Lima Charlie Episode 18 with CW4 (Ret) Chris Wilson

Retired CW4 Chris Wilson who was a OH-58D Kiowa Warrior Pilot & Instructor Pilot and C-12 King Air Standardization Pilot. Chris was also Master Army Aviator. He is currently employed by commercial airlines last 10 years. Veteran of Bosnia 1999, Iraq 2004-2005 Kiowa Warriors with 25th ID, Iraq 2008 and Afghanistan 2011 fixed wing 224 MI Bn

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
H m hm.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
I've got no reason the teeth of a killing scene
with the need to please you. Where the light goes
bring lest believe them in the zone to be from
a end.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
Of a yankdom, a yange to see but a grid.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
I'm a say when you came to me, because all weird.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
I'm a one of a kind, and I'll bring death
to the glacier about a week.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Another river of blood running under my feet or as
in a violet long ago, stand next to me.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
You'll never stand alone.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
I'm last to leave, but the first to go. The Lord,
make me dead before you make me old feet on
the fear of the devil inside of the enemy faces
in my sight, being with a hand or shoe, with
a mind, gill with a heart light our jam, guys,

(01:07):
so I am a worry them. I read you, Lema Charlie,
loud and clear.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
All right, everyone, Welcome to episode eighteen of Lima Charlie.
This is one of only I think the second one
we're doing live. Most of these we record ahead of
time and uh and get them set up. But this
one we are doing live tonight, and I welcome a
long time best friend of mine. Uh, mister Chris Wilson,
also known as c W four retired Wilson.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
But I have a lot more nicknames for you. But
how you doing, Chris.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Good to see you, buddy doing great man love the intro.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
Yeah, a lot of a lot of pictures on there. Huh. Yeah,
there's a couple of Easter eggs in there.

Speaker 3 (02:07):
People haven't no one's commented on yet, so I'm not
I'm not sure when they're if they've ever seen him.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
But yeah, yeah, I got a little aviation in there too.
The love, trying to get a little bit of everything.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
Yeah, a little first calv a little love New York.

Speaker 3 (02:19):
Yeah, yeah, the uh you got to represent, uh gotta
represent first team now back at Fort Hood no longer
Fort Cavazos, back there being Fort.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
Hood again, but now I can find it and say it.
But yeah, well, hey, Chris, good having you on, Bud.

Speaker 3 (02:38):
You are a war fighter, you have multiple deployments and uh,
that's the reason why we do leave a Charlotte to
capture these stories. So I'm glad you're giving us some
of your evening to go through some of this. And hey,
and your first time on my show. I've been doing
the show since o seven in one flavor or another.
And uh, first time I've been able to get you
on here. I didn't realize.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Today we were talking, I was like, how have I
never had you on this show?

Speaker 2 (03:02):
I was wondering the same thing, You've been busy? Where
have I been?

Speaker 1 (03:06):
I know?

Speaker 2 (03:07):
Well, thanks for having me.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
Where's Waldough except where's Chris g Money on the road? So,
like I said, we've been friends about thirty three thirty
four years. Were best of friends. We've known each other
over many things and many events in our lives. You
spent a lot of time together, but U and I
know some of what your your deployments and things you've done,

(03:30):
but you know, I don't know it all, and so
excited to help get some of that out there tonight.
And so why don't you start with just kind of
introducing yourself kind of what how you came into the military,
what you know, what was your reason for going in?
How did that play out? Was that your friend always
it was always a childhood intention or how did that happen?

Speaker 2 (03:50):
Well, it probably starts with the fact that my dad
was in the Navy, and the first place I remember
as a young kid was living on Moffett Field in
San Jose Mountain View, California, and so I'd always loved aviation,
kind of admired it from a distance. My dad got
out of the Navy and raised us in Silicon Valley,

(04:13):
and during high school years, I probably wasn't the best student,
had a lot of fun. It was a great time.
Loved sports, being outside and very adventurous, and I just
had a feeling that maybe I would go into the military,
and that kind of materialized for me when I was

(04:34):
in my probably halfway through my junior year or so,
one of my best friend's brother went to MCRD in
San Diego and became a Marine, and I got to
go on that trip with his family to go to
his graduation, and I saw what happened with this guy

(04:54):
that I knew that was really nothing special. It was just,
you know, kind of a normal kid, and joined the
Marine Corps totally transformed him. I was blown away by it,
and I said, that's what I want to do, but
not in the Marines. That was a little intimidating, but

(05:14):
definitely gave me the desire to serve. Ended up going
to the Navy recruiter, talked to them. Really wasn't too
interested in that, stopped into the Air Force. They were
all in the same strip mall, so I could just
you know, check them all out. That was a no.
That was a pretty easy no. And walked into the
Army office and just had a good feeling. They were

(05:37):
very nice and showed me some videos, and one thing
led to another, and I was up in Oakland going
to the MEPs nineteen eighty seven and wasn't even sure
if I'd joined, but I put my hand up, went
delayed entry, and went back home, finished my senior year

(05:57):
of high school and told my parents I joined the Army.
They were pretty shocked, to say the least, because we
didn't talk about it. Not upset, I wouldn't say they
were upset, just probably more. My dad was happy and
my mom was a little sad, you know, I'd leaving home.
But that's where it started. In nineteen eighty seven, October,

(06:19):
after high school and off of Fort Knox, Kentucky for
basic training.

