It was 04:20 in the morning while working night shift in Germany, when my buddy Shelby came in to the office and said, "I'm going on a helicopter ride in the morning!" Of course, I asked the Blackhorse Task Force (the helicopter guys) if there was room for one more. They took me on and by 10:30 in the morning, we where lifting off the ground at Camp Hohenfels with no sleep under our belts.
WO4 Peters and W01 McDonald, the pilots welcomed us aboard. After a quick 10 minute safety brief, he handed us our headphones and we boarded the plane. Chief Peters said in case we get sick, there is a plastic bag to throw up in (I'll reference this later ;-)). Sgt Jones was the gunner and he helped getting us strapped into our 5 point seat belts. I rode on the left side gunner’s seat, and Shelby rode on the back seat. We were ready for lift off.
The this flight was an Intel Surveillance Reconnaissance Mission and was schedule to return at 14:30 (2:30 PM for you civilians). That is 4 ½ hours of flight! We were without any sleep, so we knew we where in for a long day and a long work night.
I had my window opened and Sgt Jones said I could close when it get cold. We took off from camp to the town of Gnjilane, Kamenica and Klokot on the look out for anything suspicious. Our main concern was trucks or vans that might be trafficking drugs, arms or humans. The view was magnificent! The country in Germany looks much like Branson, MO, but the trees are darker green and denser; the terrain is also much more hilly.
About 20 minutes into the ride, we where somewhere in the vicinity of Gnjilane over some dirt roads and thin trails when all of a sudden I spotted a white van on a dense trail. I called through the headphone, “I spotted a white van,” and Chief Peters replied “OK, we’ll turn around.” After guiding him to where I had spotted it, they hovered directly over it to acquire a grid lock on it. We got really close to see if we could see anything or anyone in it, but it seemed to be abandoned. Then they immediately transmitted a SPOT report to the talk giving them the grid coordinates.
We kept going on our path line to the next towns looking for more suspicious activity. I was having such a good time enjoying every minute of it. We spotted some more vehicles and submitted the SPOT report to the TOC for each one. We had been in the air for about an hour and I was very cold, so I closed the window. The helicopter made some turns left and right, and I was enjoying it so much that I didn’t notice my stomach was getting upset. I called to the Crew Chief for the barf bag and he said “open the door, let some air in.” I grabbed the bag and opened the door. As soon as I opened it, I felt instant relief. We landed on a gravel pad for a few minutes. This was a good excuse to take a piss and that is just what the crew did. It was also a good opportunity to don on my fleece jacket.
We continued on our mission (with my window opened or course) and I felt fine the rest of the way. When we returned to re-fuel, Shelby and I called it quits. We thanked them and we both went on our way to have a date with our pillows. We where so tired, but we were all smiles from this really cool trip we just went on. Hopefully we can do this again in Germany and when we finally get to Kosovo.
Thanks a lot, Chiefs Peters and McDonald!