My last mission while assigned to A Company, 7th Battalion, 101st Aviation was a recovery mission of a UH-60 Blackhawk Medevac helicopter that had struck power transmission lines at the north edge of the Fort Knox military reservation along the Salt River. The UH-60 had been flying a Night Vision Goggle (NVG) training mission with they struck 2 power lines. One was cut by the wire strike protection device above the windscreen and a second wire was cut by one of the main rotor blades. After the wire contact, the pilot on the controls successfully landed the aircraft under a second set of power lines in a field just off the Ft. Knox reservation.
The landing site was on the north side of the Salt river at the end of Katherine Station Road. I believe the pilot of the UH-60 received a broken wing award for safely landing that aircraft when I’m sure just about every warning light in the cockpit was illuminated. Even with filters, that many warning lights illuminating in the cockpit had to affect his goggle performance. Our job on the mission was to recover the aircraft back to Godman Army Airfield on Fort Knox.
The incident had occurred more than 24 hours prior to our mission assignment as the Army Safety Center accident investigation team had cleared the site before we arrived, this allowed us to remove the aircraft from the crash site. Our aviation support maintenance unit 8th Battalion 101 Aviation, had personnel on site to rig the UH-60 for recovery with a sling. All I had to do was fly to the site and coordinate with them to recover the aircraft.
It was August 1993, (I left the unit shortly afterward to my next assignment as a student at Austin Peay State University) and I was pretty sure that this would be my last mission as Predator 20 (Our commander had changed our call-sign to this aggressive name because he felt the old one was Wimpy, go figure). This mission was both exciting for me and also a bit sad.
We arrived and landed at the site without incident. It was a clear and calm day, with temperatures in the 70’s and almost no wind. Just about as good as you could hope for on this kind of mission. After we shutdown I located the maintenance team leader and we discussed how I wanted to execute the recovery. The big question was: "Leave the main rotor blades on the Blackhawk or take them off?" If we moved the aircraft with blades on we were limited to 40 knots airspeed. Blades off we could fly 90 knots. Since Godman Army Airfield on Ft, Knox was only 10 miles or so away, I opted for blades on to save time.
Then came the silly question: “Do you want to pick it up where it is at?” Since it was resting underneath a set of high voltage transmission power lines, I said: "No". I suggested they move it about 100 yards away from the power lines where I could safely hook up to it. They dutifully hooked up a tow bar and towed it to the spot I wanted to use as a pickup zone (PZ).
While waiting for the UH-60 to be moved, they used a Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck (HEMTT) tanker to refuel my Chinook (It was on site to defuel the Blackhawk anyway) and my crew and I ate our lunch while the Blackhawk was prepared as an external load. The Blackhawk was rigged with a recovery sling. The sling looped around the 4 main rotor blade roots and a fifth leg looped around the tail section forward of the tail rotor. The main section of the sling was roughly 100 foot and all together the rigging was about 130 feet long.
Once rigged and inspected by my Flight Engineer, the sling was laid out ninety degrees from the Blackhawk to the south of the aircraft and we approached for pickup from the east. The sling was long enough that we could land over the clevis and the Flight Engineer then merely reached down through the hook access in the floor, grabbed the clevis and put it on the center hook. No external hookup man at a hover was required.
We completed the before takeoff checks and slowly brought the Chinook to a hover, then continued up to about 100 feet. I was explaining to my co-pilot that with a heavy load and a long sling, you really didn’t have to worry much about being perfectly centered over the load. As tension was applied to the sling, the aircraft was automatically centered over the load. We chose the westward facing approach for all the correct reasons; the wind was from the west (Less than 5 mph) there was a nice tree line that would give us a nice hover reference for an out of ground effect hover and we wanted to go that way anyway, so less turns were involved.
Picking up a heavy load with a long sling had other considerations that you normally do not deal with, the main one was that you were already in an out of ground effect (OOGE) hover. An out of ground effect hover was when you were at a hover that was higher than half the diameter of your rotor system, (30 feet in a Chinook). When you hovered in ground effect, you had the benefit of the ground giving you extra lift by additional resistance to the downward air flow.
You had to be especially careful when hovering OOGE because you could get in a situation called “Settling with Power” or more correctly called a “Vortex Ring State”. When you hovered OOGE, your rotor down flow could re-circulate causing a down draft and if the downward air speed exceeds 300 feet per minute. You could quickly get into a situation where this downdraft could exceed your power available to counteract it and cause a crash. Because of this, you didn’t loiter in an OOGE hover.
We quickly did a before takeoff check and slowly I nosed the helicopter over and we accelerated to about 40 knots. We climbed to where the load was about 500 feet above the nearest obstacle (The forest) and turned south just before West Point, KY. We flew parallel but not over Highway 31W southward toward Fort Knox and I radioed the tower at Godman Army Airfield (GAAF) that we were on final visual approach with an external load and wanted to go to the maintenance ramp to set down the load.
We were cleared for landing runway 180 and then cleared to the maintenance ramp adjacent to the hangar to set down the crippled Blackhawk. We spent about a minute hovering over the pad while the Blackhawk slowly spun in a circle, my Flight Engineer wanted to set it down properly oriented on the pad facing south and I indulged him. Once down, we hovered to the right and released the clevis over the grass and we were cleared for immediate takeoff to the southeast. There was a no-fly area around the gold vault south of the airfield that we avoided then we made our return flight to Fort Campbell, mission complete.
Saturday, December 31, 2016
Saturday, December 17, 2016
Life in Korea continued aka:Tales of a geographical bachelor with limited funds.
One of the decisions my wife and I made when I was assigned to an unaccompanied tour to Korea was how we were going to manage our money. Since she was at home with the kids and the majority of our expenses, I got an allowance of $300 a month while the family deserved the rest. This was a mutually devised plan between my wife and I and it worked well for us. She was running a household with three children and I was a geographical bachelor. My housing was free and all I really needed was food and incidentals. If I wanted more, all I had to do was be a bit creative.
There were lots of ways to make easy cash and one of them was doing tasks other people disliked to do. In aviation, you use a lot of maps of the training area and to use these in a cockpit, you have to manage them. The best map management method I ever found was called the Australian Fold. You took the maps, a razor, a ruler, some rubber cement and a lot of patience trimming, folding and glueing maps together in sequential order. In Korea, our operations area covered 53 - 1:50,000 scale maps. These could be made into an Australian fold map book in about 3 hours (if you did it a lot) and I did it a lot, $50 a pop. I think 13 people gave up $50 for maps. To me it was easy money, time was something I had a lot of and an evening after chow in the pilot lounge putting a map book was a no brainer.
My other main source of side income in Korea was covering Staff Duty Officer. You came up for Battalion Staff Duty Officer (SDO) on the duty roster about once every 45 days. Most of the time when tasked with weekday SDO, people didn’t mind the duty much because they got the next day off. Friday and Saturday nights were different. People want to go out and be social, and depending on the night, and the tasked person's desire to do something else, I could get $50 sometimes $100 to cover a weekend SDO.
The Battalion SDO was someone to call for anything related to the battalion after normal duty hours. Rarely, did anything of any substance occur while you were on Staff Duty and for me nothing of any consequence ever happened. The biggest thing I had to deal with was a alarm going off at a secure building. I had the Staff Duty Non-Commissioned Officer (SDNCO, a sergeant) call the point of contact for that building and that person went out and reset the alarm, yawn. SDO duty was just long unending nights of perpetual boredom, but it was profitable boredom.
