�

TINS!* Times Two

I racked my brain for a while, trying to decide how to spin this turkey highlight certain portions of the tale in order to give you something other than the usual humdrum yawner sedate narrative you�ve come to tolerate expect from me. But I decided against it, because I had a brain stall of galactic proportions wanted to give you an example of how gut-wrenchingly dull prosaically routine most of our missions were�

*tongue planted so firmly in cheek you couldn�t budge it with det cord*

Instead, I dumped half of it in V29�s lap asked V29 for an assist, since, after all, that�s what this particular TINS! is all about. If you want to follow the action on a Tac Map, drop in here and visit the third map from the bottom, third map from the left. I'll let Two Niner start it rolling...

V29: In the months leading up to the Cambodian Invasion in May 1970, the 162nd AHC, nightly, flew border patrols from the Parrot's Beak to Ha Tien. We would base from a small airfield adjacent to a Special Forces compound in Moc Hoa. Our team consisted of a C-model gunship fireteam and a C&C/flareship. Or, when we had it equipped an H-model with flares, .50 cal, mini-gun and infrared sight.

V15: This was also the time frame that the Army was doing its first experiments with a Huey �night fighter�--the INFANT (Iroquois Night Fighter And Night Tracker), a UH-1M (which was a Charlie-model gunship beefed up with an H-model engine) equipped with a Low Light-Level TV. The First Cav played around with a couple of them in III Corps until February 1970, then came down to see how well it would work in the Delta. I got tagged to fly C & C for the lads (and that�s a subject for a whole separate TINS!--*really* made me appreciate how much flight discipline we kept in the 162d). Anyway, while Two-Niner was NightHawking along the border, I was babysitting the INFANT (heh) above the Plain of Reeds...

Most of the time, we staged from Can Tho, but this night we, too, were working from Moc Hoa. I had the company's other .50 cal at the crewchief�s station, a twin-M60 mount at the gunner�s station and five flares strapped to the floor.

V29: On the day in question, probably around late March to early April '70, we had the second configuration and I was AC of the H-model. The night patrol had passed uneventfully and our gunship had departed for Can Tho early, while we waited to see if the Team needed to transport any personnel to Can Tho. At our release time we took off for home with no passengers. We were maybe, 10 minutes outbound when a Navy Mike Boat came up on Guard seeking assistance.

V15: We�d had a so-so night. The Charlie-model gunship in *our* team was an Outlaw from Vinh Long. He�d been plagued with electrical glitches during the first mission, so the Cav AMC (Air Mission Commander) released him and opted to launch the 0300 mission with just his top cover--me. After an hour of boring holes in the night sky, the Cav found a squad-sized element moving south along one of the canals leading to the junction we called the Big Wagon Wheel (Why? Because it had more intersecting canals than the *Little* Wagon Wheel. Duh). After some clock-cleaning, he dropped to fifty feet (he flew blacked-out, so I had to drop to eighty feet to keep him in sight) and followed their backtrail north. He popped a pair of rockets at a sampan, then broke left (without warning me) and the secondary that fireballed its way past my nose added my night vision as collateral damage. We decided to scratch the pre-dawn mission and headed to Moc Hoa for fuel and a chat with the radar operators, just to confirm we hadn�t busted the Cambodian border during our gyrations. The Cav launched for Can Tho before first light and we were just cranking up when Two-Niner departed. Enroute to 1,500 feet for the trip home, we heard the Navy�s Mayday (he'd taken an RPG hit) and Two-Niner�s answer. And you just *know* I wasn�t gonna nonchalantly continue to motor south, don�t ya?

[Aside: We called almost everything Mike-Boats (from Mobile-Riverine), including what the Navy called PBRs (Patrol Boat, Riverine) or PCRs (yadda Craft yadda); what the Navy originally called Mike-Boats couldn�t even fit in a canal. Adding to the merriment, there were smaller craft the Navy also called Mike Boats, and (naturally) they also called Monitors Mike Boats. But as far as we were concerned, if it was one of ours and in a canal and wasn�t a hovercraft, it was a Mike Boat and a PBR was warm beer in a rusty can. We were a bit more precise when referring to the floating POL points...]

V29: He reported having wounded and taking heavy fire from both sides of a narrow, heavily wooded canal. I could hear the fire over the radio and the quiet desperation in his voice. As we had an uneventful night, we had a full ammo load, so I decided to see what help we could provide. I made for the coordinates he gave me and had no trouble finding him. The boat was dead in the water and smoking. They were in a fight for their lives for sure.

V15: I was still a good five miles away when I spotted Two-Niner making an orbit around some smoke and figured I�d stay high and play top cover while he did whatever he was planning to do. I wasn�t worried about him biting off more than he could chew, because whatever a NightHawk Huey bit got royally chewed in the process. And I had no desire to collect a .50 cal ricochet, either, so I climbed to 2,000 feet and started a wide right orbit.

V29: By this time we were told the wounded were in need of immediate evacuation. But, I couldn't blindly put my ship and crew at risk. It was necessary to have a look-see and assess the situation. We circled at 1500' and hosed down both sides of the canal with our .50 and minigun. It took a few minutes to impress on Charles that we meant business and had the means to cause them extreme harm. Charlie blinked, taking cover to assess the situation. Surprised at the opportunity, but taking advantage of the lull in fire, I ordered the boat to lower their radio antennae and descended to pick up the wounded. I put my skid on the side of the boat and hovered while the wounded were loaded. At this point the LtJG in command asked if there was anyway to get him out of the kill zone. His engine was kaput and he was rightfully afraid that when we departed Charles would be back to finish him off. What the heck, my H-model could push that little tinderbox about as fast as his engine could, thought I. So, around to the stern I went and placing my skid there, I hovered sideways, while the Navy steered, pushing the boat about 400 yards down the canal to a spot where it widened and the banks were devoid of heavy foliage. At this point, confident that further assistance was on the way, I left them and took the wounded directly to a Navy hospital ship in the bay at Vung Tau. My landing on the hospital ship is a story for another time.

V15: Most of the reason Charlie kept his nose out of it while Two-Niner played with the boat was a reluctance to mess with a NightHawk and the remainder of the reason was us, circling at two grand, squirting rounds from the twin-sixty on our outbound leg and dumping expended brass into the woodlines on the inbound leg (rapidly-descending 7.62 casings warble--they sound just like inbound 60mm mortar rounds). When I saw him reposition to the stern, followed immediately by the Mike-Boat beginning to move out smartly, my first thought was that the boat was under fire again and Two-Niner was now pulling a moving medevac, which is a real thrill. When I realized he was *pushing* the boat, I figured the Boat Boss had just promised him a surf �n� turf lunch in the Navy Mess at My Tho�

V29: I can't remember who my gunner or PP were, but I'm quite sure the CE was Jim M. It amazes me that I have little clear memory of so much of my tour. There are maybe three or four incidents that are etched in my mind and I think of them often. Were they real or figments of my imagination??????? It was unpopular on Wall Street in the early '70s to be a RVN vet, so I never talked of my experiences and may, in fact, have suppressed them to the point that I only remember incidents where the adrenaline was flowing freely. The rest is gone, only to return when somebody prompts me with a memory of theirs. Well that is how I recollect one incident...it's my story and I'm sticking to it.

V15: I clued him in on his Peter-Pilot�s ID, since I�d heard that Daown Ee-yust twang when PP mashed the floor mic button, forgot his selector switch was still set on Reed Control�s FM frequency and started whining about the tail rotor getting close to the trees. But he confirms one thing I�d previously realized--if something wasn�t a significant event, the basics (what happened and where) get dribbled into memory, but the details (date, crew, exact sequence of events) vanish until somebody says, �Hey, I need a little help with a story I want to do��

Epilogue: What�s all the current teeth-gnashing about �Jointness� being so devastatingly difficult to achieve? We did it thirty-odd years ago--it was dirt-simple:

1. Navy (or Air Force or Marines) get into trouble and call for an Army helicopter.

2. Army helicopter arrives and saves the day.

See? What could be simpler?

Post-epilogue: As the Princess has constantly (and fetchingly) pointed out in the past, we sometimes engage in squid-snarks around this place, but I must confess to a certain admiration for the Navy--after all, I can attest to the fact that it was the *first* uniformed service to utilize, in combat, a brown-water patrol boat powered by a four ton, turbine-engined outboard motor with a 48-foot prop.

Operated by an Army crew.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Gratuitous Squid Snark: I'll betcha I've landed on more different types of naval craft than Lex has--including to the *width* of the flight deck. Twice.

*sigh* But we can't use the phrase "Boys In Blue" to snark the sister services anymore, evidently. Although I'll bet John will take issue with one of the reasons given for the switch--

� In quality, the blue Army Service Uniform is made of a durable material that is suitable for daily use without special care.

It's gotta be a real nuisance trying to find the exact shade of blue for those spandex� side-seam inserts...

First Sergeants.

1st Sgt. Fidelito Ordonio, first sergeant with Co. A, TF 1-27 INF, stands against a wall with Sahilia elementary school students during the dedication of the school March 3.

Ahh, the First Sergeant. The Spine of the Company/Battery/Troop. Sometimes known as the First Shirt.

This is a story about a 1st Sergeant. In a First Shirt mode.

Top Sergeants are the unit Bearer of Standards. Yes, yes, the officers are supposed to be that way, but a good Top Kick can overcome slovenly officers. The success of my battery level command is testament to that. More importantly, the First Sergeant has ad hoc tools available to him that a prudent officer will avoid.

While normally a First Sergeant is selected from NCO's of requisite caliber in the same branch as the unit they allow their officers to take responsibility for, this is not always the case. This has to do with the requisite quality in a First Sergeant is the ability to capital-L Lead. The duties of the 1SG generally doesn't extend to that of leading the troops around taking bunkers, breaking track, serving the guns. His or her job is to move among the soldiers and make sure that the troops are being taken care of, the NCOs are doing their jobs, and making sure it's all done to standard.

My first unit, Headquarters and Headquarters Battery, 1st Battalion, 22nd Field Artillery Regiment, then assigned to the 1st Armored Division Artillery at Pinder Barracks, Zirndorf, Germany, is an example of a unit that did not have an MOS-related 1SG. 1SG "Z" was a dental technician. Yes. A dental tech. Yet he rode herd on that battery of 250 souls as if he were born to the trade. He did much to teach me how to interact with Sergeants and Soldiers as an officer, and mindful of being a junior officer. A direct support artillery battalion HHB is a large, lumbering monster, with many moving parts, usually not moving in synch. By design. The first 'H', the Headquarters, is just that . The Battalion Commander and his staff, including the battalion Command Sergeant Major, the senior NCO in the battalion. Lots of egos to deal with there. All of 'em prissy and prickly. They are the reason the battery exists. Yet, because this is a DS unit, it also contains the FS Element, which has all the Forward Observers in it, who scatter to the winds to their supported armor and infantry battalions and companies when those units are out training or deployed. The 1SG has to manage all of that in consonance with his commander, and 1SG 'Z' did it well.

I hid the best part of this below the fold, in the Flash Traffic/Extended Entry.

TINS!* Another Vulture Caught the Bug

Some of my old RVN buds lurk and even sally forth to make the occasional comment (yeah, *you* Two-Niner!).

And now, they're doing TINS!

And about time, too. The Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association is looking for contributions to the oral history archives, and the guys are coming through like champs...

Bob Shine (V One-Seven) did this one, but the sneaky basset didn't tell me about it--probably because he figgered I'd post it.

He was right. And Eric ratted you out, Baby-San!

However, to forestall the inevitable question--no, I was *not* the guy who put the Huey inverted. But I *did* get a 110-degree bank out of one (something the Army still insists is impossible, by the way)--and if I hadn't, this place would still be subtitled "The Home of Two of Jonah's Military Guys"...period.

It's a quick read and a good one. Peekchurs, too--and you'll see why we tagged him Baby-San.