Speaker 3 (06:26):
Wow, okay, so you hit all you walked down the
strip mall, just hit each one of them. And I'm
just curious, like I've never heard this story. When you
what was the quick no in the Air Force?

Speaker 1 (06:36):
I mean was it. It just didn't seem like I
had the kind of jobs you wanted.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
I expressed interest in aviation, and they told me that
they were going to tell me what I would do
and that I could not serve in any field just
because I said that's what I wanted to do. The
Navy was a little bit more accommodating, but I really
struggled with going on a boat, and their uniforms at
the time were really not something I could see myself wearing,

(07:04):
so I kind of that kind of turned it off
a little bit for me, even though my dad probably
would like me to go into the Navy, but you know,
our trajectory would have been completely different. You and I
never would have met. A lot of things in life
would be totally different. And walking into the Army recruiting
office staffs are in green couldn't have been nicer, more accommodating.

(07:27):
Guy wanted to, you know, take me to lunch talk
about the future, and just really said a really good tone,
and I just I kind of believed in him that
this was the right path for me.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
Wow, I can't believe you remember the recruiter's.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
Name and I can visualize him right now.

Speaker 3 (07:45):
Wow, So did you know early on you wanted to
be in aviation? Is that kind of what you wanted
the whole time?

Speaker 2 (07:54):
Yes? Absolutely. I went up to Oakland trying to be
in a helicopter mechanic, some sort of crew member working
on them, avionics, even engine power plant, and all those
MS's were closed. That I found out up there that
none of them were open until they showed me a
video of a flight operation specialist, which I'd never heard of.

(08:16):
But it was still going to be guaranteed that I'd
be working in aviation, and so I said ninety three, Papa,
all right, let's give us a try and see where
it goes.

Speaker 3 (08:26):
I'm just curious because you and I came in within
months of each other. The uh was that video on
a big laser disc?

Speaker 2 (08:33):
No, it was one of those little boxes that had
the corners and you had to stick your head into it,
and it was like a like a little tray that
you put something in and it would play a video.
Very old people don't even know what those are anymore. Yeah,
but like I'm the only one that could look at it.
I'm looking into this box and I get to watch

(08:54):
some videos and.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
Ref on Sunday, looking at replace.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
Yeah, it's good. That was it, man, I was hooked.

Speaker 3 (09:03):
Yeah, and uh so you shipped out and uh and
went to Fort Knox and then uh and then how
basic went, Well, that's just pretty much what you expected.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
Yeah, Basic training was great. Eighteen years old, you know,
nothing can stop you. I think it was probably still hard.
Then a lot of road marches, I don't know, heartbreak, misery,
several of those hills at Fort Knox PT was interesting.

(09:32):
You had to do it, you know, getting around it.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
I do.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
Have you said, think about some funny stories about when
you were in basic training, but I have one, and
it was literally maybe even reception. And I was I
was in this big auditorium and I get told from
somebody up in the stage, hey you quit quit sleeping,
wake up. And I'm looking left right. You know, everybody

(09:58):
knows exactly this feeling. I wasn't eyes closed, so I'm
wondering who they're looking at. But he's looking at me,
and he's like, yeah, you they pulled me out some
good runs up the aisle, you know, old movie theater seating,
pulls me outside and uh. The first thing he says
to me is get down. I didn't know what that was.

(10:22):
He's like, get out on the ground, knock him out.
I didn't know what pushups were, flutter kicks, any of that.
I'd start getting tired. You'd say, roll over on your back.
This guy rolls me around for two or three minutes
outside him, completely covered in dirt, sweat, terrified, And then
I get to go back in and I think I
was just made the example in that auditorium first one.

Speaker 3 (10:43):
So this was like right when you got the reception,
like you had you haven't had a haircut yet any
of that stuff.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
No, we'd had the haircut. It had been several days,
like maybe like the big meeting. Hey, this is where
you're gonna go off to. But very early on.

Speaker 1 (10:58):
Sleeping they pulled you out. You come back in weddy,
dirty and everything else there.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
And everyone's just terrified. They don't even want to look
at me.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
It was bad. You were damaged goods.

