Birds and the American Gangster

This a highlight real from the Afghan national elections. We flew several missions to distribute and retrieve ballots. Many, well, all the places we went to required gunships to go with us, because you know, those rascally Taliban a-holes don't want their countrymen and women to vote. Okay...a lot of them are not from Afghanistan, they come from other 'Stans and would rather the Afghan people return to the stone age and the public stoning of women age...blowing up girls' schools or just throwing acid on them and other such noble acts. Did I ever mention that my interpreter was beaten and thrown in jail several times for not having a beard?

We did a lot of flying in that week. It was challenging, rewarding and a little crazy...but in the end, it was just plain fun. The Italians were awesome, except the they like to fly at 10,000 to 12,000 feet, that's waaaay scarier than the RPG's! The Mangustas have autopilot, they read magazines, drink coffee, Skype with wives and girl friends, eat sandwiches as they relax in air-conditioned comfort...all while flying to fight. I think their seats are those really nice message chairs. In the mean time, back in the Mi-17 we're just trying to keep it right side up and holding our breath so we don't get hypoxic at 12k feet.

This is on the way to a place called Pusht Rod. We got called in the afternoon to go pick up ballots before bad guys burned down the polling stations like they'd done in Shindan. Italian ground forces were supposed to retrieve these ballots but the road they were on was so littered with IED's (improvised explosive devices) that they could not make it to the village during daylight. 

We only had one operating helicopter and we always fly with two, a wing man that can pick us up. So the Italians sent a Huey with us and their gunships. It was awesome to fly 10k over badguy country with a Huey and two gunships.

We landed in a field next to an Afghan National Police headquarters building and piled the ballot boxes on board...and then the unplanned passengers. That's always sketchy! No one told us to pick up 'officials' but they were claiming they had to go with the ballots...but there were too many of them...making it unsafe for us to take off due to the weight. Oh, and we didn't have an interpreter with us. My copilot spoke a little English...no problem.

The UN election workers told us later that they heard the insurgents showed up about 5 minutes after we took off from that police station. A week later our Italian escorts took fire right in the same place and they returned fire. A lot of it. And there are quite a bit fewer bad guys living in that village now. One of my friends had a round come through the cockpit and blow out one of his multi function displays in the instrument panel, he was flying in the gunner seat that day...The front seat, he told the pilot, 'we need to go back'...as in back into the same area. They had some cleaning up to do, and they did.  Because Italians can only return fire if fired upon, they go looking for bullets and RPG's coming their way. That's pretty cool, even if they wear speedos sometimes. It almost cancels out the speedos.

We took a couple trips to a scenic place called Purchaman. A quaint little village nestled into valley between some 12,000 foot mountains. We landed in a river bed. The Afghans sent two people to load ballot boxes into two Mi-17's...a lot of boxes. Good plan. Until we had to leave because it took 40 minutes instead of 20 to load all of the cargo. Our escorts were out of gas and it was time to leave...and that's when the other truck full of ballots showed up. Funny, we saw that truck driving away as we landed...how nice of them to come back right at take off time! 

Oh yeah, they also love to put the ballot boxes right next to where they want us to land. And the Afghan pilots love landing next to really light weight boxes full of paper...I heard something about confetti at one pick up site. Don't worry though, somebody waded in and rescued these boxes!

At least when we went back the second time, they sent more people to help load, and this time none of the ballots went into the water! We do what we can to preserve the democratic process.

We dropped the ballots off in Farah. It gets sorta hot there...like 115 or so. And the whole Rama-lama-dingdong  fasting thing works really well for the Afghan pilots and crew...who haven't eat or drank (is that right 'drank'?) since 4:00 in the morning. They are doing really well by 1:00 in the afternoon in 115 degree heat. Did I mention they're flying helicopters in that condition? It's totally safe to fly in combat that way. They turn into fatigued puddles of goo by about 2 in the afternoon. I try to get them home before then.

This day had a mission to Jawand, via Qal-E Now...we took off with two Mangustas, a Huey and a Chinook. It was a very nice cool morning after being windy all night. Six helicopters left Herat and headed north...

Until we got to this...those are called clouds. And the Afghans are terrified by those harmless white fluffy little guys. The Afghan pilot that was flying with me saw them first....'Capt Sean, there are clouds, NO CLOUDS!' I said, 'No problem....we won't fly into the clouds, I PROMISE'...

But...I said 'those clouds are low, we can go over them'...he said, 'yes, but NO CLOUDS!' 

"Right Right, no clouds, don't worry we will not fly into the clouds, I promise!'  This conversation went on for another few miles...always ending in NO CLOUDS.

I said 'it might be clear just on the otherside...we'll make sure we can always see the ground okay?'...he looked at me like was an idiot and said, 'Capt Sean, did you check the weather today?' Um....of course, I briefed with the Italians in the morning, they said weather was good!

As soon as our nose crossed over the line of low clouds I suddenly felt a whole lot of left pressure on the cyclic (the stick)...my pilot was 'helping' me...so I told the formation lead the two Mi-17's were breaking out of the formation and returning home. Whew! the cloud monster almost got us!