About Twice a year, you got the honor of Post Staff Duty Officer for Camp Humphreys. For the most part, it was the same as Battalion Staff Duty with one major exception, you had to count the prisoners. Camp Humphreys was the location of the I Corps stockade. At the beginning of your shift, you had to go to the Stockade and verify the prisoner count. Entering the stockade alone was a challenge, as you had to present your ID (which they kept while you were inside) and searched you for contraband before you could enter the building. Hearing that door close and lock behind you was a sobering sound.
The task itself was pretty simple, the Military Police (MP) Officer on duty provided you with the head count sheet, then you walked through and counted while he escorted you. The night I was there, there were six females, all in single cells, and 68 males mostly in dormitories. The prisoners all knew the drill and they all knew the needed to cooperate and get on with their routine. The whole process took less than thirty minutes, although it seemed a lot longer. Once we were finished, I was escorted back to the reception area and I was given back my ID and I left. I never wanted to return there unless I had post staff duty again.
Between money my wife sent me from home and my cash enterprises, I had enough money in Korea to meet my needs and still enjoyed myself as well as I could. One of the things I did to keep myself busy was join a bowling league. There was a small bowling alley on post, seems like it was 8 lanes but it could have been 4, I’m no longer sure. It was big enough and we bowled on Tuesday nights or something (American Bowling Congress and all) and it was fun, at least until I hurt my back.
All of my back-injury incidents have emerged from the most trivial of incidents. In this case, I leaned over a row of seats to high five a teammate coming out of the pit after a strike. It didn’t even seem to be anything major at the time, just a tiny “tweak” in the small of my back. I finished bowling, then as I started the quarter mile or so walk back to the Bachelor Officer Quarters (BOQ). It was at that point that I started to have some severe problems. I’d only gone a couple of hundred yards before I stopped and squat to relieve the pain. This went on every couple hundred feet until I made it back to my room. That night was just a blur of pain, and by 6 AM the next morning I was at sick call and seeing the Mr. Glenn Farris (CW2) the flight surgeon.
I was grounded (Big surprise, I could barely walk, much less fly) and he gave Flexeril and 72-hours quarters. I recall was waking up every eight hours, going to the bathroom, taking my next dose of pain medication and going back to bed for the next two and a half days. The next morning I went back to the flight surgeon and was put back on normal duty status but I was still grounded from flight duties. I was still hurting, just not as severely and I could walk and move with minimal discomfort. A few days later, I went to the gym to work out and I was using the hip abductor exercise machine, while adjusting the tension, I pulled hard on the lever and felt/heard a loud “pop” in my lower back and the pain was gone.
I was medically cleared to fly a couple days later and I didn’t have another back episode until several years later after I was at Fort Campbell. Boredom seemed to trigger me to exercise more during my year in Korea. I was not and never had been any kind of athlete and exercised under duress. But working out was something to do in my free time and that exercise kept me out of hack with the unit about my weight. Meeting my weight had been an issue my entire career and Korea was no different.
Like most pilots, I saw the flight surgeon fairly often for one thing or another and pilots were encouraged to have a good relationship with the flight surgeon (So we would actually go see one and not fret so much about getting grounded for something silly.) I became friends with Glenn and one day I sought him out because my shoulder was bothering me. (I think I strained it lifting something heavy while helping inventory the aviation parts stock) and for whatever reason it was bothering me.
Glenn started examining me and asking questions, and he started pressing around on my right shoulder. As I was talking about something he found the “Sweet Spot” and literally took me to my knees. Damn that hurt! From there he quickly diagnosed me with bursitis and gave me his “Cortisone Cocktail” (a combination of Xylocaine, Lidocaine and Cortisone) injection to remove the discomfort. It seemed to work pretty well and he never to repeat the procedure.
Glenn also introduced me to the local Friday Night poker party. Admission was a bottle of booze and the buy-in was $20. The booze was easy, as a fifth of liquor was about $3.50 the $20 for the buy in was a bit tougher and was part of the reason I had money making enterprises. (I didn’t make money at poker, but I found I could usually make $20 last most the night. Once it was gone, I was done playing poker as I was limited in funds and I didn’t like losing all that much anyway.
I fared better at the slot machines in the Officer’s Club. I limited myself to nickel slots and only one roll of nickels (two dollars a day.) I would play the entire roll and anything in the tray over two dollars went back into my pocket and I continued with that process until I either won another two dollars or I ran out of nickels and stopped playing that day. I think overall, I came out slightly ahead as I won $25 on a single play at least twice during my tour.
One of the nicest things about Camp Humphreys was it had a CH-47D flight simulator on post. During my in-processing, I had been introduced to the simulator supervisor MW4 Sandor Kelemen (aka the Raving Hungarian) Sandor (Pronounced SHANDOOR) was quite an imposing man and when we walked in his office he was on the phone giving some poor soul hell (hence his nickname) and once off the phone he quickly apologized to us about his rancor. It didn’t take us long to develop a friendship that we maintained for decades.
During the CH-47D grounding, I saw Sandor a lot as I had to maintain my currency in the simulator. I never got the opportunity to fly with him in an actual aircraft as our one mission (a fire bucket mission in an CH-47C) was called off as we were running up the aircraft. I’d often stop by and visit Sandor as we always had good conversations.
One of my first missions as a CH-47C qualified pilot resulted in my first entry of FlightFax published by the U. S. Army Safety Center. While flying a mission to a field site in a riverbed (Almost all our Korea field sites were a riverbed or a rice patty in winter) I was flying with CW2 Mark Marinelli as my Pilot-in-Command when we blew over a cinder block wall and small flagpole placing a load in the riverbed next to a school. It was published in FlightFax (Military publication of aircraft incidents) November 1989 as a Class C incident. “C-Series” – As aircraft approached a confined area with external load, it’s rotor wash blew down a small flagpole and damaged a cinder block wall around a tennis court.
Mark also had the prestige of being one of my TAC officers while I was in the Warrant Officer Entry Course (WOEC) a couple years earlier. It is a small world some days.
There were lots of ways to make easy cash and one of them was doing tasks other people disliked to do. In aviation, you use a lot of maps of the training area and to use these in a cockpit, you have to manage them. The best map management method I ever found was called the Australian Fold. You took the maps, a razor, a ruler, some rubber cement and a lot of patience trimming, folding and glueing maps together in sequential order. In Korea, our operations area covered 53 - 1:50,000 scale maps. These could be made into an Australian fold map book in about 3 hours (if you did it a lot) and I did it a lot, $50 a pop. I think 13 people gave up $50 for maps. To me it was easy money, time was something I had a lot of and an evening after chow in the pilot lounge putting a map book was a no brainer.
My other main source of side income in Korea was covering Staff Duty Officer. You came up for Battalion Staff Duty Officer (SDO) on the duty roster about once every 45 days. Most of the time when tasked with weekday SDO, people didn’t mind the duty much because they got the next day off. Friday and Saturday nights were different. People want to go out and be social, and depending on the night, and the tasked person's desire to do something else, I could get $50 sometimes $100 to cover a weekend SDO.