Speaker 2 (11:09):
Yeah. I didn't even know what what what he meant
when he said get down, and didn't know what to
knock him out. He told me to do push ups.
I'm like, all right, I can do push ups. I'll
do that now. I get tired, roll over, flair kick,
I don't even know.

Speaker 1 (11:22):
I don't know it.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
I learned quickly.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
That probably didn't help the situation any when he had
to explain it to you. But no, that's good.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
So then you went from there to I guess is
it Recker? Do you go to Rutger?

Speaker 2 (11:34):
I went to for Rucker, Alabama to attend a I
T and that was about a three month course. We
still use typewriters then, so I was really good at
that because I liked I like to.

Speaker 3 (11:47):
Type in in high school as well, lost art and
also now called Fort Rutcker again what I understand its
name is also changed back.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
So uh yeah maybe so yeah, it got they all did.

Speaker 2 (11:59):
Yeah Rocker Mother Rucker Home of Army Aviation.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
It is that.

Speaker 3 (12:05):
And then all right, so you got into that, you
did a few you did a few years as avation
operations specialist.

Speaker 1 (12:13):
It was it what you saw in the video and
your head, your head in the box.

Speaker 2 (12:17):
It was better?

Speaker 1 (12:18):
Was it better than that?

Speaker 2 (12:19):
Yeah? It was awesome. My first assignment was Germany. Third
I d when they were still in Wurtzburg and around
that area. But I was at a little air base
called Geeblestott and that's where the fourth Brigade, the aviation
Brigade for the third I D was located and it was.
It was wonderful. Yeah, I worked with just amazing people.

(12:41):
The unit mostly was made up of Cobra's and fifty
eight ALFHA Charlie's so an attack battalion, and my job,
my daily job was interacting with the pilots because we
would give them the keys to the aircraft. We maintained
their flight records, their physicals, all the mvgs we had

(13:01):
in a room. So I dealt mostly with the pilots
in the unit, and that just you know, furthered my
desire to think, Hey, maybe someday I could do.

Speaker 1 (13:11):
That as well. Yep. And then where'd you go from Germany?

Speaker 2 (13:15):
Went back to Fort Rucker and worked in the simulators.

Speaker 1 (13:19):
Oh really that was a design I was.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yeah, spent two years there working in the UH one simulator,
which is the flight trainer for the instrument phase of
flight school, and about maybe thirty two simulators in a
big building and all the fight students, Warrant officer or
candidates at the time still Warren officer candidates for the

(13:44):
entire linked to flight school. That change maybe in the
early nineties ninety three ish and the Warren Officer Candidate
school actually went to they got commissioned in about six
or eight weeks or so, you know, a little bit
shorter then you were W one through flight school. But
back in the nineteen ninety those candidates were there for

(14:06):
you know, sixteen twelve, sixteen months before they actually got
their WO one appointed to them.

Speaker 3 (14:12):
I'm sure being working in that you've got a chance
to do the simulator a number of times yourself.

Speaker 2 (14:16):
Yeah, I got These guys were great, the operators that
were working on them, and a bunch of civilian operators
mixed with military, and yeah, they took me into the
Huey sim and I ended up actually flying in that
simulator before I ever flew in a helicopter years before,
and was actually flying the UH one simulator and doing
instruments and instrument flying. So it's pretty fun.

Speaker 3 (14:39):
Yeah, further encourage you'd want to be a pilot. I mean,
then you're actually doing it, You're pulling the cyclic, the stick,
you're doing the pedals.

Speaker 1 (14:44):
You're probably like, yeah, this is really what I want
to do.

Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yeah. Yeah, it was still pretty far off in the
distance for me, you know, young, for not super motivated,
thinking maybe I was going to get out. Ended up
going to college while I was there and actually almost
minus about a class, did my associates degree there. I

(15:10):
finished it in Alaska, but Enterprise State Junior College got
my two year degree from there as an E four.
It's pretty cool. That was mostly my focus until they
told me that I needed to go to PODC if
I wanted to stay in and you know, consider re
enlisting and went to Fort Benning for PODC again fish

(15:31):
out of water aviation kid back four going to Fort Benning,
showing up with mostly infantry, tons of rangers, like pretty
pretty much fish out of water for me at that
time going there. But it was great, good experience. Pretty miserable,

(15:53):
that's right now.

Speaker 3 (15:53):
You look back and look at what the smile. Yeah,
I worn't that. And then you went, did you go
on from there to Alaska?

Speaker 2 (15:59):
Then I went to Alaska and that's where I met you.
I was up there at the Garrison Detachment with the
Huey's at Fort Greeley and Cold Regions Test Center Northern
Warfare Training Center said, two big kind of tenant units
that were at Fort Greeley. I do believe now that
it's changed significantly that base.

