It's really embarrassing when your vehicle rolls away, into a bad neighborhood. We had to fly down to pick up the passengers....that needed a ride after their bus rolled away. This town is pretty far south and not many Americans have ever been there. Funny thing, there was another wrecked air pane from 15 years ago...same thing happened to that one.
We were supposed to fly down, pick up the passengers and take them back to another airport. It was getting very late in the day, our boss in Kabul said "don't worry about it, there is a whole KANDAC of Afghan Army or Police down there, they'll take good care of you!" ...right, no problem, sounded like a great idea!
Now, I'm not sure how many soldiers make up a KANDAC, or what it stands for or if I'm spelling it right....either way, I'm pretty sure it's more than 5 guys. Which is exactly how many Afghan Police we saw...one for almost each letter of KANDAC?
After we took some pictures and interviewed the meter maid that told the guy not to park there...it was sunset and we had no idea where we were spending the night. We don't fly at night, since the Afghans have NEVER flown in the dark. (and yet, so many of them think they don't need to learn anything from us?)
I asked the crews if the helicopters were going to be guarded...'Oh of course! there will be two guards!". I said 'great!'...are we sleeping on the helicopters? My guys said "NO, of course not, you're coming into town with us!" ....ummm, so there we were two crackers (me and my Marine) headed downtown.
Turns out we got to stay in the 'Freedom Hotel'...right next to the governor's palace. It was really nice! The inside was pretty clean, we even had a tv in our room! The beds were the hardest thing I've ever slept on, but the room was free and it came with meals included...drinks too, Pebsi.
The next morning we had to wait out a dust storm before taking off...this is looking down the road. The road coming in the compound...the road that went through a nice neighborhood. Our pilots said it's really safe, don't worry, the houses belong to the smugglers. Nobody will make problems in that neighborhood. The next morning they told us how brave we were...the first Americans to go downtown. WHAAAT?! they told us it was all good!!!
We finally got out after the dust settled...we flew back to Farah with the passengers so they could get on another airplane. You think you've had bad airline experiences...the passengers had to find a place to stay the night after the parking brake incident, get on helicopters the next day then spend the night in Farah because it was almost dark when we got to Farah!
We had to convince an Afghan colonel, that runs around in a Russian Army General's uniform and likes to be called 'General', that it was a bad idea to fly the Mi-17's back to the dented up airplane right before dark. Genius.
Oh yeah...on the way to Herat we flew by this really nice...unoccupied Afghan Army base. It was built under direction of a US Navy Commander, she thought she was going to get the entire city of Farah to move away from the river, to the middle of this waste land and live around this base. When it was finished being built, she told the Afghan Army, 'here is your new base'...they said 'are you otta your mind? why would we move out in the middle of a desert!?'. It's still sitting empty, and the city has not moved away from the river, how weird? We heard she went home and was promoted.
We finally got to fly home from Farah...on the way we received enemy fire. Well, the lead air craft did anyway... they almost returned fire but one of the pilots said maybe they shouldn't try to kill the shooter...
This was from a rock. Some dude in a field stood up and hucked a tennis ball sized rock at lead. They were flying 130knots and 50 feet. Seriously?!... what are the chances?!!? Right in the windshield!
No problem...easy fix. All you need is a Red Bull can, some glue and contact paper! Yes, they flew again like this...
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