Hah! I *knew* there was more to the story than he was letting on...

While goofing off this weekend, I found a strange trackback. The IP address was all Fibonacci numbers, and when I went to the source it appeared to be a blog I'd never heard of before, "Pinfeathers". I would link to it but now the URL just brings up a message about no such server ever existing in any space-time continuum. Anyway, this page remained in my cache and I thought the Denizens would find it of interest ...

Now I know why Bill didn't hit on them - it wasn't because he thought they were carrying... it was Divine Intervention!

Anno Domine 2005, Cycle of Harmony 265
I really miss Effluvius. He was the funniest one of our team and he could come up with great names like Spreadsheet for Lt. Excelsius and I'm pretty sure he was the one who replaced Dolorius' wing powder with Extra Strength Gold Bond. I was thinking about him especially today because we got a special ops mission he would have loved. Seems our assigned human is just bound and determined to get into trouble even though his helicopters have been taken away (and that was a good thing 'cause Sgt. Carborundum was getting demonic around the edges close to the end there). So he figured out a way to get sent all the way out to where these two lady bloggers live and when Carbo heard that he did a one-jump launch and started spittin' coffee with the orders 'cause he was talking too fast to swallow.

It was really strange too because we have some new equipment, label says "PG-17a" and "BCR Laboratories" on the side and it went all spastic on us at the same time. (I didn't know robots went to Heaven but Dolorius says dogs do and why not robots?) Anyway, I get a case of the stupids and say something like we aren't the Morality Squad and don't they have their own GA details so Carbo has to pull my feathers out and douse me with poultry seasoning, pointing out we know *both* of them can place lead where they want it to go and did we really want to stand before a Board of Inquiry chorusing "I didn't know they were loaded"?

Point taken. Then the Ell-Tee wakes up and says maybe Tuttle will behave himself and man, it was funny how the whole squad found something else they just had to do right then. Carbo inhaled his coffee which was probably good even though he nearly choked 'cause he calmed down by the time he stopped coughing. Anyway even the Ell-Tee didn't really belive it either so we had to come up with a plan and I think we did a good job, that's what comes of working as a team for so long in a dangerous environment, it really makes you work together. We had it all covered. The long flight, switching the decaf and regular coffeepots, Incompatible File Formats, screwing up the meal schedule, even the weather. The best bit was Carbo hacking into the human's logistics systems and getting all the gear Tuttle was supposed to look at in three different places. He's mean, but he's good! And it worked -- he was too tired to hit on anything except his beer! Never seen him so well-behaved.

Non-denizens may find this confusing. You can catch up...

Here...

And here...

And here.

Now yer caught up on Guardian Angels.

Updating a post a little tiny bit...

That post being this one, where Blake expounds on stuff the Polish Army is taking home from Iraq.

I mentioned in that discussion the Skoda howitzer at Pinder Barracks, Zirndorf, Germany, my first duty station after my initial Army schooling. Reader but infrequent commenter Frank C. was a fellow-denizen of Pinder, we have exchanged TINS before. This week he provided scans of his pics of the gun in question! So here is a little, tiny slice of Pinder Barracks, now long since returned to the Germans. To them it was FlakKaserne Zirndorf, barracks for the local anti-aircraft units responsible for the southwestern sector of defense for the Nűrnberg-Fűrth region. It appears it's first US occupants (outside of the combat forces moving through the area at the end of the war) was a military police railway security battalion, the the 395th MP SV. Battalion, followed by the 16th Infantry Regiment. To me it was home to the 1st Battalion, 22nd Field Artillery, 6th Battalion, 14th Field Artillery, Headquarters and Headquarters Battery, 1st Armored Division Artillery, the 595th Military Police Company (we needed lots of supervision...) and the 156th Maintenance Company. After the 1st Tank Division moved out of that part of Germany, Pinder was briefly Headquarters AAFES-Europe (which had itself been moved from Munich).

Pinder has been mostly dismantled, though the signature tower and guard room remains - and it's now PinderPark... which is nice that Zirndorf kept the name, given that it was named for John J. Pinder, posthumous awardee of the Medal of Honor. It speaks well for our overall relationship with Zirndorf that they kept the name, I think.

*PINDER, JOHN J., JR.

Rank and organization: Technician Fifth Grade, U.S. Army, 16th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Colleville-sur-Mer, France, 6 June 1944. Entered .service at: Burgettstown, Pa. Birth: McKees Rocks, Pa. G.O. No.: 1, 4 January 1945. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty on 6 June 1944, near Colleville-sur-Mer, France. On D-day, Technician 5th Grade Pinder landed on the coast 100 yards off shore under devastating enemy machinegun and artillery fire which caused severe casualties among the boatload. Carrying a vitally important radio, he struggled towards shore in waist-deep water. Only a few yards from his craft he was hit by enemy fire and was gravely wounded. Technician 5th Grade Pinder never stopped. He made shore and delivered the radio. Refusing to take cover afforded, or to accept medical attention for his wounds, Technician 5th Grade Pinder, though terribly weakened by loss of blood and in fierce pain, on 3 occasions went into the fire-swept surf to salvage communication equipment. He recovered many vital parts and equipment, including another workable radio. On the 3rd trip he was again hit, suffering machinegun bullet wounds in the legs. Still this valiant soldier would not stop for rest or medical attention. Remaining exposed to heavy enemy fire, growing steadily weaker, he aided in establishing the vital radio communication on the beach. While so engaged this dauntless soldier was hit for the third time and killed. The indomitable courage and personal bravery of Technician 5th Grade Pinder was a magnificent inspiration to the men with whom he served.

And many, many thanks to Richard Lippmann, webmaster of Zirndorf, for his gesture of friendship to those of us who spent time living in Pinder and the surrounding area.

Getting to the fight, part 5.

Blake, retired soldier turned civil-servant-in-the-assault, reports in from "Somewhere Not In The USA." I can attest to the fact that the Army is getting serious about the OPSEC aspects of things (especially blogging) and have some pretty interesting briefs up (all FOUO or better, so I can't share) on *why* they are doing that. And some very good milbloggers we all know and like sadly figure prominently in those briefs (no, I won't name names except to say Argghhh! has not attracted any officially-mentioned attention - it's all deployed guys describing ops). My visit logs do show visits from the people who now monitor things like that, however. Which is okay, I don't think I've given away anything that wasn't already out there in wide distribution. Which means I've been scooped on stuff, but, hey - I'm *not* a reporter, nor do I play one on TV. And I didn't spend the night last night in a Holiday Inn Express, either. I *will* admit to being a journalist. In the original use of the term, one who writes a journal...

Anyway - on to Blake and his latest.

CENTCOM is getting a seriously serious case of the collywobbles about the potential for the Bad Guys in Iraq to make use of open-source material about the war there (such as blog entries,) to improve the effectiveness of what they are doing. While a part of this is based on the calculus that if the Opposition might be able to do something, the prudent planner must assume that they can do it, and that they will do it, some of the briefs I�ve been given with respect to some of what I�ve been doing over here have given me pause, and I�ve become extremely reluctant to discuss certain specific activities in real time, or to provide photos that could be used to identify a specific operating location. I�ve concluded that I�d rather seem boring than do something that would put our side at any increased risk.

So, suffice it to say that I�ve spent a good chunk of the last ten days at a seaport somewhere around here, offloading a whole bunch of equipment, making sure those civilian mariners from MSC (pirates, the lot of them,) didn�t trade our HMMWV�s for beer in Gibraltar or something, and then arranging to move all this junk to our staging base, which as we�ve already noted, is right next door to the Ass End of Nowhere. (This also involved persuading one of our maintenance warrants that he couldn�t just accidentally load a couple of cute little Navy arc-welders that were sitting in the yard looking lonely aboard a couple of our trucks... ...but that�s a whole different story.) It involved a lot of long days, under unpleasant conditions (temps 120-130 degrees F, winds gusting to 30 knots, blowing sand, and so forth. But we did in fact get all our stuff accounted for and sent off to where it needs to be.

In lieu of interesting details, though, I offer the following:

True Tales of Horror from the Unit Movements Bidness, Part 1.

John keeps encouraging me to tell stories, observing that logistics is an essential part of any major military operation that seldom gets a lot of press coverage. The only problem I have with that is that a lot of the better stories I have to tell don�t show the units I�ve worked with in a very good light. You see, if everybody does everything right, there isn�t much of an interesting story to tell. The equipment gets packed up; the rolling stock gets prepared; the necessary paperwork gets shuffled; everything gets put on the transportation, it all gets delivered, the unit unpacks its gear and loads up everything in a combat-ready configuration, and moves out smartly. Lots of work gets done, but
there's nothing all that interesting there...

It�s when things DON�T go right that the good stories emerge. Like the time I went to Honduras in 1985 as an acting platoon sergeant with D Co, 1-187 Inf. There we were, part of the world�s ONLY Air Assault division, engaged in a major multiservice, multinational exercise in northeast Honduras. And us with no helicopters... ...talk about embarrassing.

About two days before we left Fort Campbell, a UH-60 had come apart in mid-air over Fort Rucker, AL. (The UH-60 was still fairly new in 1985, and we hadn't gotten all of the bugs out of the system yet.) As a result, the entire UH-60 fleet, Army wide, was grounded until the safety gurus could determine what had happened and figure out how to prevent it from happening again. The day I landed at Golason AFB, (near La Cieba on the northern coast of Honduras,) an MH-47 of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment literally chopped itself into flinders on a taxiway at the airport at San Pedro Sula, Honduras. The rear rotor tilted forward well past its normal limits and started chewing its way down through the fuselage. (Nobody got hurt in this one: the pilots went out the front and the crew-chief and gunners went out the back.) But the entire CH-47/MH-47 fleet was grounded until, once more, the safety gurus could determine what had happened and figure out how to prevent it from happening again.

Which left us with precisely no helicopters with which to air assault into the exercise area.

Offshore we had a US Navy amphibious group with an embarked USMC Battalion Landing Team that included a helicopter carrier with a bunch of CH-46�s and CH-53�s. Heck, we could SEE the durned ships from some of the guard towers, and could count the number of helos on the flight deck if we were using binoculars. So Col. Dave Bramlett, our brigade commander, asked the Marines politely if we could borrow their helos and pilots long enough to deliver our troops to the field. The response was a study in obfuscatory language that boiled down to the fact that the Marines were not going to sully their precious Marine helicopeters by using them to carry Army grunts. Which left us little or no way to get over the mountains to where we were supposed to engage in quaint forms of folk-dancing with the Honduran Army and the United States Marines. Fortunately, we had both a smart transportation officer and a competent contracting officer along on our little tropical excursion.

Now, it is a little-known fact that when a classic American yellow school bus becomes a little long in the tooth, it generally gets sold to a used-bus wholesaler. A lot of these buses wind up getting sold to buyers in Central and South America, where they form an important part of the rural transportation system. A local entrepreneur will buy one of these old buses, install a roof-rack for luggage and an access ladder for the roof-rack, weld an extension on the exhaust pipe to facilitate fording rivers, obtain a concession from the government, and set himself up as a transit operator. Typically, the bus will start out in the early morning from some tiny village in the hinterlands and thereafter travels toward the principal city or town in the region, stopping in every little village and hamlet along the way to pick up passengers. Arriving in town about mid-morning, the driver will discharge his passengers, refuel the bus, and then wait at some designated location for his returning passengers. About mid-afternoon, with everyone loaded up, goats, chickens, piglets, Uncle Tom Cobbley and all, the driver starts the bus back up, and wends his way back into the countryside, dropping off passengers and livestock as he goes, until he eventually reaches his place of origin, where his route ends. And, as it happens, we found out that on any given day a number of these buses are available for private hire...