Speaker 3 (16:19):
I imagine I don't know how many aviation operations specialist
there are, but I imagined assignment like at the Simulation
Center or Fort Greeley, like they had to be super lucky.
I mean, I just probably people from that area that
can't get that kind of job. I can't call branch
and get it. I'd imagine those are very minimal, because
you know, number.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
Yeah, really cool jobs. I never asked for. I just
did whatever I was told. There was no branch manager
to call up and ask Cake, can I go here
and go there? The orders came down and there I
went right. But an awesome experience, both of them. Really.
Alaska was fantastic.

Speaker 3 (16:55):
Yes, we had a lot of good time up there,
and it was good for sure. And then you went
on from Alaska to how that progress?

Speaker 1 (17:01):
You went on from where? And then when did you
start maybe thinking you could be a pilot.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
So I had applied to warnofser Canada School two times.
I applied when I was at Fort Rutger and was
told no. I applied again when I was at Fort
Greeley and was again turned down. So maybe I applied
in ninety two ninety four Ish and then left Alaska,

(17:26):
got an assignment down to Fort campbl Kentucky, went to
the first of one hundred and first expect no Mercy Battalion,
probably really, you know, since third I d I just
did two basically garrison jobs, you know, Rucker being a
schoolhouse and then USAG part of Fort Greeley. My resume

(17:47):
was not probably that great, as you know, young E
four and then in Alaska E five and eventually making
staff sergeant at the same time as you and I
got assigned to go to Fort Camp, and I was
really on the fence if I wanted to stay in
or get out, go to college, try and do something
different with my life. And I had all the packet

(18:10):
was already done, and I said, you know, it's worth it.
It's an easy thing to just submit this, and I
shot it off with just a couple updated local letter
of recommendations from Chaining command and lo and behold came
out of the field one of those cycles and walked
in and decided to call and see if those results

(18:31):
were released, and found out the good news. I was
going to ship off to Fort Rucker in September of
ninety five.

Speaker 1 (18:40):
So that's it.

Speaker 3 (18:41):
You got in, got accepted, and did you know what
you wanted to fly? How does that work when you
go to you do you do you get to make
a wish list or do they just say you're going
to fly this airframe or based on test scores or
just random drawn up.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
Yeah, so the selection process for what aircraft that you
were going to get at that time was all based
on an OML on the OML order Merit was based
on not only flying, but you know, check rights, academic exams, PT,

(19:14):
maybe some sort of leadership input, you know, is this
person okay or whatever had a small role in it,
but mostly it was your check rights, your exam scores,
and your PT score all combined to kind of put
you on a list of where you're at in your class.
We had about forty people in our flight school class.
That's a mix of warrant officers and lieutenants, mostly second lieutenants.

(19:39):
We had one captain that was from the Guard who
was coming through as a captain who was our class leader,
but mostly people that are coming out of college or
just coming right out of warn Off Scandon School. And
there's four different airplane aircraft at that time that you
could choose so the Apache, the Blackhawk of the Chinook,

(19:59):
and then fifty eight Delta. I just left one hundred
and first in an Apache battalion, and I mean PATCHI
is a beautiful thing. It's not for everyone. And every
pilot in that unit told me you need to fly
Blackhawks because they're everywhere your assignments. You can go anywhere
you fly in Apache, you're gonna be in a division.

(20:20):
There's only ten of them, and that's all you're gonna
do for the rest of your career is be in
a division asset. And same thing with the Chinook. You
would probably be your core asset, but most likely you're
going to be associated with division stuff. But the Blackhawk,
you could go to Korea, you can go to Japan,
you can go to the Middle East, SINAI a lot
of EP detachments. So I was all in, I'm I'm

(20:42):
gonnast fly Blackhawks, and you have to choose three, and
so you can leave one off. I left the Apache
off and I put Blackhawks, and.

Speaker 1 (20:52):
I bet that was right.

Speaker 3 (20:53):
I met a lot of guys want a patchy, right,
they want guns sexy bird.

Speaker 2 (20:57):
There was a few. There was a few. It was
not overwhelming like you know it was. It was easy
to get it if you wanted it. Oh, they hadn't
had enough numbers. So and then I thought Chinook and
then fifty eight Delta because I had to put a
third one. I mean, if I could have just put
two on the list, it would have been blackouts and Chinook's.

(21:19):
And I do remember the day that that announcement came.
We were doing a class photo and everybody's out at
that one of those helicopters on a stick at the
entrance to the base and taking a class photo. And
then the chip, our class leader, said, I got the assignments,
and he read them off and got to my name,
and you know, Wilson, fifty eight d's to drum both

(21:43):
of them. I didn't choose. I had furthest thing from
my mind on both of those, and I was I
was pretty disappointed. I'd done fairly well in my class
and thought might have a shot, and that's not how
it worked. So to the fifty eight D I went,
best thing I ever did.

