WEBVTT

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We'll talk about Special Operations, Colbert,

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ask me the Team House with your
hopes, Jack Burphy and David Park,

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Hey, guys, welcome to episode
two hundred and thirty nine of the Team

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House. We are here today with
our guest Daniel. Daniel served as a

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crew chief with one hundred and sixtieth
Special Operations Aviation Regiment, mostly or entirely

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on the MH forty seven platform,
also deployed with a previous guest of ours,

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Alan Mack, so we're really happy
to have him on the show tonight.

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Quick shout out to Augusta Precious Metals
for supporting the show and being a

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sponsor. We really appreciate having them
and Daniel. You know, without further

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Ado, Man, thank you for
coming on the show tonight. Thank you

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very much for having me on board. Yeah, man, so tell us

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a little bit about you know,
your upbringing and sort of what led you

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towards military service. My dislike for
school pretty much sent me in the military

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away. I grew up in a
little small town in Missouri, o Sage

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Beach, Missouri, down the Lake
of the Ozarks. I'm not the Ozarks

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north of there. That's fight Morgan
if you call me from the Ozarks.

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But yeah, I was just uh, middle of the road school kid.

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I was always well behaved, but
when it came to homework and study habits,

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it was not my cup of tea. So my best friend at the

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time that I didn't know till after
I had already joined the army, is

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the guy that sent the Army recruited
to my door. Came and talked with

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him and told me, you want
to travel the world and do fun stuff

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and get some money for college.
And I was like, yeah, sure,

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why not. My parents were maybe
back during the Vietnam era and my

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grandparents and all that. My brother
served in the army in the late eighties

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early nineties, so I thought,
yeah, sure, why not. Let's

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let's give it a try. So
off I went and went up to the

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MET station up in Saint Louis,
Missouri, and watched the little video.

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I'd always been in love with tanks. You know, it's cool they drive

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around and blows awesome. I've always
had a love for helicopters. I don't

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know, I don't know where that
came from. It was pretty cool.

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So I was sitting in the lobby
at the MET station and I remember a

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show called The Firepower on Discovery Channel
came on. It showed a tank rolling

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through the desert blowing up stuff.
I was like, yep, that's it,

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And the very next screen showed a
helicopter finer missile and blowing up the

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tank. So I walked the while
I was sitting there and said, Hey,

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that helicopter job. I'll take it. Sounds cool. Off over,

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So you didn't really know too much
about what you volunteered for. You just

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knew you want to be in rotary
wing aviation somewhere. Oh yeah, and

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it's I mean, it's even it's
even worse than that. My official MOS

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at the time sixty seven uniform and
then you know they changed the moss around

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and became fifteen uniform. But my
ls, they need help repairer. I

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signed it the Helicopter Mechanics, And
when I showed up at Fort Eusta's,

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Virginia in August of two thousand.
In the ninety four, you know,

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I thought I was gonna be just
a general helicopter mechanic. That's that's the

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laser disc. Aging ourselves a little
bit, but that's the laser disc.

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They showed me at the met station
was fixing all you know, Apaches cobra

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a few weeks. This was great. And all of a sudden we walked

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through the hangar on our first day
and I'm like, uh, what is

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this? But what is this school
less dumpster looking thing? And they're like,

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oh, yeah, this this is
your life for the next and for

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our job. It was six years. The initial listener was six years.

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Wow. So well, I'll just
I'll be a helicopter mechanic and see how

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it goes. And I had at
the time, I had no idea that,

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you know, being a crew chief
on anything flying was was an option.

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I didn't realize that until I got
Tanama and I was like, who's

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the who's the cool guys in the
flight seats that are never at pet in

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the morning, those that's a flightful
team? Said I want it? How

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do I do that? I spent
six months in maintenance and the rest of

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my career, the last nineteen years
flying on the back was uh was the

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enlistment six years because the initial training
was so long. Yeah, I mean

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I think it's you know some of
those mss where they you know, the

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training's cut along and it's technical,
and you know, if they're gonna they're

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gonna do that. They want they
want something with some longevity, right.

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I initially kind of asked about,
you know, what's a medic or whatever,

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you know, something someone to give
me a good job on the outside.

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But yeah, so T school up
at Fort Eustas, Virginia was so

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I got there and let's see August
September, actually got there in October.

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It was about six months about six
months long. Yeah, and so if

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you're if you're going from scratch,
like you know, you didn't happen to

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have a helicopter in your garage,
so you're know your hands on for the

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first time. What it what is
six months of you know, helicopter maintenance,

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Like yeah, I mean it's the
first three weeks stick the front load,

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and it's all learning the manuals,
the maintenance mangals, you know,

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because every I mean, the helicopter
is big. You guys have been in

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the back of you see how big
those things are. Lots of lots of

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systems, subsystems. So the first
three weeks is learning the maintenance manuals and

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it's like, you know, it's
about ten books, you know, that's

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you know, two inches thick.
And then you've got troubleshooting manuals that are

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you know, four of which are
huge. So it's learning the the you

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know, the maintenance, the manuals, the the record system because I mean,

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it's it's still a helicopter that flies, so you've still got to follow

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you know, FAA guidance and civilian
pieces and parts as well, so you

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know, learning the kind of some
of the aspects on that some of the

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inspection techniques and procedures, you know, not just you know, part broke

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take off the new part of but
you take that part off cleanected. You

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know, the helicopter goes through periodic
period you know, every so many flight

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hours that go through little expections,
and then you know, every couple of

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hundred hours we tear the thing apart. So that's the first few weeks,

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and then the rest of it is
just each individual system. You go through

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the the engine systems and the hydraus
and then electrical systems and then cargo handling.

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So it just breaks that thing down
into pieces and you get to kind

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of know, and then you get
to kind of know that engineers are very

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weird people and how they put stuff
together does not make sense. So when

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everybody's really working on their cars,
you know, it's a simple thing like

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changing the spark plug. Now imagine
doing that on turbine engines that you know,

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sitting on top of the helicopter twenty
feet up in the one hundred and

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twenty degree after any sun. Yeah, makes things go sporty, but yeah,

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it's just it's just a whole lot
of technical you know, learning and

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some of us also the basic concepts
of not just learning in parts, but

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how they work, right. I
mean, you guys, you just sit

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inside. You look up and you
see all those pipes and two beams and

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all that stuff, and we know
what every piece is, what everything does

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sudden. This is pretty long and
for twenty years I was still learning.

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I mean even up until the point
I retired, I was still learning stuff.

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Do uh do the do the do
different parts of the helicopter evolve at

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different times? And so how does
that create challenges for you guys? Yeah?

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I mean, uh, you know
when I when I retired, I

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was teaching at the maintenance Test Pilot
course down at for Recker, Alabama for

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Big Army guys. And the Big
Army had the Fox model shnooks near the

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F models, which was kind of
like a slim down version of the G

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model that we had in the regiment. And then part of that was the

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echo. So you know, with
every model change, it's basics are the

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same, but it's a new helicopter. And then individual pieces and parts can

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sometimes update, you know, the
engines go through upgrades. It was very

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common in the one sixtieth you know, we had we had a little cell

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down at the end of the runway. That their sole purpose in life was,

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Yeah, take a piece, how
can we make it bigger and better?

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How can we fit it on the
helicopter? And then we got to

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learn it? Yea, So it
was yeah, I mean, it was

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just about the time you think of
the smartest guy's world to come out with

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new stuff. You're like, shit, okay, I'm starting over. Yeah

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yeah, so you yeah. I
mean, in my in my twenty years,

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you know, I went from you
know, the big Army Delta models

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to the regimental echoes, and then
we replaced the echoes with the golfs,

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and I went from golf to bit
Hermie on the Fox model. So I

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went through four four models of the
forty seven. Yeah, and so four

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years down in Panama you were able
to make that switch from mechanic over to

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crew chief. What what? And
what was it like? Uh? Down

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in Panama at that time. That's
I mean, people who were stationed down

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there back in the day speak very
highly of it. I found it was

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the it was the Army's little hidden
secret. I got there in March of

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March April of ninety five. I
remember leaving, leaving Virginia. I said,

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you know, blue jeans, you
know, flannel shirt jacket. I

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get off the airplane and uh,
you know in Panama Takuma Airport, and

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I thought I was dying and I
was like, what, where, where

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am I? What did I just
do? But yeah, that place was

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amazing. As far as us,
we had just one little aviation battalion,

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you know, some big army Blackhawks, and then the forty seven side of

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the house we only had eight.
We had eight ships and we supported everything

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you know, from Mexico down to
the tip of South America. But the

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thing that really kind of ignited my
my fire for what I wanted to do

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in the future was we had a
small little detachment from the one Safety of

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Guys at the time was called the
sixth seventeenth so AD and then you know,

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they later became part of the Therbitine
Guys here, but we were fortunate

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enough that we got to do some
work with them. You know, sometimes

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we was doing you know pasmic training, I mean over the jungle school,

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or you know, doing fat cow
missions, you know, flying out to

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an island and setting up a fark
site. So just kind of getting exposed

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to that and then the other thing
that kind of made me decide that I

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wanted to special someday was I'm getting
to work with the seals that were rotating

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through. We had Charlie Company,
third of the Seventh, which was down

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there on Fort Clayton, Panama.
Those guys were awesome, you know,

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super super great group of guys with
such a good relationship. You know,

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we do a lot of you know, static line jumps with them, We

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do their halo drops, We go
down in the canal and do their you

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know helo cast operations. You know, there were boats. We got to

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do ladders, ladders with them repelling. So it was almost like kind of

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being a little you know, miniature
Special Operations unit without all the fancy toys.

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So when I set up and you
know, I go to the maintenance

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platoon and I'm like scrubbing the cracks
the hangar floor and you know, cleaning

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out the butt cans, I was
like, this sucks. I want to

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I want to go do the things
that I hear those stories about the guys

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at the bar talking about. So
about six months into it, they held

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a flight platoon board, you know, just promotion board, a selection board

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basically, and uh. One of
the books that we had that were given

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and a I T was called the
Dash ten. It's the operators man,

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it's the Bible. It is the
forty seven Bible that tells you how everything

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works, not details, but the
overall basics. You know, nomen plays

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stuff and you point at it and
you know what's this. It's a red

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solo cup full of rum and coach
great awesome, so you know, you

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knew what it was, what it's
called, how it works, aircraft limitations,

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emergency procedures, basically everything the pat
knows about the cocker stuff. Every

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back study. Had a couple of
flightful tune guys helping me out. And

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I went to the board and I
mean, I'm just a you know,

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I think at the time, maybe
one year in the army. I'm an

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E two, got my little mosquito
wings and it's one of the you know,

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E four, E five even had
a couple of sixes that had been

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in the army ten twelve years and
never flown and wanted to do it,

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and they picked me. I never
stopped. So I've been for about three

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and a half years in Panama as
a crew chief there. Progressed up so

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you know, in the forty seven
well, it's a touchy subjects, so

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I'll kind of let this one slide
for a guy because nobody knows better.

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But in the forty seven world,
being called a crew chief's kind of almost

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a degrading thing because that's what that's
what we start off as. But in

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the in the big world is whatever
you notice is. But you progress up

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from being a crew chief to a
flight engineer, and then from flight eginer

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up to standards. So I started
off, you know, as a crew

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chief is everybody else, and then
got really good at working on the airplane

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fixing minute started getting good reputation with
the pilots that you know, hey,

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and the other guy I worked with. His name was Randy. Nickname was

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Stubby, just a little short guy. Our airplane was always perfect, it

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was clean, you know, there
was no issues. We took it,

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babed it like it was our car, and uh, I just kept working

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up became a flagstuers. Basically,
when we become a flight engineer, you

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00:14:50.919 --> 00:14:54.039
get your own It's kind of like, you know, you get to put

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your name on the side that's mine, so you know, when people are

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00:14:56.480 --> 00:15:00.559
talking about you know, one oh
five or one, three, five numbers.

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00:15:00.559 --> 00:15:03.600
It's Dan the airplane, Randy airplane. So it starts, it takes

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00:15:03.600 --> 00:15:07.879
on your own, your own persona, and so yeah, we started doing

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00:15:07.960 --> 00:15:13.120
that, Ken and Daniel before jumping
onto the next thing. Could you take

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00:15:13.200 --> 00:15:16.240
just a moment to explain to the
people out there who are not familiar what

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00:15:16.279 --> 00:15:20.799
a crew chief does, what a
flight engineer does, how they interact with

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00:15:20.840 --> 00:15:26.440
the pilots, and really what that
job entails. Yeah, you know,

215
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starting off, you have big army
has two people. You have two people

216
00:15:28.919 --> 00:15:33.960
assigned to each aircraft and it's theirs. I mean, it depends on it.

217
00:15:33.960 --> 00:15:39.240
It's your plane. The flight engineer
is the senior crew member that's basically

218
00:15:39.240 --> 00:15:43.440
in charge. It's his He signs
the hand receipt for all the equipment.

219
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It's it's his responsibility to make sure
that thing is you know, fully mission

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00:15:46.519 --> 00:15:50.639
capable all the time. And an
assigned to him is a crew chief,

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which is usually a new flight guy. So they're coming from a maintenance platoon.

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You know, we're coming from another
duty station. And then they're yours.

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So the two of you you take
you off stuff and then as you

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progress, as you learn, because
you know, there is no there's no

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00:16:07.840 --> 00:16:11.559
school for being a crewchie. It's
literally on the job training. You know,

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they give you a give you a
couple of books, give you a

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00:16:14.600 --> 00:16:18.840
checklift, they give you what's called
a call and response because every if you

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guys have ever been on the airplane
plugged in, you hear a lot of

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talk back and forth between the front
end and the back end, especially when

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you're starting up, shutting down,
and performing flight news. It's it's an

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00:16:27.879 --> 00:16:32.159
orchestrated event. So you know,
every time the pilot says something, he

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calls it out and you respond.
He calls it out and you respond.

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00:16:34.080 --> 00:16:38.360
So yeah, the first few months
is just learning that, you know,

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00:16:38.360 --> 00:16:41.080
where do I stand when we start
an engine, where do I stand when

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00:16:41.080 --> 00:16:45.159
we start the auxiliary, Where do
we stand when I'm doing whatever? So

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00:16:45.360 --> 00:16:48.600
that's kind of that flight engineer's job
is to make sure the aircraft is up

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00:16:48.600 --> 00:16:52.919
and running all the time, and
to train that new crew chief to become

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a flight engineer someday as well,
and then he'll move over and get his

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00:16:56.840 --> 00:17:00.879
own airplane. And then when it
comes to the side of the house,

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it's the mission planning bigger. I
mean, we didn't really do much.

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00:17:06.359 --> 00:17:08.039
Everything was done by the pilots.
They you know, we just went out

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of the aircraft, got it ready, and we just sat there waiting for

243
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a way to show up. And
then you know, the teams would show

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up, the passengers or whatever,
we'd load the cargo. We might do

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00:17:17.200 --> 00:17:19.160
a quick little you know, safety
brief. You know, don't touch this,

246
00:17:19.240 --> 00:17:22.400
don't touch that, sit down,
bulk your seat belt, shut up

247
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and get off, and I tell
you to you I probably heard some of

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those. And then when it came
to the mission stuff was you know,

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executing whatever fast it was. When
I got to the regiment, it was

250
00:17:36.319 --> 00:17:41.039
a very eye opening experience on how
involved and it got a lot more involved

251
00:17:41.039 --> 00:17:45.559
as time went on, as the
guat went on on, how much more

252
00:17:45.599 --> 00:17:49.440
involved we became in the mission planning
cycle of it. You know, sitting

253
00:17:49.480 --> 00:17:52.880
in Afghanistan, the planning centers,
I had a desk right there at the

254
00:17:52.880 --> 00:17:56.319
head devil. You know, you
had the pilots on one it is kind

255
00:17:56.359 --> 00:17:59.599
of a U shaping. Had pilots
ran down one side head of the table.

256
00:17:59.640 --> 00:18:04.480
You had the air mission commander,
you had the flight lead, and

257
00:18:04.519 --> 00:18:08.519
then right next to him was me. That's you know where that's where al

258
00:18:08.559 --> 00:18:12.720
Matt comes into play, drag me
around the globe. A couple of times

259
00:18:12.880 --> 00:18:19.440
you're in there to kind of take
the load off of them because the you

260
00:18:19.440 --> 00:18:25.319
know, the mission sets were very
detailed and sometimes very complex that they didn't

261
00:18:25.319 --> 00:18:27.480
need to worry about that stuff.
You know, there was the mission they

262
00:18:27.720 --> 00:18:30.720
met with the ground forced guys.
They come and say, hey, Dan,

263
00:18:32.079 --> 00:18:33.799
here's how much weight we have?
Can we do it? Where we

264
00:18:33.839 --> 00:18:37.640
got to put this stuff? Can
we load this? And then a lot

265
00:18:37.680 --> 00:18:40.880
of times it was meeting up with
the various kats, you know, doing

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face to face with them, and
you know, especially as time went on,

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00:18:44.640 --> 00:18:47.519
it was very understanding, you know, because they look at a helicopter

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00:18:47.559 --> 00:18:48.599
and go, what do you mean
I can only take six people? You're

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00:18:48.640 --> 00:18:53.400
a flying school bus. Well,
yeah, but we're going to twenty thousand

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feet. Helicopters have limitations too,
So we became an integral part of that

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00:18:59.319 --> 00:19:03.079
mission planning. We're called in the
Lifted Planner was our official official title,

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00:19:03.839 --> 00:19:06.559
and that's what I eventually did a
lot of. But yeah, that's kind

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00:19:06.559 --> 00:19:08.839
of the role of the crew chief
versus flat engineers. The crew chiefs is

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00:19:08.920 --> 00:19:14.759
just a young new crew member that's
that's learning the ropes and working his way

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00:19:14.839 --> 00:19:18.480
up and then he gets qualified the
basic mission fully mission, and then they'll

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00:19:18.480 --> 00:19:21.720
take a flightage in your check ride, get signed off on that and then

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00:19:21.799 --> 00:19:23.599
hey, you know, here's your
aircraft and here's your crew. You know,

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00:19:23.839 --> 00:19:27.559
don't screw it up and get fired. Well I don't know why he

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00:19:27.720 --> 00:19:34.200
doesn't like you, but he demoted
you in the title to to Uh yeah,

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00:19:34.279 --> 00:19:38.440
he demoted you to cru chief and
the title of the video the interview.

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00:19:40.759 --> 00:19:44.680
But it just simplifies stuff because everybody
knows. When everybody says, you

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00:19:44.680 --> 00:19:45.680
know, the flightage and you're like, oh, so you flew, I

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00:19:45.759 --> 00:19:48.200
was like no, because they think
of a guy sitting behind the pilots and

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00:19:48.200 --> 00:19:52.240
and a jet you know, doing
stuff. So yeah, crew Chief,

285
00:19:52.440 --> 00:19:55.119
it's good. But yeah, I
mean you go out to the hangars at

286
00:19:55.119 --> 00:19:57.240
poor Cam and you say, are
you creuchie? They say it's the wrong

287
00:19:57.279 --> 00:20:00.960
guy, and you know you're gonna
get taken to a chair and taking up

288
00:20:00.960 --> 00:20:07.240
to the bird bath. Do you
want to do? Uh? Yeah?

289
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is precious Our guest Daniel back to
you. When you became a crew chief,

339
00:24:25.319 --> 00:24:29.319
did is there a engineer no for
the crew chief? Is there a

340
00:24:29.559 --> 00:24:33.599
formal training for that you go to
school or is it all on the job

341
00:24:37.119 --> 00:24:41.759
to in the in the conventional army, it is, it's all off.

342
00:24:41.799 --> 00:24:45.920
On the DUBT train, they'll do
kind of of a like a ground school,

343
00:24:45.960 --> 00:24:48.279
but it's internal. You know,
it's your You have, you know,

344
00:24:48.440 --> 00:24:52.559
kind of like Al Mac with the
Regimental forty seven game. Right next

345
00:24:52.559 --> 00:24:56.319
to him, you have the non
rated crew member that's the official thing,

346
00:24:56.319 --> 00:25:00.680
the non reaty crew member guy otherwise
known as an SI, who's the standardization

347
00:25:00.759 --> 00:25:04.720
and structure. So also from you
know, the grade you brigade, the

348
00:25:04.799 --> 00:25:08.319
town all way down to the company
has their own and so you kind of

349
00:25:08.319 --> 00:25:11.960
do a ground school with them where
they kind of go through some basic academics.

350
00:25:12.200 --> 00:25:15.559
You go through aero medical, you
know, so you learn, you

351
00:25:15.599 --> 00:25:18.960
know, the effects of hypoxia because
we do fly it out and sometimes we

352
00:25:19.000 --> 00:25:23.960
don't always have oxygen, and sometimes
the oxygen doesn't always last to you know,

353
00:25:25.839 --> 00:25:36.000
even some smoke different any next and
you to have that the fund because

354
00:25:36.039 --> 00:25:37.839
you definitely don't want to do that
when you're you know, on helicopters,

355
00:25:37.880 --> 00:25:41.200
whether you're flying in the front room, you know, watching the system in

356
00:25:41.200 --> 00:25:45.079
the back. So it's kind of
just an in house thing. And then

357
00:25:45.680 --> 00:25:48.640
he has that, SI has a
couple of guys that are qualified as a

358
00:25:48.640 --> 00:25:52.400
as an FI A flight infrastructure.
Those guys actually go to a formal school

359
00:25:52.440 --> 00:25:56.640
down in Fort Ruckers. It's about
it's about right around two months long,

360
00:25:57.039 --> 00:26:00.680
and that's where we actually learn the
method of instruction, how to be how

361
00:26:00.720 --> 00:26:06.920
to be an instructor. Heat the
regiment. We had our own we had

362
00:26:06.960 --> 00:26:11.920
our own schoolhouse for for pretty much
everybody's so acty for now. I think

363
00:26:11.920 --> 00:26:14.640
it's so at B because it's turned
into a battalion used to be coming but

364
00:26:15.279 --> 00:26:18.880
a special Operations Deviation training company.
So when you were selected, you may

365
00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:23.079
or may not go to that that
school if you came from big Army and

366
00:26:23.119 --> 00:26:26.599
you have had training like me,
I already had experience. I had a

367
00:26:26.680 --> 00:26:33.759
couple of hundred flat hours, had
done a lot of non standard mission stuff

368
00:26:33.759 --> 00:26:37.119
that most big Army people didn't so
when I got there, you're just going

369
00:26:37.200 --> 00:26:40.000
to go through. Uh we call
it Eco model school. It was two

370
00:26:40.039 --> 00:26:42.720
weeks learn the differences between a delta
and echo, you know, because suddenly

371
00:26:42.759 --> 00:26:48.319
you're going from old ste engages to
you know, a cockpit, a lot

372
00:26:48.359 --> 00:26:52.400
of electronics stuff, a lot of
a lot of systems. You know that

373
00:26:52.440 --> 00:26:57.680
they keep that aircraft alive. So
the so ats, the you know,

374
00:26:57.720 --> 00:27:03.960
the training company that was the official
school house for those and it was it

375
00:27:04.000 --> 00:27:08.359
was eighty eighty five days, stuff
like that. And we basically to the

376
00:27:08.440 --> 00:27:14.160
guy that had no very limited experience, and we trained them up on what

377
00:27:14.200 --> 00:27:17.599
we called the Big three, so
you you would learn the basics, you

378
00:27:17.599 --> 00:27:21.119
know, here's where to stand,
here's what to say, and then you

379
00:27:21.160 --> 00:27:29.599
would get trained up on in flight, refueling, rescue, hoist and many

380
00:27:29.640 --> 00:27:34.519
guns. So the hoist, guns
and fuel because I can put a guy

381
00:27:34.680 --> 00:27:37.880
up a right fish and then the
left or right gun. If they can

382
00:27:37.920 --> 00:27:41.759
do those three, they can do
any mission's out there. So if we've

383
00:27:41.759 --> 00:27:44.319
got a refuel they know how to
read the checklist, they know how to

384
00:27:44.359 --> 00:27:51.359
put the switches open, the valves
the airplane. Get qualified on any guns.

385
00:27:52.039 --> 00:27:53.920
It's your bread and butter and then
rescue hoistcause it's right during the door,

386
00:27:55.319 --> 00:27:57.160
and then as you would progress up
from there, the rest of it

387
00:27:57.240 --> 00:28:00.480
is done in the house. So
when it goes to the you know,

388
00:28:00.519 --> 00:28:04.599
the the advanced mission fast roping vehicles
far you know, all that kind of

389
00:28:04.599 --> 00:28:12.559
stuff that was trained in house by
our unit trainers. So when you went

390
00:28:12.640 --> 00:28:19.480
from being a mechanic to uh to
part of the flight crew, were you

391
00:28:19.799 --> 00:28:23.079
were you like better than everybody else? I mean, did you like kind

392
00:28:23.079 --> 00:28:29.440
of kick all all of your old
like uh, like grease monkeys, you

393
00:28:29.480 --> 00:28:33.359
know, all the wrench turners,
to the to the curb. I would

394
00:28:33.359 --> 00:28:37.160
like to think so now. I
mean it's one of things where I knew,

395
00:28:37.319 --> 00:28:41.519
you know, I wasn't I wasn't
the smartest guy because I'd been around

396
00:28:41.640 --> 00:28:45.920
forever. But I was pretty I
was pretty shit hot, I mean you

397
00:28:45.960 --> 00:28:48.640
could. But my hardest thing that
some of the old guys begin me a

398
00:28:48.640 --> 00:28:55.000
lot of crap is I would have
a hard time remembering what the proper nomenclature

399
00:28:55.160 --> 00:28:56.960
was for something. You know,
what's what's that thing called? And I'd

400
00:28:56.960 --> 00:29:03.319
be like, uh, the uh
it's a cop Like no, that's a

401
00:29:03.400 --> 00:29:07.599
drinking receptacle. Device. You know, we all army. Anybody in fancy

402
00:29:07.599 --> 00:29:11.039
ship up. So I was in
the Hickey, the what you might call

403
00:29:11.119 --> 00:29:12.880
it, whatever it is, but
if you want to know what it does,

404
00:29:14.240 --> 00:29:15.960
tell you does I'll tell you how
it works to take it off,

405
00:29:15.960 --> 00:29:21.680
take the hunt. So that was
kind of even at my little selection board.

406
00:29:22.160 --> 00:29:25.799
The guy that was on the board
was the standards guy at the time.