Which is how we wound up making the infamous �140-km-nap-of-the-earth-Trans-Sula-bus-assault-mission.� 35-40 kph over gravel roads with the traditional �40 x 40� climate-control system. Yep. 40 open windows at 40 kph. And we weren�t the only traffic on the road, so dust was a constant companion. See the two accompanying photos taken during the bus assault

Even with all the dust it still beat walking�

I hadn�t really intended to tell that story here, but it does make the point that military transportation people don�t get paid to tell units that we can�t move something from where it is to where it�s needed. Which is how I wound up helping to airmail a water buffalo to Afghanistan� �about which more in a later installment.

Oooo. I can't wait for *that* one!

Parts 1, 2, and 3, 4, can be reached by clicking the respective numbers.

TGISaturday...

...only one more workday in the week.

One of the advantages of this contractor gig is that I get to go places.

One of the disadvantages of this contractor gig is that the only places I get to go are military posts.

Not that Fort Polk in the aftermath of a hurricane and Fort Sill in the middle of a tornado alert and Fort Lewis under siege by pea-soup fog are devoid of charm, y�unnerstand, but when the high point of the day is listening to Talk Radio in between meetings -- well, you get the picture.

With which I segue seamlessly into John�s Imperial Grunts mention last Sunday as being prologue to Michael Medved�s interview with Robert Kaplan on Tuesday. And I actually came out of my jet-lagged stupor long enough to pay attention when Kaplan described some of the background action which led to his writing Imperial Grunts.

But I really perked up when Medved asked Kaplan what griped the troops the most; Kaplan answered, �The restrictive Rules of Engagement� and then went on to describe how exacting the troops had to be to avoid capping noncombatants caught in a firefight.

Heh. Wonder what he�d think of this�

�The Aircraft Commander of any Army helicopter receiving fire will perform the following steps before initiating suppressive fire: 1) Positively identify the location of the fire. 2) Positively identify the location of the nearest friendly units. 3) Positively identify the location of the nearest friendly civilians. 4) Positively identify the location of the nearest neutral civilians. 5) Determine whether the type, accuracy or volume of fire warrants returning the fire. 6) If you have determined that you should return fire, a) call Sector TOC with your aircraft identification, location, the type and volume of fire you are receiving, location of the source of the fire, the locations of 2, 3 and 4 (above), and request permission to return fire; b) Sector TOC will relay the request to 164th Group headquarters by the most expeditious means; c) 164th Group headquarters will notify First Aviation Brigade headquarters of the request; d) First Aviation Brigade headquarters will relay the request to Corps headquarters, which will approve / disapprove the request and so inform First Aviation Brigade headquarters; e) First Aviation Brigade will relay approval/disapproval to 164th Group headquarters; f) 164th Group headquarters will relay approval / disapproval to Sector TOC; g) Sector TOC will issue permission / denial of permission to return fire to the requesting aircraft.�

Try doing all that between now and the time you finally run out of fuel.

If you think I exaggerated the preceding to illustrate just how restrictive the ROE could get, ask the next Vietnam Helicopter pilot you meet about �the Rules.� He should be able to rattle them off from memory, because they were taped to the instrument panel of every helicopter in Vietnam. Those rules were about as restrictive and tightly-controlled as you can get without having to call the Commander-in-Chief on the red phone for permission to shoot back; they were intended to completely eliminate both fratricide and civilian casualties.

But did they work?

TINS*! Continued in Flash Traffic/Extended Entry

Hey, all you auld farts out there...

...doesn't this sound familiar? Edited because I'm not supposed to publish the details, so I went with a fill-in-the-blank format. And all we auld guys and gals in the service can fill in the blanks with no problem!

For those who don't know - welcome to a "Congressional". Disgruntled troop/family member/civilian you looked at funny on the street writes their congressperson about whatever. The legislator then sends a note to the Pentagon. And within 24 hours you are getting a phone call from higher, informing you that *you* have 24 hours to respond, hardcopy to follow. Most complaints are picayune, some are substantive, some are petty vengeances. All of them eat your time, and give you exposure you *don't* generally want. And then there's the ones that are inadvertent...

This was sent to me by a frequent commenter, regarding his son who is in service. The good details have been omitted to protect the innocent.

We talked to ___ on the phone today and there is a little interesting development regarding the [installation in an undisclosed place].

After the article came out in the [name deleted] newspaper he decided to send a copy to [Congressperson X] along with a short note explaining that he is from [location] and had voted for [Congressperson X].

It had been several weeks and _____ heard nothing back. Not even a short note saying thanks for writing. Well this week ____ came into [work] and the [senior non-com] looked at him and said �We have to talk � follow me to the [Boss's] office�. ______ was wondering what had happened and what he had done wrong. The [Boss] then asked him what he had been up to and ______ was stumped. He then asked him what he had sent [Congressperson X] and ____ said he had just forwarded a copy of the news article. The [Boss] said �No you didn�t .. you also sent a paragraph along and I have a copy of what you wrote!�

It seems that [Congressperson X's] office had contacted the [Supreme Leader of a US Armed Force} who had contacted the [Minion Flag Officer] in [undisclosed location], who had contacted [Senior Field Grade] in [another undisclosed location], who then called ______'s [Boss] in [the undisclosed duty station]. Basically after they had scared ____ to death the [Boss] then told him he hadn�t written anything out of line since he blamed no one nor pointed fingers. The [Boss] told him officially that he shouldn�t write any more letters or send any more emails but if he did he was to let the [Boss] know. Then the [Boss] said that officially higher ups were upset but that unofficially there were people in [Intermediate Headquarters] that would like to give _____ a medal.

In the end _____ wasn�t in trouble but it seems that [US Armed Forces] officers (especially the [4-Bagger in Charge] don�t like [Congresspersons] calling when they aren�t expecting it.

_____ says he doesn�t want to see his name in print again for a long time. He says he doesn�t want [Flag Officers] to know his name or even know he is in the [US Armed Forces].

Ha

Take care.

I will note that it is *borderline* illegal to tell a subordinate, "The [Boss] told him officially that he shouldn�t write any more letters or send any more emails but if he did he was to let the [Boss] know."

It's an unenforceable order, too. Every citizen has the *right* to pester their representatives. But if yer a servicemember, just remember that if your chain of command is bad enough for you to need to write the congressperson, they probably are *also* not going to like the fact you did...

Guest Post : A TINS*!

SangerM has few rantpeers in the blogosphere. He is also a TINS aficionado, both reading and recounting. He sent me this example a couple of days ago. If you ever thought the crewchief of an Army helicopter boring holes in the peacetime skies had a sweet deal, read on.

Not recommended for the underaged, the nervous, or the terminally queasy...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

How I got my first Civilian Job.

It was the throwing up that did it.

In 1984 I was put in charge of a helicopter platoon. The platoon consisted of three old, but highly modified Huey helicopters. The equipment on board was designed to intercept, record, and if desired, jam the living daylights out of enemy radio transmissions. That two of the helicopters had actually been shot down in Vietnam (we had the log books to prove it) might give you some idea of how old, and how modified, these birds were. They were called "Quickfix" helicopters.

As a bona fide crewmember on an Army aircraft I was qualified to receive flight incentive pay, and to wear the coveted wings, as long as I managed to spend at least 4 hours per month in the air doing my job. This meant that I had to fly around in one of the crewmember seats listening to and tuning the radio, recording voice conversations, and so on, even if the flight was only for training. And believe me, 4 hours is a lot of time to accumulate in a month when there are 12 of you who need to get the time, only 2 seats in each aircraft, and there are no training exercises planned for the next two months. During an exercise we could each rack up 12-20 hours, but time does pass quickly, and it is important to take your flights when you can.

So it was that one day, a Major E. needed to get a check ride in a Quickfix helicopter. He was over from the states, and figured it would be as good a time as any to do his annual check ride, since we had a bona fide test pilot in our company. So the warrant officer and Major E. were going to go up. I asked if I could go too. No sweat, but hurry because launch is in about 20 minutes. They went off to pre-flight and I went off to change.

I kept a flight suit at work for just such an occasion, and in no time I was off. Being in a hurry, however, I made one of the biggest tactical errors of my entire life. I ran out to the helicopter with only my helmet. I did not wear my vest or take my helmet bag. This was the mistake. Why? Well, I get airsick. And I always carried a couple of ziplock bags in my helmet bag or in my pockets, or in my vest, so that I could do what I needed to, and not make everyone else miserable.

See, in the Quickfix birds, the crew members sit in high, padded, forward-facing seats, looking at a rack of equipment that stretches nearly to the top of the crew cabin. We could not see forward. Also, because the seats are so high, the top of the side-door windows come to about shoulder level, which means we could only see down, not out to the horizon. And a horizon is what I need to keep from getting sick. Also, we were not allowed to take dramamine or other chemicals when flying, and I did not know about ginger, so I paid for my love affair with helicopters almost every time I got in one.

This was a recipe for disaster.

About an hour into the flight, the Major called back over the intercom and asked me to look out the windows for an F-4 that was in the area. He wanted me to be an extra pair of eyes. No big deal, except I then did something that no one with experience would ever have done. I bent over forward in my seat and turned my head left then right to look out the windows. When I didn't see anything, I sat back up quickly. THAT was the mistake!

At that moment, time slowed to a crawl as my mind raced through the options. I knew I was going to barf in less than ten seconds. I did not however, have anything to barf into. Nothing! So I had three choices: I could barf on the floor, I could barf on the equipment racks (keyboards, radios, computers, etc.), or I could barf down the inside of my flight suit. Not much choice there, actually. I did not want to have to clean up the helicopter when we got back, so I pulled the neck of my T-shirt way out, and I barfed.

I hear you all going. Ughhhhhhh!

IT. WAS. GOD-AWFUL! AAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGHHH!!!!

But it was done. So I carefully tightened and closed the Velcro fastener at my neck, and I leaned back in the seat and tried to think myself somewhere else. I even managed to tell the Major that I hadn't seen the F-4, but I did not mention my accident because I was embarrassed.

The next 20 minutes were awful, but the worst had actually passed. Or so I thought. It was not an unpleasant flight back to the field, but as we approached I remembered that we always topped off the fuel tanks upon return, and it was the job of the crewmember to do fire guard. Now this is a dumb-guy job, but it is important. The aircraft sits on the pad, running. Blades spinning at idle. The pilots remain at the controls while a fuel jockey connects a hose and does his job. And a crew member stands off to the side with a medium size fire extinguisher in hand. This is not to put out a burning helicopter, but to put out burning people. Really. If a fire starts, the fireguard is to help the pilots and the fueler get away from the plane. As I was the only crewmember on this flight, it was my turn.

Did I mention my flight suit was one of those sleek, one piece green things worn by every aviator in the Army? And did I mention that I wore my t-shirt outside my boxer shorts? Well, it was and I did, which meant that standing and walking was going to be ugly. So, I called up to the front and asked if they would be willing to drop me off at the hanger before they fueled up. But I didn't mention why (I couldn't bring myself to admit it), so they said no. Great.

Minutes later I was standing there, freezing in the rotor wash, holding the fire extinguisher nozzle in my left hand, and holding my right arm across my stomach. The front of me was a big wet circle that stretched from my chest to my thighs. And my misery was compounded when I saw the Major point me out to the test pilot, who started laughing himself silly.

After I climbed back in and got buckled up so we could go park the helicopter, the Major called back and told me that I should have said something. This was a helicopter after all, and he could have landed it anywhere to let me take a leak. To which I responded by telling him what really happened.

Stunned silence. No response. I saw the two of them look at one another in disbelief. Then the Major calls back and says, "You are one tough son-of-a-bitch." Then the two of them just laughed their asses off. I was not laughing.

After we got back, I went straight to the showers. I got undressed in the shower, and I washed up for at least 20 minutes. When I got out, I threw away my underwear and my socks. The flight suit never did lose the smell, no matter how many times I washed it, so I got it DX'd for a torn zipper. I walked back through the hanger to my office buck naked; I didn't care who saw me, but fortunately it was late in the day, and none of the women were present.