Speaker 3 (22:03):
So in fight school you learned how to fly in
the HWI right, were they still flying to Huey? Were
they flying the old Yeah?

Speaker 2 (22:08):
So they did have hughies when you go when you
go to so fifty eights and apaches would be more
like a scout attack role, whereas Chinooks and Blackhawks would
be lyft. So after doing the basic helicopter training in
the kind of like it was a th sixty seven

(22:29):
at the time, but just more or less a jet ranger,
you would do your primary and your instruments, and then
when you went to like the basic combat skills, you
would branch off. So fifty eighths and apaches would go
back into a Bell jet ranger for their advanced combat skills,

(22:50):
and then if you were lyft, you went into the hweie.
So we kind of went about fifty to fifty at
that point in the class kind of the attack guys
and the the lyft guys. So my advanced combat skills
was all done in the fifty eight alfha Charlie.

Speaker 3 (23:09):
Okay, and you you went you got picked to go
to flights out what around seven years in, roughly around
eight and a half, eight and a half. Yeah, So
then you went to that, went through fifty eight, made
it through there, I assume, well, got up the drum.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
And in New York, no desire to go up there.

Speaker 2 (23:27):
You didn't even know how to look on a map.

Speaker 1 (23:29):
Yeah, you're a West Coast boy, yep, right, and uh
and uh how was that? Where'd you go? And how
was that? And when did you? When did how'd you
get that first apployment?

Speaker 2 (23:40):
So went to Drum April ninety seven, fifty eight tenth
Mountain and one ten attack, and I ended up spending
five years there, partially because I really did fall in
love with the place. I met my wife up there.
You were living up there, it was great. I mean

(24:00):
we lived on a lake. We had boats and jet
skis and motorcycles, and life was really simple. And went
out to work about thirty miles. We lived along ways
from the base, but we were on the lake, and
so like our off time was amazing compared to people
who actually had to live on base. And I think
that's why some people say, oh I hated for a Drum,

(24:22):
because maybe they didn't live in such a nice place
like on base or in a town that was close
covered in snow seven months out of the year. But
living out on the lake and the river was amazing
game changer for me. Yeah, And that led to the
first deployment for me, which was Bosnia in nineteen ninety nine.

(24:42):
As for six maybe ish I'm frame so Tuzla.

Speaker 1 (24:48):
How was that deployment?

Speaker 3 (24:50):
What was you know, we've had a few people in here,
and obviously both of us know a lot of people
that didn't deployments all over. But how was that deployment
for you? Was it what you thought it was going
to be? Was it was there any kinetic operations to it?
Was it more just kind of a chill and just
well glad nothing happened kind of thing, or how did
that work out for you?

Speaker 2 (25:08):
I would have to say definitely a peacekeeping operation and
very safe. No, there was not really any much of
an enemy at all, especially for what we were doing,
but it was more of a presence and just there
to you know, maintain that presence. We were in Tuslow,
We flew all around the country, never never felt in
danger of anything on the ground. There were little things

(25:31):
there going on, but it was mostly on the ground
and did not involve any kind of direct contact with helicopters.

Speaker 3 (25:41):
You never got called to do any kind of close
support or observation for ground troops or something. Now, no
experience a lot of Europe when you were there, did
you get to get out and see anything.

Speaker 2 (25:51):
Oh oh, so you bring that up. Everybody got a
four day pass to go on R and R to
Budapest except me because I was leaving three weeks early
to go back to dron and go to the instructor
pilot course for three months. So somehow I was getting

(26:12):
over because I was leaving a few weeks early, so
I only did five and a half months instead of
six and and then I left and went for three
months down to Fort Rutger, went to an instructor pilot course.
So yeah, that was my lovely commander at the time
decided that I wasn't worthy to have a four day pass.
Everybody else raved about it, though. There was a good

(26:33):
time for what you heard Budapest. Yeah, it was a
great time.

Speaker 1 (26:36):
Was IP school just as fun?

Speaker 2 (26:39):
No, No, it was a lot of work. It was rough.
It was rough. Oh and by the way, I was
newly married, so she had to go with me, which
was difficult because you know, you're now you're in a
hotel room trying to study and then go through a
course fairly demanding. But it all worked out.

Speaker 1 (26:56):
Yeah, and that was down. That was down at Rutger.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
I was at Fort Rucker again, always going back to
that place.

Speaker 3 (27:01):
Yep, the first scripts for her to Alabama, but yeah,
Daleville in got it, So you did that, went to
ip course, then you went back up to the Tenth Mountain.