407
00:29:26.079 --> 00:29:30.000
He passed away a few years ago. Was awesome. It was one

408
00:29:30.039 --> 00:29:34.200
of my one of my first mentors
that really inspired me and lit that fire

409
00:29:34.279 --> 00:29:37.559
to become, you know, the
best crew chief that I could. He's

410
00:29:37.559 --> 00:29:41.519
good on the board. I got
a question and you know the part I

411
00:29:41.519 --> 00:29:44.720
don't know what it was called,
and I just started laughing. I was

412
00:29:44.759 --> 00:29:48.599
like, oh man, I'm done. He's got me. But yeah,

413
00:29:48.599 --> 00:29:53.039
I mean when it came to the
mechanics stuff, I was just always the

414
00:29:53.079 --> 00:29:56.119
guy that was there. You know, I didn't smoke, so you know

415
00:29:56.119 --> 00:30:02.759
when all the smoker's going to smoke, break out working doing stuff. You

416
00:30:02.799 --> 00:30:04.480
know, the slight guy came in
and said, hey, I got I

417
00:30:04.519 --> 00:30:07.720
got some maintenance needs to be done. I need I need support. Any

418
00:30:07.880 --> 00:30:11.359
two guys, ok. You know
a lot of the mainest guys didn't want

419
00:30:11.400 --> 00:30:14.119
to do that. They just wanted
to do the lazy stuff, like and

420
00:30:14.160 --> 00:30:15.920
you know, it's hot up there, and it's Panama where it rains six

421
00:30:15.960 --> 00:30:18.359
months out of the year. So
I said, I don't give a shit,

422
00:30:18.519 --> 00:30:22.160
I'm going. So that's where I
got to get on the real good

423
00:30:22.200 --> 00:30:25.440
side of the flight guys and showed
them that hey, this is cool.

424
00:30:25.720 --> 00:30:29.559
I want to beat you when I
grow up. So now when that opportunity

425
00:30:29.559 --> 00:30:30.839
prison itself, I jumped on it
and I was like, I'll be damned

426
00:30:30.839 --> 00:30:33.160
if any of these guys are gonna
beat me out. That's my job.

427
00:30:33.319 --> 00:30:44.359
I'm taking it for the rest of
my That's awesome. I'm Dana. We

428
00:30:44.680 --> 00:30:45.599
lost you on that last part.
You broke up a bit. Can you

429
00:30:45.599 --> 00:30:49.240
repeat that. You might want to
make sure you're speaking directly at the computer.

430
00:30:51.839 --> 00:30:53.799
Oh yeah, Now, I was
just saying that, you know,

431
00:30:55.079 --> 00:31:00.759
I wasn't gonna let anything jeopardize that
that job, that that opportunity because it's

432
00:31:00.400 --> 00:31:03.839
and hearing from some of the other
guys that had come from other Army units,

433
00:31:03.039 --> 00:31:07.000
from Big Army was it's a very
coveted position, you know. It's

434
00:31:07.079 --> 00:31:11.440
it's where everybody wants to be you
know, it was kind of looking back.

435
00:31:11.480 --> 00:31:14.920
It got it gets people out of
a lot of stuff. You know,

436
00:31:14.960 --> 00:31:17.759
there's a division run, Oh I
got a flight. You know,

437
00:31:17.920 --> 00:31:21.799
Hey we got a whatever in the
morning. Oh sorry, crew rets,

438
00:31:21.920 --> 00:31:25.119
I flew last night. So a
lot of people wanted it for that,

439
00:31:25.200 --> 00:31:30.079
but I just wanted it because there
was also wanted to go out there and

440
00:31:30.079 --> 00:31:33.640
do it. So I wouldn't let
anything take it. I wasn't less with

441
00:31:33.640 --> 00:31:37.160
the other guys. And I think
that's what I was saying whenever I got

442
00:31:37.160 --> 00:31:42.319
cut off. Was that montatity kind
of me Even my career, I saw

443
00:31:42.319 --> 00:31:47.200
an opportunity, said hey, I
want that, and I'll do what I

444
00:31:47.200 --> 00:31:48.319
need to do. I'll learn what
I need to learn. I'm going to

445
00:31:48.359 --> 00:31:52.119
get that because it's mine. I
want it. And so how did you

446
00:31:52.680 --> 00:31:56.480
make the jump over to one sixtieth? Like, how did that come about

447
00:31:57.640 --> 00:32:05.039
to We had a We had two
guys that came that pus from Fort Campbell

448
00:32:05.160 --> 00:32:10.480
and came out of h two guys
each one came from second time out of

449
00:32:10.799 --> 00:32:15.880
Fort Campbell, but they came from
both companies. We had. The flight

450
00:32:15.920 --> 00:32:20.359
companies were amb the outcomeany rob a
company and at the time, you know,

451
00:32:20.599 --> 00:32:24.079
pre g Watt. They were very
different. You know, a company

452
00:32:24.079 --> 00:32:27.799
work with these guys becoming to work
with those guys. There were a we

453
00:32:27.839 --> 00:32:34.039
shared the same but there were a
law to ability. When the guys came

454
00:32:34.079 --> 00:32:37.960
down. One guy had been with
the regiment for I know, maybe ten

455
00:32:38.079 --> 00:32:44.200
years. The other guy had been
there for a long time. He had

456
00:32:44.400 --> 00:32:51.039
he was one of the original instructors
of that soase department. So they're the

457
00:32:51.039 --> 00:32:54.440
ones that kind of kind of dropping
that head. And then you're just hearing

458
00:32:54.519 --> 00:33:00.279
stories of what they were telling me. I was like, that's pretty cool.

459
00:33:00.839 --> 00:33:05.720
That's not we had. The recruiter
came down. We met at the

460
00:33:05.759 --> 00:33:09.200
movie theater put on this pretty awesome
video. I think I think they're still

461
00:33:09.240 --> 00:33:14.440
showing it. I mean, it's
it's pretty awesome, but yeah, And

462
00:33:14.720 --> 00:33:19.400
the thing with it is that recruiting
video, the majority of it is little

463
00:33:19.440 --> 00:33:22.400
birds, blackhawks, and then you
see a little bit of forty seven and

464
00:33:22.519 --> 00:33:28.559
a land like a student motor run
out of it. They're flying over a

465
00:33:28.640 --> 00:33:31.160
river with a boat, you slingloading
a boat. That was enough for me

466
00:33:31.200 --> 00:33:37.039
to see and go, hmm,
that's cool. And that Eco model is

467
00:33:37.079 --> 00:33:43.000
a big sexy you know, what
and I want that. I've never heard

468
00:33:43.039 --> 00:33:51.680
anyone use the word sexy to describe
it before. Oh, got big hits

469
00:33:51.720 --> 00:34:00.559
on it. Yeah, a big
beautiful woman, got some trunk. Yeah,

470
00:34:00.640 --> 00:34:04.480
those guys kind of in one of
them, I was had gotten pressed

471
00:34:04.559 --> 00:34:07.920
up. I was a fairly new
flat engineer, and so there was two

472
00:34:08.000 --> 00:34:13.199
guys up there in the regiment when
their last name in it and either Big

473
00:34:13.239 --> 00:34:16.000
Ski and Little Ski. So Little
Ski came down and he was the guy

474
00:34:16.000 --> 00:34:19.920
and he actually got to signed in
the same aircraft as me. So we

475
00:34:19.920 --> 00:34:22.880
were both flat engineers. But I've
learned a lot more from him going out

476
00:34:22.920 --> 00:34:27.960
and doing some fun stuff, and
because he had come from the regiment when

477
00:34:27.960 --> 00:34:30.840
it came time to do some stuff
that we hadn't been familiar with, you

478
00:34:30.840 --> 00:34:35.800
know, we're kind of like,
we're like, hey, you know Charlie

479
00:34:35.800 --> 00:34:37.079
Company, you know, third or
seventh over there. They want to do

480
00:34:37.239 --> 00:34:40.880
they want to do some repelling and
it's not something that people really do.

481
00:34:42.440 --> 00:34:45.480
So he's like, I did that, I've done faster, but I'm shit,

482
00:34:45.559 --> 00:34:49.800
I got all that. So these
some of the old checklists that they

483
00:34:49.800 --> 00:34:52.239
had brought with them, you know, had their their stuff in it.

484
00:34:52.280 --> 00:34:54.559
So you know, I got to
go out and do you know, do

485
00:34:54.679 --> 00:34:59.840
some you're repelling with them, which
is not common at the time in the

486
00:34:59.840 --> 00:35:04.360
four or seventh world. So when
we came time that you know, Panama

487
00:35:04.400 --> 00:35:07.239
was shutting down, they said,
all right, December of nineteen ninety nine,

488
00:35:07.760 --> 00:35:09.679
we're done. You know, they
didn't renew the treaty. You're leaving,

489
00:35:10.559 --> 00:35:15.800
but the forty seventh Community, we're
going to give you two options.

490
00:35:15.280 --> 00:35:19.480
Number One, you can move and
at the time we'd shrunk down, so

491
00:35:19.519 --> 00:35:22.840
we went from eight helicopters to six. So they said, you can either

492
00:35:22.920 --> 00:35:28.800
move with those helicopters to Sodocno Honduras
and you can finish out your your term

493
00:35:28.840 --> 00:35:30.920
there. So if you had six
months of year whatever it was left on

494
00:35:30.960 --> 00:35:37.079
your your assignment, you'll finish it
out, they said, or you can

495
00:35:37.119 --> 00:35:40.119
go back to wherever you can dice. Leave it up to DA to see

496
00:35:40.119 --> 00:35:45.440
where they're going to cut your orders
to. I said, well, I

497
00:35:45.480 --> 00:35:49.119
initially came down to Panama on two
years and I loved it, so I

498
00:35:49.239 --> 00:35:52.920
signed up to two more. So
I did four years and I'm kind of

499
00:35:52.519 --> 00:35:55.440
kind of ready to go back to
the States. And i'd been up to

500
00:35:55.440 --> 00:35:59.280
Honduras a couple of times TDY,
and I was like, yeah, that's

501
00:35:59.320 --> 00:36:06.400
cool, little place that sucks.
So I'm I'm ready. So the other

502
00:36:06.440 --> 00:36:07.639
guy that came from the regimen of
the guy that came from Brava company,

503
00:36:07.639 --> 00:36:10.119
he had been around for a long
time, was very well respected to a

504
00:36:10.119 --> 00:36:15.039
lot of people. I became pretty
good friends with him and his family.

505
00:36:15.880 --> 00:36:20.280
So I was talking with him and
he said, hey, you know,

506
00:36:20.280 --> 00:36:22.280
what, what do you think?
What do you think about me trying out?

507
00:36:22.599 --> 00:36:25.480
You know, assessing is I think
it? I think you'd be a

508
00:36:25.800 --> 00:36:30.440
set. You get the big personality
for it. You're pretty laid back,

509
00:36:30.480 --> 00:36:32.159
you kind of roll with the punches. You're you know, always eager to

510
00:36:32.159 --> 00:36:35.760
go out and do stuff, and
you know you have a good passion for

511
00:36:35.840 --> 00:36:38.199
it. So yeah, go for
it. And then he asked me,

512
00:36:38.239 --> 00:36:42.119
he goes, but here's the big
question, where do you want to go?

513
00:36:42.800 --> 00:36:45.039
I said, uh, do I
have a choice? You know?

514
00:36:45.360 --> 00:36:52.400
Well with me? You do?
You know you would you would not as

515
00:36:52.440 --> 00:36:55.559
formal, you would fill out a
packet, you'd send it in you know,

516
00:36:55.599 --> 00:36:58.599
the enlisted crewiers take a look at
it and go, yeah, you're

517
00:36:58.599 --> 00:37:01.239
in. I'm on the US Inside, I can show it up and I'm

518
00:37:01.280 --> 00:37:05.239
like, hey, cool, you're
a it's not you're a fairly new E

519
00:37:05.400 --> 00:37:07.679
five. So you're gonna take a
squad and maintenance. You know, you're

520
00:37:07.679 --> 00:37:10.639
gonna run a maintenance squad or something
like. Nope, no, I'm not

521
00:37:12.320 --> 00:37:16.239
so him. What's what's the difference. What's the difference between eight Company and

522
00:37:16.280 --> 00:37:19.239
be coming. I mean, I
know there's different stream the two guys that

523
00:37:19.519 --> 00:37:22.920
I knew. Mentality wise, it
goes well, the easiest way to put

524
00:37:22.920 --> 00:37:28.119
it was A company works with the
people. B company goes to all the

525
00:37:28.159 --> 00:37:31.360
cool locations. And I was like, well, well, what do you

526
00:37:31.440 --> 00:37:36.159
mean he does Well, if you
want to go work with the you know,

527
00:37:36.199 --> 00:37:38.400
the the Field guys out of Virginia
Beach, you want to go work

528
00:37:38.400 --> 00:37:42.480
with the Delta guys, you're gonna
have a good time, but you better

529
00:37:42.480 --> 00:37:45.719
get used to sleeping in tents and
cots and you're gonna get very familiar with

530
00:37:45.840 --> 00:37:49.800
you know, there's a new Mexico
and Arizona. I said, okay,

531
00:37:50.679 --> 00:37:52.000
what is the other one. He
goes, well, if you want to

532
00:37:52.039 --> 00:37:53.679
work with the other company, and
you'll get to work with the you know,

533
00:37:53.719 --> 00:38:00.320
the s F guys, the fields
maybe the Rangers on occasion, but

534
00:38:00.039 --> 00:38:04.159
you're gonna stay in a very nice
hotel on the beach in Virginia Beach.

535
00:38:04.239 --> 00:38:06.800
We go down to destin Fort Walden, we love to stay at the four

536
00:38:06.840 --> 00:38:09.639
point Shard on the beach. When
we go to Colorado, we stay in

537
00:38:09.719 --> 00:38:15.679
the hotels and condos. I was
like, yep, so cool people.

538
00:38:17.880 --> 00:38:22.800
I was like, yeah, that
sounds great. Brought the company that that

539
00:38:22.880 --> 00:38:27.840
sounds like a good fit for me. So I don't know who that guy

540
00:38:27.880 --> 00:38:31.239
knew. I don't know later on
who is who is good friends were.

541
00:38:32.360 --> 00:38:36.920
About a month later, I got
little we called it Little Candy Gram that

542
00:38:36.920 --> 00:38:38.239
little green Purse Graham. You know, you rip off the edge like an

543
00:38:38.360 --> 00:38:44.239
envelope. It's like, congratulations,
you're on assignment to Fort Kentucky to the

544
00:38:44.480 --> 00:38:47.239
one fifty. Wow. I didn't
have to fill out a package. I

545
00:38:47.280 --> 00:38:52.119
didn't have to interview. But you
know, looking back, I think I

546
00:38:52.239 --> 00:38:54.920
kind of did that interview for about
two years working with those guys in Panama.

547
00:38:55.119 --> 00:38:58.360
They they vouched for me and said, yeah, this is the dude

548
00:38:58.360 --> 00:39:02.800
you want. Showed up to Fort
Campbell and March aprilish of ninety nine,

549
00:39:05.440 --> 00:39:08.039
and then you know, Green ptuon
assessment all that stuff and off and running.

550
00:39:13.119 --> 00:39:15.519
So what was h what was that
like assessment? Like, I mean,

551
00:39:15.719 --> 00:39:21.000
it sounds like there was some sort
of like breaking in period. Oh

552
00:39:21.079 --> 00:39:23.920
yeah, they break it in pretty
good, all right. Yeah, so

553
00:39:24.000 --> 00:39:29.679
that is a that's the big difference
between the officer and the lifted side of

554
00:39:29.719 --> 00:39:32.719
the house. While the pilots go
up, you know, the officers,

555
00:39:32.960 --> 00:39:36.159
you know, they get called up, they go to Fort Campbell and they

556
00:39:36.280 --> 00:39:42.199
get their actual assessment, which later
on in my regimental career actually kind of

557
00:39:42.199 --> 00:39:45.079
got to take part in a couple
of those, especially being you know,

558
00:39:45.440 --> 00:39:53.239
joined there at the hit Wow on
the you know, and by get in

559
00:39:53.320 --> 00:39:55.960
Trouble for Satans, but I actually
got involved in the board. That was

560
00:39:57.000 --> 00:40:02.079
great. But the assessment for the
pilots and the officers, it's a pretty

561
00:40:02.639 --> 00:40:07.480
I mean, man, I've seen
some pretty big, badass dudes break down

562
00:40:07.480 --> 00:40:13.000
in tears because it's just emotionally they're
a wreck for the and then they still

563
00:40:13.000 --> 00:40:15.519
do through you they get assessed,
they get selected, they come up,

564
00:40:15.559 --> 00:40:19.840
they go through Green Platoon, but
there is more of a gentleman's course.

565
00:40:20.039 --> 00:40:23.480
You know, they'll pretty hard,
but it's physically not really it's kind of

566
00:40:23.480 --> 00:40:28.760
a gentleman course, but they're you
know, their pieces the aircraft. It's

567
00:40:28.800 --> 00:40:34.239
commission planning flight stuff. That's that's
where it matters for us. We show

568
00:40:34.360 --> 00:40:37.840
up and we're with everybody. There's
no difference. If you were an enlisted

569
00:40:37.880 --> 00:40:42.880
person going to the regiment, you're
there. We were talking to you before

570
00:40:42.880 --> 00:40:46.039
we came on the show about you
know, the logistics guys, supply maintenance,

571
00:40:46.079 --> 00:40:52.320
avionics, you know the S one
PA. Everybody that's enlisted. You

572
00:40:52.400 --> 00:40:59.440
will go through Green platoons. You
know, we've even had guys that wretches

573
00:41:00.159 --> 00:41:04.719
and the new people in Greenpleton with
us. So can you show up?

574
00:41:05.599 --> 00:41:08.000
Yeah, we we missed that.
You broke up again, can you We

575
00:41:08.039 --> 00:41:15.239
didn't hear who who was there with
you? But he enlisted m os,

576
00:41:15.360 --> 00:41:20.159
the medics personnel, you name it. You're all going through Green platoon.

577
00:41:21.159 --> 00:41:27.679
The senior listed guys with the seven
and very few will show up unless they

578
00:41:27.800 --> 00:41:30.360
know somebody that kind of been hand
picked. You're all going through Green platoon.

579
00:41:30.559 --> 00:41:32.960
So when you show up, you
go out to the time over at

580
00:41:32.960 --> 00:41:37.599
the bunkers out of Campbell's, you
know, Orksville basically least to store the

581
00:41:37.679 --> 00:41:49.480
nukes the p one you up,
you kind of you're assessed both last we

582
00:41:50.679 --> 00:41:53.679
dare we completely lost that part of
it. I'm really sorry. Yeah,

583
00:41:53.760 --> 00:41:57.079
I don't know what it is with
the audio, but it's it's like you're

584
00:41:57.119 --> 00:42:02.119
underwater at certain points. Yeah,
welcome, Welcome to the Lovely Orlando.

585
00:42:02.280 --> 00:42:07.159
Uh, you know, at and
t it is delightful. But we'll try

586
00:42:07.199 --> 00:42:12.000
this again. So anybuddy, everybody, when you show up, you're you're

587
00:42:12.000 --> 00:42:16.760
called, you're in snowbird status.
You're just doing you're doing this work until

588
00:42:16.760 --> 00:42:22.559
it comes on for a class.
When I showed up my planning the fans,

589
00:42:22.599 --> 00:42:24.239
I got to build the parking lot
for the obstit. Of course,

590
00:42:25.639 --> 00:42:30.800
it was beautiful, nice, very
nice parking lot. So I showed up

591
00:42:30.519 --> 00:42:34.840
and got to poor Campbell. When
you show up to Fort Cample, you

592
00:42:35.119 --> 00:42:37.960
go through you know, big Army
hundred and first Airboard Division replacements. At

593
00:42:39.840 --> 00:42:45.239
that was that really reinforced the idea
that I did not want to have any

594
00:42:45.280 --> 00:42:52.960
part of that right, no,
thank you. But at the five showing

595
00:42:53.039 --> 00:42:57.159
up, you're you just show up
in the morning, you do pta and

596
00:42:57.199 --> 00:43:00.239
cut loose. There's no babysitting.
That was the only good part of about

597
00:43:00.239 --> 00:43:04.199
it, so I will show up, do pt come back, sign in

598
00:43:04.239 --> 00:43:06.840
it like nine o'clock. Then I'd
go do my appointments and I go out

599
00:43:06.840 --> 00:43:10.960
to the compound and i'd meet with
my future work miss you know, one

600
00:43:12.000 --> 00:43:13.920
of my platoons aren't, so there're
some of the guys were gone at the

601
00:43:13.920 --> 00:43:20.239
time because that's when shit, what
was it called. That's when I had

602
00:43:20.239 --> 00:43:27.320
the no fly zone stuff going on
in Iraq. So that was my future

603
00:43:27.400 --> 00:43:30.159
unit, my company. So there
was a small skeleton crew there, but

604
00:43:30.239 --> 00:43:36.239
I got to notice guys, which
was great. But where I got screwed

605
00:43:36.639 --> 00:43:38.800
was one of the guys called down
to the schoolhouse and said, Hey,

606
00:43:39.159 --> 00:43:42.960
when does the next Green platoon start? And I said, oh, it

607
00:43:43.039 --> 00:43:46.760
starts on starts on Tuesday. Awesome, So Dan, meet me here.

608
00:43:47.159 --> 00:43:50.880
I'll take you down there on Monday. Follow me down there, I'll show

609
00:43:50.880 --> 00:43:53.280
you where it's at and we'll get
you signed in. Great. So I

610
00:43:53.320 --> 00:44:02.880
showed up down there Monday around noon, and I realized that something big mistake

611
00:44:02.880 --> 00:44:07.960
had happened. That was the office
of greenpletoon that started on Tuesday, and

612
00:44:08.519 --> 00:44:15.000
pushing started in the morning. So
I got to spend about eight weeks as

613
00:44:15.000 --> 00:44:20.360
a Snowbird, which looking back hind
twenty twenty ended up being probably the thing

614
00:44:20.400 --> 00:44:27.039
that happened because then you know doing
you know, night stalker pizt every morning,

615
00:44:27.239 --> 00:44:30.000
you know, getting very intimate with
bogs, telephone poles. Yeah,

616
00:44:30.880 --> 00:44:37.880
you even learn there's techniques to push
humbies. It helped me get ready so

617
00:44:38.000 --> 00:44:43.880
that way when actual true assessment day
showed up, man, it was I

618
00:44:43.880 --> 00:44:45.840
wouldn't say it was easy, but
it was. It was much easier.

619
00:44:46.239 --> 00:44:51.400
Yeah, So for us, the
actual assessment, until you had orders and

620
00:44:51.440 --> 00:44:54.039
you were out of the compounds doing
your thing, it didn't mean that you

621
00:44:54.079 --> 00:44:57.599
were in. You still have to
go through greenpletoon and you had to pass

622
00:44:57.639 --> 00:45:02.400
that assessment to get in the class. We had maybe sixty seventy five people

623
00:45:02.400 --> 00:45:07.880
that were there, and you know, it didn't matter if you were an

624
00:45:07.960 --> 00:45:09.800
MS that was needed or if you
were picked. If you didn't pass the

625
00:45:09.880 --> 00:45:14.679
PT test, you didn't pass whatever
they need to pass, well you get

626
00:45:14.719 --> 00:45:17.599
recycled and then you still didn't and
they could send you and pack you across

627
00:45:17.639 --> 00:45:22.519
the street. Welcome to the hundred
and first. We start off on a

628
00:45:22.559 --> 00:45:28.760
fifty lot and uh when we finished, there was I think thirty five or

629
00:45:28.800 --> 00:45:31.079
forty of us that we're in the
class. And then that's when that's when

630
00:45:31.079 --> 00:45:35.920
the ship got real. That's when
suddenly you're you had a couple like the

631
00:45:36.239 --> 00:45:40.119
junior Knight, Bogers, you know, Sergeant Knight, the butcher. They

632
00:45:40.119 --> 00:45:43.599
were mean, but okay, because
they didn't want to piss you up with

633
00:45:43.639 --> 00:45:45.119
a bunch you quit and left already. But they had a job to do.

634
00:45:45.920 --> 00:45:50.320
But that first day when you made
it in, you realized real quick

635
00:45:50.400 --> 00:45:53.920
that okay, these guys are serious. They got a job to do and

636
00:45:53.960 --> 00:46:00.559
they're going to do it really well. And it was a perfect that were

637
00:46:00.559 --> 00:46:06.079
pretty intense. And I want to
move forward a little bit because you had

638
00:46:06.440 --> 00:46:08.639
a long career and I want to
make sure that we get to some of

639
00:46:08.840 --> 00:46:15.159
the interesting deployments as well. But
you know, of course you made it

640
00:46:15.199 --> 00:46:19.199
into one sixty. If I spent
a little bit of time there, I

641
00:46:19.199 --> 00:46:21.119
mean, can you tell us a
little bit about, you know, kind

642
00:46:21.159 --> 00:46:23.079
of your early years and the run
up to nine to eleven and then sort

643
00:46:23.119 --> 00:46:27.400
of how that changed things for both
for the unit and for you personally.

644
00:46:29.599 --> 00:46:32.360
Yeah, it was man, it
was a good time, you know,

645
00:46:32.440 --> 00:46:36.360
going to Bravo Company, I think
it was a great decision. It was

646
00:46:36.360 --> 00:46:43.119
a great place to be my very
first trip. Exactly what that dude said.

647
00:46:43.159 --> 00:46:45.360
We went to Virginia Beach. We
stayed in the hotel right there on

648
00:46:45.360 --> 00:46:49.880
the beach, and it was awesome, like this has happened, This is

649
00:46:49.880 --> 00:46:52.480
where I want to be. I'm
never going to leave this place. So

650
00:46:53.239 --> 00:47:00.280
I also left the real quick because
gonna be gone a lot, especially you're

651
00:47:00.360 --> 00:47:04.480
new, because you know that's the
fact of life of you know, being

652
00:47:04.480 --> 00:47:07.719
the Special Operations Community is which we
learned later on, is you never know,

653
00:47:07.400 --> 00:47:10.400
And kind of almost seems like we're
learning that right now with some stuff

654
00:47:10.400 --> 00:47:13.920
going on. But you never know
when the ship's going to you know,

655
00:47:13.960 --> 00:47:15.719
the flag is going to go up, and in page your cell phone's going

656
00:47:15.760 --> 00:47:21.239
to go off. It's time to
get it on. So you're very interested

657
00:47:21.400 --> 00:47:27.519
being You trained up real quick.
So I showed up, got my physical

658
00:47:27.559 --> 00:47:30.039
everything done, ready to go,
and I think within the first week of

659
00:47:30.480 --> 00:47:35.400
being in the company, I had
taken what's called a command out. You

660
00:47:35.519 --> 00:47:38.400
basically go out with you know,
one of the instructor guys, and if

661
00:47:38.440 --> 00:47:42.360
you go out and do some traffic
pattern stuff, you know, one of

662
00:47:42.400 --> 00:47:45.039
the pilots, one of the newer
pilots getting trained. So we went out

663
00:47:45.280 --> 00:47:51.880
and the guy that actually gave me
my commander see val became a you know,

664
00:47:52.280 --> 00:47:57.119
toking that videause in Panama with became
my first you know bit during the

665
00:47:57.119 --> 00:48:01.960
regiment of that is the that's the
face, that's the poster boy of what

666
00:48:02.000 --> 00:48:06.400
it's like to be a crew member
on a forty seven in the regiment.