The Battalion SDO was someone to call for anything related to the battalion after normal duty hours. Rarely, did anything of any substance occur while you were on Staff Duty and for me nothing of any consequence ever happened. The biggest thing I had to deal with was a alarm going off at a secure building. I had the Staff Duty Non-Commissioned Officer (SDNCO, a sergeant) call the point of contact for that building and that person went out and reset the alarm, yawn. SDO duty was just long unending nights of perpetual boredom, but it was profitable boredom.
About Twice a year, you got the honor of Post Staff Duty Officer for Camp Humphreys. For the most part, it was the same as Battalion Staff Duty with one major exception, you had to count the prisoners. Camp Humphreys was the location of the I Corps stockade. At the beginning of your shift, you had to go to the Stockade and verify the prisoner count. Entering the stockade alone was a challenge, as you had to present your ID (which they kept while you were inside) and searched you for contraband before you could enter the building. Hearing that door close and lock behind you was a sobering sound.
The task itself was pretty simple, the Military Police (MP) Officer on duty provided you with the head count sheet, then you walked through and counted while he escorted you. The night I was there, there were six females, all in single cells, and 68 males mostly in dormitories. The prisoners all knew the drill and they all knew the needed to cooperate and get on with their routine. The whole process took less than thirty minutes, although it seemed a lot longer. Once we were finished, I was escorted back to the reception area and I was given back my ID and I left. I never wanted to return there unless I had post staff duty again.
Between money my wife sent me from home and my cash enterprises, I had enough money in Korea to meet my needs and still enjoyed myself as well as I could. One of the things I did to keep myself busy was join a bowling league. There was a small bowling alley on post, seems like it was 8 lanes but it could have been 4, I’m no longer sure. It was big enough and we bowled on Tuesday nights or something (American Bowling Congress and all) and it was fun, at least until I hurt my back.
All of my back-injury incidents have emerged from the most trivial of incidents. In this case, I leaned over a row of seats to high five a teammate coming out of the pit after a strike. It didn’t even seem to be anything major at the time, just a tiny “tweak” in the small of my back. I finished bowling, then as I started the quarter mile or so walk back to the Bachelor Officer Quarters (BOQ). It was at that point that I started to have some severe problems. I’d only gone a couple of hundred yards before I stopped and squat to relieve the pain. This went on every couple hundred feet until I made it back to my room. That night was just a blur of pain, and by 6 AM the next morning I was at sick call and seeing the Mr. Glenn Farris (CW2) the flight surgeon.
I was grounded (Big surprise, I could barely walk, much less fly) and he gave Flexeril and 72-hours quarters. I recall was waking up every eight hours, going to the bathroom, taking my next dose of pain medication and going back to bed for the next two and a half days. The next morning I went back to the flight surgeon and was put back on normal duty status but I was still grounded from flight duties. I was still hurting, just not as severely and I could walk and move with minimal discomfort. A few days later, I went to the gym to work out and I was using the hip abductor exercise machine, while adjusting the tension, I pulled hard on the lever and felt/heard a loud “pop” in my lower back and the pain was gone.
I was medically cleared to fly a couple days later and I didn’t have another back episode until several years later after I was at Fort Campbell. Boredom seemed to trigger me to exercise more during my year in Korea. I was not and never had been any kind of athlete and exercised under duress. But working out was something to do in my free time and that exercise kept me out of hack with the unit about my weight. Meeting my weight had been an issue my entire career and Korea was no different.
Like most pilots, I saw the flight surgeon fairly often for one thing or another and pilots were encouraged to have a good relationship with the flight surgeon (So we would actually go see one and not fret so much about getting grounded for something silly.) I became friends with Glenn and one day I sought him out because my shoulder was bothering me. (I think I strained it lifting something heavy while helping inventory the aviation parts stock) and for whatever reason it was bothering me.
Glenn started examining me and asking questions, and he started pressing around on my right shoulder. As I was talking about something he found the “Sweet Spot” and literally took me to my knees. Damn that hurt! From there he quickly diagnosed me with bursitis and gave me his “Cortisone Cocktail” (a combination of Xylocaine, Lidocaine and Cortisone) injection to remove the discomfort. It seemed to work pretty well and he never to repeat the procedure.
Glenn also introduced me to the local Friday Night poker party. Admission was a bottle of booze and the buy-in was $20. The booze was easy, as a fifth of liquor was about $3.50 the $20 for the buy in was a bit tougher and was part of the reason I had money making enterprises. (I didn’t make money at poker, but I found I could usually make $20 last most the night. Once it was gone, I was done playing poker as I was limited in funds and I didn’t like losing all that much anyway.
I fared better at the slot machines in the Officer’s Club. I limited myself to nickel slots and only one roll of nickels (two dollars a day.) I would play the entire roll and anything in the tray over two dollars went back into my pocket and I continued with that process until I either won another two dollars or I ran out of nickels and stopped playing that day. I think overall, I came out slightly ahead as I won $25 on a single play at least twice during my tour.
One of the nicest things about Camp Humphreys was it had a CH-47D flight simulator on post. During my in-processing, I had been introduced to the simulator supervisor MW4 Sandor Kelemen (aka the Raving Hungarian) Sandor (Pronounced SHANDOOR) was quite an imposing man and when we walked in his office he was on the phone giving some poor soul hell (hence his nickname) and once off the phone he quickly apologized to us about his rancor. It didn’t take us long to develop a friendship that we maintained for decades.
During the CH-47D grounding, I saw Sandor a lot as I had to maintain my currency in the simulator. I never got the opportunity to fly with him in an actual aircraft as our one mission (a fire bucket mission in an CH-47C) was called off as we were running up the aircraft. I’d often stop by and visit Sandor as we always had good conversations.
One of my first missions as a CH-47C qualified pilot resulted in my first entry of FlightFax published by the U. S. Army Safety Center. While flying a mission to a field site in a riverbed (Almost all our Korea field sites were a riverbed or a rice patty in winter) I was flying with CW2 Mark Marinelli as my Pilot-in-Command when we blew over a cinder block wall and small flagpole placing a load in the riverbed next to a school. It was published in FlightFax (Military publication of aircraft incidents) November 1989 as a Class C incident. “C-Series” – As aircraft approached a confined area with external load, it’s rotor wash blew down a small flagpole and damaged a cinder block wall around a tennis court.
Mark also had the prestige of being one of my TAC officers while I was in the Warrant Officer Entry Course (WOEC) a couple years earlier. It is a small world some days.
Monday, December 12, 2016
Finishing flight school and my assignment to Korea
The military assignment process is best described by a quote from the book "Glory Road" by Robert Heinlein:
"Regardless of Table of Organization (T. O.), all military bureaucracies consist of a Surprise Party Department, a Practical Joke Department and a Fairy Godmother department. The first two process most matters as the third is very small, the Fairy Godmother Department is one elderly female GS-5 clerk usually out on sick leave."
When we were nearing the end of our training as Warrant Officer Candidates in flight school (The first week of September 1988) and it was pretty much assured that we would all graduate. One of the final administrative tasks was posting our aircraft assignments. The 40 Warrant Officer Candidates in my platoon were allocated aircraft for advanced training based on; "The needs of the Army". We could list our preference, but if the Army didn’t allocate that aircraft to your graduating class, well, sorry. Since I was the Admin Officer of our class, I was slightly more informed of who got what because I was keeping track of the class rankings. Tradition held that candidates who were in the top ten percent of the class ranking were given their pick of available aircraft. That meant the top four candidates were allowed to choose their aircraft assignment from the list, the rest were assigned by our flight school cadre.