That night, we were having a going away party for the Major at a local gasthaus. I was not the first to arrive, so when I walked in the door, I was greeted with hoots and cheers, and I took a ribbing for that for the rest of the night. Thrills.

Now zip ahead two years or so. I am in the S-3 of an aviation battalion in Texas. I am the only one in the office, as I had decided to work through lunch. The phone rings, so I answered it, which the secretary would have done otherwise. It was, to my surprise, a colonel who I knew worked with Major E. I introduced myself and asked if knew where Major E. was. Yes, the now-Lt. Colonel was in Texas on another project, and he gave me his number.

Later, I called E., to see if he had any leads on jobs, since I was getting out of the Army in September of that year. He remembered me explicitly, we had a few laughs, and he gave me the name and number of a fellow in Virginia who might be interested in my skills and experience.

The following February, I started working for that fellow in Virginia. I was told I came with the highest recommendation as a person who could think quickly and who could make tough decisions. Right.

And THAT's how I got my first ever civilian job.

WARNING WARNING WARNING! Seriously disturbed and stomach-churning comments below. Peruse at own risk! Must have barf bag handy! Management not responsible for patrons choking or slipping on vomit... Enter at own risk.

Geez, Argghhh!!! has jumped the snark. Interservice vomit-rivalry. Thanks, guys. I am *soooo* proud!

TINS! You picked it�

6. �Sir? The world�s biggest tracer just came offa Nui Coto an� -- geez, it�s following us!� -- my introduction to the game of helicopter vs. heat-seeking missile. I won. Barely.

Might�ve guessed you guys would pick one of the longer ones�

We were playing the usual Nighthawk game of lone Huey annoying the neighbors and had just finished beating up some infiltrators with more guts than brains. We�d picked them up while they were still in Cambodia, then lazed around at 1,500 feet until they crossed the border and made the particularly foolish mistake of skirting a patch of woods rather than seeking cover in it when we flew over.

It was dark, but not so dark that we couldn�t see them -- the other mistake they made was not extinguishing their lanterns. They didn�t need them, once we dropped to 500 feet and turned on the million-candlepower xenon light�

Afterwards, I decided to break early for fuel and re-arm and I headed south, still at 500 feet, sweeping the canals with the xenon for a while, then ordered it turned off as we approached Nui Coto. The usual situation on the mountains in the Delta was that we owned the bottom and (sometimes) the top, and the bad guys (a mixed bag of VC and NVA) owned everything in between. Nui Coto was different -- the bad guys owned the whole thing.

As we drew abeam the eastern slope, my crewchief hollered, �Sir? The world�s biggest tracer just came offa Nui Coto an� -- geez, it�s following us!� Now, tracers will drift as you�re watching them, but they don�t make curving turns to follow you. One thing which will, though, is a heat-seeker. In this case, an SA-7. A Strela.

Continued in Flash Traffic.

TINS! A contest...

Okay, I've provided some radio (and intercom) calls directed at me (or about me, which is worse) during the course of some fairly lively flying. Here's the deal: pick a quote and the one garnering the most votes becomes the subject of the next TINS.

One quote, one vote, and no fair sneaking in under different loginids (good thing Dbie the AFSister is still in Mickey World -- I've totally lost track of how many different personae she is these days). And, there's still time to blow her thread right through into last week, gang -- she won't be back 'til Wednesday!

All right, then. There should be somethin' or other down there to appeal to just about everybody...

1. �Ooops!� [#1] -- from a gunship, two seconds after his rocket hit the (flooded) paddy I was just about to land in. Right underneath me. Instant concussive waterfall.

2. �Holy sh*t! They said Charlie didn�t have any flak down here! One-Five, are any of you guys still alive in there?�

3. �Ooops!� [#2] -- from a different gunship, one nanosecond before my crewchief screamed that a rocket had just passed between our right skid and the belly of the aircraft.

4. �Hey, One-Five, you look like Niagara Falls. I thought those fuel cells were supposed to be self-sealing.�

5. �Aaaaah! One-Five�s dead!� -- from my copilot, right after I took a direct hit in the chicken plate that slammed me flailing off the controls while we were at flat pitch in an LZ. I thought I was dead and his squeak didn�t do anything to lessen my depression.

6. �Sir? The world�s biggest tracer just came offa Nui Coto an� -- geez, it�s following us!� -- my introduction to the game of helicopter vs. heat-seeking missile. I won. Barely.

7. �Chalk Four, you�ve still got a tailboom. Couldn�t say for how much longer, though.�

8. �The SEALs are ready for pickup, sir. Along with about a platoon of VC on the other side of the treeline they�re in.�

9. �Sector TOC wants you to check out a possible 37mm site west of Nui Hon Soc. The others they sent there never called in.�

10. �Hey, One-Five -- uhh, ya do know yer on fire, don�t ya?�

Heh. The polls are open...

The other side of the TINS

But not yet. First, my contribution to the Festival of the Links. Yesterday, John mentioned Dave Chappelle's views on the remoras who attach themselves to the Hollywood glitterati. Here's the Huntress' considerably more animated expansion on the theme.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I've had one or two [*whap*] *ow! okay--"a lot of"* unplanned excursions into the realm of Aviation Emergencies. And, just to prove the major players in the MSM aren't the only ones spinning otherwise factual stories into "events that never were"--from the Big Bag o' Trons comes:

CW4 William S. Tuttle
AASF #1 (NJARNG)
Trenton-Mercer Airport
West Trenton, NJ 08628-1302

Mr. H.L. Schwartz III
The Trentonian
600 Perry Street
Trenton, NJ 08602

Dear sir;

Reference the above item [note: refers to a newspaper clipping pasted to the original letter. Didn't take here, cuz the paste won't stick to the monitor, for some reason...] which appeared on page 3 of May 13th�s Trentonian--there are four factual errors in a filler only four sentences long, which may cause you--as Editor-- some consternation.

First, the pilot never stated that he �might have to crash land;� he said he would have to make a �running landing,� which is the prescribed emergency procedure for a hydraulic failure in this particular helicopter.

Second, �10 tense minutes� did not elapse; the aircraft was on the runway three minutes after the pilot�s initial call to the control tower.

Third, the pilot never called the tower and said that �the problem suddenly corrected itself.� The second radio transmission between the pilot and the controller took place after the aircraft landed; the controller asked the pilot if he would be shutting down on the runway, and the pilot answered, �Yes--there�s a ground crew coming over to tow it off.�

Fourth, the problem never �corrected itself;� if it had, the running landing would have been unnecessary.

Still, it was an improvement over your coverage of a similar incident which occurred last year, in which the pilot was reported to have crashed the aircraft into the runway--resulting, astoundingly enough, in no damage to either pilot or helicopter.

If your staff writers ever evince curiosity about the difference between an
�emergency landing� and a �crash landing,� feel free to call me--I was the helicopter pilot in both incidents.

WILLIAM S. TUTTLE
Chief Warrant Officer Four
New Jersey Army National Guard
(phone number deleted as obsolete. billt)

Nope. They didn't call...heh.

TINS! "First, the good news..."

...is that Denizen Dbie AFSister got all excited last night over a post at ALa's that hasn't been posted at this time of the morning, but probably will by the time you guys get here.

*checks watch, winces*

Ummmm--make that *might* be, by the time you guys get here. But since she hit 50,000 yesterday, drop in anyway and give her a boost to 100,000, okay?

To the TINS. Caveat omnes: After reading most of this, you might construe it as a slam against A-10 drivers. It isn't. R-e-a-d the whole thing...

First, the Good News--when the new Commander of our ARNG Aviation Brigade decided he wanted a detachment of his AH-1F (C-Nite/FLIR) Light Nightfighters to deploy to Annual Training with his UH-60 Air Assaulters for a fairly aggressive series of NVG Aerial Escort Security missions, he shook out some additional flying hours for our trainup two months before �Show Time.�
Now, the Bad News--because our original Flying Hour program only allowed 1.5 hours per crew, per month, only two of us, the Battalion SP (Standardization Instructor Pilot) and yours truly, had been maintaining NVG currency--but not proficiency. In other words, we were good, but we needed to be perfect.

First, the Good News--my Company Commander sat down with us and we set priorities for Refresher Training and after a month of Tuesday-, Thursday- and Saturday-night goggling, we had our required five mission-trained crews.
Now, the Bad News--two weeks before Show Time, Brigade discovered that the Air Force essentially owned the skies over Ft. Postage Stamp, VA, and, since DivArty would be hub-to-hub on the ground, decided that the situation was tailor-made for daytime Joint Aerial Attack Team (JAAT) missions. The way a JAAT works is, artillery fire buttons the armor up, then the Cobras pop out of the trees to fire up the Air Defense systems, then the A-10s nip in to bust up the tanks, then the Cobras beat up the Air Defenders again while the A-10s skedaddle, then the tubes suppress while the Cobras duck back into the trees. Repeat until white flags sprout in the kill zone or the Cobras run low on ammo. If it's done right, it's a thing of beauty. If it's not, it's a recipe for suicide.

First, the Good News--since our tactical training area is sandwiched between R-5001 and R-5002 (oh, go ahead, Neffi--look at the Washington Sectional), we�ve got a lot of JAATs under our collective belt--mostly �wet� (for the non-mil Denizens and Visitors, "live fire").
Now, the Bad News--due to �resourcing constraints,� none of us had done a JAAT in at least two years and it had been a full year since any of us had put any rounds downrange.

First, the Good News--we had a Range Window on R-5001 the day before we were to deploy and the Battalion Master Gunner�s gunnery matrix gave us priority so we wouldn�t fall behind schedule.
Now, the Bad News--between holding the pace of the range to a crawl and a shortage of gunnery IP�s, I would have to stay on the range an additional day to get our last two detachment shooters current--with one Tuna Surprise MRE to last me from supper to breakfast to lunch to supper...

First, the Good News--figuring that nothing we do in training is worth killing somebody, my CO revised his original plan; he and I would fly a single-ship penetration of the Mason-Dixon ADIZ, do a zone recon of our little corner of Ft. Postage Stamp (we always do a hazard recon--see �Why I Hate Wires� March 29, 2005. No, I'm not gonna link myself and you need the practice researching the archives...) and figure out our options on-site. And I�d already 'phoned the Safety Officers for Post and Brigade; they were a wealth of information on our three-grid-square maneuvering area and range fans, active artillery firing points and gun-target lines, current laser operations and the ingress/egress routes of our A-10 JAAT-mates. After we were satisfied, we�d link with our other four crews at the Air Assaulters� home station for a complete sitrep.
Now, the Bad News--the original AMC got the flu, so we'd have to break in a new one during the mission, and, in addition to DivArty shooting indirect from the south-through-west quadrants, Marine TOW LAVs were doing direct fire from the north. Oh, and just to keep us from getting complacent, two OPFOR Stinger teams were roaming our corridor, ready to engage all comers, i.e., "us." The situation was starting to grow fur.

First, the Good News--we got a solid face-to-face brief and new hazard maps from Brigade�s ASO, and did a thorough recon of our maneuver area. We were able to get two-days� worth of plan, brief, rehearse, fly two dry JAATs, debrief, refine, rebrief and rehearse some more. Since we were the A-10s� final exam for a Balkan deployment, their FAC Evaluator, Hard Rock, took the onus of the Nine-Line brief, our AMC (Air Mission Commander) briefed target ID and the JAAT clock while I controlled the Cobras. Since the fast-movers� attack corridor was our western �no-fly� line, we had to settle the nagging question about their �hard-floor� of 500 feet (MSL? AGL?); sitting in the treetops of our battle position put us at about 430 MSL (our own �hard floor� was rock). The ground-attack guys would be cueing on the laser spot from a GLID/COLTS, so we did a final laser-protective glasses showdown.
Now, the Bad News--I got the Tuna Surprise MRE for lunch both days.

It gets better (or worse, depending on your point of view)--click on Extended Entry for the rest.

This is too good to pass up.