667
00:48:07.400 --> 00:48:09.960
And al Mac knows them, knew
him very well. Mentioned that his name

668
00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:15.360
was Trey Ponder, but he was
his He ended up becoming Al's forty seven

669
00:48:15.920 --> 00:48:20.880
standards guy for the regiment. He
was the regimental forty seven crew member and

670
00:48:21.199 --> 00:48:27.679
he was subsequently killed when that when
the aircraft got shot down in northern Afghanistan

671
00:48:27.760 --> 00:48:30.800
looking for Marcus wa Trump. When
when that he got compromised. So the

672
00:48:30.960 --> 00:48:35.840
amazing, amazing guy. So we
went out and we did the commanders vow

673
00:48:36.239 --> 00:48:40.280
and he goes hey, So,
you know, Mitch, the guys referring

674
00:48:40.280 --> 00:48:45.280
to early He goes hey. So
he told me you're Mark that was doing

675
00:48:46.440 --> 00:48:52.679
and somebody set me up ready to
go. Hes all right, so you

676
00:48:52.920 --> 00:48:54.400
used to do rescue wife stuff and
today we can take the internal lynch,

677
00:48:54.440 --> 00:48:58.280
rig up the bullies and drop it
doas to the center cargo hole. He

678
00:48:58.440 --> 00:49:00.039
is, well, we have our
own, so just go out here and

679
00:49:00.079 --> 00:49:04.119
just just make your calls. Just
call it like you did when you were

680
00:49:04.119 --> 00:49:07.800
in Panama, you know, you
know, dumping guys down and the canw

681
00:49:07.719 --> 00:49:13.320
some one out there and I way
stuff and you're right, you did that

682
00:49:13.400 --> 00:49:15.840
pretty good. We're gonna change up
some terminology, but you had it.

683
00:49:16.519 --> 00:49:19.760
And then we went back and we
did a couple of little things and he

684
00:49:19.800 --> 00:49:22.480
said, hey, you're gonna You're
gonna move up pretty quick. So I

685
00:49:22.519 --> 00:49:24.920
started going on every trip, you
know, with the Virginia Beach, went

686
00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:29.719
down to Hurlbert, you know,
down in Desk in Florida for some overwater

687
00:49:29.840 --> 00:49:34.360
ops and refueling. And then while
we were there, actually she is where

688
00:49:34.360 --> 00:49:38.000
I did my first iteration of many
trends. So I had been trained up

689
00:49:38.000 --> 00:49:40.559
from the M sixty, you know, the big armies got the M sixty

690
00:49:40.559 --> 00:49:45.519
at the time. So suddenly I'm
you know, sitting here behind the you

691
00:49:45.559 --> 00:49:50.840
know, the the machine gun that's
got six of them attached, six girls.

692
00:49:51.559 --> 00:49:57.480
So going through big training to get
the stuff, and you know,

693
00:49:57.480 --> 00:50:00.119
when did some overhorse the or kim
light some bottles out in the ocean and

694
00:50:00.159 --> 00:50:04.599
you got to shoot them up.
That was my first exposure to the mini

695
00:50:04.639 --> 00:50:07.280
gun, and that's that's when I
fell madly loved. I was like,

696
00:50:07.760 --> 00:50:13.079
yeah, grew up with b beguns
and I don't know that's from my anti

697
00:50:13.159 --> 00:50:15.119
coordination. You know, played baseball
as a kid, but I always had

698
00:50:15.119 --> 00:50:21.079
a be begun always. So suddenly
I was like this, this is pretty

699
00:50:21.079 --> 00:50:23.920
amazing. You know, you know, everybody in the regiment. When you

700
00:50:23.960 --> 00:50:28.199
first start shooting the minigun, you
want to become Jesse the Body, Ventura

701
00:50:28.320 --> 00:50:30.800
and Predator, right, you know, you just want to hit that button

702
00:50:30.840 --> 00:50:34.519
and just let that ship rip and
just start cutting down trees. And then

703
00:50:34.559 --> 00:50:37.079
you really quickly realize that you are
going to get smacked out side of the

704
00:50:37.119 --> 00:50:42.360
head with a mag light real fast. It's the best training. Aid who

705
00:50:42.559 --> 00:50:45.400
started doing minigun training headed down to
Florida. It's more down there. I'm

706
00:50:45.400 --> 00:50:53.519
shooting on the range the whole thing. That remember very funny from that exercise

707
00:50:54.079 --> 00:51:00.480
with your first guy, and that
was kind of the really first you know

708
00:51:00.559 --> 00:51:05.920
what a mission could be like very
good with not doing stuff here in bath

709
00:51:06.760 --> 00:51:09.400
it was okay, but we didn't
really do mission scenarios. That was important

710
00:51:09.440 --> 00:51:15.880
training, but that down aircraft recovery
training we did in Hurlbert to see really

711
00:51:15.920 --> 00:51:20.960
what some really cool stuff can do
in pj's and it was like, you

712
00:51:21.000 --> 00:51:23.840
know, it was my first exposure
to you know, I'm living in a

713
00:51:23.880 --> 00:51:29.920
movie. This is awesome. So
yeah, tons of training gone, you

714
00:51:29.960 --> 00:51:35.800
know, you're gone more. Home
changed much. One thing that changed was

715
00:51:36.880 --> 00:51:42.119
after the GY kicked off, we
started kind of you know, there there

716
00:51:42.199 --> 00:51:45.800
became no different flight companies. You
know, A and B company wasn't us

717
00:51:45.880 --> 00:51:47.599
versus. Then it was we don't
care. Everything's going to get done.

718
00:51:49.239 --> 00:51:57.079
Everything became standardized across what were a
theurbattalion guy in the Washington. One big

719
00:51:57.119 --> 00:52:02.039
thing that was really the biggest thing
pre g Y the massive amounts of training.

720
00:52:02.079 --> 00:52:05.760
We did a lot of it,
even at home, and I've told

721
00:52:05.840 --> 00:52:07.400
us and there's times I was home
and I didn't see my wife and kids

722
00:52:07.400 --> 00:52:12.559
for three days in the same bed, but she'd take the kids out,

723
00:52:12.960 --> 00:52:15.480
I'd crash, wake up, leave, go to work, and she'd come

724
00:52:15.519 --> 00:52:19.280
home with the kids. And then
after g WID, it just became it

725
00:52:19.320 --> 00:52:22.760
was the same thing. But now
you throw deployments you know every time in

726
00:52:22.840 --> 00:52:27.639
the middle of it, and in
those early days you actually ended up in

727
00:52:27.679 --> 00:52:34.039
Panama, right, I'm sorry,
in the Philippines. Yeah. So the

728
00:52:34.119 --> 00:52:39.679
Air Force and there WITHSDOM decided that
the three three retired, So they're going

729
00:52:39.719 --> 00:52:44.280
to retire fifty threes and they were
going to replace the fifty threes with the

730
00:52:44.280 --> 00:52:50.039
ospreys, the tilt rotor stuff.
I don't know politician who was greeting up

731
00:52:50.079 --> 00:52:53.360
palms. But suddenly they went,
oh, maybe we jumped the gun on

732
00:52:53.559 --> 00:52:58.280
retire to fifty three because the are
killing people and it's not a fair craft.

733
00:52:58.400 --> 00:53:02.480
So there was such a void in
the Peyton Pacific Theater, so they

734
00:53:02.519 --> 00:53:15.400
decided they were going to chop a
chunk of the regiment. Here we lost.

735
00:53:15.280 --> 00:53:19.480
Yeah, yeah, it's like it's
something wrong with it. Was like

736
00:53:19.519 --> 00:53:22.880
some kind of reverberation on the audio. So I just gotta ask you to

737
00:53:22.960 --> 00:53:25.119
like be close to the computer and
try to speak directly into it. I

738
00:53:25.119 --> 00:53:30.519
think I think that will help a
little bit. Yeah, we can scoot

739
00:53:30.599 --> 00:53:42.760
some stuff around here and had that
any better? Yeah? Yeah, better

740
00:53:42.840 --> 00:53:45.519
for now? All right? So
yeah, so Korea, we moved six

741
00:53:45.639 --> 00:53:51.920
forty sevens to Korea to take over
that fifty three mission, you know,

742
00:53:51.920 --> 00:53:55.639
when they were retiring to fifty three
and replacement. So they came out and

743
00:53:55.639 --> 00:53:59.039
they put a sign on the board
in the office one day and this was

744
00:53:59.119 --> 00:54:01.920
Braba Company was to do the main
slice of that. And uh, they

745
00:54:01.960 --> 00:54:04.840
said, hey, here's the deal. You know, we're gonna go to

746
00:54:04.920 --> 00:54:07.559
create It's gonna be a one year
deal, and it's you know, you're

747
00:54:07.599 --> 00:54:09.599
gonna come right back. It's not
like, you know, big arm,

748
00:54:09.639 --> 00:54:12.800
You're gonna go there and then who
knows where you're gonna end up. So

749
00:54:14.039 --> 00:54:15.000
there's a few of us. I
thought, you know, that's pretty cool.

750
00:54:15.039 --> 00:54:19.760
I enjoyed Panama, and you know, we're staying with the you know,

751
00:54:19.840 --> 00:54:22.599
not a you know, not changing
units, we're just building one and

752
00:54:22.639 --> 00:54:27.199
moving it. So I put my
name on the list, and you know,

753
00:54:27.239 --> 00:54:29.239
it was one of the I don't
know, however, nearly went down

754
00:54:29.239 --> 00:54:30.639
and drew the lines that all right, anybody above this line, you're going.

755
00:54:31.360 --> 00:54:37.679
So that was it was one of
the most painful experiences. One of

756
00:54:37.679 --> 00:54:43.679
the most fun experiences was before we
left, we broke out. We moved

757
00:54:43.679 --> 00:54:46.079
out of our office in the Brava
Company office and we literally moved into a

758
00:54:46.119 --> 00:54:51.519
trailer in the parking lot like a
single wide. They parked it in the

759
00:54:51.559 --> 00:54:53.159
parking lot. Half of it was
the maintenance and shops guys to the other

760
00:54:53.199 --> 00:54:58.679
half of the flight platoons. But
that became such a good time because we

761
00:54:58.719 --> 00:55:01.159
had such a small group of pe
people that we became very very close,

762
00:55:02.039 --> 00:55:07.440
still very good friends to many of
them this day. So we left.

763
00:55:07.840 --> 00:55:12.639
We trained up for almost about a
year as a group, you know,

764
00:55:12.679 --> 00:55:15.719
from and we took people from a
little bit of both some a company guys,

765
00:55:15.760 --> 00:55:17.920
even some thurbitime guys came up and
joined it. So we moved to

766
00:55:20.360 --> 00:55:25.079
We moved to Korea in June of
two thousand and one. So we thought,

767
00:55:25.199 --> 00:55:28.639
this is going to be the best
year ever. We're going to go

768
00:55:28.679 --> 00:55:31.119
on the big trainings to the Philippines
and to Japan, you know all you

769
00:55:31.159 --> 00:55:37.960
know, Thailand, Balance Piston,
all those fancy exercises. They shipped all

770
00:55:37.960 --> 00:55:40.800
the aircraft over. You know.
When we got there, our barracks weren't

771
00:55:40.800 --> 00:55:43.480
even ready, so we had to
build our own beds. We had to

772
00:55:43.480 --> 00:55:45.320
put our furniture together, So the
first couple weeks was painful, but once

773
00:55:45.360 --> 00:55:50.079
we got it now we started flying
our ass off because we still had to

774
00:55:50.159 --> 00:55:52.760
understand all the flight rules there.
So you've heard al talking about having to

775
00:55:52.800 --> 00:55:58.119
fly the note fly line up and
you know, border the DMZ, so

776
00:55:58.159 --> 00:56:00.000
we had to do the same thing. We had to go up there.

777
00:56:00.000 --> 00:56:01.519
You had to learn the rings,
you know, the rings around sold the

778
00:56:01.800 --> 00:56:06.480
no fly zone, and you had
to be able to fly and navigate it

779
00:56:06.519 --> 00:56:08.480
without a map. So being one
of the first guys over there, I

780
00:56:08.519 --> 00:56:12.800
was one of the first guys that
got qualified because we brought two aircraft over

781
00:56:12.840 --> 00:56:14.920
at a time, so we brought
two over a couple weeks later, two

782
00:56:14.920 --> 00:56:17.079
a couple weeks later. More So, being one of the initial guys,

783
00:56:17.239 --> 00:56:20.920
I was one of the first people
who get qualified on it. So when

784
00:56:20.960 --> 00:56:23.320
you're taking the new people, you
have to have a qualified crew to train

785
00:56:23.480 --> 00:56:28.239
the non qualified crew, you know, in case something goes on. So

786
00:56:28.400 --> 00:56:31.079
we did that, and then of
course nine to eleven kicked off. That's

787
00:56:31.079 --> 00:56:35.239
a whole nother story in itself.
I had the fortunate pleasure of being on

788
00:56:35.320 --> 00:56:38.880
staff duty that night. That was
crazy. We'll get into that in a

789
00:56:38.880 --> 00:56:44.119
minute. But yeah, so suddenly
nine to eleven kicks off, and you

790
00:56:44.159 --> 00:56:46.159
know, we know that our guys
back home are hitting the road, hitting

791
00:56:46.159 --> 00:56:49.840
it fast, you know, broad
the companies going up north out of the

792
00:56:49.840 --> 00:56:53.280
Company's going out on the Kiddihawks,
and then here we are Eco Company,

793
00:56:54.239 --> 00:56:59.280
you know, sitting on the rocks. There's a lot of rumors where we

794
00:56:59.280 --> 00:57:02.960
were going to go, but they
kind of squashed. We did a tduy

795
00:57:04.079 --> 00:57:12.559
to Japan that November, but then
the Philippines turned into something. So January

796
00:57:12.679 --> 00:57:19.119
of two they decided that they were
going to continue on with what was the

797
00:57:19.280 --> 00:57:24.599
normal annual you know, balance piston
training exercise. We had kimeron what group

798
00:57:24.800 --> 00:57:31.239
was, but we had a guy's
got a Guam that came down. So

799
00:57:31.880 --> 00:57:35.280
they kind of changed things around a
little bit. They said, you know,

800
00:57:35.400 --> 00:57:37.719
this is not really a TDY,
this is more of a train up

801
00:57:37.159 --> 00:57:39.840
because we're going to go down.
We're going to train up with the real

802
00:57:39.840 --> 00:57:42.880
guys that we're going to work with, and then we're going to move south,

803
00:57:43.480 --> 00:57:45.639
you know, further down into the
southern Philippines because we got some stuff

804
00:57:45.679 --> 00:57:51.719
we're going to do. So they
changed around the cruise, the assigned cruise,

805
00:57:51.960 --> 00:57:53.440
and one of those guys that was
supposed to go originally was me,

806
00:57:54.639 --> 00:57:59.039
So they pulled me and one of
the crew chiefs on my airplane, they

807
00:57:59.039 --> 00:58:04.639
pulled us off, and then the
other guys, Carrie Frith and Bruce Rushforth,

808
00:58:04.840 --> 00:58:07.800
my senior flight engineer on the plane, and then one of the other

809
00:58:07.880 --> 00:58:10.079
crew chiefs, they went with it. So we got to stay back home

810
00:58:10.119 --> 00:58:16.119
and watch our airplane fly away.
Fast forward a month, they're doing their

811
00:58:16.199 --> 00:58:21.599
training stuff. They moved down from
the northern Philippines down to the island of

812
00:58:21.679 --> 00:58:25.000
Sebu, which is about halfway It's
the halfway point down the Philippine Islands.

813
00:58:25.480 --> 00:58:30.320
Big you know. It's called mac
Tan Airbase. So from there they were

814
00:58:30.400 --> 00:58:37.320
launching the flights down around Philippines Sea
all the way down south to a little

815
00:58:38.000 --> 00:58:44.440
place called Zambawanga, Philippines. There
was the main base camp. That's where

816
00:58:44.440 --> 00:58:49.199
we had everything based out of the
supply of the refuel stuff. We would

817
00:58:49.199 --> 00:58:52.199
fly in there. See one thirties
would roll in, they would jump off

818
00:58:52.320 --> 00:58:55.760
the group guys. We would pick
them up and then fly We basically had

819
00:58:55.760 --> 00:58:59.599
to fly out over the ocean,
do our test fires, do anything with

820
00:58:59.639 --> 00:59:01.400
we need to do something like that, and then come back and then we

821
00:59:01.559 --> 00:59:07.119
drop them off on a little bitty
island called Basilon. Basilon island. If

822
00:59:07.119 --> 00:59:09.199
you look at it looks like a
little ahead with two ears sticking off the

823
00:59:09.239 --> 00:59:15.159
side of it. But the problem
was is it's a long flight. So

824
00:59:15.519 --> 00:59:19.920
when you leave Sabu, you had
the inflight refuel. On the way down,

825
00:59:20.519 --> 00:59:22.440
you would land, pick up your
guys, dump them off to your

826
00:59:22.480 --> 00:59:28.039
thing. A lot of slingloads,
which in the in the regiment a slingload

827
00:59:28.079 --> 00:59:31.400
to us as a boat humbies,
you know, shotgun umbies or something you

828
00:59:31.760 --> 00:59:35.880
never did, like, you know, we're gonna slingload cargo nets and we're

829
00:59:35.920 --> 00:59:38.239
gonna slingload contacts. So that's big
army stuff. That's not what we do.

830
00:59:38.960 --> 00:59:45.320
That's what we're doing because you're slingloading
some stuff for the s F guys

831
00:59:45.480 --> 00:59:49.320
onto an island with a whole bunch
of bad terrorist guys in the middle of

832
00:59:49.360 --> 00:59:52.559
the night where it's you know,
asshole dark. So it turned out to

833
00:59:52.559 --> 01:00:00.159
be pretty pretty sporty stuff. But
unfortunately, on one of those trips on

834
01:00:00.199 --> 01:00:05.159
the way home, our chalk to
aircraft was transferrent was crossing over. The

835
01:00:05.159 --> 01:00:08.920
weather deteriorated. You know, it's
hard to tell horizons. Guys were getting

836
01:00:08.960 --> 01:00:10.760
tired, they didn't fly in a
long time, and they went to do

837
01:00:10.800 --> 01:00:16.199
a crossover and in the process of
doing so, the trail aircraft burned in

838
01:00:16.760 --> 01:00:21.119
so it nosed over because at the
time, and that was a big thing

839
01:00:21.159 --> 01:00:24.239
that changed in the regiment because of
that incident, was we used to fly

840
01:00:24.320 --> 01:00:28.639
one hundred feet you know, one
hundred feet over the water, you know,

841
01:00:28.639 --> 01:00:30.000
one hundred and ten to twenty one
hundred and thirty ninths. Whatever you

842
01:00:30.039 --> 01:00:36.480
want to do over the water.
Your reaction time you don't have much.

843
01:00:36.599 --> 01:00:40.239
I mean by the time you see
you know, your anti collision light flashing

844
01:00:40.360 --> 01:00:43.559
off the water, by the time
you reach up, grab your button,

845
01:00:43.599 --> 01:00:47.039
scream into it, climb, climb, climb too late, And that's what

846
01:00:47.039 --> 01:00:51.639
happened to them, so they got
disoriented during the crossover manewer. I mean,

847
01:00:51.639 --> 01:00:57.320
it's very simple maneuver, but kind
of complicated if things go wrong and

848
01:00:57.800 --> 01:01:00.480
they overflew a little bit, got
a little disco you know, uncoordinated drop

849
01:01:00.559 --> 01:01:05.079
back and then went to accelerate and
just you know noticed it then so we

850
01:01:05.159 --> 01:01:09.400
lost And because of a passenger swap
that they did when they got down to

851
01:01:09.599 --> 01:01:15.519
the down to Zambawanga. At the
time, they had the the sock packs.

852
01:01:16.119 --> 01:01:21.679
Commander Brigador General Worcester, you know, lovely guy now that I'm retired,

853
01:01:22.199 --> 01:01:25.039
not a fan, but he wanted
to ride along, you know,

854
01:01:27.280 --> 01:01:30.639
so they put him in the jump
seat of the lead aircraft, which caused

855
01:01:30.679 --> 01:01:35.639
our air mission commander, who was
Major Kirk Feisner, to ride and chalk

856
01:01:35.719 --> 01:01:39.480
to So when they got back landed, kicked everybody off. He just said,

857
01:01:39.480 --> 01:01:42.119
hey, I'll just stay here.
We're just on the way home,

858
01:01:42.360 --> 01:01:45.920
you know, just get us home. So when we lost Wild War two

859
01:01:46.159 --> 01:01:51.559
with the call sign, we lost
our platoon leader, our company commander,

860
01:01:52.159 --> 01:01:55.719
the most senior flight engineer in the
company, Kerry Frist, who is my

861
01:01:55.880 --> 01:02:01.079
senior fe on my airplane. But
total we lost guys. We also lost

862
01:02:01.119 --> 01:02:07.239
to Air Force pjs that we're riding
along as well. So that was that

863
01:02:07.440 --> 01:02:12.840
was my first experience of oh shit, this is real. You know.

864
01:02:12.920 --> 01:02:17.079
Up until then, you know,
we had and in the forty seven that

865
01:02:17.159 --> 01:02:21.440
I'd never experienced anything. You know, I've heard of it, you know,

866
01:02:21.480 --> 01:02:22.599
there was other people out there that
had incidentals, but and that was

867
01:02:22.639 --> 01:02:24.480
never you know, I was like, man, that that's sucks. It

868
01:02:24.519 --> 01:02:30.440
was never never touched me. And
then all of a sudden, my airplane

869
01:02:30.480 --> 01:02:32.920
with two of my crew members just
you know, crashed and killed everybody on

870
01:02:32.960 --> 01:02:38.519
board. And we found out because
we were watching the news that morning waking

871
01:02:38.599 --> 01:02:45.519
up. Who another person, another
delightful little person that I have no shame

872
01:02:45.519 --> 01:02:50.840
in putting her name out there.
Cynthia Taramy was the PO and the public

873
01:02:50.880 --> 01:02:54.119
affairs officer. She had an uncanny
way of have a news cruise waiting in

874
01:02:54.199 --> 01:03:00.199
the LG while we were landing.
That was That was fun. But yeah,

875
01:03:00.239 --> 01:03:04.320
we were waking up for a pt
that morning and you're back of the

876
01:03:04.320 --> 01:03:07.239
house and you know, good old
a FN. You know, you had

877
01:03:07.280 --> 01:03:12.480
like three stations. So all of
a sudden you start hearing the doors and

878
01:03:12.480 --> 01:03:15.159
the hallways open up and people banging
on doors. You know, crew,

879
01:03:15.239 --> 01:03:19.480
we didn't have pagers. We had
some you know, little little Nokia cell

880
01:03:19.480 --> 01:03:22.519
phones, and you start hearing the
cell phones going off, and somebody was

881
01:03:22.519 --> 01:03:25.239
banging on my doors like, hey, wake up man, he said,

882
01:03:25.280 --> 01:03:29.920
jem I'm awake. What's uthing?
You turn on the news, and on

883
01:03:30.000 --> 01:03:31.199
the news, you know, like
Fox News or whatever, so you know,

884
01:03:31.239 --> 01:03:35.159
it's got a little ticker at the
bottom and it said the US Army

885
01:03:35.199 --> 01:03:39.920
helicopter crashes and the Philippines killed ten. Well, there's only one helicopter the

886
01:03:40.000 --> 01:03:45.159
US AD that carries that many,
that's us. So very quickly we got

887
01:03:45.199 --> 01:03:46.519
the word, you know, go
to the hanger, you know, put

888
01:03:46.559 --> 01:03:51.400
on your put on your uniforms,
go to the hanger. And we got

889
01:03:51.400 --> 01:03:53.599
there. We still didn't know details, but we get there. We're in

890
01:03:53.639 --> 01:04:00.559
the hanger standing around and another Panama
buddy of mine who was a pilot that

891
01:04:00.639 --> 01:04:05.679
also went to the regiment, was
in echold company with us. He comes

892
01:04:05.679 --> 01:04:08.119
to get me. He goes,
hey, damn, I need to I

893
01:04:08.119 --> 01:04:09.920
need to talk to you real quick. I was like, yeah, man,

894
01:04:09.960 --> 01:04:13.480
what's going on? So he pulls
me into one little side office and

895
01:04:13.480 --> 01:04:15.599
he goes, hey, I just
want you to be the first to know

896
01:04:16.320 --> 01:04:19.960
that it was yours. We lost
your airplane. And I was I mean,

897
01:04:20.039 --> 01:04:25.719
I just I buckled. It was
just absolutely the most horrible experience.

898
01:04:27.559 --> 01:04:30.159
So we sat there for a few
minutes, kind of got my my wits

899
01:04:30.199 --> 01:04:33.079
about me, and uh, he
goes, hey, you wanna do you

900
01:04:33.119 --> 01:04:38.079
want to go out and tell everybody? I said, yeah, I'll break

901
01:04:38.119 --> 01:04:41.840
the news. So we walked out
and as soon as I walked out,

902
01:04:41.840 --> 01:04:45.320
I think everybody realized what what happened, because I was, you know,

903
01:04:45.559 --> 01:04:48.119
not in a good way. So
we met up, everybody had them circle

904
01:04:48.159 --> 01:04:51.519
around and we broke the news to
him. We had a great memorial,

905
01:04:53.239 --> 01:04:56.920
you know, that night everybody just
got absolutely obliterated. Ship faced had a

906
01:04:56.920 --> 01:04:59.639
bonfire because the way our barracks were
in cream we had three buildings with a

907
01:04:59.679 --> 01:05:01.360
hooch in the middle and that was
the bar. You know, the air

908
01:05:01.360 --> 01:05:03.960
Force ran the bar. It was
you know, everybody paid for the alcohol

909
01:05:03.960 --> 01:05:08.880
out of pocket with our ration cards. That we just got absolutely obliterated.

910
01:05:10.000 --> 01:05:15.440
But the the awesome thing was in
Korea. We were like celebrities in Korea,

911
01:05:15.679 --> 01:05:17.400
especially care we were down in South
We're in South Korea, but way

912
01:05:17.400 --> 01:05:20.559
down south in Tavu where there was
it was all support stuff, you know,

913
01:05:20.599 --> 01:05:25.159
this contingency, and all of a
sudden, here comes the special operations

914
01:05:25.159 --> 01:05:28.480
guy. They literally had the red
carpet rolled out for us when we when

915
01:05:28.480 --> 01:05:30.920
we walked off the airplanes. It
was pretty awesome. But when that happened,

916
01:05:31.960 --> 01:05:38.679
everybody, I mean everybody came out
in massive support because even at that

917
01:05:38.840 --> 01:05:44.840
time, you know, Afghanistan was
going on. They had suffered some losses,

918
01:05:44.840 --> 01:05:48.960
but suddenly they went, wait,
you mean there's something else beside Afghanistan

919
01:05:49.039 --> 01:05:57.000
going on, right, Sure,
So we had a memoral there. I

920
01:05:57.079 --> 01:05:59.920
was going to do a eulogy for
one of the other guys that was there.