My Class (Class 88-09) was assigned the following advanced aircraft allocation:
AH-64 (Apache) – 6
CH-47D (Chinook) – 3
UH-60 (Blackhawk) – 2
AH-1 (Cobra) – 12
The remaining 17 WOCs were either assigned to UH1s or OH58s. The top four took aircraft in this order:
1. Apache
2. Chinook (Jim Herzog)
3. Blackhawk
4. Blackhawk (Paul Guido)
After the top four made their picks, then aircraft were assigned by class standing. the next five in the class ranking were assigned AH64 Apaches. At this point, the “Fairy Godmother Department" smiled upon me. For whatever reason, at this point, the cadre decided to look and see who the next person was with CH47 as their top choice and wouldn’t you know it #11 Donald P. Kempf. So the next group of assignments looked like this:
10. Cobra (Todd Pryby)
11. Chinook (Donald Kempf)
12.-22. AH-1 Cobra
Then they looked at who had CH47 as top choice in the remaining group and #25 Kim Young was the final selection of the "Fairy Godmother Department".
My biggest concern (Getting assigned a combat aircraft) had been narrowly avoided. About this time, the “Surprise Party Department" came along with duty station assignments and after my advanced aircraft transition I was assigned to the 1st AG Replacement Detachment Regiment 40 APO SF 96301 (Korea) with a final assignment to Bravo Company, 2-501st Aviation Regiment (Innkeepers) Camp Humphreys, South Korea. They embellished this surprise with my reporting date of May 29, 1989 (Memorial Day) which also assured my departure from Korea on May 29, 1990 (the day after Memorial Day).
Flight School graduation was November 2, 1988 and my CH-47D Advanced Qualification Course (AQC) class 89-5 didn’t start until February 9, 1989 which left me over 90 days assigned to Delta Company, 4th Aviation Training Battalion (ATB) as a “casual officer” where I flew NOE covership (Prima) for other training pilots. The “Practical Joke Department" tasking was Christmas Day 1988.
All casual officers were listed on the Duty Roster (DA Form 6) for the daily Staff Duty Officer (SDO) for the battalion. On weekdays, the SDO started at 5PM until relieved in the morning usually about 7 AM. On weekends and holidays, it was a 7 AM to 7 AM tour. I’d been in the military a while and I’d expected the duty roster to be managed by regulation, one of which was that once the roster was posted, you couldn’t submit for leave on any day you were assigned duty.
I was happy as the roster showed that I didn't have holiday duty and this allowed me to bank some leave time. This was a bad tactical decision on my part because as soon as the roster was posted, roughly 40 people who did not have a leave already submitted, requested leave for Christmas. The "Practical Joke Department" intervened and suddenly I ended up stuck with Staff Duty on Christmas Day. You live and learn.
Once I completed my CH47 AQC, I moved my family back to my boyhood home in Sellersburg, Indiana where my Father and Step-Mother (Jackie) had an upholstery shop. Jackie had been an upholsterer for decades and she was the fastest person I’d ever seen with a sewing machine.
Her speed and skill were tested the Saturday night before I left for Korea when we recovered 57 stools for a hospital in Louisville KY. The stools had to be recovered overnight so that they could be disinfected before 6 AM when they would be needed in the hospital. Jackie had a partner, Clifford, who picked up the stools about 20 at a time and transported them to the shop. My Father, my wife and I disassembled the stools, Jackie would use the old cover as a pattern, cut and sewed the new cover and then we stretched and stapled the new Naugahyde covers in place.
As we completed the first batch of stools, Clifford brought in the next in and the process restarted. My wife spent a lot of her time keeping the coffee and sandwiches flowing and I learned the hard way that stretching Naugahyde all night made your hands and fingers quite sore. Clifford left to return the last 17 stools about 4:30 AM. I can remember sitting on the plane to Korea with my fingers stiff and sore until they finally uncurled somewhere across the Pacific Ocean.
I flew from Louisville, KY to Oakland, CA, where I was loaded on to the World Airways Civil Reserve Air Fleet 747 "Freedom Bird" and flew a roundabout route to Korea by way of Anchorage, AK, Yakota Air Base, Japan to Osan Air Base in South Korea. From there I was bussed to U. S. Army Garrison at Yongsan, Seoul South Korea for in processing. I spent two days in processing then I was bussed again back past Osan to Camp Humphreys, my duty station. The bus to Yongsan had been an Army bus, the trip to Camp Humphreys was another story.
This was a Korean regular service passenger bus and I was again feeling very isolated as I was the only non-Korean on the bus. The trip took over two hours to drive 60 miles and a good part of the trip was the bus stopping (it seemed every corner) to let someone on or off. Passengers weren’t limited to people either as there was at least one laying hen was among us. This bus was similar in design to a greyhound and was designed for longer distance travel. (I later become familiar with the local city type buses that we used to go from town to town in the area.) On this bus, having a seat was the norm, the city buses not so much. Finally, after seeing much more of the local countryside than I really wanted to see, I was dropped off at Camp Humphreys.
Camp Humphreys was a fairly small installation by US Standards but was larger than most U. S. Army bases simple due to the airfield on the installation. The actual garrison portion of the base was quite small and you could easily walk across it in ten minutes. It was also a haphazard mix of Korean War Quonset huts and newer structures. The commissary was new and very small (roughly the size of a Seven/Eleven) there were NCO and Officer Clubs and even a Burger King. One thing that was in short supply during the summer was officer housing.
I was initially billeted in the Royal Hotel in Anjong-Ri just outside the gate to the camp. I stayed in Room 501 on the 4th floor (Koreans feel about 4 like Americans feel about 13 and avoid its use whenever possible, so no 4th floor, not room number with 4 in it either). There were many interesting quirks staying in that hotel, from the non-potable water in the bathroom.You left your key on the counter at the front desk going to work and picked it up again when you returned. All the keys had a long rectangular plastic key tag (almost a foot long) and they were lined up according to room number on the counter. You just picked it up on your way in to your room.
I couldn’t afford a car, so I quickly purchased a 10-speed bike from a departing soldier and I had transportation. In the mornings, I rode in for PT, then showered in the barracks and ate breakfast and lunch on base. I rode back to the hotel in town in the evenings and then I carried that damn bicycle up four flights of stairs to the fifth floor (no fours remember) to lock it up in my room. Unattended items lasted only a few moments, and bicycle theft was a big issue in the town, so up the stairs it went.
Most of my evening meals were eaten in town due to the distance to the dining facility and that is where I first met Warrant Officer 1 (WO1) Steve Perkins. Like me, he was billeted temporarily in town and we ended up roommates in the Bachelor Officer Quarters (BOQ). Steve and I started meeting for dinner in the ‘Ville” since we were both living in hotels. Steve was more internationally experienced than I and was already familiar with the local food scene, he showed me around. When it came to food, I was pretty lame at my meal selection (I didn’t eat anything hot or spicy) I suppose that goes back to the German roots of my family and traditional Indiana American style eating habits. Steve, not so much, he was game for just about anything, so he’d already tried most menu items.