SWWBO's a little under the weather today, we're getting a late start. All this travel has been taking a toll on her. So, I'm going through email, marveling that the denizens wimped out of a good chance at a party last night (we're just too old, izzat it? Can't hang late any more? Except those left coasters who have an advantage in this regard...)

Ennyway, Martin M sends this story, and a link. It reminds me of a TINS I'll need to work up into a post someday - good, old fashioned, National Guard kind of story that we don't do enough of because no one has a sense of humor anymore kind of story.

Here's what Martin said:

This almost sounds like an Infantry 'TINS'. This is what some of my National Guard training used to be like in 'the old days'. My brother the writer puts this on paper better than I do at: [see link at end of this - it's better to read this first. ed.] My first real drill weekend was in August. Since the unit had been to AT; this was a maintenance drill; clean everything up and put it back in storage. It was hot, I was bored and sleepy. So was everyone else. I was starting to think that enlisting was a mistake when the Company Commander came on to the drill floor and asked for volunteers. Seems the �Jefferson State Militia' had taken over City Hall and we were being asked to come down and drive them out. . . . .

. . . . The rebels broke and ran after just a couple of volleys, in accordance with the script. We were supposed to chase them down to Veteran's Park, where they'd make their escape across Lake Ewauna in a WW II vintage DUKW amphibious truck. We gave them a little bit of a head start so that we wouldn't have fighting going on in the streets on the way to the park; then we headed out after them.

After the 'revolutionaries' bailed out the back door of City Hall, we pursued them. The team Martin was with ran across Klamath Avenue, through traffic, then followed the alley between Main and Klamath, firing whenever a target appeared. Cars were braking as they ran in front of them. Tourists (and locals) were understandably confused about what was happening; since there hadn't been any prior warning of military action to speak of.

Now you can know "The rest of the Story."

And, since we're at it - Sailor Bill P, aka 74 of Bowramp, sends along this explanation of his interest in guns, large and small.

"I have the worst job...

�...in the entire world.�

Except for the lucky few, we�ve all thought that at one time or another, right?

Just to help you keep things in perspective�

TINS* [This Is No Sh*t--standard War Story Alert]

When I first joined the Guard after the South East Asian Unpleasantness, our aviation det was strictly Old-Guy (WWII vets) and New-Guy (Vietnam Vets). Thirteen pilots, thirteen aircraft--good times, except when the weather was uncooperative.

One Saturday morning, it was uncooperative. Three of us--Norm, who flew Scout ships with the First o� the Ninth in RVN, Bill, who flew B-24s out of Libya in WWII, and yours truly--were sitting in Ops, drinking coffee and keeping each other company. The talk gradually turned to the been-there-done-that�

Part I

Norm took a sip of coffee.

�We were working the Iron Triangle and the world opens up on us. I beat feet about a klick away and C �n� C [Command and Control aircraft�a Huey with three additional FM radios] calls for an airstrike.

"About ten minutes later, I hear a fast-mover call �On station,� then C �n' C vectors him for the strike. I look �way, �way up and I see this B-57 at about 5,000 feet, and just as I start to think, �He can�t even hit Vietnam from up there,' he rolls on his back, noses it over and comes screaming out of the sky like a Stuka.

"Straight down.

"So, he�s coming down and the green basketballs are going up and I think, 'Oh, man--am I glad I don�t have that job.'

"He drops a coupla 500-pounders and pulls out and the bombs hit and there�s smoke and flames and green basketballs following him back up into the sky. He gets up to five grand, rolls and noses again and comes straight down through the basketballs. He pickles the load and pulls out. The whole grid square jumps fifty feet into the air, then falls down again.

"No basketballs.

"C �n� C sends me over for a BDA [Bomb Damage Assessment] and I�m flying through dust and smoke and leaves and I see what�s left of a good-sized base camp. I start calling in so-many bags of rice burning, so-many bunkers destroyed, three .51 cals destroyed, and I start looking for bodies.

"Now the B-57 pilot asks C �n� C if he�ll be able to get a BDA to his Ops within the hour. C �n� C says, �If you hang around for about a minute, I can give it to you now. I�ve got a guy in there already.�

"B-57 pilot says, �Do you mean to tell me there�s actually somebody down there in that mess? Oh--wait a minute, I see him. Gawd, I wouldn�t want that job.� �

Part II

I put my coffee down.

(Click on Extended Entry for the rest. It's a bit long, but a fast read...)

TINS!* Why I Hate Wires...

Before I get to the usual self-flagellation, I owe this one to frequent visitor, frequent comment-party participant and blogger-in-her-own-right, AFSister. She's in mommy-mode today and has done a nice piece on Castle Afghanisandbox Correspondent MSG Keith's Read to Your Kids program over at Blonde Sagacity. Even included Keith Khan's deployed address. Drop him a line--from a been-there-done-that perspective, a real letter beats an e-gram all hollow when you're far from home. And he can't always get to a 'puter.

Back to the scary stuff.

There is a small photograph on the wall in front of my desk, showing a hand holding two pieces of 5/8-inch, 7-strand steel support cable. One piece of cable looks like it had been cut with a hacksaw, the other looks like an explosion in a spaghetti factory. The caption reads, �Tuttle�s Incontrovertible Proof of the Existence of God� and therein, as Shakespeare said, lies a tale...specifically, the one that relates to my becoming one of the handful of (prior to 1993) helicopter pilots to have hit wires in flight and lived.

I�ll give you some deep background first. I belong to a National Guard Attack Battalion, then-equipped with the usual OH-6A�s and UH-1M�s -- the �olden days� when the Comanche was still the LHX (and still alive) and Crew Coordination meant the copilot could successfully walk and chew gum 70% of the time. We had deployed to our Annual Training (AT) site a week earlier with a mixed bag of high-timers (3000+ hours) and recent IERW grads (newly-transitioned into the �Loach� or the Mike-model). As Senior Scout, Instructor Pilot, Instrument Flight Examiner and Keeper of the Combat Acetate and Indelible Markers, I wasn�t anticipating a lot of time inspecting my eyelids for pinholes.

Oh, I almost forgot -- since you already *know* I�m gonna get creamed, I�ll heighten the suspense for you. The sharp clink that you�ll hear--sigh see-- from time-to-time is the sound of links being forged in the accident chain; Instructor Pilot Frustration Quotient is indicated by the addition of one or more exclamation points...

And, as usual, it's a long one. Click Extended Entry/Flash Traffic below for the rest of the story.

617th MP Co AAR.

What a difference timing makes. Two posts down, in an update, I talk about the AAR (After Action Review) covering the fight of the 617th MP Company. I lament Blackfive got it published first. Hey, we *hate* being scooped!

Like I said, Matt got it via different sources, and his didn't come with any markings or from sources that might give cause for pause... mine came in ways that I felt I had to get permission first. [update: From chattng with Matt, he got his copy from different sources, and vetted it from different sources] So, I asked the author (via email) this morning. I go to lunch, find out Matt has it posted... come back from lunch, and there is my email from the guy who wrote it. So, since I can include his email (there are some redactions at his request) I'm gonna run with the story anyway! Yay!

Here is the email I got from the author:

John,

No I do not mind if you publish the email.

No attribution required.

My purposes were threefold:

- a. [redacted- But there is a good reason, and if that reason comes to pass, I'll share. ed.]

- b. to end the debate about women in combat�they are in combat, period.;

- c. to add our two cents to this stupid debate about the Close Combat Badge the Army command is tossing around, for non-infantry combat arms only---no MPs.

I edited it for OPSEC before it went out. I only wish that the references to the name of the ASR hadn�t appeared on the news.

I did not put any names in there, because I didn�t want any legal trouble coming back to me for unauthorized disclosure of names. I�d prefer names weren�t added, to avoid any questions about the source document.

Please share it, it was meant to share.

In my intro to the pictures, I noted the performance of the soldiers - their professionalism and discipline. And, I'm pleased to say, I was pushing just the points that the author of the AAR was hoping for - and I wrote that before I read the AAR. From previous discussions, there are good and loyal readers of this blog who don't share my view of women in combat. Leaving that aside, this fight certainly shows that at least in this kind of fight - properly trained, motivated, and led (not to mention doing the leading themselves) they can hold their own. I will allow that the issue of women in the infantry is a different issue. But the issue of women in combat... well, my position all along has been - if they are in the Army, then they can take their chances, too. And I don't wanna hear any Regulars talking down the RC (Reserve Component) unless they are being specific about people and places. Don't hand me any generic crap. Talk to the hand. And yes, I'm a Regular.

On to the AAR:

Everyone,

Over the next few days you will see on the television news shows, and in the print news media the story of a Military Police Squad who are heroes. Through those outlets, I doubt that their story will get out in a truly descriptive manner. I can't express to you the pride, awe, and respect I feel for the soldiers of callsign Raven 42.

On Sunday afternoon, in a very bad section of scrub-land called Salman Pak, on the southeastern outskirts of Baghdad, 40 to 50 heavily-armed Iraqi insurgents attacked a convoy of 30 civilian tractor trailer trucks that were moving supplies for the coalition forces, along an Alternate Supply Route. These tractor trailers, driven by third country nationals (primarily Turkish), were escorted by 3 armored Hummers from the COSCOM. When the insurgents attacked, one of the Hummers was in their kill zone and the three soldiers aboard were immediately wounded, and the platform taken under heavy machinegun and RPG fire. Along with them, three of the truck drivers were killed, 6 were wounded in the tractor trailer trucks. The enemy attacked from a farmer's barren field next to the road, with a tree line perpendicular to the ASR, two dry irrigation ditches forming a rough L-shaped trenchline, and a house standing off the dirt road. After three minutes of sustained fire, a squad of enemy moved forward toward the disabled and suppressed trucks. Each of the enemy had hand-cuffs and were looking to take hostages for ransom or worse, to take those three wounded US soldiers for more internet beheadings.

About this time, three armored Hummers that formed the MP Squad under callsign Raven 42, 617th MP Co, Kentucky National Guard, assigned to the 503rd MP Bn, 18th MP Bde, arrived on the scene like the cavalry. The squad had been shadowing the convoy from a distance behind the last vehicle, and when the convoy trucks stopped and became backed up from the initial attack, the squad sped up, paralleled the convoy up the shoulder of the road, and moved to the sound of gunfire. They arrived on the scene just as a squad of about ten enemy had moved forward across the farmer's field and were about 20 meters from the road. The MP squad opened fire with .50 cal machineguns and Mk19 grenade launchers and drove across the front of the enemy's kill zone, between the enemy and the trucks, drawing fire off of the tractor trailers. The MP's crossed the kill zone and then turned up an access road at a right angle to the ASR and next to the field full of enemy fighters. The three vehicles, carrying nine MPs and one medic, stopped in a line on the dirt access road and flanked the enemy positions with plunging fire from the .50 cal and the SAW machinegun (Squad Automatic Weapon). In front of them, was a line of seven sedans, with all their doors and trunk lids open, the getaway cars and the lone two story house off on their left.

Discipline, training, leadership. Attacking into a "near" ambush is the correct response. It's also hard, and takes great confidence in yourself, your buddies, your leaders, and your gear - especially, when by definition, an ambush is a surprise. Reacting, and reacting correctly, is the purpose of training and drill - however sometimes repetetive it might seem.