921
01:06:00.559 --> 01:06:02.000
Uh, but then they called and
said, hey, we have to

922
01:06:02.000 --> 01:06:04.400
replace that crew. You know,
we're we're still in the game. We

923
01:06:04.400 --> 01:06:10.239
got to go. So I said, well, I'm I'm going. So

924
01:06:10.280 --> 01:06:15.159
they took three of us, stuck
us on a bus. We took a

925
01:06:15.199 --> 01:06:19.920
bus from Tegu, Korea up north
to Osan Air Base and then we took

926
01:06:20.079 --> 01:06:28.199
a medical like a medavack Air Force
Medavack seven twenty seven or something from Ocean

927
01:06:28.239 --> 01:06:32.280
Air Base to Okay now with Japan. And that was my really first experience

928
01:06:32.320 --> 01:06:40.199
of how stupid the military can be
sometimes. So we're deploying, you know,

929
01:06:40.280 --> 01:06:42.960
in our world, we're deploying the
war. I mean, because we're

930
01:06:43.000 --> 01:06:45.000
we're down there, we're you know. The big thing the Philippines was,

931
01:06:45.079 --> 01:06:48.519
yeah, there's the ABUSIAF group.
It's super duper very, you know,

932
01:06:48.840 --> 01:06:57.280
it's a hotspot. But they also
had two American hostages and Martin so Martin

933
01:06:57.280 --> 01:07:00.519
Graysia Burnhamore missionaries from Kansas and that
was kind of one of the one of

934
01:07:00.519 --> 01:07:04.159
the underlying things was we're trying to
find them. So when we deploy,

935
01:07:04.280 --> 01:07:08.480
we're I mean, we got our
impores, nine mils, we got our

936
01:07:08.519 --> 01:07:12.280
heaps are breathing, our oxygen bottles
that we carried with in case we did

937
01:07:12.639 --> 01:07:15.000
have to ditch. So we got
all this stuff that suddenly this flight crew

938
01:07:15.039 --> 01:07:19.880
go, you can't bring that on
this airplane. And they went, well,

939
01:07:20.280 --> 01:07:25.039
we're deploying to the Philippines for combat
operations, and they said, well,

940
01:07:25.159 --> 01:07:29.599
this is a metaback flight. You
can't bring guns on here. Shit,

941
01:07:30.320 --> 01:07:33.039
Okay, what do we do?
So luckily we were able to talk

942
01:07:33.079 --> 01:07:36.519
to the fly per and said,
look, you know what if we tear

943
01:07:36.599 --> 01:07:41.440
these guns down. So we took
our impores, We took all the bolts

944
01:07:41.440 --> 01:07:44.880
out, and we put them in
a zip lock bag and the pilot kept

945
01:07:44.920 --> 01:07:47.719
them in the cockpit. We took
the lower receivers, stuffed him in a

946
01:07:48.199 --> 01:07:51.440
check baggage and put him in the
cargo hold. We took the upper receivers

947
01:07:51.719 --> 01:07:58.840
and put them in our carry on
bags upstairs with us. Yeah, and

948
01:07:58.880 --> 01:08:01.599
it didn't stop there. We get
to open out, we land, we

949
01:08:01.679 --> 01:08:04.880
meet up with our flight dock we
had a civilian flight surgeon that also worked

950
01:08:04.880 --> 01:08:10.719
with us, so he had already
been forward stage to Okinawa to receive some

951
01:08:10.840 --> 01:08:15.239
of the bodies because the night of
the crash they actually recovered three they recovered

952
01:08:15.239 --> 01:08:19.600
three bodies on site from that from
that incident, so he was receiving the

953
01:08:19.640 --> 01:08:23.439
bodies and be ready to do all
the transfer stuffs. So he met us

954
01:08:23.520 --> 01:08:25.840
up, met up with us.
We went back to the hotel that he

955
01:08:25.880 --> 01:08:29.279
had there on base. Took about
a two hour nap, and then we

956
01:08:29.279 --> 01:08:31.640
had to get up and meet up
with an Air Force C one thirty along

957
01:08:31.680 --> 01:08:35.319
with a whole bunch of Air Force
people because they were all going to Sabu

958
01:08:35.399 --> 01:08:39.960
for the memorial service. So we've
got the three twentieth sts guys, the

959
01:08:39.960 --> 01:08:43.600
special Taxics, couadrons, and you
know, a bunch of VI T dignitaries

960
01:08:43.600 --> 01:08:48.479
that are going and then we had
to go through security. So there was

961
01:08:48.560 --> 01:08:51.960
no difference of us trying to get
on that air that to get on that

962
01:08:53.079 --> 01:08:56.479
C one thirty than it was when
my wife and I just flew to Chicago

963
01:08:56.600 --> 01:09:00.239
last weekend going through TSA welcome to
the Air Force. Yeah, that's ridiculous.

964
01:09:01.479 --> 01:09:04.920
So basically the same thing. I
mean, they like even our little

965
01:09:05.039 --> 01:09:08.840
heats bottles, our oxygen bottles,
it's empty, there's nothing in it.

966
01:09:08.840 --> 01:09:11.479
It sit the cylinder with a you
know, like a breathing device, but

967
01:09:11.520 --> 01:09:14.039
it's not charged, there's nothing in
it. We got our weapons, everything.

968
01:09:14.720 --> 01:09:16.520
So Luckily, while we're sitting there
and we're about ready to start fighting

969
01:09:16.640 --> 01:09:20.319
with some Air Force security people because
I'm carrying the guide on, you know,

970
01:09:20.359 --> 01:09:23.960
we just lost our commander, platine
leader. We are not in a

971
01:09:24.000 --> 01:09:28.520
good place. Luckily, one of
the C one thirty crew chief see this

972
01:09:28.680 --> 01:09:30.880
going on and comes over and says, hey, grab all your stuff,

973
01:09:30.960 --> 01:09:34.079
come with me. So they sneak
us out of the front door, around

974
01:09:34.079 --> 01:09:38.319
the side, stuff us in a
van, smuggle us out on the flight

975
01:09:38.399 --> 01:09:40.680
line, and then we get on
the Sea one thirty and go. I

976
01:09:40.760 --> 01:09:45.800
was like, this is just absolutely
fucking ridiculous. Yeah. Yes, we

977
01:09:45.840 --> 01:09:49.079
got to the Philippines. When we
got there, they were literally waiting on

978
01:09:49.199 --> 01:09:53.600
us. The formation was there,
the Air Force guys, the army dudes.

979
01:09:53.680 --> 01:09:56.600
We get off, put the guide
on together, pass it off to

980
01:09:56.640 --> 01:10:00.319
our you know, our new you
know, acting commander, and we did

981
01:10:00.359 --> 01:10:02.560
the memorial service right then there I
mean ten minutes after walking off to see

982
01:10:02.560 --> 01:10:05.600
one thirty, we're all we're all
there, and then you know, the

983
01:10:05.600 --> 01:10:10.600
next day we're front page Army Times. Yeah, I mean right there was

984
01:10:10.640 --> 01:10:13.279
the picture of a bunch of you
know, Army and Air Force due crying

985
01:10:13.319 --> 01:10:16.760
of the memorial service with you know, you know, ten service people lost.

986
01:10:16.920 --> 01:10:20.680
Well, I mean one day and
then we went right back at it

987
01:10:20.680 --> 01:10:24.760
started flying mission two days later.
Thank you. I want to just want

988
01:10:24.800 --> 01:10:28.279
to say thank you for telling that
story, Daniel, because it's one of

989
01:10:28.319 --> 01:10:30.600
these things that I feel really got
lost in the news with everything else that

990
01:10:30.720 --> 01:10:36.079
was going on after nine to eleven
in the Wars, that this is something

991
01:10:36.119 --> 01:10:41.119
that I feel like just kind of
not intentionally, there's no malice behind it,

992
01:10:41.159 --> 01:10:43.760
but it just got forgotten. It
got buried by all the other news.

993
01:10:44.359 --> 01:10:46.560
And I'm really glad to hear you, you know, tell the story

994
01:10:46.560 --> 01:10:50.119
and talk about your buddies and your
teammates a little bit and kind of keep

995
01:10:50.119 --> 01:10:55.520
that memory alive, because I mean, it's I just think it's a shame

996
01:10:55.560 --> 01:10:58.079
that, you know, it kind
of got forgotten about by a lot of

997
01:10:58.079 --> 01:11:00.800
people unless you're from a very small, specific community that you come from.

998
01:11:01.079 --> 01:11:08.079
I feel like it got forgotten about. Yeah, and and that was that

999
01:11:08.199 --> 01:11:11.079
was kind of a four touchy thing. You know. We got back,

1000
01:11:12.199 --> 01:11:15.319
which the Philippines ended up going all
the way up through I think July or

1001
01:11:15.319 --> 01:11:18.439
August of that year. I mean
even after I got there, I spent

1002
01:11:18.680 --> 01:11:23.800
almost four months there, So it
was a it was a non stop thing,

1003
01:11:23.840 --> 01:11:26.520
and we were flying every night.
We had no off time. We

1004
01:11:26.560 --> 01:11:30.199
had three crews and we only flew
two crews a night. But every night

1005
01:11:30.359 --> 01:11:35.600
you're taking off, you're going out
and because the island was only there's five

1006
01:11:35.600 --> 01:11:39.319
minutes with like I said, we'd
have to fly out to the ocean,

1007
01:11:39.359 --> 01:11:42.039
do the test fires, make sure
the guns are working before we could even

1008
01:11:42.119 --> 01:11:45.239
come back inland. But yeah,
I mean it was you know, four

1009
01:11:45.279 --> 01:11:50.159
months of non stop you know,
the whole hostage situation got taken care of.

1010
01:11:51.800 --> 01:11:56.239
We got spun up for it,
but it happened so quick and by

1011
01:11:56.319 --> 01:12:00.159
accident that before we could even get
there, it was already done. So

1012
01:12:00.359 --> 01:12:05.720
that was done. And then we
got a hit on a Boosabaya who was

1013
01:12:05.720 --> 01:12:12.800
the terrorist leader down there. That
is quite That's the whole funny story in

1014
01:12:12.840 --> 01:12:16.199
itself, how that ship went down
so they launched us. You know,

1015
01:12:16.239 --> 01:12:20.199
they caught one of his his in
Afghanistan, you know Ben Laden. Everybody

1016
01:12:20.199 --> 01:12:23.560
had the driver, well he had
the driver too, but he drove a

1017
01:12:23.600 --> 01:12:27.479
super canoe. It was a like
a twenty foot long canoe with a big

1018
01:12:27.560 --> 01:12:30.439
engine on the back, and that's
how they were transporting around the island.

1019
01:12:30.479 --> 01:12:35.079
So we had we had kind of
messed around a little bit with the Instead

1020
01:12:35.119 --> 01:12:40.960
of a vehicle interdiction, there was
a vessel interdiction that they tagged the boat

1021
01:12:41.039 --> 01:12:44.039
with a little ir strobe and then
we're going to go, you know,

1022
01:12:44.399 --> 01:12:48.399
interdict the boat. But it was
kind of cool because we had we had

1023
01:12:48.520 --> 01:12:51.720
a field team that was there,
Special boat Unit guys that were down there

1024
01:12:51.760 --> 01:12:56.600
with us. Super good dudes.
One of them actually ended up being a

1025
01:12:56.640 --> 01:12:59.840
pilot in the regiment. I don't
know if you guys have interviewed him,

1026
01:13:00.399 --> 01:13:05.880
Mike Rutledge. He got yeah,
as the at the commander up there at

1027
01:13:05.920 --> 01:13:11.600
West Point, the flight Detachment.
Awesome dude. So that night they found

1028
01:13:11.600 --> 01:13:15.000
that dude. They tracked his boat. We had a we had a fixed

1029
01:13:15.039 --> 01:13:20.000
wing asset that was there with us
that was doing overhead you know, see

1030
01:13:20.000 --> 01:13:25.840
two stuff. So they launched us. In the back we had we had

1031
01:13:25.840 --> 01:13:30.239
a couple of field teams with two
zodiacs, and then on the water they

1032
01:13:30.239 --> 01:13:34.119
had a huge, massive wooden boat
that had five outboard engines on the back

1033
01:13:34.520 --> 01:13:43.079
with a platoon of Filipino Marines and
then like feels as liaisons. The guy

1034
01:13:43.119 --> 01:13:45.439
in the front of the boat is
wearing goggles, the driver was not,

1035
01:13:45.920 --> 01:13:49.079
and they were communicating from the front
of the boat to the back via radio.

1036
01:13:49.319 --> 01:13:54.079
You know, turn left, turn
right, slowed down, we're orbiting,

1037
01:13:54.760 --> 01:13:56.960
and then you know, waiting for
the call because it was you know,

1038
01:13:57.399 --> 01:14:00.520
it took you know, spec death
President approval something like that to get

1039
01:14:00.520 --> 01:14:03.479
this thing approved because we weren't allowed
to be in combat operations. We were

1040
01:14:03.520 --> 01:14:09.319
in a training role. So finally
we hear over the satcom and it was

1041
01:14:09.359 --> 01:14:12.000
like, you know, set up
approved of whatever, you know, go

1042
01:14:12.000 --> 01:14:15.079
go go. So we roll out, we go out, we extend,

1043
01:14:15.119 --> 01:14:18.199
we roll out, and as we're
setting up to come in to do the

1044
01:14:18.239 --> 01:14:23.319
infill, that damn wooden boat ran
right over the top of that canoe and

1045
01:14:23.359 --> 01:14:28.000
it turned into literally shooting ducks in
a barrel. The video of that is

1046
01:14:28.039 --> 01:14:30.359
absolutely amazing. But that big wooden
boat landed right on top of it.

1047
01:14:30.960 --> 01:14:33.800
The four or five guys in the
boat bailed out, and the knee Filipino

1048
01:14:33.840 --> 01:14:40.319
Marines just went to town just launching
everything they could shoot. They were launching,

1049
01:14:40.479 --> 01:14:43.159
you know, two of three rounds
into the water from ten feet away,

1050
01:14:43.479 --> 01:14:45.279
and we're just watching this shit from
about a half mile quarter mile out

1051
01:14:45.319 --> 01:14:48.760
like what the hell and eat air
be screaming on the radios. So what

1052
01:14:48.800 --> 01:14:53.159
our mission end up being that night
was about two hours of flying overhead with

1053
01:14:53.199 --> 01:14:58.439
the searchlights so they could pluck out
the bodies and find But Olympic Olympic style

1054
01:14:58.600 --> 01:15:02.119
swimming took place that night the way
in a half minutes trying to get the

1055
01:15:02.199 --> 01:15:05.880
land so we'd fly out, we'd
hit our white light cover over the top

1056
01:15:05.920 --> 01:15:09.680
of him and try to not drown
them, but get him to stop,

1057
01:15:09.680 --> 01:15:12.479
and then the boats come over and
pick him up. I have the target.

1058
01:15:13.199 --> 01:15:16.199
Over the years, I have probably
heard three to five different stories about

1059
01:15:16.239 --> 01:15:21.880
how Abu Zabaya died. One of
my favorites is how he gets knocked off

1060
01:15:21.920 --> 01:15:26.760
the boat and apparently he was in
full kit with a colash and the clow

1061
01:15:26.840 --> 01:15:30.800
treading water while firing on the Filipino
Marines. Leaving them with no choice but

1062
01:15:30.880 --> 01:15:35.600
return fire, and his kit dragged
him down to Davy Jones Locker. Was

1063
01:15:35.640 --> 01:15:40.720
he riding a narwhell at the time. There are some questions that that's just

1064
01:15:40.760 --> 01:15:45.199
between Abu Sabayah and God. But
he did not make it through that.

1065
01:15:45.399 --> 01:15:49.000
And then and then there's the whole
story about how the Filipinos got Abu Sabaiah's

1066
01:15:49.279 --> 01:15:54.720
nineteen eleven and it was a war
trophy. And I'm trying to think he

1067
01:15:54.800 --> 01:15:58.600
was in the water, treading water, shooting at you. You shot him,

1068
01:15:58.720 --> 01:16:03.000
he sank to would this gun come
from? It's between Abu Sabaya and

1069
01:16:03.039 --> 01:16:06.720
God at this point, I don't
know it was. Obviously the buoyancy compensator

1070
01:16:06.720 --> 01:16:14.920
device is a k There are some
interesting questions about some of that. But

1071
01:16:15.159 --> 01:16:18.479
and if if any of our listeners
are interested in hearing the actually the c

1072
01:16:18.520 --> 01:16:23.960
I a side of the story.
Uh. We've interviewed Kent Clusby and Ron

1073
01:16:24.039 --> 01:16:28.039
Moehler, who are both out there
might be interesting just to go and hear

1074
01:16:28.159 --> 01:16:30.720
hear that. I think I think
they and maybe you know, Daniel,

1075
01:16:30.760 --> 01:16:36.079
did the agency have a drone up
that night? Uh, there was a

1076
01:16:36.199 --> 01:16:45.279
fixed wing asset in the air that
night. Okay, yeah, yeah,

1077
01:16:45.479 --> 01:16:50.119
Now who belonged to and this purpose
and owners I don't know. That's also

1078
01:16:50.239 --> 01:16:57.319
between Abu Sabaya and God, that's
right. But yeah, he did not

1079
01:16:57.960 --> 01:17:01.399
make it. He didn't make it, Fisher darn it. Yeah, sorry

1080
01:17:01.399 --> 01:17:06.319
for his loss. Yeah yeah,
yeah, once he was no longer with

1081
01:17:06.479 --> 01:17:12.159
us, and then Martin Gray should
Burnham, you know, in that rescue

1082
01:17:12.199 --> 01:17:16.680
attempt. Martin died in the attempt, ye, And the best reports that

1083
01:17:16.720 --> 01:17:21.159
we read out there was he was
shot in the back while laying on top

1084
01:17:21.199 --> 01:17:27.359
and protecting his wife. But as
we were spooling up to take off the

1085
01:17:27.520 --> 01:17:30.520
UH and at that time, they
had brought in some Air Force h H

1086
01:17:30.640 --> 01:17:34.640
sixties to take over some Ceesar role
because up in that point in time,

1087
01:17:34.680 --> 01:17:38.680
it was it was the three of
us, and then we'd get a P

1088
01:17:38.840 --> 01:17:41.840
three O'Ryan that would come out of
Okinawa or out of Saboo and a C

1089
01:17:42.000 --> 01:17:45.760
one thirty tanker that was it,
and of course our little fixed wing buddy.

1090
01:17:45.840 --> 01:17:48.279
But yeah, there was nothing like, oh shit, what happens is

1091
01:17:48.680 --> 01:17:53.800
we lose another one? You know, So they brought those guys down and

1092
01:17:53.880 --> 01:17:58.960
as we were spooling up to take
off that's when the as we call them,

1093
01:17:58.960 --> 01:18:04.359
the tail draggers, they landed and
offloaded the casualties. And uh Burnham,

1094
01:18:04.439 --> 01:18:09.960
yes, actually have pictures of that
from from Kent. I mean,

1095
01:18:10.000 --> 01:18:13.079
it's it's wild and I mean that
was a huge thing at the time,

1096
01:18:13.199 --> 01:18:15.680
and there was h It was when
we were spinning up the Light Reaction Regiment.

1097
01:18:15.720 --> 01:18:20.000
There was probably a White Reaction Battalion
at that time of the Filipinos and

1098
01:18:20.079 --> 01:18:25.840
a lot of consternation about where Americans
are allowed to be on some of these

1099
01:18:25.880 --> 01:18:31.439
operations. Yeah, I remember there
was a big, big stink because you

1100
01:18:31.479 --> 01:18:36.279
know that little island we were flying
out to Bocelon. There was a even

1101
01:18:36.319 --> 01:18:41.159
on our maps in our planning center
on the southeast corner, there's like a

1102
01:18:41.159 --> 01:18:45.319
little you know, like a quarter
of it that's in that corner with big

1103
01:18:45.399 --> 01:18:47.239
yellow hash marks and says like you
know, do not go here, or

1104
01:18:47.279 --> 01:18:50.680
even the Filipino military and the Filipino
aircraft were like you don't go there.

1105
01:18:51.159 --> 01:18:55.319
That's that's like an off limits place
you go in there. On that south

1106
01:18:55.359 --> 01:18:59.039
side. It was a pretty steep
incline to some pretty good islands. And

1107
01:18:59.479 --> 01:19:02.520
I remember we're going in the planning
center one day for our mission brief and

1108
01:19:02.640 --> 01:19:05.279
there a flight lead at the time. He looks up and he goes,

1109
01:19:05.279 --> 01:19:09.800
hey, you know that spot,
we're going there. And they're like,

1110
01:19:09.840 --> 01:19:12.960
oh, that's great, and we're
uh, and we're slingloading some supplies to

1111
01:19:13.039 --> 01:19:15.520
the base camp there, the s
F guy and stuff. They're in there.

1112
01:19:15.560 --> 01:19:18.560
So we're like, this sucks.
So we always went with two.

1113
01:19:18.800 --> 01:19:23.520
We had the third aircraft that was
always on standby on the island or up

1114
01:19:23.520 --> 01:19:26.399
on the main base, and then
when we would go in, we would

1115
01:19:26.399 --> 01:19:29.159
have one aircraft that would go in
and the other one would perform a cap

1116
01:19:29.279 --> 01:19:32.359
you know overhead, you know,
with you know, guns ready to go,

1117
01:19:32.760 --> 01:19:36.399
so in case something happened. But
yeah, that was that was a

1118
01:19:36.439 --> 01:19:40.600
pretty good pucker factor right there,
knowing that you're going into this little valve

1119
01:19:40.720 --> 01:19:44.399
depth where even the Filipinos say you
don't go there. Yeah, and I'm

1120
01:19:44.399 --> 01:19:47.159
carrying a you know, fuel bladders, you know, fifty five gallon drums

1121
01:19:47.159 --> 01:19:51.000
of fuel on the on it razor
wire and we're just chucking right along it,

1122
01:19:51.359 --> 01:19:56.000
you know, five ten knots,
you know, like, oh man,

1123
01:19:56.319 --> 01:19:58.479
we can We're going to take a
shot right up the ass for this

1124
01:19:58.520 --> 01:20:00.039
one. So we got in as
soon as that thing, you know,

1125
01:20:00.439 --> 01:20:02.840
and a lot of it. I
was doing the slingload calls. So I'm

1126
01:20:02.880 --> 01:20:05.319
laying on the on the floor staring, you know, hanging out that hole

1127
01:20:05.840 --> 01:20:09.159
looking down with my dog was on. And as soon as I saw the

1128
01:20:09.279 --> 01:20:12.359
least bit of slack in those slings, I didn't wait for a call.

1129
01:20:12.399 --> 01:20:14.760
I didn't wait for the pilot.
I hit that button, open that hook,

1130
01:20:14.760 --> 01:20:15.960
and it's like loads of release,
clear to re position, let's go.

1131
01:20:16.520 --> 01:20:19.800
And they ripped the guts and off
we went. And then we'd performed

1132
01:20:19.800 --> 01:20:21.760
the cap and then chalked you would
come in and do the same thing.

1133
01:20:23.880 --> 01:20:30.279
So what after after the Philippines,
you did eleven deployments to Afghanistan And so

1134
01:20:30.359 --> 01:20:34.439
now now you're really we're the special
operations comedy in general, it's getting into

1135
01:20:34.479 --> 01:20:39.199
that rotation of that schedule, going
back and forth. And can you tell

1136
01:20:39.239 --> 01:20:43.920
us about you know, that experience
for you from your perspective. Yeah,

1137
01:20:43.960 --> 01:20:46.159
so you know, originally we went
to Korea, we were gonna go right

1138
01:20:46.159 --> 01:20:48.279
back to where we came from.
You so you leave brob a company,

1139
01:20:48.279 --> 01:20:53.840
you go to Korea, you're coming
right back. After we lost you know,

1140
01:20:53.880 --> 01:20:56.960
wild War two, there was suddenly
a big void. You know,

1141
01:20:57.000 --> 01:21:00.159
we're down one helicopter and we just
lost and we lost five criminals. We

1142
01:21:00.199 --> 01:21:02.039
had a fifth guy that we usually
don't have, but they put a fifth

1143
01:21:02.039 --> 01:21:05.119
down there to help with all the
cargo stuff. So we keep all four

1144
01:21:05.159 --> 01:21:11.079
sets of eyes outside one guy in
the hole. So I was approached and

1145
01:21:11.119 --> 01:21:15.840
said, hey, would you mind
extending for six months get us get us

1146
01:21:15.880 --> 01:21:17.880
through this. We need an old
timer. You know, at the time

1147
01:21:17.920 --> 01:21:20.840
consider an old timer been in Korea, so you know, would you mind

1148
01:21:20.880 --> 01:21:26.560
staying for six months? I said
sure, but can I go home?

1149
01:21:26.720 --> 01:21:29.520
I want to go home on leave. I need to go. You know,

1150
01:21:29.800 --> 01:21:32.199
my wife I had just met her
two months, you know, I

1151
01:21:32.279 --> 01:21:35.439
met her in April of O two, and I left for Korea in June

1152
01:21:35.560 --> 01:21:39.079
because we were supposed to go to
Crea till later that year. We're actually

1153
01:21:39.159 --> 01:21:41.479
on a TV white trip out in
North Carolina and they said, hey,

1154
01:21:42.079 --> 01:21:45.279
we got a quick little meeting.
I need you and you and you you're

1155
01:21:45.319 --> 01:21:48.600
going home like the first thing tomorrow. Because they just accelerated the timeline.

1156
01:21:48.640 --> 01:21:53.720
It's not six months sixty days.
I was like, oh shit, okay,

1157
01:21:54.399 --> 01:21:56.720
So I said, can I can
I at least go home, take

1158
01:21:56.760 --> 01:21:59.079
some leaves, you know, clear
my head. I got to I got

1159
01:21:59.079 --> 01:22:01.840
to get through this stuff. So
they said, yeah, go home.

1160
01:22:02.479 --> 01:22:05.159
You know how much leave he got
saved up? I said, I got

1161
01:22:05.159 --> 01:22:08.960
a lot. Good Take thirty days. Take thirty days, go home,

1162
01:22:09.199 --> 01:22:12.039
have a good time, come back, and then we'll finish it up.

1163
01:22:12.079 --> 01:22:17.680
So so when I came home around
July, I guess July August of two

1164
01:22:17.760 --> 01:22:23.119
thousand and two. You know,
by then we've almost been at a year

1165
01:22:23.680 --> 01:22:26.880
of going to town and doing business
in Afghanistan, where you know, all

1166
01:22:26.960 --> 01:22:30.960
my buddies that I had left previously
that were doing that. So he even

1167
01:22:30.960 --> 01:22:32.640
talked to some guys there. I
said, yeah, you know, it

1168
01:22:32.680 --> 01:22:34.880
was great. And spent four months
in the Philippines and some of the guys

1169
01:22:34.960 --> 01:22:40.159
like, what were you doing there? Like what I said, Yeah,

1170
01:22:40.199 --> 01:22:44.199
that's you know, oh yeah OHEF
P OHEF operation during Freedom Philippines. It's

1171
01:22:44.199 --> 01:22:46.600
a thing. And uh, oh
is that where we lost that's where we

1172
01:22:46.640 --> 01:22:49.159
lost that, that's where we lost
aircraft, right, And that's kind of

1173
01:22:49.159 --> 01:22:51.720
going back to what you're saying earlier. Even at that time, you know,

1174
01:22:51.760 --> 01:22:55.720
even some of our own people didn't
really fully understand what's going on.