We’d eaten together two or three times when I was about to order “Chicken Fried Rice” for the third night in a row and Steve asked if that was all I ever was going to eat. I replied that I didn’t see anything else on the menu that didn’t look spicy and sniveled how I didn’t eat hot foods. Steve suggested the “Chinese Egg Roll” dinner and for some stupid reason, I agreed. We talked and drank ice cold Pepsi in 16-ounce glass bottles while we waited and soon dinner arrived. The presentation was wonderful. Two large and savory beef eggs rolls, sliced and turned up on edge. Twenty or so total bite sized pieces with fried rice on the side.
I took the first bite, and this explosion of flavor hit me, delicious! Pleasantly surprised, I took another bite and repeated the experience. It wasn’t until the third bite, that the surprise hit me. This dish had a subtle but quiet present back-end heat that built on every bite. I started to feel flushed and I began to sweat and then I noticed Steve laughing at me as I grabbed that Pepsi and chugged it trying to put out the fire. I sure I used some choice expletives at Steve but I also couldn’t stop eating this delicious dish. I drank 3 Pepsis in the process, but I ate it all while Steve continued to make fun of me.
The next day, I ordered the same meal, while Steve at Daejibulgogi (Marinated Pork in red pepper sauce served on s sizzling platter with white rice & the hottest item on the menu). I was prepared for the heat (Mild in my now learned opinion, but hot to me then) and again I reveled in the wonderful flavors. It was through meals with Steve that I expanded my pallet and learned to be much more adventurous with my food choices. If nothing else, I will always be thankful to Steve for getting me to eat better food.
Lucky for me, Steve and I got along pretty well. We were finally given a reprieve from hotel living and moved to temporary quarters in the “Bat Cave”. The bat case was a converted Korea War temporary barracks (Same design as the WWII temporary barracks) and at best it was sad, but it was post and a slight improvement over the hotel (Potable water for one). Steve and I moved into permanent quarters (rooms 215 & 216) sometime in July.
The permanent rooms were essentially dorm sized with an adjoining kitchenette and bathroom. The first thing we tackled in that room was the shower ceiling, which was black with mildew. Steve had quite the confrontation with the maid (Ojuma! You no clean! I pay you to clean!) over how filthy the bathroom had been. We were paying her a weekly fee and we even provided cleaning materials she couldn’t get, like bleach. It took some time but ee got her to understand what our minimum standard of clean actually meant and she started cleaning to that standard and had few problems afterward.
When I arrived at B-2-501 AVN, I was surprised the unit didn’t have any CH-47D Chinooks, they had CH-47Cs instead. The Army was still fielding the CH-47D and they just finished the deployment of D-Models with A Company. The next shipment of 3 CH-47Ds included one for Alpha Company and two for Bravo. I was given my local area orientation flight in aircraft 70-15018 (CH-47C) on June 19, 1989 then I didn’t fly again until our new CH-47Ds had been assembled and tested.
Not flying didn’t mean I wasn’t busy. I was the Supply Officer, Arms Room Officer and Petroleum Oils and Lubricants (POL) Officer, so I got to keep busy trying to ensure that we had everything in order. I finally got to fly a CH-47D in Korea four times in mid-July 1989 and then the D-models were grounded worldwide for a design flaw in the combining transmission oil cooling fan drive shaft. This kept me grounded through the end of August as my leadership figured it would be a waste training me to fly a C-Model since we were turning them in at a rate of about three a month. That changed when September approached and they were running out of C-Model rated co-pilots due to their leaving at the end of their one-year tours.
I was given the world’s fastest C-Model qualification on a field training exercise August 25th and I flew C-Models until the 21st of December after the D-model aircraft were modified and the grounding was lifted. The grounding had been lifted in November, but I took a mid-tour leave and an aircraft crash while I was on leave had prevented my D-Model currency training. Here is an abbreviated incident report synopsis:
"On 4 December 1989, while ascending a draw to cross a ridge line, CH-47D aircraft 88-00092 went inadvertently into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC). The copilot on the controls established the initial emergency procedure. Moments later, visual contact was established with the ridge line. Due to close proximity of the hill mass, collision was unavoidable. The pilot-in-command and copilot initiated a rapid deceleration and power application in an attempt to avoid impact. The aircraft struck in a near level attitude with the 44-degree slope of the terrain. Rotor blade contact with trees and the ground caused the aircraft to roll inverted and slide down the ridge approximately 120 feet. There were no fatalities or serious injuries. The 5 crew members and 14 passengers were rescued by Air Force and Army MEDEVAC helicopters. There was no post-crash fire. SGT Bo Crumpler was the Flight Engineer (FE). CW4 Robert Johnson was the Pilot-in-Command"
Part of the delay in my training was my involvement in sorting out the mess the crash had created. I had a pile of TA-50 field equipment that went floor to ceiling in one corner of the supply room. The supply sergeant and I had to figure out who owned what and get it returned, exchange damaged items and do the accounting for damages and loss. Somehow the one bad thing that did not happen is all the weapons were accounted for an undamaged. The crashed aircraft itself was recovered using another CH-47D and the airframe was shipped back to Olathe, KS, where I believe it was scrapped. I had to document the equipment losses with Reports of Survey, four total. One for the Aircraft, one for the TA-50 equipment, one for the communications security equipment on board and one for the Conex Containers they were carrying as those were Air Force Property. December was a busy month for me that year. The joys of paperwork.
"Regardless of Table of Organization (T. O.), all military bureaucracies consist of a Surprise Party Department, a Practical Joke Department and a Fairy Godmother department. The first two process most matters as the third is very small, the Fairy Godmother Department is one elderly female GS-5 clerk usually out on sick leave."
When we were nearing the end of our training as Warrant Officer Candidates in flight school (The first week of September 1988) and it was pretty much assured that we would all graduate. One of the final administrative tasks was posting our aircraft assignments. The 40 Warrant Officer Candidates in my platoon were allocated aircraft for advanced training based on; "The needs of the Army". We could list our preference, but if the Army didn’t allocate that aircraft to your graduating class, well, sorry. Since I was the Admin Officer of our class, I was slightly more informed of who got what because I was keeping track of the class rankings. Tradition held that candidates who were in the top ten percent of the class ranking were given their pick of available aircraft. That meant the top four candidates were allowed to choose their aircraft assignment from the list, the rest were assigned by our flight school cadre.
My Class (Class 88-09) was assigned the following advanced aircraft allocation:
AH-64 (Apache) – 6
CH-47D (Chinook) – 3
UH-60 (Blackhawk) – 2
AH-1 (Cobra) – 12
The remaining 17 WOCs were either assigned to UH1s or OH58s. The top four took aircraft in this order:
1. Apache
2. Chinook (Jim Herzog)
3. Blackhawk
4. Blackhawk (Paul Guido)
After the top four made their picks, then aircraft were assigned by class standing. the next five in the class ranking were assigned AH64 Apaches. At this point, the “Fairy Godmother Department" smiled upon me. For whatever reason, at this point, the cadre decided to look and see who the next person was with CH47 as their top choice and wouldn’t you know it #11 Donald P. Kempf. So the next group of assignments looked like this:
10. Cobra (Todd Pryby)
11. Chinook (Donald Kempf)
12.-22. AH-1 Cobra
Then they looked at who had CH47 as top choice in the remaining group and #25 Kim Young was the final selection of the "Fairy Godmother Department".