Speaker 2 (27:16):
Back to drum a couple more years there and then
PCs to Hawaii in two thousand and two. Yep, Tummar
Robo two and went to the twenty fifth I D
one two five attack at Wheeler Army Airfield right up
in the middle there next to Schofield Barracks. Beautiful place.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
What was it when you got ordered for Hawaii? Was
it like, were you and her both with you?

Speaker 3 (27:39):
Were You're like, yes, Hawaii awesome where you get some
because you're West coast boy.

Speaker 1 (27:43):
I want to get some surfing in, you know. Oh yeah,
I was that kind of like, Okay, the Army's done
me right now.

Speaker 2 (27:49):
So that one I actually asked for and went to
HRC at the time down Alexandria did an in person visit,
put on my dressed greens, went down there and made
an appointment with the branch manager and walked in and said,
I've just spent five years at Fort Drumm and the
cold went to Bosnia and looking to try and go
to Hawaii, and he said done, know, no questions about it.

(28:15):
He's like, you show up here in person, wearing your
dress greens and take the time to drive aight whatever.
I don't know how long it was eight hours down
to DC, and I said, all right, perfect, Hawaii it is.

Speaker 1 (28:28):
That That's what paid off. Was just you showing the effort. Yeah, absolutely, okay,
you got there. And uh and how was Hawaii? How
was that? How long were you in Hawaii?

Speaker 2 (28:38):
So we went back up one little bit before that.
So driving down to HRC, we drove through New Jersey,
New York City going south as the twin towers were smoking.
So it was literally it was like a week after
maybe two it was still you know, smoking from the ground.

(29:00):
That was probably for several weeks. But that was our
drive down to HRC.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (29:06):
Fun and and JT, I think is in the chat
he's he's watching uh the daba. The two days before
we were all together, Oh gosh, camping camping, uh, JT
and uh and you and us, and we were all
together camping.

Speaker 1 (29:29):
Because he was getting ready to PCs.

Speaker 3 (29:31):
Not the bringing GT story. But then now that I'll
go all that happened. We were camping on eight nine September.

Speaker 1 (29:39):
Right before that. I didn't realize you went after that
was when I.

Speaker 2 (29:42):
Think JT might have still been in I think he
was still in the lodging, like temporary lodging. He was
supposed to be leaving really soon, and he got stuck
in the hotel there for a few extra weeks.

Speaker 1 (29:55):
Because all the airlines shut to everything shut down. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:57):
Yeah, shoot, we didn't even bu on. We didn't even
fly on the restricted area for at least a week
or two. I don't know, it was a while.

Speaker 1 (30:07):
Yep. Oh, JT says, yeah, those are the good old days.
We will say.

Speaker 3 (30:13):
That'll keep those for another show. Dr Pepper, that's it.
Uh So you get so you get to Hawaii?

Speaker 1 (30:20):
How was it? Was it all you thought it was?
Was it harder? Was it was it like the postcard said?

Speaker 2 (30:27):
It was better?

Speaker 3 (30:28):
It was?

Speaker 2 (30:28):
It was fantastic, it was. It was a really great unit.
Unfortunately I did not get assigned into JT's unit. He
was in the cave, and I got assigned a one
two five attack, which is just basically up the flight line,
but two completely different organizations. It would have been great
to go to the calf and be with JT. However,

(30:50):
God had his plan for me to go to the
attack Italian that was just returning from Bosnia. By the way,
I was the first pilot and first instructor pilot assigned
to one two five since they went through cat be
together and had been together for like three and a
half four years the whole unit. And I'm the new

(31:11):
face when they returned from Bosnia because I was rear
d and then they returned. Wasn't the warmest welcome. But
Hawaii was beautiful and I knew some people that were
in that unit, and I had JT. And we had
an absolute blast. And you visited, so you know how.

Speaker 1 (31:30):
Good it was. Visited a number of times.

Speaker 2 (31:33):
Yes, so wonderful.

Speaker 3 (31:35):
Yeah, living being stationed in Alaska, Hawaii is like being
stationed in Alaska. Everyone's going to come see you because
they get they don't have to pay for hotel, they
get to stay for free.

Speaker 2 (31:44):
But yeah, good deal.

Speaker 3 (31:47):
So that was your first combat appointment out of there,
right was out of the twenty fifth YEP.

Speaker 2 (31:52):
So we were alerted that we were probably going to
be going and then I don't know, we were over
at the training area on the Big Island and the
commander at the time mentioned something, and I didn't know
if it was really going to happen, because we're thinking,
like twenty fifth a d's not going why would we
be part of that. But I think that a lot

(32:12):
of these guys, you know, were jockeying to get their
units deployed asap, you know, for their own you know,
career advancement, like we're going to deploy and yep the
little and behold, we're going in January of four. So
I had a little bit of time Christmas three with

(32:34):
some family over and then we were gone in the
first week of January. Yeah to Bagdad, yep.