1175
01:22:55.800 --> 01:23:00.359
So had a great time. We
had a family reunion down here in Orlando,

1176
01:23:00.399 --> 01:23:04.920
Florida and at a resort. So
my girlfriend picked me up and I

1177
01:23:04.960 --> 01:23:09.000
said, hey, you want to
go to Orlando for the week and hang

1178
01:23:09.039 --> 01:23:13.880
out and meet the family. She's
like sure. So we came down here,

1179
01:23:14.560 --> 01:23:19.079
had a great time, had such
a great time that the day that

1180
01:23:19.159 --> 01:23:24.279
I'm flying back to Korea, now
there's little tears going on. I'm getting

1181
01:23:24.279 --> 01:23:26.960
ready to go back. Now war's
going on. It's become real for me,

1182
01:23:27.000 --> 01:23:29.680
it's become real for her, so
you know, the emotions are going

1183
01:23:29.720 --> 01:23:32.640
high and so like it was like
two o'clock in the morning or something.

1184
01:23:32.720 --> 01:23:35.960
She said, hey, I really
got something I need to tell you.

1185
01:23:36.560 --> 01:23:42.640
I said, sure, what's going
on? She was pregnant. I was

1186
01:23:42.680 --> 01:23:47.000
like great, whatever, going back
to sleep. It was like, what

1187
01:23:47.119 --> 01:23:51.359
did you just say? Yeah?
So, yeah, that family reunion,

1188
01:23:51.760 --> 01:23:57.359
we started our own. So I
called my my buddy back in Korea,

1189
01:23:57.399 --> 01:24:00.239
who actually my roommate in Korea at
the time, was the guy that introduced

1190
01:24:00.279 --> 01:24:03.880
me to my wife. He was
dating one of her sort of kind of

1191
01:24:03.880 --> 01:24:06.439
friends at the time. So I
called back and said, hey, you

1192
01:24:06.479 --> 01:24:11.239
know, I got a little family
thing that popped up, and he hung

1193
01:24:11.319 --> 01:24:13.760
up the phone. Before I could
say anything, he hung up the phone,

1194
01:24:13.840 --> 01:24:15.399
ran across to the huge we're up
on the third floor the barracks ran

1195
01:24:15.439 --> 01:24:21.000
down again. Olympic sprinter hurdler.
Ten minutes later. I've got about twenty

1196
01:24:21.039 --> 01:24:25.760
people in my barracks room and my
acting platoons under the time. Who's in

1197
01:24:25.800 --> 01:24:28.960
between because they're rotating through real called
Me's like, hey, Dan, what's

1198
01:24:29.000 --> 01:24:31.119
going on? What can I What
do you need? What? What do

1199
01:24:31.159 --> 01:24:33.960
you need from us? I said, no, man, nobody's dead,

1200
01:24:34.159 --> 01:24:38.359
I said, we're what he said, Man, Gerald came running in.

1201
01:24:38.439 --> 01:24:40.279
He's freaking out, like Dan's on
the phone. We got to go.

1202
01:24:40.319 --> 01:24:43.439
He's got a problem. I said, no, man, a family situation

1203
01:24:43.560 --> 01:24:48.720
is popped up. I can't just
leave. Because she had just recently gotten

1204
01:24:48.720 --> 01:24:51.439
out of the Air Force. She
was living at home with her parents.

1205
01:24:51.479 --> 01:24:54.439
You can get raised to oart school
and stuff. So I'm like, man,

1206
01:24:55.119 --> 01:24:57.840
her parents barely even know who this
guy is other than some army dude

1207
01:24:57.840 --> 01:25:00.680
that just you know, mocked up
with his daughter. I can't leave her

1208
01:25:00.680 --> 01:25:04.199
here. So they said, yeah, I take a couple more days.

1209
01:25:04.479 --> 01:25:08.560
So the next day, you know, I think it might have been later

1210
01:25:08.640 --> 01:25:10.680
day. We brought the news of
their parents and we're like, hey,

1211
01:25:11.680 --> 01:25:15.039
congratulations grandma and grandpa. But I
went back to Korea and then I ended

1212
01:25:15.119 --> 01:25:19.479
up doing another year. So to
kind of segue into life back at the

1213
01:25:19.520 --> 01:25:27.079
house, we were married with a
four month old. We've been married like

1214
01:25:27.079 --> 01:25:29.720
a year and a half or four
month well before we ever actually lived together.

1215
01:25:30.319 --> 01:25:34.399
Yeah. Yeah, my little one
year stint in Korea ended up turning

1216
01:25:34.439 --> 01:25:38.920
into two and a half because at
that time, after the six months,

1217
01:25:39.119 --> 01:25:42.279
they said, hey, we want
to send you back and we'd like to

1218
01:25:42.399 --> 01:25:44.920
stay, you know, if you
could stay another year. You know you're

1219
01:25:44.960 --> 01:25:47.560
here, you're a senior dude.
You know you're moving up the flight side

1220
01:25:47.560 --> 01:25:51.560
of the house. So we want
to send you to at high school if

1221
01:25:51.560 --> 01:25:55.680
you'll do another year. That's that
course of rough And I said, cow

1222
01:25:55.760 --> 01:25:58.960
man, I said, she's going
to kill me for this. I said,

1223
01:25:59.000 --> 01:26:01.119
all right, I said, how
he got another drug deal for you.

1224
01:26:01.960 --> 01:26:04.279
I got to go home and make
things right. I got to fix

1225
01:26:04.319 --> 01:26:09.000
this problem, not fix a problem
that goddamn that sounded pretty bad, but

1226
01:26:09.880 --> 01:26:12.920
I need to fix this and make
it right. So they said all right,

1227
01:26:13.000 --> 01:26:15.279
go home. So I said,
all right, I'm gonna because the

1228
01:26:15.319 --> 01:26:17.279
previous Christmas I stayed. You know, we're in Korea for you. I'm

1229
01:26:17.279 --> 01:26:19.159
like, I'll stay here for Christmas. You got to go home and have

1230
01:26:19.279 --> 01:26:21.520
families. At the time, I'm
just a single dude with a girlfriend.

1231
01:26:23.199 --> 01:26:28.119
So I got to go home.
Went home at Christmas time. We woke

1232
01:26:28.159 --> 01:26:29.640
up one morning and said, hey, what do you want to do today.

1233
01:26:29.680 --> 01:26:31.399
There's still there's still a conversation on
how that worked out, but basically

1234
01:26:31.439 --> 01:26:34.119
the conversation was what you want to
do today. I said, let's go

1235
01:26:34.159 --> 01:26:39.399
get married. So we didn't.
We went and got married. The Justice

1236
01:26:39.439 --> 01:26:44.479
of the Peace was busy, so
we met a family friend whose dad was

1237
01:26:44.560 --> 01:26:48.800
a preacher who also worked at the
Toyted dealership in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. So

1238
01:26:48.920 --> 01:26:53.000
we called her parents and her best
friend and her husband said meet us at

1239
01:26:53.000 --> 01:26:56.239
the dealership at eight o'clock. And
they're all like, why you buying a

1240
01:26:56.279 --> 01:26:58.239
car? And said, nah,
something like that. You show up.

1241
01:26:58.680 --> 01:27:03.159
So we literally got married on the
showroom floor of the Toytt Dealership Kentucky with

1242
01:27:03.279 --> 01:27:08.520
a little rebate signed behind it,
and it called to get your rebate yeah,

1243
01:27:08.560 --> 01:27:11.720
and then I went back to Korea, and then I came home again

1244
01:27:11.760 --> 01:27:14.560
in April when my son was born, got to spend three weeks with him,

1245
01:27:15.119 --> 01:27:17.720
went back to Korea, came home
a few months later for the FI

1246
01:27:17.800 --> 01:27:23.279
course. Played with me at Fort
Rutgers for a month and a half,

1247
01:27:23.880 --> 01:27:26.479
and I went back to Korea,
finished it off, and then I came

1248
01:27:26.520 --> 01:27:33.000
home, got home in December of
three, signed in after leave in January,

1249
01:27:33.159 --> 01:27:36.720
and in April, I was on
my first deployment Afghanistan. They're like,

1250
01:27:36.760 --> 01:27:40.359
we'll give you sixty days. You're
on the first team, seventeen out

1251
01:27:40.359 --> 01:27:44.680
of here. Yep, welcome to
regiment in combat life. Oh boy,

1252
01:27:45.760 --> 01:27:49.880
hang on. But yeah, Korea, Korea was a great time. And

1253
01:27:49.920 --> 01:27:54.199
then, uh, you know,
I looked back at it that it worked

1254
01:27:54.199 --> 01:27:59.239
out pretty well. And then regiment
kicked off and then it was just go,

1255
01:27:59.239 --> 01:28:04.600
go go, And so what was
it like running operations? You know?

1256
01:28:04.640 --> 01:28:12.439
And now is flight engineer in Afghanistan
with one sixtieth Yeah, crazy,

1257
01:28:12.760 --> 01:28:17.199
crazy, but awesome. So by
the time I got to UH and and

1258
01:28:17.279 --> 01:28:21.520
because I did that two and a
half year thing, I was supposed to

1259
01:28:21.560 --> 01:28:26.479
originally go back to Brava Company.
I didn't. I went to Alpha Company.

1260
01:28:27.359 --> 01:28:29.800
I'm thinking, oh my god,
you know, here we go.

1261
01:28:30.119 --> 01:28:33.319
I'm we go hang out with these
Prima Donna guys. But it was cool

1262
01:28:33.520 --> 01:28:39.479
because by that time Trey Potter,
who was you know, really leading at

1263
01:28:39.479 --> 01:28:43.680
the time. At that time,
he was the Battalion standard guy who he

1264
01:28:43.720 --> 01:28:45.119
had come over to Korea and we
kind of helped work on this thing for

1265
01:28:45.119 --> 01:28:48.119
a little bit. And it was
called the forty seven Delta Echo Non Rated

1266
01:28:48.159 --> 01:28:53.039
crew Member so op. So it
took the Delta model guys from Third Batown,

1267
01:28:53.079 --> 01:28:57.640
the Eco model guys from Alfa Brava
Company, and standardized everything across the

1268
01:28:57.640 --> 01:29:00.159
board. So it wasn't oh we
use green chem lights, Oh well we

1269
01:29:00.239 --> 01:29:03.079
use red kim lights. We used
blue. It was we don't care who

1270
01:29:03.079 --> 01:29:05.840
you are, what you are,
what company you're in, you're using this.

1271
01:29:06.239 --> 01:29:10.600
You're going to say it this way. Because now Echo Company became the

1272
01:29:10.640 --> 01:29:15.479
melting pot. So suddenly we're getting
people there going And that second year,

1273
01:29:15.479 --> 01:29:17.479
when that second rotation of people started
showing up, it was ugly. There

1274
01:29:17.520 --> 01:29:23.159
was almost fights on the aircraft in
flight in the office. Well, this

1275
01:29:23.199 --> 01:29:25.039
is how we did in Echo Company, this is how we did an African

1276
01:29:25.119 --> 01:29:28.359
this, so we do a Bravo
company and then at the time some of

1277
01:29:28.439 --> 01:29:33.600
us who stayed were still pretty emotional
about losing that airplane in February, so

1278
01:29:34.479 --> 01:29:38.479
we're like, look, this is
why we do things. We're not going

1279
01:29:38.520 --> 01:29:42.359
to lose another one. And you
know, of course, right after we

1280
01:29:42.439 --> 01:29:47.079
lost wild War two in February March, it's two weeks later. We're actually

1281
01:29:47.119 --> 01:29:50.520
sitting in the planning area in the
Philippine getting ready to do a mission when

1282
01:29:50.600 --> 01:29:54.640
they walked in and said, hey, we need to tell everybody that there's

1283
01:29:54.640 --> 01:30:00.479
been an incident in Afghanistan and we
currently have you know, one British down,

1284
01:30:00.279 --> 01:30:05.000
another one or two are limping back
to home, which turned out that

1285
01:30:05.199 --> 01:30:09.800
was anaconda. So you know,
we lost, we lost a gunner,

1286
01:30:09.880 --> 01:30:12.199
we lost phil feed Tack, a
crew chief on that one as well,

1287
01:30:12.600 --> 01:30:15.720
So the tempers were flaring. You
know, emotions are pretty high. But

1288
01:30:15.119 --> 01:30:20.720
going to Alpha Company, it was
actually pretty cool the guys there, since

1289
01:30:20.760 --> 01:30:26.920
I had known some of them and
I was smart enough to sit back and

1290
01:30:26.960 --> 01:30:30.680
bite my tongue and go, hey, this is my first trip to Afghanistan.

1291
01:30:30.239 --> 01:30:34.159
Some of these guys are already on
their third and fourth so this is

1292
01:30:34.199 --> 01:30:36.920
not the time for me to say, hey, I'm more senior to you,

1293
01:30:38.039 --> 01:30:41.439
I have more flight hours than you. It's sit down, shut up,

1294
01:30:41.600 --> 01:30:45.159
watch what's going on. Soak it
up, be the sponge, and

1295
01:30:45.039 --> 01:30:50.159
learn what it's like to fly combat
missions in Afghanistan, because it's not the

1296
01:30:50.199 --> 01:30:57.800
same as flying combat missions in the
Philippines. So, and the Philippines was

1297
01:30:57.880 --> 01:31:00.159
very quiet. I mean it was
stress, you know, you didn't know.

1298
01:31:00.479 --> 01:31:03.439
And we used to fly around and
throw fruit and stuff out the windows

1299
01:31:03.479 --> 01:31:05.479
just to try to get somebody to
shoot at us. And we're bored.

1300
01:31:06.760 --> 01:31:12.439
But suddenly in Afghanistan, my very
first mission there, we flew down from

1301
01:31:12.479 --> 01:31:15.000
Bagram down to the we flew down
to Kandahar, picked up guys, and

1302
01:31:15.039 --> 01:31:19.840
we headed west. And that very
first mission, we took fire. We

1303
01:31:19.880 --> 01:31:23.199
didn't hit get do, didn't hit
anything. Our aircraft right in front of

1304
01:31:23.279 --> 01:31:26.159
us took a couple of rounds.
But that was suddenly like, whoa,

1305
01:31:27.000 --> 01:31:30.840
this is different. The really yeah, that's first time I've ever sat before.

1306
01:31:30.039 --> 01:31:32.800
Interesting, you know, it doesn't
doesn't look like it does in the

1307
01:31:32.800 --> 01:31:41.279
movies. I want to ask you
about because one about through one sixtieth transition

1308
01:31:41.560 --> 01:31:47.960
into Afghanistan, and then about yours
because for people who don't know Afghanistan,

1309
01:31:49.399 --> 01:31:55.359
like the Shinook's, American helicopters were
not really made to fly in a place

1310
01:31:55.439 --> 01:32:00.239
like Afghanistan, especially during the summer
when there's not as much done to do

1311
01:32:00.319 --> 01:32:04.439
the air you're flying at altitude,
How did how did the one sixtieth like

1312
01:32:04.560 --> 01:32:09.359
adapt to that? And then for
you, what were some of the lessons

1313
01:32:09.399 --> 01:32:15.359
that you learned when you when during
your first deployment there. Yeah, I

1314
01:32:15.399 --> 01:32:17.319
mean, uh, you know,
and we've done high house to do training.

1315
01:32:17.520 --> 01:32:20.279
I mean we go out to Colorado
and you fly up on the mountains.

1316
01:32:21.039 --> 01:32:25.560
We would fly out, we'd go
east into the uh you know,

1317
01:32:25.600 --> 01:32:30.720
the smoky mountains, and we'd do
radar multi mode radar stuff. And I

1318
01:32:30.880 --> 01:32:32.000
tell people, I said, there's
two times when it's okay to throw up

1319
01:32:32.000 --> 01:32:34.720
on an aircraft. One is when
you're doing in flight refeeling, and one

1320
01:32:34.800 --> 01:32:40.359
is when you're doing MMR flights multi
mode radars, because it's just it's the

1321
01:32:40.439 --> 01:32:44.359
bouncy the pilots are flying stuff and
it just gets airsickness kind of gets ahold

1322
01:32:44.359 --> 01:32:48.279
of it. So one of the
great things that I loved about the regiment

1323
01:32:48.479 --> 01:32:54.079
was the way you trained at home
was real life, no ship, this

1324
01:32:54.119 --> 01:32:57.000
is the way it goes. I
mean aside from little you know, you

1325
01:32:57.079 --> 01:33:00.000
know, when you're flying around for
campl Kentucky, there are people shooting,

1326
01:33:00.399 --> 01:33:03.399
so you take that. But the
mission stuff, we we literally did train

1327
01:33:03.520 --> 01:33:09.760
like you fight. So in Afghanistan, you know, the pilots are absolutely

1328
01:33:10.239 --> 01:33:12.920
amazing. I mean it's I still
be glad. I said I'd rather take

1329
01:33:13.000 --> 01:33:16.039
I'd take the worst regimental forty seven
pilot over the best Big Army pilot any

1330
01:33:16.119 --> 01:33:23.000
day, just because that level of
training those guys go through. So there

1331
01:33:23.079 --> 01:33:27.720
was always a comfort to know that
I've literally got the best upfront. You

1332
01:33:27.760 --> 01:33:30.800
know, if something happens, I'm
happy with that. So for the backside,

1333
01:33:31.840 --> 01:33:39.680
a lot of it was really learning
how to to see and breathe while

1334
01:33:39.760 --> 01:33:45.760
landing in falcon Powder. That was
the biggest shock to me was the first

1335
01:33:45.800 --> 01:33:50.239
time we came into an FB and
I was like, what in God's name

1336
01:33:50.359 --> 01:33:55.199
is this stuff. The closest I've
ever come to it is out out in

1337
01:33:55.399 --> 01:33:59.000
Albuquerque, New Mexico. We had
a little slice of heaven out there,

1338
01:33:59.560 --> 01:34:02.720
and the kind became a second home
to me for a while that had the

1339
01:34:02.760 --> 01:34:10.560
closest consistency, you know, the
grit, but that Afghanistan dirt is something

1340
01:34:10.640 --> 01:34:15.600
special, the powder it makes when
you hit it. Yeah, so you

1341
01:34:15.640 --> 01:34:18.479
know you've heard if you've ever had
any pilot and you guys flying in the

1342
01:34:18.520 --> 01:34:23.439
back of know that when you come
in that brown out condition, there's only

1343
01:34:23.479 --> 01:34:28.039
one person. There's only one person
that can see the ground, and it's

1344
01:34:28.159 --> 01:34:31.520
maybe about a five to ten foot
diameter piece of ground. And that's me,

1345
01:34:32.159 --> 01:34:35.479
that's whoever the guy is that's standing
at the front right cabin door,

1346
01:34:35.960 --> 01:34:41.359
the gunner. So you know,
the pilots got the flear you know,

1347
01:34:41.439 --> 01:34:43.960
so it kind of helps you a
little bit. But even when the dust

1348
01:34:44.039 --> 01:34:45.840
hits that you can't see. So, you know, I'm hanging out,

1349
01:34:45.960 --> 01:34:48.640
you know, leaning over the gun
arm, you know, got my left

1350
01:34:48.720 --> 01:34:51.600
arm up on the mini gun,
my right arms hanging up on the struts

1351
01:34:51.640 --> 01:34:56.439
for the hoist, and I'm looking
straight down and you see this little piece

1352
01:34:56.439 --> 01:35:00.840
of dirt, you know, this
big and one thing. I And it

1353
01:35:00.319 --> 01:35:04.039
just occurred to me one day on
a mission. And this was now it

1354
01:35:04.119 --> 01:35:08.640
was maybe a couple of deployments into
it. He was maybe checkond to third

1355
01:35:08.680 --> 01:35:12.840
deployment. We had an imagery guy
and he looks up and he goes,

1356
01:35:12.880 --> 01:35:15.840
hey, whoever's on And I think
it was like Chalk two or three at

1357
01:35:15.880 --> 01:35:16.479
the time, whatever airplane I was
on. He goes, hey, when

1358
01:35:16.479 --> 01:35:21.680
you come in, you're going to
cross three walls before you can land.

1359
01:35:23.239 --> 01:35:26.079
And I remember hearing that. So
we're coming in, you know, we're

1360
01:35:26.119 --> 01:35:28.960
calling the dust, you know dust
the rotor blade, you know, probe

1361
01:35:28.960 --> 01:35:31.560
tip, roator blade knows poof we're
in it. And I remember looking straight

1362
01:35:31.640 --> 01:35:35.840
down, going one wall, two
walls, three walls, You're clear down

1363
01:35:35.920 --> 01:35:39.079
left and right. Yeah, And
as soon as we passed that wall,

1364
01:35:39.399 --> 01:35:43.439
they slammed it down. I look
up, left settles and you know forty

1365
01:35:43.439 --> 01:35:46.520
seven the probe tip is actually four
feet under, you know, inside the

1366
01:35:46.600 --> 01:35:50.800
rotor disc. So the dust settles. Guys run out the back and I

1367
01:35:50.920 --> 01:35:55.039
lean up and I hear a pilot
go, oh shit, and I look

1368
01:35:55.119 --> 01:35:58.640
up. The four rotor blades are
right over the last, like wall number

1369
01:35:58.640 --> 01:36:01.560
four, the one they forgot tell
us about, and the probe tip and

1370
01:36:02.000 --> 01:36:05.760
kinting, king king tinks just rubbing
on the edge thing, this little rocks

1371
01:36:05.800 --> 01:36:10.560
crumbling off of it. And I
was like I said, learned count roads,

1372
01:36:10.640 --> 01:36:15.600
count ditches, count burns, count
walls. And I used to tell

1373
01:36:15.720 --> 01:36:18.640
my guys that, you know,
hey, when you're coming in, everybody

1374
01:36:18.720 --> 01:36:21.319
looks at the imagery. You know, where's the fighting positions, where's the

1375
01:36:21.359 --> 01:36:25.560
target building, where's the other stuff? I said, who gives a shit

1376
01:36:25.600 --> 01:36:27.840
about that? Yeah, fighting positions
are great, You're going to see all

1377
01:36:27.880 --> 01:36:30.880
that stuff, But what are you
landing on? What are you crossing over?

1378
01:36:30.960 --> 01:36:33.039
What is the train? Is it
upslope? Is it you know,

1379
01:36:33.119 --> 01:36:35.960
lean to the right, to the
left. That's the stuff you need to

1380
01:36:36.000 --> 01:36:39.880
look at. That's you know that
you're going to tell that pile to plant

1381
01:36:39.880 --> 01:36:44.399
it down. Hopefully they're looking the
same thing. And that really, to

1382
01:36:44.520 --> 01:36:48.359
kind of fast forward many years,
that really saved I think kind of saved

1383
01:36:48.399 --> 01:36:53.359
our ass. Was number one,
and I know he's watching the night is

1384
01:36:53.439 --> 01:36:56.479
al MACKI is one of the piles
that ever lived. And number two,

1385
01:36:57.439 --> 01:37:00.800
not to be humble, but he
had one of the best in his right

1386
01:37:00.840 --> 01:37:04.920
gun. So I remember looking in
and you know he tells that story about

1387
01:37:04.920 --> 01:37:09.359
Hey, y'all, remember remember hearing
that Sante raid And he tells the story

1388
01:37:09.359 --> 01:37:10.960
in the book, and that's when
I walked in and told my wife,

1389
01:37:10.960 --> 01:37:13.239
I said, oh my god,
do you ever hear me tell that story

1390
01:37:13.239 --> 01:37:15.159
about, you know, the intentional
crash landing in the helicopter in Vietnam.

1391
01:37:15.279 --> 01:37:17.520
She goes, yeah, she goes, here it is. You can read

1392
01:37:17.560 --> 01:37:20.960
it from from his mouth. And
that was the same thing I remember crossing,

1393
01:37:21.039 --> 01:37:25.479
like you're going to cross a couple
of little ditches, little burm And

1394
01:37:25.880 --> 01:37:29.560
you know, we didn't know how
bad it was until Al made that come.

1395
01:37:29.600 --> 01:37:30.760
And I leaned out the window and
again, and then I looked between

1396
01:37:30.960 --> 01:37:33.880
the two pilot's heads and I looked
through the center console. I was like,

1397
01:37:34.199 --> 01:37:36.960
my god. And I remember looking
in and seeing his eyes in the

1398
01:37:36.960 --> 01:37:42.119
mirror actually if we had a rear
view mirror in the cockpit, so I

1399
01:37:42.159 --> 01:37:44.680
looked in that thing, and I
looked over and there he is with that

1400
01:37:44.760 --> 01:37:48.359
big shit eat and grin in that
big caterpillar mustache. And but just seeing

1401
01:37:48.399 --> 01:37:50.800
that and kind of seeing him laugh
about it in the way he said,

1402
01:37:50.800 --> 01:37:55.039
he goes, hey, y'all never
ever heard of that sane raid? Yeah,

1403
01:37:55.119 --> 01:38:00.399
yeah, they yep. So here's
what I do, Like, oh

1404
01:38:00.439 --> 01:38:03.680
my god, But yeah, that
was some of the stuff was, you

1405
01:38:03.720 --> 01:38:12.000
know, the missions itself. Probably
one of the biggest things was fast paced.

1406
01:38:12.119 --> 01:38:14.600
You know, even when you're training
and you're going out and doing by

1407
01:38:14.760 --> 01:38:16.680
lass and stuff, you know,
it's the crawl, walk, run,

1408
01:38:17.439 --> 01:38:24.560
but the run and combat is really
fast, yeah, and really out.

1409
01:38:25.760 --> 01:38:28.199
You know, when you've got a
lot of stuff going on, the radios

1410
01:38:28.239 --> 01:38:31.199
are going insane, especially on the
aircraft. You know, we've got four

1411
01:38:31.279 --> 01:38:35.119
or five radios kind of depend on
what's going on. You got some you

1412
01:38:35.119 --> 01:38:39.439
know, are panders sitting in the
jump seat. They can't figure out how

1413
01:38:39.439 --> 01:38:42.000
to flip the switches and which button
to talk to you and which radio to

1414
01:38:42.039 --> 01:38:45.720
talk to. You know, sometimes
the captain ocasionally get an experienced major.