My biggest concern (Getting assigned a combat aircraft) had been narrowly avoided. About this time, the “Surprise Party Department" came along with duty station assignments and after my advanced aircraft transition I was assigned to the 1st AG Replacement Detachment Regiment 40 APO SF 96301 (Korea) with a final assignment to Bravo Company, 2-501st Aviation Regiment (Innkeepers) Camp Humphreys, South Korea. They embellished this surprise with my reporting date of May 29, 1989 (Memorial Day) which also assured my departure from Korea on May 29, 1990 (the day after Memorial Day).
Flight School graduation was November 2, 1988 and my CH-47D Advanced Qualification Course (AQC) class 89-5 didn’t start until February 9, 1989 which left me over 90 days assigned to Delta Company, 4th Aviation Training Battalion (ATB) as a “casual officer” where I flew NOE covership (Prima) for other training pilots. The “Practical Joke Department" tasking was Christmas Day 1988.
All casual officers were listed on the Duty Roster (DA Form 6) for the daily Staff Duty Officer (SDO) for the battalion. On weekdays, the SDO started at 5PM until relieved in the morning usually about 7 AM. On weekends and holidays, it was a 7 AM to 7 AM tour. I’d been in the military a while and I’d expected the duty roster to be managed by regulation, one of which was that once the roster was posted, you couldn’t submit for leave on any day you were assigned duty.
I was happy as the roster showed that I didn't have holiday duty and this allowed me to bank some leave time. This was a bad tactical decision on my part because as soon as the roster was posted, roughly 40 people who did not have a leave already submitted, requested leave for Christmas. The "Practical Joke Department" intervened and suddenly I ended up stuck with Staff Duty on Christmas Day. You live and learn.
Once I completed my CH47 AQC, I moved my family back to my boyhood home in Sellersburg, Indiana where my Father and Step-Mother (Jackie) had an upholstery shop. Jackie had been an upholsterer for decades and she was the fastest person I’d ever seen with a sewing machine.
Her speed and skill were tested the Saturday night before I left for Korea when we recovered 57 stools for a hospital in Louisville KY. The stools had to be recovered overnight so that they could be disinfected before 6 AM when they would be needed in the hospital. Jackie had a partner, Clifford, who picked up the stools about 20 at a time and transported them to the shop. My Father, my wife and I disassembled the stools, Jackie would use the old cover as a pattern, cut and sewed the new cover and then we stretched and stapled the new Naugahyde covers in place.
As we completed the first batch of stools, Clifford brought in the next in and the process restarted. My wife spent a lot of her time keeping the coffee and sandwiches flowing and I learned the hard way that stretching Naugahyde all night made your hands and fingers quite sore. Clifford left to return the last 17 stools about 4:30 AM. I can remember sitting on the plane to Korea with my fingers stiff and sore until they finally uncurled somewhere across the Pacific Ocean.
I flew from Louisville, KY to Oakland, CA, where I was loaded on to the World Airways Civil Reserve Air Fleet 747 "Freedom Bird" and flew a roundabout route to Korea by way of Anchorage, AK, Yakota Air Base, Japan to Osan Air Base in South Korea. From there I was bussed to U. S. Army Garrison at Yongsan, Seoul South Korea for in processing. I spent two days in processing then I was bussed again back past Osan to Camp Humphreys, my duty station. The bus to Yongsan had been an Army bus, the trip to Camp Humphreys was another story.
This was a Korean regular service passenger bus and I was again feeling very isolated as I was the only non-Korean on the bus. The trip took over two hours to drive 60 miles and a good part of the trip was the bus stopping (it seemed every corner) to let someone on or off. Passengers weren’t limited to people either as there was at least one laying hen was among us. This bus was similar in design to a greyhound and was designed for longer distance travel. (I later become familiar with the local city type buses that we used to go from town to town in the area.) On this bus, having a seat was the norm, the city buses not so much. Finally, after seeing much more of the local countryside than I really wanted to see, I was dropped off at Camp Humphreys.
Camp Humphreys was a fairly small installation by US Standards but was larger than most U. S. Army bases simple due to the airfield on the installation. The actual garrison portion of the base was quite small and you could easily walk across it in ten minutes. It was also a haphazard mix of Korean War Quonset huts and newer structures. The commissary was new and very small (roughly the size of a Seven/Eleven) there were NCO and Officer Clubs and even a Burger King. One thing that was in short supply during the summer was officer housing.
I was initially billeted in the Royal Hotel in Anjong-Ri just outside the gate to the camp. I stayed in Room 501 on the 4th floor (Koreans feel about 4 like Americans feel about 13 and avoid its use whenever possible, so no 4th floor, not room number with 4 in it either). There were many interesting quirks staying in that hotel, from the non-potable water in the bathroom.You left your key on the counter at the front desk going to work and picked it up again when you returned. All the keys had a long rectangular plastic key tag (almost a foot long) and they were lined up according to room number on the counter. You just picked it up on your way in to your room.
I couldn’t afford a car, so I quickly purchased a 10-speed bike from a departing soldier and I had transportation. In the mornings, I rode in for PT, then showered in the barracks and ate breakfast and lunch on base. I rode back to the hotel in town in the evenings and then I carried that damn bicycle up four flights of stairs to the fifth floor (no fours remember) to lock it up in my room. Unattended items lasted only a few moments, and bicycle theft was a big issue in the town, so up the stairs it went.
Most of my evening meals were eaten in town due to the distance to the dining facility and that is where I first met Warrant Officer 1 (WO1) Steve Perkins. Like me, he was billeted temporarily in town and we ended up roommates in the Bachelor Officer Quarters (BOQ). Steve and I started meeting for dinner in the ‘Ville” since we were both living in hotels. Steve was more internationally experienced than I and was already familiar with the local food scene, he showed me around. When it came to food, I was pretty lame at my meal selection (I didn’t eat anything hot or spicy) I suppose that goes back to the German roots of my family and traditional Indiana American style eating habits. Steve, not so much, he was game for just about anything, so he’d already tried most menu items.
We’d eaten together two or three times when I was about to order “Chicken Fried Rice” for the third night in a row and Steve asked if that was all I ever was going to eat. I replied that I didn’t see anything else on the menu that didn’t look spicy and sniveled how I didn’t eat hot foods. Steve suggested the “Chinese Egg Roll” dinner and for some stupid reason, I agreed. We talked and drank ice cold Pepsi in 16-ounce glass bottles while we waited and soon dinner arrived. The presentation was wonderful. Two large and savory beef eggs rolls, sliced and turned up on edge. Twenty or so total bite sized pieces with fried rice on the side.
I took the first bite, and this explosion of flavor hit me, delicious! Pleasantly surprised, I took another bite and repeated the experience. It wasn’t until the third bite, that the surprise hit me. This dish had a subtle but quiet present back-end heat that built on every bite. I started to feel flushed and I began to sweat and then I noticed Steve laughing at me as I grabbed that Pepsi and chugged it trying to put out the fire. I sure I used some choice expletives at Steve but I also couldn’t stop eating this delicious dish. I drank 3 Pepsis in the process, but I ate it all while Steve continued to make fun of me.
