Two Degrees of Separation
I was at Technorati searching for blog posts related to Bagram, and came along Austin Bay's blog. Teresa from Technicalities had mentioned him, but I wasn't familiar with the author and OIF2 veteran. And so I was reading his post from Tuesday, and I recognized the incident he was describing, because my boyfriend had told me about taking some guys whose aircraft had to return to Bagram, him being one of the pilots of the second Chinook:
Monday afternoon, June 20, we caught an operational briefing with Combined Joint Task Force-76 at Bagram Air Base then flew back to Kabul to spend the night. After take-off, our first CH-47 developed an engine problem so we made the long bank and returned to Bagram. It took twenty minutes to transfer to a second CH-47. The second night flight to Kabul went quickly. I spoke with one of the door gunners, though it’s difficult to speak with anyone on a CH-47. The door gunner wore a pair of the “new” binocular night vision scopes, but the moon light was so bright he flipped them back up on his helmet. The full moon put a definite edge on the mountains and we could see trucks moving on the main highway. The Ch-47 is well named: the Chinook. The twin-rotored giant chopper is a big wind. When it lands on a dry Afghan landing zone the chopper raises an instant dust storm– a sustained storm that turns dirt into pumice. Turn around and lean away, and if you don’t have goggles, cover your eyes.
It's a small world, and even more so when it comes to the military.
Monday afternoon, June 20, we caught an operational briefing with Combined Joint Task Force-76 at Bagram Air Base then flew back to Kabul to spend the night. After take-off, our first CH-47 developed an engine problem so we made the long bank and returned to Bagram. It took twenty minutes to transfer to a second CH-47. The second night flight to Kabul went quickly. I spoke with one of the door gunners, though it’s difficult to speak with anyone on a CH-47. The door gunner wore a pair of the “new” binocular night vision scopes, but the moon light was so bright he flipped them back up on his helmet. The full moon put a definite edge on the mountains and we could see trucks moving on the main highway. The Ch-47 is well named: the Chinook. The twin-rotored giant chopper is a big wind. When it lands on a dry Afghan landing zone the chopper raises an instant dust storm– a sustained storm that turns dirt into pumice. Turn around and lean away, and if you don’t have goggles, cover your eyes.
It's a small world, and even more so when it comes to the military.
posted by CaliValleyGirl at 12:53 PM
3 Comments:
Of course I STILL haven't heard from my son... LOL. Guess he's busy.
It is a small world. I am always amazed at just how small.
It's why I am vague on Todd's exact whereabouts.
(BTW, I will email you back - things have been extremely hectic!)
Yep - I've always joked that there are two degrees of separation in the Chinook community - we either know the pilots/crew or know someone who knows them. And it's getting smaller every day.
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