1415
01:38:45.840 --> 01:38:47.479
We'd get the battalion commander to fly
with us, and then in the back

1416
01:38:47.520 --> 01:38:53.520
you've got the ground force commander.
You know, give a grunt mic switch

1417
01:38:53.560 --> 01:38:56.720
and you never know what's gonna happen. So everybody wants to be on the

1418
01:38:56.800 --> 01:38:59.920
radios. And then you know,
if you're shooting, you got many guns

1419
01:39:00.079 --> 01:39:05.479
one off. It's just mass controlled
chaos that moves super super fast. Yeah,

1420
01:39:05.560 --> 01:39:09.119
So it was. It took me
a couple It took me a couple

1421
01:39:09.119 --> 01:39:11.560
of missions to kind of get that
frame of mind of going, oh boy,

1422
01:39:12.239 --> 01:39:14.560
I don't really have time to go
back there and sit on the ramp

1423
01:39:14.560 --> 01:39:16.279
and get my butt right and you
know, wiggle the fast rope, because

1424
01:39:16.279 --> 01:39:20.119
you guys have seen me on the
on the forty seven. We're outside,

1425
01:39:20.359 --> 01:39:24.439
we swing around, we're standing on
the outside, standing up on the you

1426
01:39:24.439 --> 01:39:27.720
know, the stubby winging the wheel, you know, exposed to the world.

1427
01:39:28.199 --> 01:39:30.640
So you have to learn that,
you know, while you're sitting on

1428
01:39:30.640 --> 01:39:33.159
the ramp, rehearse it, you
know, get your monkey tail right,

1429
01:39:33.279 --> 01:39:35.560
tape it off, you know,
get that little strap that we hang on

1430
01:39:35.600 --> 01:39:40.600
to make sure it's the right distance
and tightness. So because when you're in

1431
01:39:40.640 --> 01:39:44.560
combat, you don't get off that
gun till the very last second. Yeah,

1432
01:39:44.560 --> 01:39:45.960
and when you get out there,
you better make ships in order because

1433
01:39:45.960 --> 01:39:49.840
if not, it's going to get
bad real fast. So just that fast

1434
01:39:49.880 --> 01:39:55.920
paced and just the mass controlled chaos
that was that was new speak. Speaking

1435
01:39:55.960 --> 01:39:59.079
of controlled chaos. Can you tell
us a little bit about the hunt for

1436
01:39:59.279 --> 01:40:04.319
bo burn do all on how you
got involved in that? Yeah, so

1437
01:40:06.800 --> 01:40:09.920
a lot of emotions on that one. You know, that's kind of one

1438
01:40:09.920 --> 01:40:12.800
of those where you know, wish
I could left that guy there, you

1439
01:40:12.840 --> 01:40:15.760
know, left in the rock,
you know, but he's an American,

1440
01:40:16.439 --> 01:40:20.439
so that was the initial thing.
We'd come back, you know, from

1441
01:40:20.439 --> 01:40:25.520
flying a mission and U Usually we'd
come back, guys, you know,

1442
01:40:25.560 --> 01:40:28.600
we'd go to you know, go
to breakfast, you know, dinner,

1443
01:40:29.399 --> 01:40:30.760
and then we come back, shower, go to the gym, do whatever,

1444
01:40:30.960 --> 01:40:35.159
go to the talk and you know, debrief stuff, play some call

1445
01:40:35.199 --> 01:40:39.279
of duty, you know that kind
of stuff, and then you know,

1446
01:40:39.319 --> 01:40:42.560
go to bed. I'd run out
the SAP phone and call my wife,

1447
01:40:42.640 --> 01:40:45.720
check on her and the kids.
So boy, then I think when I

1448
01:40:45.720 --> 01:40:49.439
think when Bob burged all happened,
my kids were like six and four.

1449
01:40:49.520 --> 01:40:53.000
I think, so, you know, he get to hear their little voices

1450
01:40:53.039 --> 01:40:56.560
kind of give you some happy,
you know, happy stuff, and then

1451
01:40:56.600 --> 01:40:59.000
go to bed. And all of
a sudden, I remember getting kicked,

1452
01:40:59.079 --> 01:41:03.479
Hey, wake up. Uh they
need you to talk fast, like oh,

1453
01:41:03.800 --> 01:41:08.039
so I ran in and uh,
you know, things are coming alive

1454
01:41:08.079 --> 01:41:12.319
and happening real quick, and uh
al al Mac again, it's like a

1455
01:41:12.319 --> 01:41:15.079
common denominator. You Me and al
Mac were like, you know, and

1456
01:41:15.520 --> 01:41:17.239
I was talking to him the other
day and man, I think we talked

1457
01:41:17.319 --> 01:41:21.239
like five hours probably the first time
we talked in twelve or thirteen years,

1458
01:41:21.279 --> 01:41:25.560
and we talked like five hours as
we live and stuff. And one thing

1459
01:41:25.600 --> 01:41:30.560
I forgot about my very first re
enlistment was on the ramp, We're getting

1460
01:41:30.560 --> 01:41:32.920
ready to go to Colorado to stay, and we were literally staying on the

1461
01:41:32.960 --> 01:41:35.199
ski lodge. You know. I
was like, yep, this is it

1462
01:41:35.680 --> 01:41:39.279
and I had to re enlist on
the ramp. And he was actually the

1463
01:41:39.319 --> 01:41:43.920
officer that re enlisted me from my
very first re enlistment school. I had

1464
01:41:44.000 --> 01:41:47.399
been in the regiment less than a
year at that time. So yeah,

1465
01:41:47.399 --> 01:41:50.760
it's like we were we were destined
for greatness right off the bat. Yeah.

1466
01:41:51.000 --> 01:41:55.119
So he's like, hey, send
everybody the airplane, get him all

1467
01:41:55.199 --> 01:41:56.920
up and run and get him up
the engine. Start. We got to

1468
01:41:56.920 --> 01:42:00.760
go like, okay, we get
everybody, all the crew chiefs, everybody

1469
01:42:00.880 --> 01:42:03.079
runs down, start getting the airplanes
are ready. I stay up there to

1470
01:42:03.159 --> 01:42:08.239
talk, you know, sitting there
with them. We had like a little

1471
01:42:08.279 --> 01:42:11.239
flight simulator and like just a little, you know, little lap like a

1472
01:42:11.239 --> 01:42:15.560
little joystick. They could kind of
plug the routes into it, and a

1473
01:42:15.600 --> 01:42:18.039
real fancy version of Google Earth.
And they said, you know, we

1474
01:42:18.079 --> 01:42:21.239
don't really know where this guy that, but we're going to go do some

1475
01:42:21.279 --> 01:42:25.800
stuff. We're just gonna fly around. We're getting a little bit of you

1476
01:42:25.840 --> 01:42:29.239
know, singing off of them,
you know, picking up some translation stuff,

1477
01:42:30.159 --> 01:42:30.960
and we're just gonna go fly around
and see if we can strow up

1478
01:42:31.000 --> 01:42:36.800
on the steps and find this kid. So we launch and we fly all

1479
01:42:36.920 --> 01:42:41.920
night, and then we went into
you know, overflying vehicles, you know,

1480
01:42:42.359 --> 01:42:45.399
seeing if we can get anybody to
shoot at us, hitting some villages,

1481
01:42:45.439 --> 01:42:46.720
dumping off the guys. They'd come
back. So well he was here,

1482
01:42:46.800 --> 01:42:51.119
but you know it was thirty minutes
ago. We just missed. And

1483
01:42:51.159 --> 01:42:55.880
then we went back to went back
to the airfield. We had to refuel,

1484
01:42:56.039 --> 01:42:59.960
get some food. They brought out
some breakfast and that was my first

1485
01:43:00.079 --> 01:43:05.119
experience kick and speed. They gave
us the old or they the decks,

1486
01:43:05.199 --> 01:43:10.079
the decks or whatever it's called.
Yeah, the yellow yellow blue bombers.

1487
01:43:10.119 --> 01:43:16.760
I don'tmber what color was. Now
yeah, yeah, we're we're we're pretty

1488
01:43:16.920 --> 01:43:21.159
pretty fucking tired. So because we're
good, take one of these. I

1489
01:43:21.239 --> 01:43:24.720
was like, oh, we get
to you know, we've heard it,

1490
01:43:24.720 --> 01:43:27.039
we've heard about it. It wasn't
taking them for step in the past,

1491
01:43:27.039 --> 01:43:30.159
but previous missions and deployments had been
on we'd ask for it because we've been

1492
01:43:30.159 --> 01:43:33.439
out for sixteen eighteen hours and we
had a commander is like, no,

1493
01:43:33.560 --> 01:43:38.359
you'll be fine. That was one
of the hardest flights home, two hours

1494
01:43:38.359 --> 01:43:41.319
from south you know, from south
of Kandahar, back of the Bogram.

1495
01:43:41.520 --> 01:43:45.399
Yeah. I've found out that you
can take the pack of the kick and

1496
01:43:45.399 --> 01:43:47.920
Low Maine, Mr. E.
You can take that little packet noodles and

1497
01:43:47.960 --> 01:43:50.840
you can see on that for two
hours, just nibbling like a little rat.

1498
01:43:51.119 --> 01:43:54.319
That was kept me away for two
hours. There was one little noodle

1499
01:43:54.399 --> 01:44:00.720
just at a time. So we
took that decks and we went back out

1500
01:44:00.760 --> 01:44:05.760
and uh, that's where we had
the infamous sante But we yeah, we

1501
01:44:05.800 --> 01:44:11.000
flew and we planted that thing down
there. Well he did, and I

1502
01:44:11.039 --> 01:44:15.880
mean I seriously I remember kind of
bracing myself up against the heater close and

1503
01:44:15.880 --> 01:44:18.119
the gun kind of like all right, you know, if I'm going to

1504
01:44:18.159 --> 01:44:20.359
hit, I don't want to bounce. You know, it's gonna it's gonna

1505
01:44:20.399 --> 01:44:24.279
hurt, and kind of squatting a
little bit, you know, thinking that

1506
01:44:24.319 --> 01:44:27.479
okay, you know, Ben,
my knees you know, feet, knees,

1507
01:44:27.520 --> 01:44:31.920
all that kind of stuff, and
uh leaned out started calling him in.

1508
01:44:32.279 --> 01:44:35.399
You know, he took the controls
over and he planted that sucker on

1509
01:44:35.479 --> 01:44:40.000
a dime, just like he was
born to do. It. Probably still

1510
01:44:40.000 --> 01:44:43.760
one of the best landings I've ever
ever got the experience. And uh,

1511
01:44:43.920 --> 01:44:46.960
we didn't break anything, didn't crack
anything, got the ramp down far enough,

1512
01:44:47.039 --> 01:44:50.840
dudes jump off. We took off, and I think that's one that

1513
01:44:51.039 --> 01:44:54.479
is. I believe it was that
one I talked to him about the other

1514
01:44:54.520 --> 01:44:56.039
day. I couldnt remember if it
was that one or another one. But

1515
01:44:56.079 --> 01:44:59.760
we went up it was like the
flat plateau that was running by the village

1516
01:44:59.800 --> 01:45:01.840
cup miles away, and we went
up there and we sat down. We

1517
01:45:02.079 --> 01:45:04.600
didn't shut down, but we just
landed. Let the guys do their thing,

1518
01:45:04.800 --> 01:45:06.920
and you know, we're listening to
the radios and waiting for the expill

1519
01:45:06.960 --> 01:45:11.720
call. And it was like something
out of an old Wild West movie where

1520
01:45:11.760 --> 01:45:13.840
the you know, you see the
calvalry down in the valley and you look

1521
01:45:13.880 --> 01:45:16.239
up and there's a little Indian sitting
up on a little old flat plateau.

1522
01:45:16.279 --> 01:45:21.399
That's what it was like. It
was beautiful daytime, absolutely hate flying in

1523
01:45:21.439 --> 01:45:25.760
the daytime in Afghanistan. You can't
and so people weird people are why because

1524
01:45:25.760 --> 01:45:29.000
you can't see anything, Like but
it's daytime. I said, yeah,

1525
01:45:29.479 --> 01:45:35.600
but you can't see what you want
to see, right them. Yeah,

1526
01:45:35.600 --> 01:45:43.159
So yeah, it became another eye
hole and we left and I rotated back,

1527
01:45:44.119 --> 01:45:49.000
you know, a couple of days
later, Andy, is what it

1528
01:45:49.039 --> 01:45:53.520
is? What about the U You
said, there's a vehicle in adiction that

1529
01:45:53.560 --> 01:45:59.560
you guys did at one point my
favorite. It's actually two of them.

1530
01:45:59.680 --> 01:46:02.960
So we did, you know,
we had, like earlier, were talking

1531
01:46:02.960 --> 01:46:09.239
about the vessel vessel in addiction that
we were talking about in now in the

1532
01:46:09.279 --> 01:46:15.159
Philippines. And our flight lead at
the time in Korea was an Alpha Company

1533
01:46:15.199 --> 01:46:17.880
guy. He was an Alpha Company
flight lead, so he he'd done a

1534
01:46:17.880 --> 01:46:23.960
lot of training stuff with the super
cool dudes. He was a prior SF

1535
01:46:24.000 --> 01:46:26.840
guy, prior ranger, you know, so he knew the ground stuff.

1536
01:46:27.079 --> 01:46:31.720
Pretty awesome, pretty shit hot dude. So when we got to Afghanistan and

1537
01:46:31.760 --> 01:46:35.720
stuff, we had been talking about
doing the vehicle in addiction things, and

1538
01:46:35.760 --> 01:46:39.680
that was another thing that you know, al been talking about because you know,

1539
01:46:39.760 --> 01:46:43.319
we kept having guys run you know, we'd have squorters on the target,

1540
01:46:43.359 --> 01:46:45.119
and we always had one aircraft that
was the quarter control. So when

1541
01:46:45.119 --> 01:46:48.880
you had guys run, I either
wanted to be on the lead aircraft because

1542
01:46:48.920 --> 01:46:51.960
if I was on lead, I
knew everything. I knew everything that was

1543
01:46:51.960 --> 01:46:57.159
going on because I hated not knowing
stuff, or I wanted to be on

1544
01:46:57.199 --> 01:47:00.720
the squarter burden because that was the
fun stuff. Well, everybody hits the

1545
01:47:00.720 --> 01:47:02.760
target and goes off and hits the
farm and goes and chills out. We

1546
01:47:02.880 --> 01:47:06.039
stay on target chasing dudes, you
know, So that that was exciting.

1547
01:47:06.600 --> 01:47:12.039
So we kept having guys and you
start leaving the vehicles. So that night

1548
01:47:13.439 --> 01:47:17.600
and and the the great thing about
that night that made it even more special

1549
01:47:17.680 --> 01:47:25.760
to me was before that mission,
we had a little memorial service for and

1550
01:47:25.800 --> 01:47:29.479
I believe at the time that was
for the guys that we lost on the

1551
01:47:29.520 --> 01:47:36.399
whole Blane Survivor Red Wings. We
had a little yeah, yep, So

1552
01:47:36.439 --> 01:47:41.439
we had a little a little memorial
service there for the guys, and uh,

1553
01:47:41.560 --> 01:47:45.479
you know, the rangers are out
there with us, so we did

1554
01:47:45.479 --> 01:47:47.800
a little moral service. Wiped our
eyes all right, you know, it's

1555
01:47:47.840 --> 01:47:54.319
time to strap it on and get
busy. So we went down and at

1556
01:47:54.359 --> 01:47:58.399
the time when we took off,
we were going to interdict a little toilet

1557
01:47:58.479 --> 01:48:03.359
station whack and Toyla Corolla state wagon. So we've got got games in the

1558
01:48:03.399 --> 01:48:10.199
back. I'm on the Leenberg hit
gun and uh, maybe five minutes or

1559
01:48:10.239 --> 01:48:12.399
so, five or ten minutes before
we got there, the car pulled off

1560
01:48:12.399 --> 01:48:15.039
the road. Pulled off the road, went and hitting a little tree line

1561
01:48:15.640 --> 01:48:19.000
and they start unloading stuff and they're
walking down the tree line and they're dumping

1562
01:48:19.000 --> 01:48:21.399
it in a little cache as like
a little well, dumping it down the

1563
01:48:21.439 --> 01:48:27.119
well. So we come in and
you know, our I SR platform,

1564
01:48:27.119 --> 01:48:29.119
everybody's given us, you know what's
going on. We got a couple of

1565
01:48:29.159 --> 01:48:31.520
a tens overhead and a C one
thirty, you know, the typical Afghani

1566
01:48:31.600 --> 01:48:40.079
package. And so we're we're coming
in and ground Force commander clears is hot,

1567
01:48:40.840 --> 01:48:44.000
Hey man, do your thing light
it up. I was like,

1568
01:48:44.079 --> 01:48:50.159
oh yeah, it's like it's like
instant, you know, instant hard on.

1569
01:48:50.239 --> 01:48:55.960
Let's do this. So yeah,
we roll in and you know,

1570
01:48:56.520 --> 01:48:59.560
same thing. Alt in the left
seat doing the flight lead stuff up in

1571
01:48:59.600 --> 01:49:03.720
the right gun, and we had
it was kind of interesting that it wasn't.

1572
01:49:03.800 --> 01:49:08.199
We weren't a solid Bravo company.
So at the time I had gone

1573
01:49:08.239 --> 01:49:10.880
back to Bravo Company. After I
did my first deployment, went back to

1574
01:49:10.880 --> 01:49:14.399
Brava Counties. We crossed leveled that
the company, so I'm back in Brava

1575
01:49:14.439 --> 01:49:18.920
Company. And our other aircraft that
was with us was actually an aircraft from

1576
01:49:19.119 --> 01:49:23.560
fourth Battalion because we'd stood up Pourtatian
Lewis and they were doing rotation. So

1577
01:49:23.600 --> 01:49:28.159
we had a fourth Battalion crew.
So when we come in, we're gonna

1578
01:49:28.159 --> 01:49:31.600
split off. They're gonna turn right
and kind of plant it in a like

1579
01:49:31.640 --> 01:49:34.960
an L shape formation, so they're
going to break right with their left gun

1580
01:49:35.000 --> 01:49:38.560
and everything facing the well and the
tree line, which is all the way

1581
01:49:38.600 --> 01:49:41.920
down at the end. We're going
to keep going straight planet it down looking

1582
01:49:41.920 --> 01:49:44.600
straight down that tree line, right
up the ass into that station wagon.

1583
01:49:45.279 --> 01:49:47.479
So as soon as we come in, you know, the ground force commanders

1584
01:49:47.479 --> 01:49:51.720
cleared as hot air mission commander everyboy. So we're on short final. I

1585
01:49:51.800 --> 01:49:55.479
flipped the switch, you know,
I flipped the guard and hit that switch.

1586
01:49:55.520 --> 01:49:58.680
My little light comes on, which
is number one the first thing you

1587
01:49:58.720 --> 01:50:01.479
want to see, and then you're
sitting there thinking in a split second and

1588
01:50:01.600 --> 01:50:05.760
thinking, man, I better not
ship the bet on this, because if

1589
01:50:05.760 --> 01:50:08.920
I do, I might as well, you know, write my letter and

1590
01:50:09.039 --> 01:50:12.520
leave. So you know, that's
the one thing you never want to hear

1591
01:50:12.600 --> 01:50:15.439
is the infamous burp. You know, you guys might have even heard it

1592
01:50:15.520 --> 01:50:17.840
right in there, that little wan
and in silence. It's like a real

1593
01:50:18.079 --> 01:50:21.119
like a real fast spin. U. We come in. We crossed that

1594
01:50:21.199 --> 01:50:25.119
little tree line and I see that
car and I just hit the button and

1595
01:50:25.159 --> 01:50:28.720
just let into it and uh,
kind of the same thing. You know,

1596
01:50:28.760 --> 01:50:32.279
we're browning out. So now it's
the it's that orchestrated you know,

1597
01:50:32.560 --> 01:50:36.039
screaming into microphone, you know,
counting them down, clearing them down,

1598
01:50:36.760 --> 01:50:41.159
and then firing. So it's you
know, you burp it, you know

1599
01:50:41.199 --> 01:50:45.000
one two seconds off, ten,
burpe it off, five burpot three two

1600
01:50:45.000 --> 01:50:47.079
one contact burpet. So it's like
a wow, wah why you know,

1601
01:50:47.159 --> 01:50:53.640
just coming in and then we landed. I stopped for a second. Guys

1602
01:50:53.640 --> 01:50:55.319
in the ramp, you know,
ramp, ramp, ramp, they're coming

1603
01:50:55.359 --> 01:50:58.560
down. They're running off to the
ground. Guys, they running off and

1604
01:50:58.600 --> 01:51:00.479
turn it up like they're gonna run
that way and I lay on the gun

1605
01:51:00.680 --> 01:51:04.239
and I just start ripping into the
back of this this little station wagon and

1606
01:51:04.279 --> 01:51:08.399
whatever I see move and then all
of a sudden, the dust is kicking

1607
01:51:08.479 --> 01:51:11.960
up, so and I'm Michael,
shit, I don't know where anything that

1608
01:51:12.000 --> 01:51:15.760
anymore. I'm gonna sweep it.
So it's great. The Fleur video from

1609
01:51:15.800 --> 01:51:18.520
it was the well, the A
ten video is pretty awesome because you get

1610
01:51:18.520 --> 01:51:23.359
the A ten pilot's version and they're
like, holy shit it, you know,

1611
01:51:23.439 --> 01:51:27.319
just watching stuff heeling off of this
car. It's three thousand rounds of

1612
01:51:27.359 --> 01:51:30.039
minutes, you know, fifty fifty
bullets a second are hitting this thing.

1613
01:51:30.960 --> 01:51:35.079
The Fleer video out got the Fleer
turned to the right, so you know

1614
01:51:35.199 --> 01:51:39.680
you can just see just partch flying
from the gun, the dust coming out,

1615
01:51:39.880 --> 01:51:42.359
and I just laid into this thing
for a good couple of seconds,

1616
01:51:42.479 --> 01:51:45.560
and then the guys in the back
rams up. I stopped shooting for a

1617
01:51:45.600 --> 01:51:47.319
second. Hey, you're clear up
left right, you know, coming up,

1618
01:51:47.439 --> 01:51:49.279
And as soon as we cleared it, I hit it again and kept

1619
01:51:49.359 --> 01:51:55.039
laying on it till he was out
of sight. And you know, the

1620
01:51:55.119 --> 01:52:00.079
interesting thing is when we got back, you know, we screwed. We

1621
01:52:00.159 --> 01:52:03.079
then we lit that place up so
bad that the ground force started getting some

1622
01:52:03.520 --> 01:52:08.279
So we lit up the station wagging
and the guys were that the other aircraft

1623
01:52:08.279 --> 01:52:12.439
started kind of shooting into the well
area. The ground force didn't do anything.

1624
01:52:12.640 --> 01:52:18.640
We stole all their thunder about that. Yeah, now I'm sure they're

1625
01:52:18.720 --> 01:52:23.000
Jay Tax and their fire support guys
were loving it because they broke They broke

1626
01:52:23.000 --> 01:52:25.359
off. They peeled back, maybe
I don't know, a half a mile

1627
01:52:25.399 --> 01:52:28.720
to a little compound and they just
watched the show over the wall. Yeah,

1628
01:52:28.720 --> 01:52:30.479
they called in the A ten So
it was kind of good. You

1629
01:52:30.479 --> 01:52:32.439
know, the air guy's got to
get some match in that night. So

1630
01:52:32.640 --> 01:52:35.600
A ten plug away some people that
you know, the se one thirties got

1631
01:52:35.640 --> 01:52:40.359
to you know, shoot their cannons
and you pretend like their boy scouts.

1632
01:52:40.800 --> 01:52:43.279
But yeah, we got back to
the to the shop. You know,

1633
01:52:43.319 --> 01:52:46.399
we picked everybody up. Left didn't
really know, you know, we just

1634
01:52:46.479 --> 01:52:49.560
knew, hey, yeah there's station
wagging stuff. And I get back and

1635
01:52:51.520 --> 01:52:55.119
we going break the same thing.
Billy Brex would ever come back and I

1636
01:52:55.199 --> 01:52:58.560
log into my laptop and somebody I
do know, the it guy, whoever,

1637
01:52:58.760 --> 01:53:00.199
I don't know who it was,
still to this day, I have

1638
01:53:00.239 --> 01:53:02.560
no idea who did it, but
I fire up my laptop of my screen

1639
01:53:02.640 --> 01:53:10.720
saver is two pictures of the station
wagon and then like four pictures of you

1640
01:53:10.760 --> 01:53:14.119
know with little little cards, you
know, k number one, next two

1641
01:53:14.159 --> 01:53:18.840
station wagons number two. I was
like, that's like the best non Christmas

1642
01:53:18.880 --> 01:53:23.399
present ever. So yeah, but
that was that was a great one.

1643
01:53:23.680 --> 01:53:28.399
And that's the thing that you know, as crazy as the sounds, that

1644
01:53:28.640 --> 01:53:31.680
is, is probably one of the
most special missions to me. Was you

1645
01:53:31.720 --> 01:53:34.319
know, I got back that night
and you know, I was always told

1646
01:53:34.439 --> 01:53:36.560
my wife like, I was a
good night. It was a quiet night,

1647
01:53:36.720 --> 01:53:40.199
you know, it was busy,
but not bad. She I think

1648
01:53:40.239 --> 01:53:44.199
she picked up on the code word
stuff and I said, yeah, I

1649
01:53:44.239 --> 01:53:45.880
said, it was a it was
a great night. And we even the

1650
01:53:45.880 --> 01:53:49.640
score tonight, you know, so
you know, we lost we lost the

1651
01:53:49.720 --> 01:53:54.960
crew and you know some good dudes
a few years earlier, and we didn't

1652
01:53:54.960 --> 01:53:58.840
break even. But yeah, we
got a whole lot closer and then there

1653
01:53:58.880 --> 01:54:03.840
was real yea. So I'm really
sorry. I just want to make a

1654
01:54:03.880 --> 01:54:12.239
point of order. You you refer
to these uh, these nebulous beings called

1655
01:54:12.319 --> 01:54:17.319
squirters. I I think that that
the idea that the term maneuver element is

1656
01:54:17.520 --> 01:54:27.600
uh apropos. This is back before
I got so PC Yeah, or you

1657
01:54:27.600 --> 01:54:29.960
know, they're they're they're the ones
that die a little bit more tired.

1658
01:54:30.359 --> 01:54:35.239
Yeah, but yeah, you their
way to the cash. Yeah. Yeah.