The next day, I ordered the same meal, while Steve at Daejibulgogi (Marinated Pork in red pepper sauce served on s sizzling platter with white rice & the hottest item on the menu). I was prepared for the heat (Mild in my now learned opinion, but hot to me then) and again I reveled in the wonderful flavors. It was through meals with Steve that I expanded my pallet and learned to be much more adventurous with my food choices. If nothing else, I will always be thankful to Steve for getting me to eat better food.
Lucky for me, Steve and I got along pretty well. We were finally given a reprieve from hotel living and moved to temporary quarters in the “Bat Cave”. The bat case was a converted Korea War temporary barracks (Same design as the WWII temporary barracks) and at best it was sad, but it was post and a slight improvement over the hotel (Potable water for one). Steve and I moved into permanent quarters (rooms 215 & 216) sometime in July.
The permanent rooms were essentially dorm sized with an adjoining kitchenette and bathroom. The first thing we tackled in that room was the shower ceiling, which was black with mildew. Steve had quite the confrontation with the maid (Ojuma! You no clean! I pay you to clean!) over how filthy the bathroom had been. We were paying her a weekly fee and we even provided cleaning materials she couldn’t get, like bleach. It took some time but ee got her to understand what our minimum standard of clean actually meant and she started cleaning to that standard and had few problems afterward.
When I arrived at B-2-501 AVN, I was surprised the unit didn’t have any CH-47D Chinooks, they had CH-47Cs instead. The Army was still fielding the CH-47D and they just finished the deployment of D-Models with A Company. The next shipment of 3 CH-47Ds included one for Alpha Company and two for Bravo. I was given my local area orientation flight in aircraft 70-15018 (CH-47C) on June 19, 1989 then I didn’t fly again until our new CH-47Ds had been assembled and tested.
Not flying didn’t mean I wasn’t busy. I was the Supply Officer, Arms Room Officer and Petroleum Oils and Lubricants (POL) Officer, so I got to keep busy trying to ensure that we had everything in order. I finally got to fly a CH-47D in Korea four times in mid-July 1989 and then the D-models were grounded worldwide for a design flaw in the combining transmission oil cooling fan drive shaft. This kept me grounded through the end of August as my leadership figured it would be a waste training me to fly a C-Model since we were turning them in at a rate of about three a month. That changed when September approached and they were running out of C-Model rated co-pilots due to their leaving at the end of their one-year tours.
I was given the world’s fastest C-Model qualification on a field training exercise August 25th and I flew C-Models until the 21st of December after the D-model aircraft were modified and the grounding was lifted. The grounding had been lifted in November, but I took a mid-tour leave and an aircraft crash while I was on leave had prevented my D-Model currency training. Here is an abbreviated incident report synopsis:
"On 4 December 1989, while ascending a draw to cross a ridge line, CH-47D aircraft 88-00092 went inadvertently into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC). The copilot on the controls established the initial emergency procedure. Moments later, visual contact was established with the ridge line. Due to close proximity of the hill mass, collision was unavoidable. The pilot-in-command and copilot initiated a rapid deceleration and power application in an attempt to avoid impact. The aircraft struck in a near level attitude with the 44-degree slope of the terrain. Rotor blade contact with trees and the ground caused the aircraft to roll inverted and slide down the ridge approximately 120 feet. There were no fatalities or serious injuries. The 5 crew members and 14 passengers were rescued by Air Force and Army MEDEVAC helicopters. There was no post-crash fire. SGT Bo Crumpler was the Flight Engineer (FE). CW4 Robert Johnson was the Pilot-in-Command"
Part of the delay in my training was my involvement in sorting out the mess the crash had created. I had a pile of TA-50 field equipment that went floor to ceiling in one corner of the supply room. The supply sergeant and I had to figure out who owned what and get it returned, exchange damaged items and do the accounting for damages and loss. Somehow the one bad thing that did not happen is all the weapons were accounted for an undamaged. The crashed aircraft itself was recovered using another CH-47D and the airframe was shipped back to Olathe, KS, where I believe it was scrapped. I had to document the equipment losses with Reports of Survey, four total. One for the Aircraft, one for the TA-50 equipment, one for the communications security equipment on board and one for the Conex Containers they were carrying as those were Air Force Property. December was a busy month for me that year. The joys of paperwork.
Tuesday, December 06, 2016
101st Airborne was sent to provide relief in Florida after Hurricane Andrew
On
August 24, 1992, Hurricane Andrew struck southern Florida with extreme
devastation. Three days later, President Bush committed U. S. Army support for
the storm ravaged state. On September 2, the 101st Airborne Division
deployed ten CH-47D Chinook helicopters to Opa-Locka Airport to assist in the
relief efforts. I was a part of this mission and in many ways, it helped change
my life.
7th
Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment (Liftmasters) sent a task force
of Chinooks comprised of elements from all three companies in the battalion so
that each unit had enough personnel and equipment to continue their mission as
part of the rapid deployment force (RDF). This was important as we had just
returned from the Gulf War the year prior and international events were heavy
on everyone’s minds. We arrived at the Opa-Locka airport to a near chaos
situation with the situation just barely being managed as food and equipment
were arriving faster than the support effort could be coordinated. A hangar at
the east side of the airfield had been converted into a makeshift warehouse and
we were billeted in a vacant shop area in the back corner of the hangar.
The
first thing we noticed was that there wasn’t an immediate need for the Chinooks
as no cargo had been allocated for shipment and the areas of need for delivery
were not yet identified. This left us with the uncomfortable situation of
having rushed to the scene and waiting for something to do. We were watching
all these volunteers arriving and working from dawn to dusk unloading trucks,
sorting supplies and trying to bring some organization to everything while we
were just sitting there with nothing to do. After correctly determining that it
might be a while before we were actively involved as a unit, I inquired if we
could assist in the volunteer effort on our free time with our command leadership
and they said we could do what we wanted when we were not working on a mission.
I had noticed that there was a forklift that was being under-utilized and I asked one of the volunteer coordinators if I could assist as a forklift operator. (in one of my previous careers I had been a forklift operator/warehouseman.) I was given a resounding yes and started my contribution to the volunteer effort. I would guess that there were in excess of 100 volunteers unloading and sorting supplies, and there was a steady stream of semi tractor-trailers with all kinds of cargo. Almost all the trucks were owner-operators who volunteered their trucks and donated their time and fuel to haul the loads from all points in the USA. It was incredibly moving to see what people were doing to try any help others they didn’t know.
For
the next couple of days, I spent the majority of my waking hours on the
forklift loading and unloading trucks. The rest of the task force equally spent
a lot of time in the volunteer effort alongside the local people coming in to
work the warehouse. Two of the coordinators, a local banker and his wife, a
school teacher, did something incredible for the task force, they asked us to
come over to their home for lunch, use the pool and to wash all our clothing.
They had noticed that while we had cots and food and a place to sleep with
facilities, there was no laundry facility available to us on the airport. So
they took twelve of us to their home (in Miami Lakes, a very posh Miami
neighborhood) where there seemed to be an endless buffet and a wonderfully
refreshing pool for us to swim in. I wish I could recall the names, maybe one
day I will and edit this to give them full credit. This lady washed and dried
clothes while hosting a dozen soldiers for at least eight consecutive hours after a
week of 12-hour shifts at the hangar sorting supplies. She and her husband were
magnificent and it was a gesture that I will always remember.
