From the Soldier side: OK, I can’t keep anyone in suspense any longer….I’ll just have to pack later. Besides, I might forget the story in a week and that might piss everyone off.
So, back to “Slim’s” story of going home on leave. Remember Slim was out at Ramadi, Iraq working around the Marines. So, the nice Marines flew him back to Baghdad so he could fly home on leave.
Well, around some of the camps in Baghdad, the US Army had these blimp things that kind of flew around the camps all day. They didn’t have a pilot or anybody on board, they were tethered to a cable to keep them sort of in one spot. The tethering cables ran down to a little trailer that had some Army dudes in them.
We were told that the blimps had cameras in them so they could see around the camps and stuff….kind of like the border patrol uses on the Mexican border….
So, now do you have this picture in your mind of the friggen Goodyear blimp floating up in the air all the time…day and night.
Now. Add to this a USMC CH46 flying POS (Pile of Shit) coming along in the dark.... you know "two broken washing machines fighting with gravity". Can you see where this is going?
Yep…you figured right. The CH 46 flying Slim and several others back to Baghdad in the dark…hits the cable holding the Goodyear blimp. The CH 46 does a “controlled crash” when it looses it’s battle with gravity. The Blimp and all the electronic gear on board flies off to who knows where.
The CH 46, crew and passengers survive the crash…actually nobody got hurt. No shit. Good flying by the Marine guys. But they crash land outside the camp....
Slim and the armed passengers and crew get off and set up perimeter around the craft and call for help.
The QRF (Quick Reaction Force) didn’t know what the “Q” in their title stood for and waited until the sun came up to go out and help the crash folks…and brought in the passengers. Slim said he was a little concerned about the local insurgents coming along to the crash…he only had one belt for his SAW with him…heck he was just going home on 2 weeks leave…nothing should happen.
The End.
So, back to “Slim’s” story of going home on leave. Remember Slim was out at Ramadi, Iraq working around the Marines. So, the nice Marines flew him back to Baghdad so he could fly home on leave.
Well, around some of the camps in Baghdad, the US Army had these blimp things that kind of flew around the camps all day. They didn’t have a pilot or anybody on board, they were tethered to a cable to keep them sort of in one spot. The tethering cables ran down to a little trailer that had some Army dudes in them.
We were told that the blimps had cameras in them so they could see around the camps and stuff….kind of like the border patrol uses on the Mexican border….
So, now do you have this picture in your mind of the friggen Goodyear blimp floating up in the air all the time…day and night.
Now. Add to this a USMC CH46 flying POS (Pile of Shit) coming along in the dark.... you know "two broken washing machines fighting with gravity". Can you see where this is going?
Yep…you figured right. The CH 46 flying Slim and several others back to Baghdad in the dark…hits the cable holding the Goodyear blimp. The CH 46 does a “controlled crash” when it looses it’s battle with gravity. The Blimp and all the electronic gear on board flies off to who knows where.
The CH 46, crew and passengers survive the crash…actually nobody got hurt. No shit. Good flying by the Marine guys. But they crash land outside the camp....
Slim and the armed passengers and crew get off and set up perimeter around the craft and call for help.
The QRF (Quick Reaction Force) didn’t know what the “Q” in their title stood for and waited until the sun came up to go out and help the crash folks…and brought in the passengers. Slim said he was a little concerned about the local insurgents coming along to the crash…he only had one belt for his SAW with him…heck he was just going home on 2 weeks leave…nothing should happen.
The End.
7 comments:
You make me laugh Dude..."they didn't know what the Q stood for..." heeheeehe
I know the blimps you are talking about. That would have made a tangled up mess alright. Sheesh that plane sounds like a Maytag Mess. Yikes. funny though how you describe it. ohhhh...you crack me up.
Poor Slim...but he did have a really good story to tell...
Thanks for finishing the story for us...I love your stories.
...but did you get packed?
Have a safe trip. :) Don't fly on a Maytag, K?
Wrexie, Slim always seemed a little shakey after that... At the end of our deployment, when he went to turn in his ammo, he had fired about half his SAW M249 belt of ammo. The REMFs were giving him a hard time, so I went over to my foot locker and pulled out a full belt for him to turn in.
(A belt I got from 1st MAR DIV in Fallujah). I always tried to take care of my folks...
OH..he had used the ammo firing warning shots over a period of a year.
I started to say that you must be on New York time if this was a week. What would have happen to Slim if he turned in a half belt? You are in a war zone. Aren't you expected to fire your weapons on occasion.
Slim, "Let me see, now...there are about 40 black hats coming at me with weapons blazing...so there is one shot going into a due, another going into the ground and another going into....aaahhhhh...I can't count that fast. The supply pukes are going to kill me."
Have a productive repair session, Dude.
It was nice of you to give Slim your belt...sign of a very good leader, I'd say.
I'd fire a few extra warning shots after that ordeal too...
I have to buy a dryer today. If it says Model CH 46 onywhere, I'm not getting it.
Hope your trip goes well...
Alarming story. Crash landing? Yikes. I'm glad to hear everybody came through with their lives. They should have illuminated that stupid blimp better. I can imagine Slim being jumpy after that.
The "GoodYear" blimp was only a few hundred feet up in the air, but I don't ever think the Army figured out that the USMC choppers flew at night (my experience was, one outfit in Iraq didn't know what the other was doing).
I flew in some choppers that went so low, we could look in the windows of homes and wave at the Iraqis eating dinner.
Dude, with this training, are you going to have to go back and fix some more mess kits? Time to retire, Dude.
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