1659
01:54:35.640 --> 01:54:41.760
So the the other one is we
did that station wagon and then it

1660
01:54:41.840 --> 01:54:45.000
was about and and and a big
thing and I kind of remember I'll talk

1661
01:54:45.039 --> 01:54:48.039
about this in One of the things
was it was kind of a thing that

1662
01:54:49.119 --> 01:54:54.880
some of the commanders weren't really excited
about. You. They're kind of like,

1663
01:54:54.920 --> 01:54:57.000
hey, you know, yeah,
little birds, blackhawks are doing this,

1664
01:54:57.079 --> 01:55:00.680
but this is the are these are
forty sevens man, They're they're not

1665
01:55:00.840 --> 01:55:04.319
the most maneuverable helicopters. They're not
the most sneakiest. You know, we're

1666
01:55:04.319 --> 01:55:10.000
we're you know, you can hear
us coming. But that is the absolutely

1667
01:55:10.119 --> 01:55:14.279
shockingly surprising thing that a lot of
people don't realize until they fly on one

1668
01:55:14.800 --> 01:55:18.960
of just how maneuverable and crazy while
these things can be, and how we

1669
01:55:19.000 --> 01:55:21.920
can actually sneak up on you.
I mean to kind of segue into a

1670
01:55:21.920 --> 01:55:28.359
completely off topic. We were at
four Campbell training one day and my wife

1671
01:55:28.359 --> 01:55:30.880
and kids and a couple of other
friends were at a water parks right there

1672
01:55:30.880 --> 01:55:32.880
in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, and we're
just out burning gas, you know,

1673
01:55:32.960 --> 01:55:36.840
just doing doing training, just you
know, logging hours, and I said,

1674
01:55:36.920 --> 01:55:41.520
hey, uh, think you can
fly over the water on the way

1675
01:55:41.520 --> 01:55:45.239
home. So yeah, Well what
I didn't know is they were going to

1676
01:55:45.279 --> 01:55:49.600
buzz this water park at like one
hundred feet. And I've said, hey,

1677
01:55:50.640 --> 01:55:53.760
you know, we're we're three minutes
out. I'm giving her calls,

1678
01:55:53.760 --> 01:55:57.600
you know, ten minutes, ten, six, three one, And all

1679
01:55:57.640 --> 01:56:00.319
of a sudden, you know,
we break out over the tree and they

1680
01:56:00.479 --> 01:56:03.479
dump it down over this park and
there are umbrellas and towels flunt everywhere.

1681
01:56:03.479 --> 01:56:08.199
Everybody's screaming, who the hell did
that? My daughter's like, that's my

1682
01:56:08.359 --> 01:56:14.159
daddy. So yeah, surprisingly we
can, we can sneak up on You're

1683
01:56:14.159 --> 01:56:17.199
pretty good. So the vehicle interdiction
thing, I just don't think that they

1684
01:56:17.439 --> 01:56:20.880
didn't think that we could do it. But we've gone out and done some

1685
01:56:20.880 --> 01:56:24.000
training with it, and then you
know, I mean, we snuck up

1686
01:56:24.039 --> 01:56:28.960
on that station wagon pretty damn good. But the second one is absolutely to

1687
01:56:28.960 --> 01:56:33.560
me, is one hundred percent proof
that forty sevens can can do vehicle interdiction

1688
01:56:33.640 --> 01:56:38.199
stuff, So the same type of
deal. And this one we're in Sharana,

1689
01:56:38.279 --> 01:56:40.640
you know, little little bitty camp. I'm kind of out on the

1690
01:56:40.640 --> 01:56:43.880
east side, and they launched and
say, hey, we're going to go

1691
01:56:44.800 --> 01:56:47.840
motorcycle. We got two dudes on
a motorcycle that are you know, playing

1692
01:56:47.880 --> 01:56:51.279
IDEs are digging in the dirt.
And that was kind of the thing is,

1693
01:56:51.479 --> 01:56:56.239
you know, they're not digging in
the dirt in a road that's outside

1694
01:56:56.239 --> 01:57:00.239
of fob. They're not on a
main road. This is a little dirt

1695
01:57:00.319 --> 01:57:02.079
road in the middle of their own
damn villages. And I'm like, you

1696
01:57:02.119 --> 01:57:05.079
know, what the hell this is. This is where you're kind of like,

1697
01:57:05.279 --> 01:57:08.039
yeah, there's some bad people here
that need to go away, and

1698
01:57:08.039 --> 01:57:12.159
I'm gonna help do that. So
we launch. You know, the idea

1699
01:57:12.319 --> 01:57:15.840
is the lead aircraft. We're gonna
try to get that vehicle to stop.

1700
01:57:15.119 --> 01:57:18.720
You know. Number one, We're
gonna plant this big ash milk out their

1701
01:57:18.800 --> 01:57:21.640
left window and go hi, you
might want to pull over, you know,

1702
01:57:21.800 --> 01:57:26.000
tap on the window, and if
they still don't get their attention,

1703
01:57:26.079 --> 01:57:28.840
we're gonna shoot in front of them, kind of walk the bullets back and

1704
01:57:28.840 --> 01:57:31.960
then take out the engine stuff.
But this time this little guy, two

1705
01:57:31.960 --> 01:57:35.399
little dudes on a motorcycles like a
little you know, I don't know,

1706
01:57:35.479 --> 01:57:39.359
like a little Honda, you know, one hundred and fifty cc little goat

1707
01:57:39.399 --> 01:57:43.319
part thing and the same type of
deal. As we're coming up on them,

1708
01:57:43.720 --> 01:57:46.720
we've got two or three aircraft,
you know, in trail. These

1709
01:57:46.720 --> 01:57:49.600
guys are oblivious. They have no
idea that we're sneaking up on them,

1710
01:57:49.840 --> 01:57:53.680
and we're we're not that far,
We're quarter mile away, and they're just

1711
01:57:53.680 --> 01:57:58.319
being ring. Then they stop.
They stop on the side of the road

1712
01:57:58.520 --> 01:58:01.199
to get off. Dude in the
back takes off his backpack, takes with

1713
01:58:01.319 --> 01:58:05.159
me, starts digging, and we're
creeping. You know, we've we've kind

1714
01:58:05.159 --> 01:58:09.680
of twisted it sideways, so we're
sliding, you know, we're sliding right

1715
01:58:09.840 --> 01:58:14.079
into him. And again al left
siet. I'm in the right gun,

1716
01:58:15.079 --> 01:58:16.720
and they're like, what is this
dude doing. It is like digging in

1717
01:58:16.760 --> 01:58:20.319
the dirt and that ground force.
The sitting right next to me looks up

1718
01:58:20.319 --> 01:58:24.119
at me and taps me on the
arm, puts the big thumbs up in

1719
01:58:24.159 --> 01:58:30.520
front of my face. Du right
top right guns engaging and you know again,

1720
01:58:30.680 --> 01:58:32.279
I think it goes back to my
days of being eight years old with

1721
01:58:32.279 --> 01:58:38.800
a bb gun. I hit that
button, hit that laser, and initially,

1722
01:58:39.079 --> 01:58:43.039
you know, you get about a
split second of gotam before you just

1723
01:58:43.039 --> 01:58:46.600
can't see anything. It's best.
So I nailed the dude. Turns out

1724
01:58:46.600 --> 01:58:49.800
and nailed him right in the head, you know, because half half his

1725
01:58:49.880 --> 01:58:56.359
fast is gone. So he drops
right then and there the second dude Olympic

1726
01:58:56.399 --> 01:59:00.000
marathon runner man. He takes off
at a sprint, running down the street,

1727
01:59:00.079 --> 01:59:03.279
runs down the street, around the
compound, takes a right into a

1728
01:59:03.279 --> 01:59:08.760
little cultivated field and things, Ah, they can't see me, and lays

1729
01:59:08.760 --> 01:59:11.640
down and like the prone with his
arms out front him laying down in between

1730
01:59:11.680 --> 01:59:15.560
the little cultivated rows. So we
break off, you know, we shoot

1731
01:59:15.600 --> 01:59:18.720
him up, break left, second
aircraft lands, dump the dudes off.

1732
01:59:18.760 --> 01:59:23.600
They're going to do their you know
s SC. It's crazy. Nine years,

1733
01:59:23.600 --> 01:59:26.239
ten years, and I'm still remember
the damn terms that should ever happening,

1734
01:59:26.279 --> 01:59:28.720
Like the stuff just magically comes back
to you, guys. Yeah,

1735
01:59:28.760 --> 01:59:31.680
but yeah, they've took all the
s S stuff. And we roll back

1736
01:59:31.720 --> 01:59:36.640
around for like lot's let's go find
his dude. And sure ship there is.

1737
01:59:36.640 --> 01:59:41.560
He's laying there. And uh so
we had we had a sniper in

1738
01:59:41.600 --> 01:59:44.359
the back and we had a big
rectangle cut out window on the back.

1739
01:59:44.399 --> 01:59:46.359
They've got a sniper for the team. He's back there, you know,

1740
01:59:46.399 --> 01:59:49.039
with this nice fancy rig. You
know, we've got the two forties in

1741
01:59:49.079 --> 01:59:51.880
the back of the bars. So
he's got a sniper rifle set up.

1742
01:59:53.680 --> 01:59:59.840
He's taking shots. He sucks.
Can't get it, he can't, I'm

1743
02:00:00.119 --> 02:00:03.840
he I don't even know if he
was even like around the team that next

1744
02:00:03.920 --> 02:00:08.960
day, like you got one job
night, people, and you can't do

1745
02:00:09.079 --> 02:00:12.359
it. So he said, I
can't get him. You take him out,

1746
02:00:12.600 --> 02:00:15.600
And so the ground force dude comes
to me on the arm again says,

1747
02:00:15.640 --> 02:00:18.239
hey take him. So I flipped
that switch, hit that gun a

1748
02:00:18.279 --> 02:00:24.239
second time, lit him up right
in the back and blew up his ied.

1749
02:00:25.119 --> 02:00:29.159
I took out his best and everything. So yeah, I mean it

1750
02:00:29.239 --> 02:00:30.600
was not expecting that. We didn't
know he had on any kind of vest

1751
02:00:30.680 --> 02:00:33.640
or explosives or whatever the hell he
had. I don't know, but whatever

1752
02:00:33.680 --> 02:00:38.319
I hit, there wasn't much left
of him. And then, uh,

1753
02:00:38.880 --> 02:00:41.279
you know, it was blasted so
big. We didn't you know, didn't

1754
02:00:41.279 --> 02:00:44.720
get anything of it, but the
flash knocked out my goggles for about two

1755
02:00:44.800 --> 02:00:45.800
or three seconds. He just went
all black and like, oh shit,

1756
02:00:46.399 --> 02:00:50.359
and then light came back. I'll
never forget my I think it was the

1757
02:00:50.720 --> 02:00:56.000
the air mission commander in the Jevsy
awesome. Awesome dude, one of my

1758
02:00:56.079 --> 02:00:59.479
one of my most favorite commission officers
in the history of my military career.

1759
02:01:00.760 --> 02:01:06.800
It's that smell, like, that's
dude, that's what blown up dead guys

1760
02:01:06.840 --> 02:01:11.039
smells like. But yeah, we
got back from and I'll tell the joke.

1761
02:01:11.079 --> 02:01:12.800
You know, people are like,
you know what you guys doing,

1762
02:01:12.880 --> 02:01:15.880
Like I were looking picking off body
parts off the airplane. You know,

1763
02:01:15.000 --> 02:01:17.840
we were that close. But yeah, those were those were two of my

1764
02:01:17.840 --> 02:01:24.000
favorites. Taking out that station wagon
just made more special being that that station

1765
02:01:24.119 --> 02:01:27.880
wagon and then the motorcycles and then
taking that that dude with the best and

1766
02:01:27.920 --> 02:01:30.880
that's another one that you know,
makes it special because they're it's like they

1767
02:01:30.920 --> 02:01:34.119
were doing to their own people.
Yeah, just playing id in their own

1768
02:01:34.159 --> 02:01:39.760
dam village. You know the hell
of that. Yeah, we have questions

1769
02:01:39.760 --> 02:01:47.960
for Daniel. Uh let me say
we do. I mean mm hmm,

1770
02:01:51.199 --> 02:01:59.159
And so I mean you did eleven
pumps to Afghanistan, and as things wind

1771
02:01:59.199 --> 02:02:02.800
down, uh twenty ten, went
over to Fort Rucker to do some instructor

1772
02:02:02.840 --> 02:02:10.079
time. Yeah, you know,
I did a couple of deployments, you

1773
02:02:10.119 --> 02:02:14.079
know, a few more. I
think after the boat Burgdal thing, I

1774
02:02:14.079 --> 02:02:19.039
think I did one more. And
then, you know, at the time,

1775
02:02:20.079 --> 02:02:23.560
at that point in time, I've
only got you know, fifteen sixteen

1776
02:02:23.600 --> 02:02:28.479
years in the arms with and the
life of crew members is rare. Most

1777
02:02:28.479 --> 02:02:30.680
of us get promoted, we move
into you know, flying a desk,

1778
02:02:30.920 --> 02:02:33.960
we call it, you know,
platoon stard and stuff. I didn't want

1779
02:02:33.960 --> 02:02:35.960
anything to do with that. I
was like, no, my life is

1780
02:02:35.960 --> 02:02:40.399
on that flight line. I'm I'm
a crew guy. You know, when

1781
02:02:40.439 --> 02:02:45.000
I when I left the regiment in
twenty ten at that time, and I'd

1782
02:02:45.039 --> 02:02:48.920
be curious to know I had the
most pretty much the most flight time and

1783
02:02:49.000 --> 02:02:54.439
hours of anybody of any forty seven
crew member at that time. You know,

1784
02:02:54.520 --> 02:02:57.359
It's some people look at and achievement
something to brag about. I'm like,

1785
02:02:57.359 --> 02:03:00.640
I don't know, it's just you
know, probably to stop that a

1786
02:03:00.640 --> 02:03:01.600
long time ago and said, you
know, kind of take a knee and

1787
02:03:01.600 --> 02:03:05.640
do something easy, because I was
starting to feel it, you know,

1788
02:03:05.680 --> 02:03:10.520
the back was hurting, the hips, the shoulders, and of course I

1789
02:03:10.560 --> 02:03:13.479
wasn't saying anything. You know,
go to the flight docs, take my

1790
02:03:13.479 --> 02:03:15.560
annual flight physical. How you doing, how's the pain level? My saying

1791
02:03:15.720 --> 02:03:19.319
fucking tactic, you know, because
I took three motor in thirty minutes before

1792
02:03:19.319 --> 02:03:27.760
I showed a So you know,
things are starting to kind of regress on

1793
02:03:27.800 --> 02:03:30.239
the physical side. I think my
wife was picking up on signs of it,

1794
02:03:30.279 --> 02:03:34.760
but I don't think she wanted to
say anything. You know, I

1795
02:03:34.840 --> 02:03:38.840
was never a fast runner. That
was never a thing of mine. I

1796
02:03:38.880 --> 02:03:41.840
was never the strongest, the fastest, but I was one of those guys

1797
02:03:41.880 --> 02:03:45.399
that could go forever. You know, you need me to fly fifteen eighteen

1798
02:03:45.439 --> 02:03:47.560
hours, stay up for three days, I can do it, no problem.

1799
02:03:48.279 --> 02:03:53.720
So starting to have that conversation of
I think it's time. I think

1800
02:03:53.760 --> 02:03:58.960
it's time to start taking a knee. Mentally, still still ready to go,

1801
02:03:59.479 --> 02:04:02.159
but I am in those thoughts of
I've been pushing my luck. You

1802
02:04:02.159 --> 02:04:08.439
know this is you know, I've
lost a crew in the Philippines. I

1803
02:04:08.520 --> 02:04:12.279
lost a couple of crews in Bravo
Company, and a lot of those you

1804
02:04:12.319 --> 02:04:14.880
know, it's not a survivor guilt
thing, but it's like, damn.

1805
02:04:15.159 --> 02:04:18.279
You know, they pulled me off
because they were swapping out cruisy training stuff,

1806
02:04:18.279 --> 02:04:21.800
so I missed that one. I
just rotated out, and the crew

1807
02:04:21.800 --> 02:04:26.880
that just replaced me just lost it. So you know, you start kind

1808
02:04:26.880 --> 02:04:29.359
of looking at going, damn,
you know, how long is it going

1809
02:04:29.399 --> 02:04:32.079
to be before my numbers up?
You know, I mean I'm when I

1810
02:04:32.279 --> 02:04:36.920
when I left, I think I
was the only guy in the company that

1811
02:04:38.079 --> 02:04:41.840
was a pre nine to eleven crewchie. Wow, you know, everybody else

1812
02:04:41.840 --> 02:04:45.119
had started and there were some older
old timer guys, but yeah, it

1813
02:04:45.159 --> 02:04:49.439
was it was you know, the
flight side. And the reason is a

1814
02:04:49.439 --> 02:04:55.760
lot of flight people, the crew
chiefs and flight engineers, they promote pretty

1815
02:04:55.840 --> 02:05:01.920
quick. Yeah, you know,
because they're getting into IC time. They're

1816
02:05:02.000 --> 02:05:05.479
they're in charge of trips, you
know, so you're checking the blocks,

1817
02:05:05.520 --> 02:05:10.319
you're getting all the school so and
when we get promoted, it's not like

1818
02:05:10.840 --> 02:05:14.079
you know, the SF teams who
have the you know, the eighteen series

1819
02:05:14.159 --> 02:05:16.239
or whoever it's. You know,
I'm a fifteen uniform, just like the

1820
02:05:16.279 --> 02:05:19.720
guy that's at for Campbell one hundred
and first or wherever. So we're all

1821
02:05:19.760 --> 02:05:26.920
promoting against the same people, right, So the lifespan of the crew chief

1822
02:05:26.960 --> 02:05:30.439
and the flight engine of the regiment
is actually not really that long. The

1823
02:05:30.439 --> 02:05:32.239
pilots stay there forever, you know, they show up and you are there

1824
02:05:32.279 --> 02:05:38.640
for life unless you unless you quit, you get fired. For you,

1825
02:05:38.640 --> 02:05:42.399
you retire and leave, you're there
forever for the For the crew members,

1826
02:05:42.399 --> 02:05:45.279
it's not that way. You can
be depending on how you're you're doing in

1827
02:05:45.319 --> 02:05:48.319
life, but you usually tend to
move up and move on and do things.

1828
02:05:48.359 --> 02:05:51.039
So and I'm sort of thinking,
all right, I'm at about,

1829
02:05:51.079 --> 02:05:56.479
you know, eleven twelve years physically, it's starting to take a toll.

1830
02:05:57.039 --> 02:06:00.640
My first sergeant at the time,
Billy amazing, amazing dude, one of

1831
02:06:00.640 --> 02:06:04.560
my probably one of my shit over
twenty years, one of my top five,

1832
02:06:05.000 --> 02:06:10.359
it's not top three first arms I've
ever had, and we went out

1833
02:06:10.359 --> 02:06:12.960
for a run. It didn't go
well. Came in, talked to him

1834
02:06:13.000 --> 02:06:15.600
and said, yeah, I'm just
not I don't I don't know how much

1835
02:06:15.640 --> 02:06:19.079
longer I can do this before it's
really going to start taking a toll on

1836
02:06:19.119 --> 02:06:24.960
my future career. So I think
it's I think it's best that I that

1837
02:06:25.039 --> 02:06:26.840
I go, and he was like, hey, dude, what do you

1838
02:06:26.880 --> 02:06:29.319
want to do. Where do you
want to go? I said, Well,

1839
02:06:30.000 --> 02:06:32.680
as cheesy as it is, I
think I'd like to go to Rutger.

1840
02:06:33.359 --> 02:06:36.600
It's non deployable, you know.
And it's not that I'm running away,

1841
02:06:38.079 --> 02:06:41.119
obviously, I've been doing that.
I've been doing it forever. But

1842
02:06:41.159 --> 02:06:45.680
I think it's time to go home, settle down, you know, make

1843
02:06:45.680 --> 02:06:47.800
sure my my kids know who I
am, because those last couple of deployments,

1844
02:06:47.880 --> 02:06:51.600
my kids started getting older. You
know, when we left for Campbell

1845
02:06:51.600 --> 02:06:59.720
in twenty ten, my kids were
seven and five. So the last couple

1846
02:06:59.720 --> 02:07:01.239
of times and my son's sitting there
playing video games and I'm like, hey

1847
02:07:01.279 --> 02:07:04.239
dude, I'm I'm leaving and just
trying to buy you know, like it

1848
02:07:04.359 --> 02:07:09.359
was just nothing. I'm like,
Okay. My daughter suddenly realizing that dad's

1849
02:07:09.399 --> 02:07:12.760
going away for a long time,
and you know, she's wrapped around my

1850
02:07:12.800 --> 02:07:15.479
ankle, dragging her to the door, you know, screaming bloody murder and

1851
02:07:15.520 --> 02:07:16.479
crying all over place. So I
was like, I'm done with this,

1852
02:07:16.720 --> 02:07:21.479
I gotta go. So yeah,
we transitioned out, went down to Port

1853
02:07:21.560 --> 02:07:26.479
Rutger, and UH had a wonderful
time. You know, most people hate

1854
02:07:26.520 --> 02:07:29.199
port Rutger. Loved it, love, loved it, loved it. The

1855
02:07:30.079 --> 02:07:31.399
unit I was in was great because
we were dealing with test pilots. You

1856
02:07:31.399 --> 02:07:34.199
know, so these are old season
guys. You know a lot of people

1857
02:07:34.199 --> 02:07:39.760
I worked with are you know,
senior maintenance guys, flight guys older.

1858
02:07:39.920 --> 02:07:45.039
Even one of the guys from my
Panama days was a retired dack flying for

1859
02:07:45.119 --> 02:07:46.880
the test pilot course. So I'm
like, this is great. It's like

1860
02:07:46.880 --> 02:07:50.439
a family reunion, you know.
So got to get involved with boy Scouts,

1861
02:07:50.600 --> 02:07:54.359
you know, helping raise my kids. You know, my wife,

1862
02:07:54.600 --> 02:07:58.439
she's she's a superhero. I mean, I don't know everybody wouldey, you

1863
02:07:58.479 --> 02:08:01.119
know, thank you for your service
year here. No, I did it

1864
02:08:01.159 --> 02:08:03.760
because it was fun and I love
doing it. But that lady sitting next

1865
02:08:03.720 --> 02:08:07.239
to me, Yeah, she's the
superhero. She kept the house going,

1866
02:08:07.359 --> 02:08:09.600
the cats alive, the kids alive. I don't know how she did it.

1867
02:08:11.399 --> 02:08:13.359
You know, it's like my parents
people atch me. What do you

1868
02:08:13.359 --> 02:08:16.000
think if your kids were going to
join the military, Like, no,

1869
02:08:20.119 --> 02:08:24.399
same thing. I don't know how
she did, especially, you know,

1870
02:08:24.399 --> 02:08:28.520
knowing that some of her friends and
some one of our bestest friends in the

1871
02:08:28.560 --> 02:08:33.760
world, Julie Quinnlon. She was
just down here with one of her daughters.

1872
02:08:33.319 --> 02:08:37.800
We start doing family vacations every year. We'd come down to Orlando in

1873
02:08:37.840 --> 02:08:43.479
October for the Disney Halloween stuff.
Her husband died in Afghanistan and one of

1874
02:08:43.520 --> 02:08:46.279
our aircraft that crashed over there as
well, so you know, with her

1875
02:08:46.319 --> 02:08:50.439
being surrounded by it, knowing that
any day she could get that call.

1876
02:08:50.520 --> 02:08:52.880
Her parents lived right up the road, so she spent a lot of time

1877
02:08:52.800 --> 02:08:56.560
there. So she said, if
I'm there at home, they don't know

1878
02:08:56.560 --> 02:09:00.840
where to find me. So I
didn't. I didn't want to put them

1879
02:09:00.840 --> 02:09:03.600
through any more of that. So
we moved to Rutger. Had a great

1880
02:09:03.600 --> 02:09:09.239
time. My you know, the
military life goes, you know, you

1881
02:09:09.239 --> 02:09:13.680
you have best friends everywhere you go. So my my newest best friend was

1882
02:09:13.840 --> 02:09:18.520
a great guy there at Rutger.
You know, it's been uh you know,

1883
02:09:18.720 --> 02:09:22.159
he's actually coming down here to Orlando
for a Veterans Day weekend. We

1884
02:09:22.279 --> 02:09:24.760
have a little four guys just getting
away for the weekend, going to play

1885
02:09:24.760 --> 02:09:28.960
a lot of golf. But yeah, I met a great, wonderful group

1886
02:09:28.960 --> 02:09:33.720
of people. Matter of fact,
that's went to Chicago literally last weekend to

1887
02:09:33.760 --> 02:09:37.520
become a godfather to his a new
son. That's awesome. So yeah,

1888
02:09:37.720 --> 02:09:41.399
the people we've met, But Rutger
was great. It was you know,

1889
02:09:41.439 --> 02:09:43.079
getting my feet back on the ground, still flying. It was all daytime,

1890
02:09:43.239 --> 02:09:46.600
you know. Yeah. I flew
one goggle flight that thought they might

1891
02:09:46.640 --> 02:09:48.359
need it. Like, great,
Dan, you got like three thousand hours

1892
02:09:48.359 --> 02:09:50.960
in goggle time. One should go
out and do it. Man, after

1893
02:09:52.000 --> 02:09:54.560
not flying goggles for like a year
and a half, I had the biggest

1894
02:09:54.600 --> 02:09:56.079
scream in the headache. Mat hurt
and was like to help with it.

1895
02:09:58.199 --> 02:10:03.159
But the biggest thing that happened is
when I got to Rutger and everything slowed

1896
02:10:03.199 --> 02:10:05.039
down and I went to my very
first flight physical and when you get there

1897
02:10:05.039 --> 02:10:07.359
you got to go do the commander's
ebau stuff and get you get your up

1898
02:10:07.359 --> 02:10:11.520
slip. I sat down and as
soon as I sat down, the flights

1899
02:10:11.560 --> 02:10:13.920
are and goes, Man, have
you ever there have been in a helicopter

1900
02:10:13.960 --> 02:10:20.359
crash? I went, that's funny, Yeah, sure, okay, And

1901
02:10:20.399 --> 02:10:22.720
she's like, no, seriously,
just the way and it's kind of like

1902
02:10:22.720 --> 02:10:24.640
the way I'm sitting right now.
I propped my arm up. It just

1903
02:10:24.720 --> 02:10:26.800
kind of loosened everything up. The
next thing you know, I'm getting dragged

1904
02:10:26.840 --> 02:10:31.520
around to the orthopedics guy, the
physical therapy guide. I'm getting X rays

1905
02:10:31.560 --> 02:10:33.760
because they're at poor Rutger of the
hospital's tiny. Everything's right there. She

1906
02:10:33.880 --> 02:10:37.840
walked me in. Physical therapy.
Yep, you're you've got an appointment.

1907
02:10:37.720 --> 02:10:41.479
X rays. Yep, we got
x rays. We put a referral out

1908
02:10:41.479 --> 02:10:43.640
for an MRI. By the way, it's in the trailer in the parking

1909
02:10:43.680 --> 02:10:48.039
lot. So all of a sudden, I'm fine enough that it's not just

1910
02:10:48.079 --> 02:10:52.840
a mental thing. I really was
broken. I had two shoulder surgeries.