Immediately the middle vehicle was hit by an RPG knocking the gunner unconscious from his turret and down into the vehicle. The Vehicle Commander (the TC), the squad's leader, thought the gunner was dead, but tried to treat him from inside the vehicle. Simultaneously, the rear vehicle's driver and TC, section leader two, open their doors and dismount to fight, while their gunner continued firing from his position in the gun platform on top of the Hummer. Immediately, all three fall under heavy return machinegun fire, wounded. The driver of the middle vehicle saw them fall out the rearview mirror, dismounts and sprints to get into the third vehicle and take up the SAW on top the vehicle. The Squad's medic dismounts from that third vehicle, and joined by the first vehicle's driver (CLS trained) who sprinted back to join him, begins combat life-saving techniques to treat the three wounded MPs. The gunner on the floor of the second vehicle is revived by his TC, the squad leader, and he climbs back into the .50 cal and opens fire. The Squad leader dismounted with his M4 carbine, and 2 hand grenades, grabbed the section leader out of the first vehicle who had rendered radio reports of their first contact. The two of them, squad leader Staff Sergeant and team leader Sergeant with her M4 and M203 grenade launcher, rush the nearest ditch about 20 meters away to start clearing the natural trenchline. The enemy has gone into the ditches and is hiding behind several small trees in the back of the lot. The .50 cal and SAW flanking fire tears apart the ten in the lead trenchline.

Recognize what you are seeing here. The "good guys" are getting hit. But cohesion remains. People do their jobs. They help each other - but never lose sight of the mission. "Duty First, People Always" is a hackneyed phrase to many people... but what do you think about it now? The casualties they are taking could well have justifed a withdrawal. But they didn't? Why? I can't answer definitively without interviewing the troops - but I'll offer these hypotheses.

1. Body armor. People are hit, and wounded, but not taken completely out of the fight.

2. Combat lifesaving training. People know how to treat the wounded, and do so. That gives *everybody* confidence and a willingness to stick it out. It also returns troops to the fight... which isn't happening on the other side. Though - it's not as universal as you'd think, as is mentioned at the end. The bad guys are just getting ground down (their dead-to-wounded ratio supports that point) - and ground down by a smaller group than they are who just won't quit fighting... and the squads doing this fighting are *not* enjoying the traditional advantages of the defender. At best, this is a meeting engagement. At worst, it is an in-stride assault on a defended position by an inferior force. It doesn't get any harder than that guys.

3. Training. From training comes confidence. You'll see that mentioned later, too.

4. Leadership. Cool, and calm under fire. Leadership that directs. Controls. Leads. And we're not talking senior leaders. We're talking Staff Sergeant and Sergeant. The crucial link in any Army.

5. Trust & Confidence. Confidence that they can handle this fight - and turst that other people are busting their ass to get there and help out.

6. Discipline, discipline, discipline. Those of you who were in the Army during long periods of no-combat peace - remember how people bitched about load plans, and uniformity? Read on.

Meanwhile, the two treating the three wounded on the ground at the rear vehicle come under sniper fire from the lone house. Each of them, remember one is a medic, pull out AT-4 rocket launchers from the HMMWV and nearly-simultaneously fire the rockets into the house to neutralize the shooter. The two sergeants work their way up the trenchline, throwing grenades, firing grenades from the launcher, and firing their M4s. The sergeant runs low on ammo and runs back to a vehicle to reload. She moves to her squad leader's vehicle, and because this squad is led so well, she knows exactly where to reach her arm blindly into a different vehicle to find ammo-because each vehicle is packed exactly the same, with discipline. As she turns to move back to the trenchline, Gunner in two sees an AIF jump from behind one of the cars and start firing on the Sergeant. He pulls his 9mm, because the .50 cal is pointed in the other direction, and shoots five rounds wounding him. The sergeant moves back to the trenchline under fire from the back of the field, with fresh mags, two more grenades, and three more M203 rounds. The Mk 19 gunner suppresses the rear of the field. Now, rejoined with the squad leader, the two sergeants continue clearing the enemy from the trenchline, until they see no more movement. A lone man with an RPG launcher on his shoulder steps from behind a tree and prepares to fire on the three Hummers and is killed with a single aimed SAW shot thru the head by the previously knocked out gunner on platform two, who now has a SAW out to supplement the .50 cal in the mount. The team leader sergeant, she claims four killed by aimed M4 shots. The Squad Leader, he threw four grenades taking out at least two baddies, and attributes one other to her aimed M203 fire.

The gunner on platform two, previously knocked out from a hit by the RPG, has now swung his .50 cal around and, realizing that the line of vehicles represents a hazard and possible getaway for the bad guys, starts shooting the .50cal into the engine blocks until his field of fire is limited. He realizes that his vehicle is still running despite the RPG hit, and drops down from his weapon, into the drivers seat and moves the vehicle forward on two flat tires about 100 meters into a better firing position. Just then, the vehicle dies, oil spraying everywhere. He remountes his .50 cal and continues shooting the remaining of the seven cars lined up and ready for a get-away that wasn't to happen. The fire dies down about then, and a second squad arrives on the scene, dismounts and helps the two giving first aid to the wounded at platform three. Two minutes later three other squads from the 617th arrive, along with the CO, and the field is secured, consolidation begins.

That's just simply Audie Murphy stuff. The soldier described here is the one in the first picture of my post below. Wounded, stunned from the RPG blast - but still thinking not just of reaction and survival - but thinking ahead, past the immediate end game. Taking away the ability of the enemy to escape. Hoo-ah! This is why the Armies of the western democracies are so lethal. Not just the weapons - but the inherent flexibility of the soldiers. US Sergeants have more authority and initiative than many Colonels in some second tier armies. And it shows.

Those seven Americans (with the three wounded) killed in total 24 heavily armed enemy, wounded 6 (two later died), and captured one unwounded, who feigned injury to escape the fight. They seized 22 AK-47s, 6x RPG launchers w/ 16 rockets, 13x RPK machineguns, 3x PKM machineguns, 40 hand grenades, 123 fully loaded 30-rd AK magazines, 52 empty mags, and 10 belts of 2500 rds of PK ammo.

The three wounded MPs have been evacuated to Landstuhl. One lost a kidney and will be paralyzed. The other two will most likely recover, though one will forever have a bullet lodged between second and third ribs below his heart. No word on the three COSCOM soldiers wounded in the initial volleys.

Of the 7 members of Raven 42 who walked away, two are Caucasian Women, the rest men--one is Mexican-American, the medic is African-American, and the other two are Caucasian-the great American melting pot. They believed even before this fight that their NCOs were the best in the Army, and that they have the best squad in the Army. The Medic who fired the AT-4, said he remembered how from the week before when his squad leader forced him to train on it, though he didn't think as a medic he would ever use one. He said he chose to use it in that moment to protect the three wounded on the ground in front of him, once they came under fire from the building. The day before this mission, they took the new RFI bandoliers that were recently issued, and experimented with mounting them in their vehicles. Once they figured out how, they pre-loaded a second basic load of ammo into magazines, put them into the bandoliers, and mounted them in their vehicles---the same exact way in every vehicle-load plans enforced and checked by leaders! Leadership under fire--once those three leaders (NCOs) stepped out of their vehicles, the squad was committed to the fight.

Their only complaints in the AAR were: the lack of stopping power in the 9mm; the .50 cal incendiary rounds they are issued in lieu of ball ammo (shortage of ball in the inventory) didn't have the penetrating power needed to pierce the walls of the building; and that everyone in the squad was not CLS [combat lifesaver. ed.] trained.

Yesterday, Monday, was spent with the chaplain and the chain of command conducting AARs. Today, every news media in theater wanted them. Good Morning America, NBC, CBS, FOX, ABC, Stars and Stripes, and many radio stations from Kentucky all were lined up today. The female E5 Sergeant who fought thru the trenchline will become the anti-Jessica Lynch media poster child. She and her squad leader deserve every bit of recognition they will get, and more. They all do.

I participated in their AAR as the BDE S2, and am helping in putting together an action report to justify future valor awards. Lets not talk about women in combat. Lets not talk about the new Close Combat Badge not including MPs.

Secretary Rumsfeld, sir. Not enough .50 cal ball ammo? Howinthehell does that happen? Buy some from FN. IMI. Singapore Industries. Hyundai. It's not like it's not out there. How are we four years into a war and still short small arms ammo?

I won't go into the 9mm. I've hated the Beretta from day one - I'm just not rational on that one!

Update: Winds of Change has links to video via the Army, including interviews with the soldiers involved.

Matt at Blackfive also points us to this vid: From the Insurgents Losers in this fight....

Some people don't *want* cell phones to be 100% reliable...

...Like EOD technicians in Iraq and elsewhere. From a source (thanks, man!) in the EOD community-

Guys, One of the fellows who just came back from Iraq gave me the attached photo. He told me that the tech placed a charge for a blow in place. When he went back to conduct a post blast and discovered the cell phone. It is a genuine photo and demonstrates majority of what the tech's are encountering.

What's he talking about? Missed calls. Like this: click here.

Time for a War Story!

Nicholas, over at Ghost of a Flea sent us a link to an interesting video of artillerymen who don't have enough to do. It reminded me of a story.

TINS.

Long time readers at the Castle know that I was an Observer/Controller at the National Training Center, a relatively prestigious job, and a plum for a combat arms officer - especially if there hasn't been a war lately. Since it was 1988, there hadn't been...

Anyway, the was (and is) a lot of esprit and camaraderie among O/Cs. Fort Irwin, not an oasis now, was even more primitive back then, the new construction just getting underway.

As with any group that considers itself elite, group norms of behavior developed, to include an acculturation process - what? - did someone say hazing? Mebbe. I ain't telling.

One of the strict rules however, was that O/Cs did *NOT* use the porta-potties put out for the training units. Porta-potties are a necessary item when you have the density of training units that places like the Combat Training Centers have, and that is also true in regular training areas at 'home station.' You really can't just have everybody digging latrines everywhere, or doing their business willy-nilly - you eventually have a sanitation issue, as some unsuspecting unit sets up their mess hall where a previous unit dug a latrine. Ya get the drift.

One of the key tenets of the O/C is that you *did not* use anything from, or get support from, the unit you were observing and controlling. Lots of good reasons, not the least of which is fostering any sense of interdependence or favors. You had to keep your objectivity and with that a certain aloofness. Some O/Cs predictably enough, carried that too far, just as some not far enough.

In the mists of time, the Gods of the Desert decreed that prohibition extended to porta-potties, even ones that were actually left over from a previous rotation that the contractor had not had time (or had lost the coordinates of) to recover and refurbish.

O/Cs were expected to 'deal' with it. Since we had our own transportation, and the unit schedule had dead time in it, this was usually handled by heading into the cantonment area or up to the live fire base at Goat Mountain, where facilities were available. Otherwise, well, one had one's etool and a largish desert.

I remember when a group of Scorpions (the mech infantry team I was the Fire Support Officer trainer for) caught a hapless Cobra (the Armor guys... hock, ptui!) parked by... a porta-pottie. Heh.

This could not be allowed to go unpunished, lest the Gods of the Desert send unpleasant weather or a really bad Blufor unit our way as punishment.

So, in true Rat Patrol style, three Scorpion HMMWVs flew across the desert, pulling up by the offending vehicle. Hah! The low-rent toad left it unlocked! (Not that it would have mattered much - locking those vehicles meant a cord that restricted movement of the steering wheel.) A Scorpion, whose call sign escapes me at the moment, jumped from his steed, fired up the Cobra vehicle, (we could hear the panicked Cobra inside frantically trying to get his pants up.... he shoulda just jumped out...) and parked it up against the door of the porta-pottie, trapping our luckless victim inside. With hoots and cat-calls and much derisive laughter, we counted coup and drove away...

Did I mention it was about 120 degrees farenheit that day? And that it was a *ripe* porta-pottie?

Heh. We went off around our business, save one, me, who stayed behind and observed from a hill near Chinaman's Hat. The agreement was that if idiot-boy didn't extricate himself within 30 minutes, I'd go free him.

He got out - with great physical effort, mind you, and breathing that wonderful aroma - in about 10. When I saw him get free and obviously just be pissed and not in danger of collapsing, I waved cheerily and zoomed off - to join a passing convoy - in case he came seeking revenge... I love the Hummer. You could do 70 cross-country easily... though it was sometimes scary to do that with NVGs (PVS-5s) on. Now they have MPs out watching to make sure O/Cs behave. Remind me to tel you about Scorpions and 'racing numbers.'

Sigh.

