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My Day Off... Long but good read, Army story.
This day will start at about 0600, with me going to bed. I decided to sleep in and set my alarm for 1400. I'm rousted from my sleep at about 1300 by my platoon sergent. He asked if I wanted to go for a flight on a Blackhawk around Kosovo. Since this was the first oppertunity of this type I have had (because it usually never lines up with my day off) I jumped at the chance. I had no idea what I was about to get into, none at all.
I asked what gear I needed, where I needed to be, and when to be there. I was told my body armor and helmet, which is the standard stuff for leaving the wire. I needed to get to the flightline ASAP. On my way through the hanger I learned that we were looking for a piece of sensitive equipment that one of the Apache pilots had dropped from the aircraft while opening the canopy in flight to spit his gum out. Cool I thought, fly around in a hawk and look around for this thing in some fields. Man, was I wrong. I belt in the hawk and the pilot tells me, "heres my bag, it has 2 MRE's, 6 bottles of water, a combat lifesaver bag (that has IV fluid pouches and first aid stuff) and a full combat load of 5.56 ammo, it weighs 35lbs," then hands me the M4, which is basically a shortened tactical version of the M16. Handing my helmet and body armor off to the crew cheif to be stored, I ask "what would I need that for?" "We're dropping you off and you and the pilots are going to walk around and find the stuff they dropped." He tells me. "Alright, has anyone checked the maps?", it's right on the IBL with Serbia where a lot of fighting went on. "Is it mined?" was my biggest question. I like to play with fireworks but nasty little charges I can't see that can take off my leg or kill me when I least expect it, I want nothing to do with. "No, it's clear," I'm told, "it's all cow pasture." Ok I think, sounds like fun.
Everyone arrives, they fire the hawk up and off we go, 15 min flight later we're doing a "combat helicopter insertion" the best us aviation guys can do, I felt like I was part of a special ops mission. Take a knee, load the M4 and my 9mm. Now the fun really begins. Five of us total scouring the countryside. We had 2 enlisted, Dave and I, and 3 pilots, Ridilla, PW, and Kazmerek. Dave and Kaz stayed on one of the hilltops about a click from the LZ trying to get communication with the base, yeah, thats right, they dropped us off and our radio wasn't powerful enough to reach anything but the Blackhawks when they were circling overhead. They did give us a cell phone, but it was locked and we didn't know the PIN. Now when one from PA hears cow pasture, they think flat or rolling farmland with knee high grass at most. I was wrong again. Cow pasture in Kosovo means spurs and draws like the turkey hunting areas up in Perry county, with brush thicker than the Mountain Laurel. So there's 3 of us in the middle of nowhere looking for something the size of a computer harddrive in a 5sq kilometer area. The pilots that lost the item, PW, Ridilla, and myself started following the terrain in the areas they felt they flew through. I had quite a load with that bag.
2.5 hours of trudgeing around fields and thick brush looking for this stuff. We're about to call it quits but decide to go over one more hill. Coming down the hill, I start making my way through the brush, eventually coming up on a small streamhead that was a bit swampy. I made my way around to the less waterlogged side and... there it was. You think I found the items that were lost and saved the day like I usually do, don't you. You're wrong this time. I walked right up on a fired, unexploded 155mm artillery round. They hold about a 15lb charge of C4 and make a really big boom, I think the kill radius is 75 meters, but don't quote me on that. I yell for PW who had a GPS to mark the location, this needs to be taken care of. He marks the stream 100 or so meters down from the UXO. Ridilla dosen't believe I found this object, so I go get him and show him where it is. We both laugh. "At least we found something."
It's time to get back, a tunderstorm is coming, so we start heading back to meet up at the hilltop. The hawks return and start circling, we get into an open field and the one lands, we jump on. He takes us back to the LZ flying over Dave and Kaz, Dave is my roommate. I see him and wave, and as a good friend would do when forced to walk while I flew, he flicked me off. I was amazed at how far we walked, almost 10k in rough terrain. We landed and got off the hawk took a knee again as the heli flew away. The aircraft we originally flew in on is shut down at the other end of the LZ. We go meet Dave and Kaz, and help them carry the gear back to the aircraft. Load up again, and start flying low and slow looking for the items. Finally low on fuel it is decided to return to base. PW made UXO report with my name on it and sent it up.
I had time to eat and walk to the pilots office, it's about 1900. G-3 called from the head shed and wanted to talk to me. They want me to go with the EOD (explosive ordinance disposal) team and show them where the 155 round was. As I understood it my commander and the batallion commander knew what was going on, boy was I wrong again. I meet the EOD team with my body armor, weapon, and helmet. We get an interpreter and out the wire we go once again. about 2 hours later we get the truck to within about 1KM of the waypoint. Now it is very dark, raining hard though warm, we had no raingear. It seemed everyone had their doubts of me finding the round a second time. Low and behold, I go right back to it, proving once again my prowess at land navigation. The EOD guy, Jones, looks at it, chuckles, and tells me the explosive has been removed from it. It's safe. I apologize for dragging him out there for a dud, but it still has to be removed, so I did do the right thing. Now we have to carry it back to the truck, keep in mind, this thing is 20 inches long, 6.1" diameter at the base and almost 1" thick forged steel weigning in at probably 60lbs. It looks like a big bullet. I come up with the idea of cutting a tree branch and putting it through the round to carry it on our shoulders. Jones tells me he should take the smart aviation guys out with him more often. It takes us over an hour to get back to the truck.
Now more fun, the lower ranking guy driving the HMMWV has found a way across the creek and closer to where we were coming from. We get in and start on our way back to base. The driver tells us to hold on, as we need to hit this one spot fast or chance getting stuck. I brace in, he hits the throttle, the hill is right after a creek and a sharp right turn. We hit the creek, he turns the weel to the right, the HMMWV goes straight, the left side of the truck goes off about a 6ft drop. We start to roll over to the left, 3 wheels off the ground then precariously teeters back down on all 4 wheels. We allmost landed left side in the creek, but there wasn't enough inertia to take us over, it was very close. We all look at each other, Jones, the driver, and the interpretor (this is his first night on the job, poor guy) take a deep breath, I chuckled, they all look at me funny. I say "this kinda stuff happens to me all the time, why not laugh?" The driver puts the truck in reverse, and amazingly we are able to get out of the creek and back on our course. That's good as we were in the middle of nowhere.
At 0000 we get back to base. I wake my acting first sergent up to let him know I'm back, he tells me the commander and batallion commander had no idea I was leaving. Now I figure I'm in trouble. I went and woke the commander up and let him know I was back safely. He shakes my hand and says great job, thanks. I asked if anyone was angry with me, the answer was no. Turns out since I found the UXO in the first place, and went with EOD to remove it tonight, it swayed the batallion commander from sending another whole group of people to tromp around the woods and look for this stuff, they wrote it off as a loss. He now realizes that the threat of UXO is real and the round is removed so there is no reason to go back out. In the end, I saved the day once again.
What a day, I'm beat, soaked to the socks and underwear, and they won't let me keep the empty round as a door stop.
JRM
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05-17-2006, 08:10 PM
Can't wait to get back to the states and down a frosty mug of Yuengling lager, I'm due.
Diamond Mine Champion!
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