Speaker 3 (32:42):
Fun fact right, I was a year I was with
you out there when I got the call in O
three that I had to get back because we were
deploying because we were about to invade.

Speaker 1 (32:52):
Do you remember that.

Speaker 3 (32:53):
No, Yeah, we were there, the family was visiting, and
I got a call from my commander being in the
New York National Guard that I needed to get back
asap because we needed to deploy around New York State
because it.

Speaker 1 (33:04):
Was about the balloon was about to go up.

Speaker 3 (33:06):
And so I got that call two days before we
were supposed to leave and fly out, and I said,
I'm flying out in two days. I can't get any
fast and if I do, it's gonna cost me an
arm and a leg and I'm gonna beat.

Speaker 1 (33:18):
And they were like, just get here and fly to
JFK and we'll pick you up.

Speaker 2 (33:21):
Okay, vaguely remember, vaguely remember. I didn't remember if he
left early, but no, we left on It was so.

Speaker 1 (33:28):
We were with like forty eight hours of leaving.

Speaker 3 (33:30):
And you remember those flights out of Hawaii always left
like late in the day, like almost early evening if
I remember right right, they weren't early flights. And uh yeah,
I had to as soon as I flew back, I landed,
I changed literally, kissed the family goodbye, got on another plane,
and flew right the JFK because the ward kicked off. Yeah, this,
you know, weird old you know, weird connections and all

(33:52):
that stuff. But uh so you went in January or four?
Was that a one year deployment.

Speaker 2 (33:57):
It was supposed to be one year. I ended up
staying in for the elections which were in oh five,
February of a five, so I stayed a little bit longer,
maybe about six weeks longer, but most of the people
did did the one year, and we had Originally when
we deployed, we were at buy Op Baghdad International Airport

(34:21):
with UH some units out of Germany one Armor. First
Armored Division was headquartered there in Baghdad with Gosh I
can't remember the name of the general Dempsey. We were
Dempsey there on on on on Buyop. But the plan
was is that since we were, you know, kind of

(34:44):
on our own one two five, we went over part
of First Armor and then we were going to be
first calves additional support up in Taji, which they were
trying to rebuild or build up to that point to
be able to put an aviation brigade up there. So
we spent a couple of months in Baghdad, and then
once Taji was suitable for helicopters to land and be

(35:08):
based up there, first cav was rolling in and we
fell in on Taji first people, first real aviation unit
to go there. There was units that were on there before,
but not an aviation unit, so we were first aviation
to go there.

Speaker 3 (35:22):
So that was a pretty That was a hot time
in Iraq action wise, and you were there for longer
than a year. So what stands out for that first
appointment That was a pretty monumental appointment. We'll talk about
that in a second afterwards, but what what stands out
any anything, any stories, any events, anything.

Speaker 1 (35:40):
Like that that from that that first appointment there.

Speaker 2 (35:43):
Yeah, that was you know, everybody talks about, you know,
if you're itching to go to combat, you want to
go be a part of something that you've never been
a part of, you know. For us coming in in
eighty seven, saw a lot of people with combat patches
and kind of always look at somebody with that admiration, Wow,
you must have done something and you know over there
and how was it? And then you would sometimes hear

(36:04):
some people say, hey, once you get a taste of it,
you don't want it, you don't need it, you don't
want to go back, you know. And so but we
didn't know any better. This whole unit was pumped up,
ready to go, and honestly, the first couple two or
three months was pretty laid back, very quiet. This was

(36:24):
that little calm before the storm. And so we're out
flying missions in Baghdad and flying under those sabers downtown
and looking at Saddam's you know, tigers and lion cages
and flying around palaces and memorials. Solder City was still,
you know, relatively calm. And then April of two thousand

(36:50):
and four, the switch flipped, literally.

Speaker 1 (36:53):
Like overnight, First Fallujah.

Speaker 2 (36:57):
Yeah, it was literally like overnight. I mean the day before,
we're flying around a field with soccer balls and candy
and thirty forty kids running around in circles trying to
catch things that were throwing them because you know, we're
hearts and minds. We're giving them all sorts of stuff,
throwing things to them and trying to you know, make

(37:17):
people feel good. But our presence there and then the
next day they're shooting everybody down. They came out and
attacked convoys on Tampa and it's about the same time
that that young man Maupin was taken. That was MSR Tampa.

Speaker 1 (37:36):
It's just on the.

Speaker 2 (37:38):
West side of Baghdad. And they started shooting helicopters, really
really shooting at helicopters for the first time. And that
day was when that first Apache was shot down with
a man pad and my commander was flying on the
mission and watched that launch go up, cork screwing up.