And now we'll find out if the Commander, Combined Arms Center, LTG Wallace, reads this blog. (LTG Wallace also commanded V Corps in the March Upcountry). He was Cobra 07, then a LTC and Head Snake of the Cobra team, when we did that.... though he was *not* the victim.

So, what was it about the link that Ghost of a Flea sent along that triggered that?

Well, it would seem that soldiers and porta-potties still have a love-hate relationship... watch, then, some Artillerymen in action. Warning - there is some NSFW language in the clip.

Trick Question...

Tonight I was doing my wife a favor: renewing her Virginia nursing license via their website. They asked for lots of stuff (it's a new system that needs its databse populated)...date degree was awarded, special certifications, etc., etc.

One dropdown menu was for "Sex." Fair enough...in the hospitals I've been in lately, it's seems almost a 50/50 split. The choices kinda threw me, though.

Male
Female
Other

"Other"?

"OTHER"?

"yes" or "no" or even "occasionally" I can see.

But. Other?

*sigh*

Another "Rest of the Story"

this time, from a crew member of the USS San Francisco, the sub that hit the seamount. With pics. Thoughtfully provided by Bill the Rotorhead.

[I'm pulling the pictures, as it's been pointed out to me that they reveal elements of the internal structure that should have been covered in the photos (or at least the pics shouldn't be 'in the wild' which they are). I'm an agreeable sort, so I'll just provide this link - which has *almost* as much detail, from the Navy's official photo website. It's the story that's important, anyway. .ed]

This was forwarded to us from a Submariner (not a RI Base member - yet!) from his buddy who was the Diving Officer when they hit the sea mount. Interesting reading!

Some of the abbreviations are:

DOOD - Diving Officer of the Deck
OOD - Officer of the Deck
SBO - Switch Board Operator - my job at sea
COB - Chief of the Boat
EOOW - Engineering Officer of the Watch

"To say that I've had a bad year so far would be a little short on the tooth I think. Last year was a good one for the boat. After spending 5 months away from home in drydock (Sandy Eggo) we got our second BA on ORSE (bad juju), received the highest score in PacFlt for a submarine TRE inspection, aced our mine readiness inspection with 4 out of 4 hits, completed 2 outstanding missions (will have to shoot you), and completed a early ORSE just before Christmas with an EXCELLENT. It was also the first year that Auxiliary Division had a Christmas stand-down since coming out of the yards in 2002. A-division also took the CSS-15 Red DC award for the second year in a row. My retention has been 100% since I checked onboard in Oct 2002 amongst 1st/2nd and turd termers.

We were going to our first true liberty port 2 weeks ago, heading for Brisbane and fun in the sun. As this WOG knows, we were getting ready for our crossing the line ceremony and the crew was really upbeat, and hard charging, we had just completed a great year for the San Fran. To say the world went to shyte in a hand basket would be an understatement. I would put it closer to a nightmare that becomes reality.

The seamount that is a large part of the discussion the last 2 weeks is un- named. The charts we carried onboard were up to date as far as we can tell. No modern geographic data for this area was available to us onboard as it is a remote area not often traveled by the Navy. We have one of the BEST ANav's in the fleet onboard, a true quartergasket that takes pride in his job. We have RLGN's onboard, when they are running, they are accurate as hell for our position, they also drive Tomahawks. We knew where we were. All of my depth gauges and digital read the same depths as we changed depth to our SOE depth for flank. I can't discuss alot, because I'm still a participant of at least 2 investigations....LOL.

I was the Diving Officer of the Watch when we grounded. If you read the emails from ComSubPac, you will get some of the details, from flank speed to less than 4 knots in less than 4 seconds. We have it recorded on the RLGN's-those cranky bastages actually stayed up and recorded everything. For you guys that don't understand that, take a Winnebego full of people milling around and eating, slam it into a concrete wall at about 40mph, and then try to drive the damn thing home and pick up the pieces of the passengers.

As for the actual grounding, I can tell you that it was fortunate that myself and the Chief of the Watch were blessed by somebody. I was standing up, changing the expected soundings for a new depth on the chart (yes, we had just moved into deeper water) leaning against the ship's control panel with a hand grip, and the COW was leaning down to call the COB on the MJ.

The next thing to cross my mind was why am I pushing myself off of the SCP and where the hell the air rupture in the control room come from? I didn't know it, but I did a greater than 3g spiderman against the panel, punched a palm through the only plexiglass gauge on the SCP and had my leg crushed by the DOOW chair that I had just unbuckled from. The DOOW chair was broken loose by the QMOW flying more than 15 feet into it and smashing my leg against a hydraulic valve and the SCP. I don't remember freeing myself from it. If I had been buckled in, I don't think I would be writing this. The COW was slammed against the base of the Ballast Control Panel, and only injured his right arm. He could of destroyed the BCP, he was a big boy. Everybody else in control, with the exception of the helm, was severely thrown to the deck or other items that were in their way, and at least partially dazed. Within about 5 seconds of the deceleration, we blew to the surface, it took that 5 seconds for the COW to climb up the BCP and actuate the EMBT blow. We prepared to surface right away and got the blower running asap, I didn't know how much damage we had forward but knew it was not good, I wanted that blower running.

I would say that about 80% of the crew was injured in some way, but do not know the number. We grounded in the middle of a meal hour, just after field day, so most of the crew was up. Once we got the boat on the surface and semi-stable with the blower running the rest of the ship conditions started sinking in to our minds. We were receiving 4MC's for injured men all over the boat. I was worried that those reports were over whelming any equipment/boat casualties that could make our life worse. I had teams form up of able bodied men to inspect all of the forward elliptical bulkhead, lower level, and tanks below those spaces. I couldn't believe that we did not have flooding, it just didn't fit in. At one point I looked around in the control room, and saw the disaster. The entire control room deck was covered in paper from destroyed binders, and blood. It looked like a slaughterhouse, we had to clean it up.

I knew that Ash was severely injured and brought to the messdecks, he was one of my best men, and one of our best sailors onboard, he was like a son to me. After surfacing I was the control room supervisor, I had a boat to keep on the surface and fight and knew that if I went below to see how he was doing, it would teeter me on the brink of something that the ship did not need, the ship needed somebody who knew her. I have to say that the design engineers at Electric Boat, NavSea and others have designed a submarine that can withstand incredible amounts of damage and survive. We lost no systems, equipment, or anything broke loose during the impact. The damage to our sailors was almost all from them impacting into the equipment.

The crew is a testament to training and watch team backup. When a casualty occurs, you fight like you train, and train like you fight. It kept us alive during that 2+day period. [emphasis mine - ed]

I've just returned from the honor of escorting my sailor home to his family. God bless them, they are truly good people and patriotic. The Navy is doing everything they can for them and they are learning how submariner's take care of each other. During the memorial and viewing on Saturday, CSS-15 provided a video from the coast guard of us on the surface and the SEAL/Dr. medical team being helo'd in, the family had this video played on 2 screens in the background. It was a sobering reminder of what a hard woman the ocean can be. We had to call off the helo because of the sea state, it was becoming too dangerous for the aircraft, we almost hit it with the sail a couple of times. The sea would not allow us to medivac in our condition and that sea state. I was one of the 23 sent to the hospital that Monday. I was fortunate, my leg was not broken, just trashed/bruised. I walked on that leg for almost 24 hours before it gave out on me and they had it splinted. The SEAL made me promise not to walk on it, how do you refuse a SEAL? LOL. So I hopped around on a single leg for awhile, the other chief's were calling me Tiny Tim, LOL. "God bless each and every one! Except you, and you, that guy behind you!". The COB threatened to beat my @ss if I walk onboard before my leg is otay, he's about the only man onboard that I'd take that from, hehe.

The crew is doing better, we've lost a few due to the shock of the incident. We will make sure they are taken care of. The investigation goes on, and I have a new CO. I will only say that the San Fran was the best damn sub in the Navy under CDR Mooneys leadership. We proved that. God bless him and his family no matter what happens in the future, he is truly a good man.

I just need to get my leg healed and get back to fighting my favorite
steel bitch..."

[snipped pic links]

I have no idea what will happen to CDR Mooney - but it sounds like he was doing his job and doing it pretty well. If that's the case, hopefully after the Board of Inquiry, CDR Mooney will be allowed back in the saddle.

Note the part that I italicized - no better lesson for all of us warriors to learn, remember and practice. Just as Major Mucciarone said in an earlier post - Train as you Fight - Fight as you Train! Or as the Romans put it - More sweat in peace, less blood in war.

Update: Not being a sailor, I haven't been following a 'brewing controversy' in moonbat circles regarding the grounding of the USS San Francisco. I'm just impressed as hell with the designers, builders, and crew (thus far, including the Captain). The retired sailor at Eaglespeak (a fine blog in it's own right) has been following the story - over at The Stupid Shall Be Punished - where you should go do some more 'rest of the story' reading!

Update II: Rumblings among the submariners is that CDR Mooney's future may not be all that bright... and there is some discontent in the ranks over what is seen is a hazard of navigation being treated as a failure in command. I'm not fit to judge, so I won't, and we'll see what we see and hear what we hear. We certainly don't have the whole story yet.

Word from the Front.

I don't need to add anything.

On 10 JAN 05, the M1114 I was driving was struck by an IED while patrolling in Samarra. The IED consisted of a command detonated 155mm artillery round laid beside the road. The round was detonated between my up armored HMMWV and a Nissan pickup truck carrying Iraqi army soldiers. Both vehicles were within ten meters either side of the blast origin. Two of the IA were killed and one wounded. A fragment weighing approximately two pounds struck the windshield directly in front of my face. The frag penetrated nearly all the way through actually splitting the Lexan last layer and spraying glass fragments all the way to the wall behind the rear seat. The impact knocked my hands off of the steering wheel and stuck glass frags in my face. The gunner was riding low between his side shields and had his helmet gouged.

Because of the up armored HMMWV, I am able to write this note today. Because of eye protection, I am able to see the keyboard to write this note. Because of proper training, I was able to function after the blast and exit the kill zone positioning the vehicle to cover the recovery operations. The other soldiers in the vehicle and behind us were able to render first aid, return small arms fire and evacuate the casualties and damaged equipment.

It is our responsibility as officers and senior NCOs to ensure we have done everything in our power to properly train, equip and lead our subordinates. No detail is too minor. No training unimportant. That day, another major used combat life saver skills to keep a wounded soldier alive. A staff sergeant coordinated a QRF over the radio. A captain operated the .50cal machine gun. You never know what exact job you will actually have to perform when the time comes. Stress this to all your soldiers. Be prepared to do everything you have been trained to do competently, immediately and without hesitation. Your own or someone else life may depend on it.

Your soldiers must be mentally prepared to overcome fear and anxiety, to face adversity day after day. Two days earlier, I was in the same M1114 when two 155mm rounds were detonated less than three feet from the passenger side door I was sitting on the other side of. The enemy had not been properly trained and did not properly em-place the rounds. The blast went straight up. Proper training and preparation allowed us to react to the ambush, exit the kill zone, and effectively return fire against the enemy. Your soldiers must be mentally prepared to face adversity day after day and to overcome fear and anxiety.

TRAIN AS YOU FIGHT, FIGHT AS YOU TRAIN!

If you are not doing it start today, right now.

MAJ Pete Mucciarone

No, I don't know MAJ Mucciarone. It came to me via the Old Soldier's Network. But note the *absence* of a urine stain on the driver's seat. I'm not sure that would have been true had I been in it...

Haute Cuisine

For those of you who have suffered through C Rations (mmm, green eggs and ham!) and MREs - This story will have a great deal of meaning.

Yes it is true that some of the meals were marked "Not for preflight or in flight use"

I about pi$$ed myself. Anybody know this guy? I got it in an email today. Man, I haven't had Ranger Pudding since that night at Bleidorn Tower when the 8inch had a fuze malfunction 200m overhead. Many Shuvs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you!