1911
02:10:54.199 --> 02:10:56.880
You know. It's fun him like
a half inch shorter than I was when

1912
02:10:56.920 --> 02:11:00.640
I when I joined the army.
They have to a knee surger. But

1913
02:11:00.640 --> 02:11:01.920
that gave me this faint a little
brace to keep my kneecap in the right

1914
02:11:01.920 --> 02:11:05.680
spot because apparently I hadn't torn one
of my little pinons, but I'd ripped

1915
02:11:05.680 --> 02:11:09.039
like halfway through it and it had
kind of healed itself the cricket, so

1916
02:11:09.039 --> 02:11:11.880
I was a little brace, was
a little kind of a like a little

1917
02:11:11.920 --> 02:11:15.079
lump on the side of it to
keep that thing straight. And now that

1918
02:11:15.119 --> 02:11:18.119
thing's working pretty good. But yeah, I mean all of a sudden,

1919
02:11:18.159 --> 02:11:24.159
it's like, holy shit, ye
was broken up. Yeah, I was

1920
02:11:24.199 --> 02:11:26.760
gonna say when you when you said
that, you know, it's a test

1921
02:11:26.800 --> 02:11:28.680
pilot and all these guys were salty, and you know, all all the

1922
02:11:28.760 --> 02:11:33.199
crew were salty. That is probably
one of the reasons you guys all probably

1923
02:11:33.199 --> 02:11:37.680
got along is everybody there had compression
fractures and uh and so you all just

1924
02:11:37.720 --> 02:11:43.640
hobbled along together. Yeah, it
was kind of funny. I mean,

1925
02:11:46.000 --> 02:11:48.000
especially at Rutger there's a lot of
dacks, a lot of civilian guys who

1926
02:11:48.119 --> 02:11:52.439
in our and our made the test
pilot course. We only had one active

1927
02:11:52.520 --> 02:11:58.479
duty pilot and he was the track
chief. Everybody else was retired, you

1928
02:11:58.560 --> 02:12:01.880
know, yeah, walking in and
some of these guys were you know,

1929
02:12:03.000 --> 02:12:05.399
and a lot of pilots don't retire
at twenty because by the time they're up

1930
02:12:05.399 --> 02:12:09.159
in the senior ranks, they're a
W four W five. Yeah, they're

1931
02:12:09.199 --> 02:12:11.199
a myths of them. You see
their name on an office, but you

1932
02:12:11.279 --> 02:12:15.760
never see them their part. Their
parking spots always empty. So yeah,

1933
02:12:15.880 --> 02:12:20.279
it was a bunch of old farts
rolling around in the wheelchairs. But that

1934
02:12:20.439 --> 02:12:24.520
was great And and the thing that
I really enjoyed about that too, was

1935
02:12:26.039 --> 02:12:31.680
even though the regiment was flying at
that time golf models, which is very

1936
02:12:31.680 --> 02:12:35.920
similar to the Fox model nowadays,
their pilots would still have to roll through

1937
02:12:37.000 --> 02:12:39.760
the big Army instructor courses. So
if they want to be an instructor pilot,

1938
02:12:39.760 --> 02:12:43.720
an IP or a maintenance test pilot, they still had to go to

1939
02:12:43.800 --> 02:12:46.920
Rutger take the big Army qualification course, and then they would go back to

1940
02:12:48.720 --> 02:12:52.399
you know, the regiment to get
their more in depth specific so I still

1941
02:12:52.439 --> 02:12:54.279
got to see a lot of old
buddies. A lot of the old pilots

1942
02:12:54.279 --> 02:12:58.800
would come down, so we've got
to relive war stories and yeah, and

1943
02:12:58.560 --> 02:13:01.760
you know, and sometimes you know, I think a lot of people are

1944
02:13:01.800 --> 02:13:05.159
like, oh whatever, dance telling
stories again, and then some guy would

1945
02:13:05.199 --> 02:13:07.319
run in and goes, heye,
I was the right seat on that station

1946
02:13:07.399 --> 02:13:11.720
wagon. Yeah that's legit. So
yeah, it was it was good.

1947
02:13:11.760 --> 02:13:16.000
You still got to stay. It's
still kind of like being in the community

1948
02:13:16.000 --> 02:13:20.000
but detached. We still have guys
rolled through. But yeah, it was

1949
02:13:20.039 --> 02:13:24.119
definitely we were all quite broken,
miserable. Daniel. We only have one

1950
02:13:26.119 --> 02:13:30.199
I want to ask you one last
question because this is uh, I'm curious

1951
02:13:30.199 --> 02:13:35.359
about it, having flown for everybody
in Jaysack and probably you know in so

1952
02:13:35.520 --> 02:13:39.880
calm. No, I'm not talking
about gear. I'm not talking about the

1953
02:13:39.960 --> 02:13:46.199
number of personnel. But when people
got on that aircraft, could you tell

1954
02:13:46.239 --> 02:13:52.760
who they were by by just their
posture in the aircraft, how they occupied

1955
02:13:52.760 --> 02:13:58.159
their aircraft, how they treated each
other in the aircraft. You could you

1956
02:13:58.239 --> 02:14:01.159
kind of have me word from minute
I thought you're gonna say, hey,

1957
02:14:01.159 --> 02:14:03.840
have all your customers, who do
you like flying with the best? I

1958
02:14:03.920 --> 02:14:07.720
was like, no, that's obviously
rangers. Yes, obviously Rangers. Like

1959
02:14:07.880 --> 02:14:13.119
how many Rangers can you fit on
a all of them? One more?

1960
02:14:13.239 --> 02:14:16.720
Yeah? One more? One more? Now of course doubts We're like,

1961
02:14:16.760 --> 02:14:20.039
hey, one of you got to
get off. There's only seven, right,

1962
02:14:20.079 --> 02:14:26.520
we can only take six? Yeah, you kind of could, you

1963
02:14:26.600 --> 02:14:28.560
know. I mean it was always
keep because we didn't know who were getting

1964
02:14:28.560 --> 02:14:35.000
but you know, there wasn't of
course obviously the Rangers. Yeah, we

1965
02:14:35.000 --> 02:14:37.800
we knew because they're like, you
know, they're like sit shine, polish,

1966
02:14:37.920 --> 02:14:43.880
ready to go. They're they're like
little robots, amazing, you know,

1967
02:14:43.880 --> 02:14:45.800
don't let your head get swelled up
there a little bit, but yeah,

1968
02:14:45.800 --> 02:14:52.000
they're they were good to work because
rangers. I never never had an

1969
02:14:52.039 --> 02:14:56.479
issue with rangers trying to be bossing
because it's like they fully understood, Hey,

1970
02:14:56.960 --> 02:14:58.159
we're just hitching a ride, man, this is your plane. You

1971
02:14:58.199 --> 02:15:01.399
tell us what to do. So
they were always like, you know,

1972
02:15:03.800 --> 02:15:07.880
and it's kind of funny. In
the special ops world, rank didn't really

1973
02:15:07.920 --> 02:15:09.199
mean much. You know, it
was who's the team leader, who's the

1974
02:15:09.239 --> 02:15:13.000
team started, who's the chief,
who's the whatevers. Yeah, those guys

1975
02:15:13.000 --> 02:15:16.680
would bark, but the rangers were
still like very you know, yes,

1976
02:15:16.760 --> 02:15:20.119
sergeant, no, sergeants, do
this, do that. So, you

1977
02:15:20.159 --> 02:15:22.680
know, we we rolled up to
be in there's you know, staff starting

1978
02:15:22.720 --> 02:15:24.000
divine standing on the edge of the
ramp and all my kid like, hey

1979
02:15:24.239 --> 02:15:26.600
go here, do this, put
your stuff there, hang that, don't

1980
02:15:26.640 --> 02:15:33.279
touch this. Rogers starting. I'm
like, whoa, we don't. But

1981
02:15:35.840 --> 02:15:41.520
you know, the DEV Group guys
and the CAG dudes. For the longest

1982
02:15:41.560 --> 02:15:46.600
time, DEV Group was our main
customer in Afghanistan, you know, because

1983
02:15:46.600 --> 02:15:48.439
they couldn't get along in the early
days. So it's kind of like all

1984
02:15:48.520 --> 02:15:52.960
right, tag dudes, you get
Iraq Group, you're getting Afghanistan because we

1985
02:15:52.960 --> 02:15:56.239
can't even put you in the same
theater without you know, jeopardizing each other's

1986
02:15:56.239 --> 02:16:00.239
stuff. And those guys were good
too. I mean I really had a

1987
02:16:00.279 --> 02:16:03.560
good working relationship with them. It's
funny and watching some of the podcasts I

1988
02:16:03.560 --> 02:16:05.600
see some of these guys, I'm
like, man, I feel like I

1989
02:16:05.720 --> 02:16:09.520
know you, but you know,
we all got you know, most of

1990
02:16:09.520 --> 02:16:13.600
them big beers now bigger than they
were. But every one while you could

1991
02:16:13.680 --> 02:16:16.279
you can almost tell who the new
guy was, like who the new team

1992
02:16:16.359 --> 02:16:18.079
chief was or new team leader,
because like they try to come in and

1993
02:16:18.159 --> 02:16:22.920
truck their stuff. But overall they
were pretty good dudes. And when towards

1994
02:16:22.960 --> 02:16:28.319
the end of my regimental career we
swapped out, we actually rotated out the

1995
02:16:28.319 --> 02:16:31.840
Seal dudes with the with the CAG
guys. And it was a little head

1996
02:16:31.840 --> 02:16:33.879
button the first because they wanted to
roll in and we're like, you know,

1997
02:16:35.040 --> 02:16:37.079
we don't care what those guys did. This is how we do it.

1998
02:16:37.120 --> 02:16:39.200
We're like, well, they did
it because that's how we told them

1999
02:16:39.200 --> 02:16:41.760
to do it. You're going to
sit there, your mic cord is going

2000
02:16:41.799 --> 02:16:45.000
to be here, your green ken
leiser in that flap, your blue ken

2001
02:16:45.079 --> 02:16:50.600
Leiser in that flap, don't move
anything. So those guys, you know,

2002
02:16:52.639 --> 02:16:54.239
just big burley dudes with a whole
lot of shit coming on board.

2003
02:16:56.239 --> 02:17:00.559
They were the same. The rangers
were definitely you could tell how they're they

2004
02:17:00.719 --> 02:17:03.040
they were dressed right dress. Everybody
looked the same, you know, they're

2005
02:17:03.040 --> 02:17:05.959
their ship was wired tight. The
other dude you kind of like, hey,

2006
02:17:05.959 --> 02:17:09.239
whatever makes you comfortable, whatever you
can carry. So wasn't a big,

2007
02:17:09.959 --> 02:17:16.159
you know, difference on what they
had toys. You can tell by

2008
02:17:16.159 --> 02:17:18.879
some of the toys they had.
Yeah, like oh, okay, you

2009
02:17:18.920 --> 02:17:24.239
know you got some pretty fancy stuff
there. So yeah, that was kind

2010
02:17:24.239 --> 02:17:26.319
of some of the differences there.
But they were all And I think that's

2011
02:17:26.319 --> 02:17:30.840
one thing I definitely loved being in
the Special operations world for for those twelve

2012
02:17:30.920 --> 02:17:35.440
years was it really didn't matter everywhere
you went that you knew that these are

2013
02:17:35.440 --> 02:17:39.719
the professionals. Whether and you know, there's a lot of talk about especially

2014
02:17:39.719 --> 02:17:43.040
in the early days, pre pre
pre nine to eleven, you know,

2015
02:17:43.079 --> 02:17:48.040
with the oh you're white sauce,
your black sauce or this. Yeah,

2016
02:17:48.159 --> 02:17:50.520
okay, I want you to go
up and just tell a Green Beret from

2017
02:17:50.879 --> 02:17:56.040
seventh troup that oh you're just s
f R. Yeah, say that,

2018
02:17:56.319 --> 02:18:00.680
run fast, run real fast,
because he's gonna whoop your ass, you

2019
02:18:00.719 --> 02:18:03.520
know. So I think that was
the cool thing was, you know,

2020
02:18:03.520 --> 02:18:07.840
when I'm growing up, early days
of working with you know, just regular

2021
02:18:07.920 --> 02:18:13.000
Navy seals and Green berets. To
me, those dudes are badass. You

2022
02:18:13.040 --> 02:18:15.479
know that that was I didn't know
the difference. I'm like, these dudes

2023
02:18:15.479 --> 02:18:18.319
are pretty awesome. The shit they're
doing is pretty crazy. And then when

2024
02:18:18.319 --> 02:18:20.920
I started working with the you know, the other side of the house is

2025
02:18:20.000 --> 02:18:24.040
like, man, I almost want
to go back and with those guys because

2026
02:18:24.280 --> 02:18:26.920
y'all are like a bunch of little
bitches running around. You're whining and crying

2027
02:18:26.920 --> 02:18:30.600
about every little thing. It's too
hot? Can we get cushions on the

2028
02:18:30.600 --> 02:18:35.360
floor. We're in a forty seven
at fifteen thousand feet in the mountains Afghanistan.

2029
02:18:35.479 --> 02:18:37.680
It's gonna be cold, and we're
cranking up that heater to deal with

2030
02:18:37.719 --> 02:18:41.520
it. And I'm not closing the
windows and pulling the guns in. So

2031
02:18:41.680 --> 02:18:45.360
yeah, they would, they would
whine and cry a little bit, but

2032
02:18:45.440 --> 02:18:50.719
overall everybody was awesome. It was
It was an amazing, amazing riding well,

2033
02:18:50.840 --> 02:18:54.760
I mean and Jack and vouch for
this too. Like, I'll say

2034
02:18:54.760 --> 02:18:58.040
that anybody who's ever flung with a
one six, yes, like you know

2035
02:18:58.159 --> 02:19:03.440
that that you are flying with the
best of the best, and and not

2036
02:19:03.520 --> 02:19:09.159
just the pilots but the crew,
like, like it is such a professional

2037
02:19:09.360 --> 02:19:16.120
organization and everybody is so shit hot
that I like, I don't even know

2038
02:19:16.120 --> 02:19:24.280
how to like how to emphasize that
without just like fan boing all over.

2039
02:19:24.879 --> 02:19:31.000
You know, It's okay, We're
used to it. Yeah, got a

2040
02:19:31.200 --> 02:19:35.879
question here, DJ sneed thank you
very much. What's the difference between the

2041
02:19:35.920 --> 02:19:43.280
one sixtieth SORE and Delta Forces Aviation
Unit. I'm gonna say, if there

2042
02:19:43.399 --> 02:19:46.600
is such a unit, Uh,
is there a selection process or is it

2043
02:19:46.799 --> 02:19:54.280
just a tasking? Oh? Yeah, there is a little thing out there,

2044
02:19:54.399 --> 02:19:58.840
so just kind of like you know, guys that want to assess and

2045
02:19:58.879 --> 02:20:01.360
go, you know, go work
out at VAM neck or whatever. There

2046
02:20:01.440 --> 02:20:09.719
is a an aviation group that is
a little bit more personalized and special that

2047
02:20:09.799 --> 02:20:13.040
there is an assessment for a selection. It's basically kind of the same thing

2048
02:20:13.079 --> 02:20:16.799
when you head out to West Virginia
do your thing or West Virginia Virginia wherever

2049
02:20:16.840 --> 02:20:18.520
it is. But yeah, there
there is a little thing up there,

2050
02:20:18.520 --> 02:20:28.000
but it's more learn a lot more
about civilian helicopters because that's their thing where

2051
02:20:28.000 --> 02:20:30.840
ours, you know. For us, for the one sixty, it's it's

2052
02:20:30.840 --> 02:20:33.319
a special operations world. But we're
you know, there is some little sneaky

2053
02:20:33.360 --> 02:20:37.399
stuff that guys do not so much
necessarily for the forty seven, little birds

2054
02:20:37.399 --> 02:20:43.280
do a lot of that stuff.
The black Hawks some. But you know,

2055
02:20:43.319 --> 02:20:45.959
our our bread and butter is we're
going to go do the big,

2056
02:20:46.079 --> 02:20:50.280
nasty, dangerous stuff that that only
stupid people would try, you know,

2057
02:20:52.000 --> 02:20:54.079
that's right. Yeah, I've never
done this before, but let's give it

2058
02:20:54.079 --> 02:20:58.719
a shot. But that's because we
have the resources. And that was the

2059
02:20:58.719 --> 02:21:03.280
thing when I got to Fort Rutger
And and really kind of got to,

2060
02:21:03.840 --> 02:21:07.639
you know, meet some big army
guys that had been flying a long time

2061
02:21:07.680 --> 02:21:09.879
and had done deployments with the big
army stuff, and there was always a

2062
02:21:09.920 --> 02:21:13.760
lot of you know, a lot
of shit talking between the conventional army guy

2063
02:21:13.840 --> 02:21:16.040
and the one sixty dudes, you
know, the next stop dairy queen,

2064
02:21:16.120 --> 02:21:20.120
all that kind of stuff. I
said, well, you know, the

2065
02:21:20.399 --> 02:21:22.520
number one, you didn't have the
ball to strive, So shut your mouth,

2066
02:21:22.799 --> 02:21:26.479
you know. And number two is
you tried it, you were horrible,

2067
02:21:26.680 --> 02:21:30.799
you sucked, you got fired.
To shut your mouth, you know,

2068
02:21:30.959 --> 02:21:35.639
if you've never done it, don't
talk shit, because there are times

2069
02:21:35.639 --> 02:21:39.360
where we would get back and you
would just shut the engines down. You

2070
02:21:39.399 --> 02:21:41.479
just sit there, you know,
for thirty seconds, and you just sit

2071
02:21:41.520 --> 02:21:48.479
there and just kind of go holy
shit, yeah wow. Yeah. And

2072
02:21:48.520 --> 02:21:50.600
then the big army guys like,
oh, I flew eight slingloads one night.

2073
02:21:50.639 --> 02:21:54.840
I'm like, great, super,
why don't you go do that again?

2074
02:21:54.559 --> 02:21:58.200
We just flew from I mean even
just like training stuff. I mean

2075
02:21:58.440 --> 02:22:05.440
to fly from Fort Campbell, Kentucky
to Albuquerque, New Mexico without ever touching

2076
02:22:05.440 --> 02:22:09.799
the ground in the helicopter because you
had the insight refuel You had to do

2077
02:22:09.840 --> 02:22:13.079
all kinds of stuff and for one
to I mean just think about flying an

2078
02:22:13.120 --> 02:22:18.479
airplane in your seat on a seven
thirty seven for twelve hours. Yeah.

2079
02:22:18.879 --> 02:22:22.360
Now you're wearing all your ships,
you got your heads on, your helmet,

2080
02:22:22.440 --> 02:22:24.319
got your night vision goggles. Yeah, you're you're peeing, and gator

2081
02:22:24.479 --> 02:22:31.760
bottles. You had some soggy hamburgers
from ten hours to hip maarkt stuff like,

2082
02:22:33.239 --> 02:22:37.079
so, yeah, it was there's
a there's a difference between that little

2083
02:22:37.120 --> 02:22:43.079
bitty thing that they have in us
because they're a more of an individualized you

2084
02:22:43.120 --> 02:22:45.319
know, you're just gonna go out
and Onesie tuesdies and try to sneak in

2085
02:22:45.360 --> 02:22:48.280
and do something where we're going to
take a bunch of helicopters try to buck

2086
02:22:48.319 --> 02:22:52.559
some ship up. Right. Yeah, And that was the only question.

2087
02:22:52.639 --> 02:22:56.799
I just want to say that Alan
was in the chat quite a bit seeing

2088
02:22:56.479 --> 02:23:07.159
your prices and and I think you
oh a drink and absolutely yeah, did

2089
02:23:07.520 --> 02:23:11.200
him many drinks. Thank thank you
so much for coming on the show tonight.

2090
02:23:11.280 --> 02:23:15.399
And you know, kind of representing
not just one sixtieth but representing like

2091
02:23:15.440 --> 02:23:18.559
crew chiefs. Like I said,
we never had one engineers with you guys.

2092
02:23:18.559 --> 02:23:20.920
Why do you why why are you
trying to demote him? It does

2093
02:23:22.000 --> 02:23:26.440
just a subtle, a subtle jab
no, But but for representing, yeah,

2094
02:23:26.479 --> 02:23:30.840
the flight crews and the flight engineers
because we've never had them on the

2095
02:23:30.879 --> 02:23:33.120
show before. And and I don't
think there's too many podcasts out there that

2096
02:23:33.159 --> 02:23:35.600
have really interviewed you guys. And
I mean, I think it's awesome that

2097
02:23:35.639 --> 02:23:39.520
you can come on here and kind
of tell that a piece of that story,

2098
02:23:41.600 --> 02:23:43.040
and again, thank you for doing
it. And uh, is there

2099
02:23:43.040 --> 02:23:46.760
anything else you want to tell people
about, like what you're up to today

2100
02:23:46.920 --> 02:23:50.399
or where people can find you or
anything. Yeah. Man, I'm just

2101
02:23:50.440 --> 02:23:54.200
down here in Orlando lov and life, you know, in between the hurricanes.

2102
02:23:54.920 --> 02:23:58.440
But yeah, it's just hanging out. You know, my kids now

2103
02:23:58.440 --> 02:24:03.399
are eighteen twenty, My daughter is
eighteen, my son's twenty, so you

2104
02:24:03.399 --> 02:24:05.920
know, been out, you know, retired now for nine years, hanging

2105
02:24:05.920 --> 02:24:09.600
out and just having a great time. You know. Awesome. Anybody's ever

2106
02:24:09.600 --> 02:24:11.680
down here in Disney World too,
include you guys if you ever make it

2107
02:24:11.719 --> 02:24:16.559
down here. It is Epcot International
Food and Wine Festival right now, so

2108
02:24:16.719 --> 02:24:20.000
I may have in line free tickets
because I've got a couple of kids in

2109
02:24:20.040 --> 02:24:22.959
the house and the wife that actually
works for Disney and my daughter does two

2110
02:24:24.559 --> 02:24:26.680
So yeah, I mean it's just
it's like, you know, catching up

2111
02:24:26.680 --> 02:24:33.280
on the nine ten years of missing
my kids grow Yeah you made up.

2112
02:24:33.959 --> 02:24:41.280
Yeah, It's like it's you know, it sort of takes that moment it

2113
02:24:41.360 --> 02:24:45.840
self for reflection to say what I'm
doing. I'm doing for me and there

2114
02:24:45.879 --> 02:24:50.600
are people in my life that depend
on me and you know, and now

2115
02:24:50.719 --> 02:24:56.639
serve time. Yeah, and that's
kind of what it was is, you

2116
02:24:56.639 --> 02:25:00.959
know, those those twenty years,
especially those twelve in the regiment that you're

2117
02:25:01.040 --> 02:25:03.120
kind of looking back. It's like, man, that's pretty pretty selfish,

2118
02:25:03.200 --> 02:25:05.639
dude. You know. It's like, hey, it's I got to go

2119
02:25:05.680 --> 02:25:07.280
on a trip, I got to
go on the point, but I gotta

2120
02:25:07.280 --> 02:25:09.760
do whatever. And then you have
the families back home, they're like,

2121
02:25:09.760 --> 02:25:13.200
what about them? Like, yeah, they're taking care of us. Yeah,

2122
02:25:13.280 --> 02:25:16.319
don't worry about it. And then
all of a sudden you slow down

2123
02:25:16.360 --> 02:25:18.360
and you look back in the rear
of your mirror and you're like, holy

2124
02:25:18.399 --> 02:25:20.520
shit, what did I do to
my family? You know? Why?

2125
02:25:20.680 --> 02:25:24.879
What did they ever do to deserve
this? Yeah, but that's how it

2126
02:25:24.920 --> 02:25:28.440
is for everybody, tak Yeah,
that's how it is for everything that's off.

2127
02:25:28.520 --> 02:25:33.959
Everybody's living their dream life and leaving, you know, leaving everybody behind

2128
02:25:33.000 --> 02:25:39.079
to do it. Yeah. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, And guys,

2129
02:25:41.000 --> 02:25:43.120
give me call. We're coming down
the three of us. You you you

2130
02:25:43.200 --> 02:25:48.760
already uh volunteered you know a lot
of cats down there. And before before

2131
02:25:48.760 --> 02:25:52.479
we take off, I do want
to tease out tonight. The next event

2132
02:25:52.520 --> 02:25:58.159
that Badger six is having. So
it's Rock the River twenty twenty three and

2133
02:25:58.319 --> 02:26:01.520
the American Legion UH that I belonged
to in Hoboken, New Jersey, is

2134
02:26:01.559 --> 02:26:05.559
hosting this event. Uh. Rock
the River was created to support Badger six,

2135
02:26:05.559 --> 02:26:11.680
which provides humanitarian assistance to families of
the Afghan Cavalry who fought alongside the

2136
02:26:11.680 --> 02:26:16.440
CIA's Team Alpha and the US Army
Green Berets for ODA five nine five Join

2137
02:26:16.559 --> 02:26:20.200
us as we pay tribute and assist
those who stood by our warriors in Afghanistan,

2138
02:26:20.280 --> 02:26:24.079
and you can find them at Hoboken
Legion dot org slash Rock twenty three.

2139
02:26:24.280 --> 02:26:28.559
We've done, you know, some
stuff with Badger six in the past.

2140
02:26:28.079 --> 02:26:33.639
Uh, justin, justin, Mike, Toby Shannon. Yeah. So,

2141
02:26:35.079 --> 02:26:37.440
uh, that's the next event that
they have coming up. I hope

2142
02:26:37.479 --> 02:26:39.159
you guys will participate, you know, if you're local to the area.

2143
02:26:41.399 --> 02:26:45.440
Other than that, I just want
to say our friends at Casa Carabello Cigars

2144
02:26:45.639 --> 02:26:48.920
Cosacarabeo dot com if you want to
pick them up, they're outstanding. Other

2145
02:26:50.000 --> 02:26:52.600
than that, we'll see you guys
next week with Mike Edwards, former former

2146
02:26:52.639 --> 02:26:56.799
teammate teammate of mine. Uh,
he will be here in studio. Ranger

2147
02:26:56.840 --> 02:27:01.639
Battalion. Dude, you know it's
good and Daniel again. Man, thank

2148
02:27:01.680 --> 02:27:05.639
you for doing the show. I
wish you the best, man, hope

2149
02:27:05.680 --> 02:27:09.959
to see you down there. Yeah, guys, thanks for having me on.

2150
02:27:09.079 --> 02:27:11.719
Man. I love what y'all are
doing, you know, getting the

2151
02:27:13.440 --> 02:27:16.520
yeah, getting that, getting those
stories out to people that you know,

2152
02:27:16.520 --> 02:27:20.559
there's a real life element to it. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for

2153
02:27:22.239 --> 02:27:24.840
Yeah, thanks for spending Friday night
to come on to share your story.

2154
02:27:24.879 --> 02:27:30.719
We really appreciate it absolutely. Thank
you very much. Guys. You have

2155
02:27:30.760 --> 02:27:33.079
a wonderful night. It's been a
pleasure you too. Man, have a

2156
02:27:33.159 --> 02:27:35.120
nice weekend and we'll see all you
guys next Friday with Mike