Spreading Democracy...RPG's and why the Italians don't Suck At Fighting

It started like this...we had to drop off election ballots in a place called Jawand. It lies at the bottom of a 1500 to 2000 foot deep canyon. The local area has some not very nice people, the kind that don't think Afghans should be able to vote for themselves...(and ESPECIALLY the women). So to make sure we made it there and back safely...the Italians escorted us with Mangusta gunships. That was cool, because that meant they did most of the mission planning and briefing for the flight.

The run in to the target, the Landing Zone, was about a 6 mile run through the canyon.

Tomahawk 1 led us into the canyon, diving over 2000 feet into the canyon...we pushed our dump truck's nose over and tried to stay with him.

You can almost see the little speck in the lower middle part of the picture right above the river...he dropped like a rock...

So we dove in after him and pushed it down to 50 feet when he made the first left turn, and all I saw was the top of his helicotper... because he was in a 90 degree left bank, I said 'I think that first turn is going to be kinda tight'

We made it in...it was a Star Wars canyon, no room to turn around...just press ahead or pull everything you have and climb out. No problem. It was awesome...

We passed this quaint little scenic village along the beautiful river...as we flew over, I heard a really loud BOOM! Right outside my open window...I looked over at the other pilot, "Did you hear that?!"

He said "I think it was the cockpit door slamming shut behind us"...I said "It was already shut!"...then we said..."OH MAN, was that our wingman crashing into the canyon wall?!?!" A frantic radio call confirmed Charlie 2 was one turn behind us and not a smoking hole.

So we pressed on to the LZ. It was truly spectacular.

We lined up for the approach...there were spectators everywhere!  We landed and started unloading. The election officials were there to meet us and help with unloading. The Mangustas flew overhead, one low and one up very high out side the canyon keeping watch.

The Italian Colonel gave the village its own little airshow....we liked it too. Unloading was supposed to take 15 to 20 minutes....like usual, it took twice as long. It's always total chaos, even when you tell the Afghan pilots, we have to hurry, our escorts are running out of gas! I asked the Colonel to shoot a few rounds overhead to speed things up...

All the boxes, tables, chairs, and ballots were FINALLY unloaded. We called the Mangustas to tell them we were ready to for takeoff...the led us out, we followed Tomahawk 1 back the way we came. As we rounded a bend in the canyon, I said "that's were we heard that bang"...followed by two every loud BOOMs!!! We radioed to the formation that we were taking fire and climbed up and out of the canyon, Charlie 2 did the same thing, Tomahawk 1 immediately performed a very aggressive course reversal and dove into the area were we'd just been shot at...and the saw a 4th RPG being shot at us.  

So...oh yeah, the first BOOM we heard on the way in...it was an RPG air burst. ...ooooops. Just the cabin door slamming shut? He's the one that said it...'My bad!"

Guess maybe we should have picked a different route to fly back?

Speaking of flying back...we still had another load of election materials to take out there. While we were eating lunch, gassing our helicopters and loading the second load of stuff...(well, by 'we', I mean the Afghans left to go eat lunch, and 'we' loaded the cargo and fueled the helicotpers...our Afghan crew members tend to dissappear when it comes time to load, no worries though, they show up right when we're done so they can tell us we did something wrong)...Anyway, while 'we' were loading and such, the Italian Colonel came over and said, with a swagger and a smile, "what a great day! only  4 RPG's...no problem! It was great wasn't it?!" He meant it! He wasn't even being sarcastic! 

He said "but maybe we should go back in a different way? What do you think?" ...Yes please!

And Afghan Army officer came over to tell us "I told you not to fly that way!". Um.....right. He gave us a list of villages, written in Dari on a napkin and told us they were safe, it was okay to fly over them. That was one translation, the other was, these villages are dangerous don't fly over them. Awesome! We did not have our best interpreter with us that day. We pulled our maps...90% of Afghans can't read maps...he fell into that category. Oh, and all of our maps written in English. So we went with what we'd planned. Okay, Okay....he was right! We shouldn't have flown that way!

So there we were, loaded up and ready for round two! There was a US State department official there at the airport we were using...she asked to come along, since she was a she, we said "sure, hop in". The Afghan flight engineer let her sit with him on the middle bench...

The other pilot took this picture...I was driving, don't worry I was still looking where I was going mostly. State Department chick rolled with us with no body armor and thought it was cool we'd been shot at. She heard the BOOM's too...and she was ready to back for the second time.