Chez Ranger

by Frank Rodgers

I had a date the other night at my place. On the phone the day before, the girl asked me to "Cook her something she's never had before" for dinner.

After many minutes of scratching my head over what to make, I finally settled on something she has DEFINITELY never eaten.

I got out my trusty case of MRE's. Meal, Ready-to-Eat. Field rations that when eaten in their entirety contain 3000+ calories. Here's what I made:

I took three of the Ham Slices out of their plastic packets, took out three of the Pork Chops, three packets of Chicken-a-la-King, and eight packets of ehydrated butter noodles and some dehydrated/re-hydrated rice. I cooked the Ham Slices and Pork Chops in one pan, saut�ed in shaved garlic and olive oil.

In another pot, I blended the Chicken a-la-king, noodles, and rice together to make a sort of mush that looked suspiciously like succotash. I added some spices, and blended everything together in a glass pan that I then cooked in the oven for about 35 minutes at 450 degrees.

When I took it out, it looked like, well, ham slices, pork chops, and a bed of yellow poop. I covered the tops of the meat in the MRE cheese (kinda like Velveeta) and added some green sprinkly thingys from one of my spice cans (hey, if it's got green sprinkly thingys on it, it looks fancy right?)

For dessert, I took four MRE Pound Cakes, mashed 'em up, added five packets of cocoa powder, powdered coffee cream, and some water. I heated it up and stirred it until it looked like a sort of chunky gelatinous organism, and I sprinkled powdered sugar on top of it.

Voil�--Ranger Pudding.

For alcoholic drinks, I took the rest of my bottle of Military Special Vodka (yes, they DO make a type of liquor named "Military Special"--it sells for $4.35 per fifth) and mixed in four packets of "Electrolytes - 1 each - Cherry flavored" (I swear, the packet says that). It looked like an eerie Kool-aid with sparkles in it (that was the electrolytes I guess... could've been leftover sand from Egypt).

I lit two candles, put a vase of wildflowers in the middle, and set the table with my best set of Ralph Lauren Academy-series China (that sh*t is f*cking EXPENSIVE... my set of 8 place settings cost me over $600), and put the alcoholic drink in a crystal wine decanter.

She came over, and I had some appetizers already made, of MRE spaghetti-with-meatballs, set in small cups. She saw the dinner, saw the food, and said "This looks INCREDIBLE!!!"

We dug in, and she was loving the food. Throughout the meal, she kept asking me how long it took me to make it, and kept remarking that I obviously knew a thing or two about cooking fine meals. She kind of balked at the akeshift "wine" I had set out, but after she tried it I guess she liked it because she drank four glasses during dinner.

At the end of the main course, when I served the dessert, she squealed with delight at the "Chocolate mousse" I had made. Huh? Chocolate what? Okay... yeah... it's Chocolate Moose. Took me HOURS to make... yup.

Later on, as we were watching a movie, she excused herself to use my restroom. While she was in there, I heard her say softly to herself "uh oh" and a resounding but petite fart punctuated her utterance of dismay.

Let the games begin.

She sprayed about half a can of air freshener (Air Freshener, 1 each, Orange scent. Yup. The Army even makes smellgood) and returned to the couch, this time with an obvious pained look.

After 10 more minutes she excused herself again, and retreated to the bathroom for the second time. I could hear her say "What the hell is WRONG with me???," as she again send flatulent shock-waves into the porcelain bowl. This time, they sounded kinda wet, and I heard the toilet paper roll being employed, and again, LOTS more air freshener.

Back to the couch. She smiles meekly as she decides to sit on the chair instead of next to me. She sits on my chair, knees pulled up to her chest, kind of rocking back and forth slightly. Suddenly, without a word, she ROCKETED up and FLEW to the bathroom, slammed the door, and didn't come out for 30 inutes.

I turned the movie up because I didn't want her to hear me laughing so hard that tears were streaming down my cheeks.

She came out with a slightly gray pallor to her face, and said "I am SOOOOOO sorry. I have NO idea what is wrong with me. I am so embarrassed, I can't believe I keep running to your bathroom!!" I gave her an Immodium AD, and she finally settled down and relaxed.

Later on, she asked me again what I had made for dinner, because she had enjoyed it so much. I calmly took her into the kitchen and showed her all the used MRE bags and packets in the trash can.

After explaining to her that she had eaten roughly 9,000 calories of "Army food" she turned stark white, looked at me incredulously, and said "I ate 9,000 calories or dehydrated food that was made 3 years ago?" After I concurred, she grabbed her coat and keys, and took off without a word.

She called me yesterday. Seems she couldn't sh*t for 3 days, and when she finally did, the smell was so bad, her roommate could smell it from down the hall. She also told me she had been working out nonstop to combat the high caloric intake, and that she never wanted me to cook dinner for her again, unless she was PERSONALLY there to inspect the food beforehand.

It was a fun date. She laughed about it eventually, and said that that was the first time she'd ever crapped in a guy's house on a date. She'd been so upset by it she was in tears in the bathroom while I had been in tears on the couch.

I know, I'm an a$$hole, but it was still a funny night.

It may be made up... I dunno. But Those Who Know will certainly find it plausible. Of course, this guy doesn't deserve this woman...

War Story Time.

*Visitors from Mudville are encouraged to hit the "Main" button and vote in the Caption Contest, and otherwise poke around - whether you are new, or a returning guest.* Welcome - and we've got some funny and serious comment threads running currently!

Bill the Rotorhead told a war story down in a comment stream below. Since I know a lot of people don't read the comments, it's my habit to bring Good Sh*t, especially TINS (war stories - all war stories start out "This Is No Sh*t").

This is Bill's TINS. It sets the hook for you to come back tomorrow - when I'll post the technical side of the story, with pictures. Which is now available here.

So, picture Bill in his leather flight jacket, 'crusher' cap, holding his hands like he was rolling in on a bandit... and instead of "And There I Was" which is Fighter Jock TINS, he says, "...This is no sh*t!"

SangerM - I flew Nighthawk Hueys for five months. TINS (War story), originally printed in FlightFax, March 99, follows; pix available on request.

WARNING: Do not attempt to sip coffee while reading.

The Devil is in the details--

--and sometimes somebody with only your best interests at heart will try to get you killed...

Lord Bulwer-Lytton would have been ecstatic--it really was a dark and stormy night. I won�t bore you with the details of why I was flying a MedEvac scramble in a UH-1H Nighthawk gunship (minigun slaved to a xenon searchlight and a fifty-cal on the right, twin-sixties and a Honeywell grenade launcher on the left, with a crew of six) with my Firefly flareship as Chalk Two, or why we were scudrunning [N.B. - this refers to the meteorological term for clouds - not missiles. ed.] in a monsoon at 500 feet, or why we were flying into �neutral� Cambodia loaded for bear before it was fashionable (or legal) [war criminal!] to do so.

Mere details...

Believe it or not, we actually did manage a flight brief before takeoff and a crew brief enroute--a �sorta-kinda� Jurassic version of AirCrew Coordination, but with a crew of six (four of them heavily armed and unsedated), I didn�t want any solo players. Firefly took up a five-rotor-disk staggered-right after confirming he could see my steady-dims with no problem (no, child, NVG�s hadn�t been invented yet).

Five minutes after Reed Control gave me an initial vector, we were in Lon Nol�s NeverNever Land. I won�t bore you with the details of torrential rain, lightning, turbulence and popping in-and-out of clouds we never did see, or the cheery �Radar contact lost; last observed heading was skrrrk. See you skrrrk you get skrrrk...� call from Reed, or the water leaking from the overhead panel (�It�s okay--it�s only electricity!�), or the intermittent radio contact with our folks on the ground (it made FM-homing a real chore until we finally had visual contact--we could tell where they were by all the green and white tracers converging with all the mortar explosions).

Mere details...

I will, however, bore you with two very important details--my Peter-Pilot�s only previous night flight had been at an Alabama stagefield and his only previous flight in the Land of the Two-Way Gunnery Range had been yesterday�s In-Country Checkout Flight. But earlier in the evening, I observed that he could fly instruments like a �Thirties mail pilot. Oh frabjous day!--the Boss had finally paired me up with a copilot who wouldn�t try to kill us in the clouds (the Nighthawker�s equivalent of Br�er Rabbit�s sweetbriar patch).

�Scamper 3, Vulture 16--two inbound, ETA your house in zero-three. Say whiskies (wounded) and how bad. And how close is Chuckie (the bad guys)?� I won�t bore you with the details of how we organized and prioritized the wounded for pickup, or set up our �I�m out, you�re in� racetrack pattern, or our approach crew brief: �Nav lights off, cockpit lights dim; we�re going in full blackout. Stay on the controls with me; if I get capped, you can log AC (Aircraft Commander) for the return trip. You guys in back, negative suppression while we sneak in (hah!--in a Huey?) and full left and right suppression once we�re outbound and clear. The ground-guys are Armored Cav, so keep your eyes peeled for antennas and APC�s!�

As I turned around in my seat to give the lads my trademark boyish grin, I found myself looking at the gunners looking at me looking at them and had a sudden vision of a tree full of owls--and the water leaking from the overhead electrical panel (monsoon, remember?) took a slight detour and began running down the back of my neck.

Mere details...

And now for the part you�ve been so patiently awaiting. At a half-mile out and 200 feet AML (Above Mud Level), the opposition stopped firing into Scamper�s laager and began putting random bursts into the sky. Heh, heh--not even close! One hundred meters out and 75 feet AML and I could see APC�s skulking in the murk. Thirty meters out and 30 feet AML--nice and slow, picking my way through the antennas, raindrops and rice straw beginning to swirl in the rotorwash, the Zippo lighter in the steel pot marking my touchdown spot beginning to flicker...

Question: If you were shooting a night (unaided) approach into an Alabama stagefield, what is the very first thing you would expect your Army aviator copilot to do? Conversely, if you were shooting a night (unaided) approach into the middle of a firefight, what is the very last thing you would expect said Army aviator to do? If you answered, �Turn on the landing light� to both questions, you�re absolutely correct.

Care to guess what my Instrument Ace did?

Unnanounced?

The troops in the laager nipped back inside their APC�s; the raindrops (yep--still monsooning) and rice straw turned into a million points of light swirling in a million different directions; the bad guys (wide awake and ready to rumble!) reoriented their fires with commendable speed and lovely green basketballs now joined the tumbling mirth of rain and straw two feet from my face--my previously-dark-adapted eyeballs uncaged and I got a screaming dose of vertigo.

I won�t bore you with the details of transitioning to instruments, starting a climbout, transferring the controls to my thoroughly-contrite copilot (�But I thought it�d help you see the antennas!�), making calls to Scamper and Firefly and trying to figure out why the direction �up� had suddenly acquired the gift of bilocation. At least I didn�t have to turn the landing light off, since one of the other team�s superstars thoughtfully shot it out for me--along with my chin bubble.

I won�t bore you with the details of what happened when I disgustedly hollered, �Aw, SHOOT!� and the Fearsome Foursome in the back opened up with full left and right suppression. And I certainly won�t bore you with all the details of our second voyage into the laager to pick up those wounded that Firefly couldn�t extract.

Would a really, really thorough crew brief have reduced the Thrill Factor? Kind�a hard to say--I�d been Nighthawking for months; it would never have occurred to me that a pilot would touch the landing light switch, never mind turn the blasted thing on in a hot LZ.

So just where does ACC come into play here? Well, for starters, how �bout �situational-awareness-for-two�--the newbie not being fully-aware of just what �combat zone� really meant and the old guy not being fully-aware of just how unaware a newbie could be.

Oh, yeah, the �halo effect,� too: (�Kid�s great on the instruments--this should be a no-sweat mission.�).

�Sudden loss of judgment� leaps out (hmmm--we may be on to something, here!). Did I make his �comfort zone� a wee bit too comfortable with my �piece of cake� briefing? And then there�s...

Details, details, details...