"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.
No comments:
Post a Comment