This is the crew...The Italians gunship drivers are good stuff. So, in the last post we joked about the meaning of ISAF. I stand corrected...these guys are the real deal. Their Colonel is the old school kind of warrior that is rare these days. When we  flew up for the mission to Qal-E Now, he flew the CH-47 Chinook, when we all landed (2 Mangustas, 2 Mi-17's and the Chinook), he climbed into the lead Mangusta and flew as mission commander and flight lead. It has been a pleasure and an honor to fly with these guys. They take care of us, watch over us and are extremely patient and understanding with the Afghan Flying Circus.

The end of a long day...it's Miller time, or Tuborg and some crappy Non-Alcoholic malt nastiness. 

Oh yeah....we checked for damage after the RPG attack and did not find any...until the next morning. There was a small whole in one of the main rotor blades. No problem, have Orange Fanta can and SupreGlue, will travel...

Wanna make a bet?

It's been too long since that last update...things have been hectic aaaaand pretty stupid too! One of the things they forget to teach us when we went to 'How to be a Mentor' training, at Ft Dix, NJ (it sucked as bad as the name sounds)...where was I? Oh yeah, they tried to teach us how to mentor our Afghan counter parts. Fine, but no one told me I'd be 'mentoring' or advising Spanish Colonels and Italian Generals too! I'll get to that later....and the real meaning of ISAF. It supposedly means International Security Assistance Force....it really means I Suck At Fighting. 

Or Italians Suck At Fighting....let me say, we've met a lot of really good Italian dudes...but the General....uh, not so much.

Every time we get rocketed here on base...it's by the same bad guys from the same location. There are some folks here, that specialize in 'fixing' those kinds of issues. Let's just say they are not European...they have offered to take care of the problem, permanently. The Italian General said  'no'....they don't want to upset anyone. Their answer? Pay the Taliban not to rocket our base! Nice! Until they raised the price...

This same genius General ordered someone to drive a crane out into the airplane graveyard, which is on Afghan Air Corp land. This is outside the ISAF camp perimeter. With no coordination with the Spanish camp commander and more importantly without asking the Afghans...genius General orders someone to take/steal an old airplane wreck from the Afghans. He wanted to make a monument inside the ISAF camp.

The Afghan Colonel that I mentor and advise told me that if the Italian general did not come to his office to apologize, he was going to hold a press conference and tell media that ISAF was stealing Afghan property. The Italian general did not see why the Afghans would be upset that he was going onto their land without asking and taking whatever he wanted without asking. That's two and half days I'll never get back....but I did convince them to send a 'representative' with a bottle of whiskey to smooth it out, no press conference.

The Italians do have a cool restaurants .... you have to make reservations even! This was the Chinese buffet night. Yes, the chinese buffet at an Italian restaurant in Afghanistan.

 

 Afghan Chinese lobster... Tuscany like restaurant .... things you don't see every day.

  

 Another highlight...the swine flu. Some Spanish dudes brought the pig flu to peaceful Camp Arena. Our Spanish and Dutch friends demonstrate the proper protocol to keep from spreading the porkfish flu...while we were hanging out with the Lithuanians.

  

 Ah...'The Principal'  ...he just explained to us how women are respected in Aghanistan...which explains the look on my face. Okay...he actually educated us a little, the United States was the first country to officially recognize Afghanistan when it gained independence from England.

 I learned some other things too... like missing a huge hunk of your tail rotor is, in the words of one of our Afghan pilots... 'no problem!'  Seriously, there's nothing wrong with this right?! What could possibly go wrong with something that spins really fast missing a giant chunk of metal? 

  

 No problem...this guy climbed up the tail, like a spider monkey, in his underwear and socks. He totally fixed it. No problem.

 And thanks to the Air Guard....for the tornadic dust storm blowing crap all over our Mi-17. Thanks you guys rock.

This is Stretch and his ... uh, 'friend'. The Army calls them battle buddies. They like to take scenic rides on that completely hetero (about as hetero as a speedo) 4-wheeler through downtown Farah, stroll down the river banks and share watermelon in the moonlight. Don't forget, the Lanky One is the most powerful Mi-17 pilot in Herat, according to the Afghans. Someone in a movie once said 'that's like being the smartest person with downs syndrome'. 

   

And one of our friends here...eats more than the 4 of us put together, though Stretch doesn't really count as a whole person, he's a vegetarian....so make that 3 and half.  Like any good friend would do...we sometimes say .... 'I bet you can't eat....'

Okay, she won the 'I bet you can't put the whole thing in your mouth all at once'....so the next bet was the whole bag of cheesy poofs...Afghan cheesy poofs...that's rough. Though we did discover the secret to her powers....she has no spleen.

This time...she bit off more than she could chew, the bet was the whole bag in an hour. The Giant called her a sally and showed her how it was done.