It was good though, the Afghans tend to crash when they come into contact with clouds or blowing dust.  Aaaand, the clouds went all the way up to our destination....the Italians flew all the way up another 35 minutes...and had to turn around because they couldn't land. ooops. Oh yeah, I went by the weather shop when I got back, it's run by the Italians. The weather guy said, 'of course it was cloudy! We briefed this last night!' hhmmmmmm...

No problem, we went back the next day. We all flew up to Qal-E Now to stage for two pick up runs into Jawand. That's the place we got shot at last time. The mission planning had several pre-planned routes in and out of the canyon. We briefed a pre-planned sequence for our two trips in and out. When I say 'we' I mean me and the Italians. The Afghans come to work from about 8:00 AM to 11:30 AM or so. All the planning takes place later in the day and the mission briefings the evening prior to the mission.  They have absolutely no idea how much planning or work goes into coordination these missions. Anyway...I briefed them in the morning on the mission sequence, they said it was a good plan. Qal-E Now is a Spanish run PRT (provincial reconstruction team). It's an airstrip that double as Main St for the village.

It was busy that day! Spanish Super Pumas, C-130's and C295's were rolling through in addition to our Mi-17, Mangustas and the Huey.

This is the nose of an armored Mi-17, those little plates of steel or whatever they are, stop bullets or something. It seems like they should let us test it, I'd really like to shoot one just to see, who wouldn't right?!

These are our escorts getting gas.

One of my favorite things about Qal-E Now, besides the bomb drop toilets...which are really really tricky in flight suit...is the local scenery, you never know what will show up on the runway! This heard of goats is cruzin' down the strip, lookin for some sheep to beat up.

These guys are some of our best friends here in Herat. They are a small unit that flies a Casa 295...or as they say, a Charlie Two Niner Five.  They rip, it's fun watching them take off and land, it's like an airshow every time!

Spanish Army Super Puma's...or Pew-mah. We don't hang out too much them, but they are good guys too. If we were ever shot down our injured, they are the combat rescue guys.

Some of the boys posing in front of a Mangusta. These guys are some of our Afghan compadres. That's a spanish word right? Wait, that's an Italian helicopter though....ooops.

With everyone gassed up, we headed out to Jawand to pick up the ballots...on one of our sneaky pre-briefed routes. It's an awesome run, even narrower than the one they shot at us in. It was call the 'Pink Route'...they all had colors...not sure why the Italians picked pink....or why they wear speedos for that mater. Anyway, the gunships went in, swept the area and gave us the all clear...and dove in.

This is the run in to the landing area, it was spectacular. 

We flew in on a left 270 degree turning approach to land next the the ballot boxes. And this time...nothing was blown into the river! 

This mission took two trips to get all of the voted ballots out of the canyon. We dropped the first load back at Qal-E Now. Aaannnd it was lunch time. The Italians don't miss lunch time. And just like we briefed, we departed on the 'Blue Route'. Except not! Apparently when the Afghans said it was good plan...they meant just fly the Pink route 4 times in a row, instead of changing it up to keep the bad guys guessing! I missed that somewhere in the translation. Back out on the Pink route it was...back to Qal-E Now for fuel for us and our birds.

Yes...those are coolers in the Huey. I've said it before, the Italians and Spanish too, go to war better than we do. Those are full of cold cokes and really good sammiches, a nice picnic really. The Huey goes with the Mangustas for missions like this to bring the picnic lunch and maintenance dudes for the Mangustas. They always feed us and make sure we have cold coke and water...so not only do they keep us safe from bad guys with their gunships, they feed us too...and they have really good coffee!!!

We usually need to help speed up the loading process, this is our pet Marine helping expedite. We were getting ready to take off...my copilot says 'Waaiiiit!!!' I asked why? He said 'there are 40 people on Charlie 2!' Apparently, 40 people had pushed their way onto our wingman's aircraft! that's 17 too many to be able to take off! They had a lot of 'officials' apparently. 

Many people, especially women, voted in these outlying areas under threats of torture and death. There are also places no one got to vote because the Taliban controlled the areas and it was unsafe to deliver the voting materials.

But it's a beautiful country, the landscape is spectacular. 

I almost forgot...the 'Birds', one of our American Flight Engineers taught the Afghans a code word for pretty girls. The code word is 'bird'. So on our Purchaman mission, we were refueling Farah when there was some bird watching going on. The US Army supplies the jet fuel for all the aircraft going in and out. We'd just returned to our Mi-17's after eating lunch...well, lots of ice cream anyway, when the refueling was getting started. There was an Army girl working the fuel truck, she had her sleeves rolled up, revealing the tatoo on her shoulder...one of my Afghan friends sees her and says...'I've heard of this, the American Gangster Woman'. Then she turned around, my dear Afghan friend almost fell over backwards...he bumped into the helicopter...that was the only reason he didn't ball over backwards.

This led to the introduction of more code words.