The
task force was in Opa-Locka for 26 days and during that time, a fellow pilot,
Kevin Ballard and I went to the Miami school where this same lady taught
fifth grade. It was a show and tell and we wore our flight suits and survival
vests and other flight gear. The children were quite excited with the visit and
the teacher treated us to lunch at a local restaurant before we returned to the
flight line.
I’d
say it took the better part of a week for sufficient coordination was made to
utilize our equipment. Some of the first missions included flying to Homestead
Air Force Base (AFB) which was close to ground zero as far as hurricane damage
went. The destruction was epic and I clearly remember a hangar that had been
stripped down to the I-beam superstructure and the remains of a C-130 inside
that wasn't evacuated before the storm hit. We flew essential items,
food, water, diapers and the like into the town of Homestead at a makeshift Landing
Zone (LZ) near what had been their downtown. Only a few buildings survived in
Homestead as the majority of homes in the area were either mobile homes or
modular homes and neither tolerated the wrath of the storm. The damage
resembled tornado damage only the area of destruction was miles wide instead of a few
hundred yards. I saw less damage in war-torn Sarajevo, it was
overwhelming.
There
were also some poor decisions made in the relief effort. Some of these were
made in the choice of cargo that was selected for us to haul from the
fairgrounds in West Palm Beach to Homestead. For this mission, we had several
Chinooks (At least 3 and it could have been up to 5) and we were making turns
from the fairgrounds to a LZ in Homestead, pretty regular Chinook work hauling
external and internal loads. External loads were preferred because they allowed
us to make the most use of blade time and personnel. Apparently, there was
insufficient heavy cargo to assemble to make legitimate external loads or
whoever was coordinating the loads did not understand the physics of external
loads. This is how I ended up with a center hook load that consisted of three
pallets of things like diapers, and Cheetos. The loads were properly wrapped in
Army pallet wraps designed for these hauls but the loads were so light that
while flying we had to restrict the airspeed of this load to about 45 knots. Our
route was along the west side of the Dade county urban areas along railroad tracks that
bordered the swamps. As we flew south with this light load, the load started to come
apart in the air. I left a glittery trail of Cheetos bags and diapers along
the swamp. At least the gators there had something to amuse them. Due to this
unintended distribution of snacks, I was dubbed the “Cheeto Bandito” by my fellow
pilots.
I
celebrated my thirty-fourth birthday in Opa-Locka which in itself was no big
deal. I think I had a Tuna Casserole MRE for my birthday dinner. One of the
things you had to do as an Army pilot was an annual evaluation. This required
me to have a proficiency check ride as a Night Vision Goggle Pilot-in-Command
and an Instrument evaluation with the Instrument Flight Examiner (IFE) who was
part of our task force. So pilot training was worked into real missions when
possible and other training missions were flown when required.
I had to complete requirement in my birth month and it was unclear if we would leave Florida before the month ended. Since I needed the eval, we planned an instrument training flight to West Palm Beach and back. We had to fly outside of the Miami area as parts of the instrument navigation aides were still out of commission so we flew to where operational equipment was available. We encountered some difficulties as the commercial air traffic into West Palm Beach was heavy do to limits on flights to Miami.
One of the requirements for the instrument check ride is a precision instrument approach. We had selected the Instrument Landing System (ILS) runway 09 approach to West Palm Beach. At first we had trouble getting Air Traffic Control (ATC) to work us in, this required us to wait about thirty minutes, so we completed other training tasks such as a holding pattern until we were finally cleared for an approach at the airport. I established our approach on the ILS glide slope at the standard approach speed of 90 knots for a helicopter. We were almost immediately requested to speed up the approach due to traffic spacing and I had the pleasure of completing the approach at 135 knots (normal speed was 90 knots). It wasn’t pretty and it kept me busy computing the changes in the approach plan but I managed to get the job done and we landed without incident.
I had to complete requirement in my birth month and it was unclear if we would leave Florida before the month ended. Since I needed the eval, we planned an instrument training flight to West Palm Beach and back. We had to fly outside of the Miami area as parts of the instrument navigation aides were still out of commission so we flew to where operational equipment was available. We encountered some difficulties as the commercial air traffic into West Palm Beach was heavy do to limits on flights to Miami.
One of the requirements for the instrument check ride is a precision instrument approach. We had selected the Instrument Landing System (ILS) runway 09 approach to West Palm Beach. At first we had trouble getting Air Traffic Control (ATC) to work us in, this required us to wait about thirty minutes, so we completed other training tasks such as a holding pattern until we were finally cleared for an approach at the airport. I established our approach on the ILS glide slope at the standard approach speed of 90 knots for a helicopter. We were almost immediately requested to speed up the approach due to traffic spacing and I had the pleasure of completing the approach at 135 knots (normal speed was 90 knots). It wasn’t pretty and it kept me busy computing the changes in the approach plan but I managed to get the job done and we landed without incident.
One
of the benefits of taking an instrument check ride, is you normally get a good
meal. It seems the IFE’s make a practice of flying to different airfields and
while refueling with the fixed base operator (FBO) they borrow the FBO loaner car and get something to eat at a local restaurant. Getting the car is usually
pretty easy when the FBO is refueling a Chinook and 800 gallons of Jet-A gives
them a nice profit. When they make the IFE happy, he comes back with more business.
We had lunch a local restaurant that had the unique distinction of all the waitresses
were modeling lingerie. I didn’t mind, but mostly I was interested in a good
meal but a free floor show never hurt.
I
think the best side benefit of the deployment to Opa-Locka was getting to know
some of my fellow pilots a bit better. Two of the pilots, Kevin Ballard, and
Dan Davidson, had brought guitars with them. Kevin played bass and Dan lead.
When things were slow, it wasn’t unusual to see then jamming together, even
though they had no amps. They were playing country music and while not a big
country fan, I did enjoy the distraction. In 1992, we didn’t have cell phones
and the internet, and most of us didn’t bring much of any electronics to the
field or deployment. I learned that Kevin and Dan were trying to put a band
together, they had another guitar player in the unit (Jim Housand) who wasn’t
there and they needed a drummer. I had played drums in high school and was fair
to middling at best but I offered my services and they agreed to let me have a
shot. Out of boredom and wanting to practice a bit, I whittled a pair of
drumsticks from pallet splinters and began to sit in with Dan and Kevin. This
was the start of the “Red River Band” named after a local river near Fort
Campbell and we soon changed the band name to something more fitting: “A Wing
and A Prayer.”
We
recovered back to Fort Campbell September 28th and it wasn’t
but a few days later that our band started practicing in a recreation center at
Fort Campbell. We practiced there because they had drums we could
use, but I soon purchased a set at a local pawn shop for $400 and we practiced in Kevin’s garage after that. We played about five paying gigs at local
bars such as Maria’s Ranch, The Hole and Western Sound. I earned
enough at make up the money that I paid for the drums. As with many things,
this band was a fleeting moment in an ever-changing life. I left for Degree
Completion in the autumn of 1993, Kevin joined the 160th Special
Operations Task Force and Jim became an Instructor Pilot then left he service
not tool long after I left Fort Campbell for Germany.
There
are two legacy items I took away from my deployment for Hurricane Andrew
- My Humanitarian Service Medal (the medal I am most proud of earning)
- The experience of having played in “A Wing and A Prayer”
Part
of how this narrative came to be was Jim looking me up on the Internet in early
2016, thanks Jim.
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