(38:02):
You watched it hit that apache. You watched the tail
boom come off of it and it spin down, you know,
hit the ground, and those guys were immediately killed. The
lead aircraft was still flying continuing on, and from that
day on, everything completely changed. You didn't know if you
were going to come home every day. Before that, we
felt pretty confident.

Speaker 1 (38:22):
Yeah, and obviously you ran a lot of missions.

Speaker 3 (38:26):
You probably went black on a lot of AMMO, and
your TTPs changed significantly. It turned into probably what you
thought combat was going to be, like I'm assuming.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
Yeah, and that actually evolved over you know, every month
was different. The threats became different, The threats from small arms,
fire manpads was different. They were pretty good. The enemy
was pretty good to adapt. Didn't like to stay out
in the open. They always sought some cover, whether it
was palm trees or houses or vehicles. I'm sure we

(39:02):
were looking at bad guys quite often, but with our
rules of engagement, I mean, if we weren't looking at
somebody shooting at you, you weren't going to engage them.
That changed over the next few years, but at the
time that we were there, it was pretty pretty strict
are we We had a pretty strict commander and was

(39:25):
very controlling of what we did and how we did it.
But I think, you know, ultimately he was probably just
wanting to make sure that everybody came home every night
and not chasing down every rabbit hole that you run into.
But the engagements were plenty, but it's mostly ninety five

(39:47):
percent of routine patrol with a little with a little
bit of craziness mixed in there. Most of the time
it was not crazy, and when it was, we didn't go.

Speaker 3 (39:59):
That sounds not much different than being instrument on the ground.
It was mostly ninety five percent bored them with some
excitement every once in a while. It just when that
excitement happened, it was pretty violent, violent and fast.

Speaker 1 (40:11):
Yeah. But yeah, so you were there for a little
over through the elections and all that kind of stuff.
Anything else stands out from that deployment that just.

Speaker 3 (40:18):
You know, anyone you've got to know or meet, or
or anything you got to experience, it really stands out
that you'd never forgotten about.

Speaker 2 (40:27):
So I'd say probably the worst thing, one of the
hardest things that I had to deal with when we
were in Iraq was losing one of our helicopters, one
of my best friends that was flying a mission. I'd
actually done a battle handover with that team down south
of Baghdad and we'd pull them back to Taji and
unfortunately those two aircraft had a mid air and the

(40:51):
lead aircraft the two guys they survived, but the trailer
aircraft craft and dear friend, the jab of mine is sorry,
sorry boy uh but Will Brennan, one of our best
friends from from Drum, was in that helicopter and you know,

(41:15):
he didn't come back. That was tough. I spoke at
his funeral, his ceremony on Taji and it was pretty
life changing and that was probably one of the hardest
things that we'd had to deal with as a unit
over there. Thank god we didn't lose a lot of people,
but that was one crew that that we did lose

(41:36):
in October and that was that was another rough time,
another rough patch April, and then the fall of four
was pretty bad. That was Fallujah.

Speaker 1 (41:46):
Yeah, that was the seconds.

Speaker 3 (41:49):
So then you rotated out, he came, he came back,
and then how that go to your next appointment would
you end up doing?

Speaker 2 (41:57):
So it came back from Iraq, went to Hawaii for
my last nine months, and then PCs to Fort Rucker, Alabama.
I thought I was probably going to retire and worked
a job working requirements kind of like with the PM
for the helicopters, and I was actually assigned to the

(42:17):
UAV office, so working with censors.

Speaker 1 (42:23):
I got real quick before that. I think it was
May of five.

Speaker 2 (42:28):
Oh yeah, is that when you came and visited me?

Speaker 3 (42:31):
Yeah, when you Yeah, when you got a pretty pretty
you know, awesome recognition.

Speaker 1 (42:38):
At that time.

Speaker 3 (42:39):
I don't know if that record still hand, but if
I remember correctly, at that point, you had the most
combat aviation hours of anyone since Vietnam.

Speaker 2 (42:50):
That is correct as far as they know.

Speaker 3 (42:53):
Yeah, and I don't know if that records still held.
But you were honored then as the quad A Aviator
of the Year. Yes, it was a pretty big deal.
Your whole family came, you came, family came, we all
came to celebrate that.

Speaker 1 (43:07):
Uh. And you were a rock star.

Speaker 3 (43:08):
I mean, uh, there was a big quad A conference
and uh and uh, you know, you pretty much could
write your own ticket anywhere you went.

Speaker 1 (43:16):
I mean, you were you were, you pretty much got
the top of recognitioner was to have.

Speaker 3 (43:22):
How was that experience to just kind of become almost
overly night famous, at least in that in the aviation world.

Speaker 2 (43:30):
Yeah, for a short period of time, and and and
definitely down in Orlando that was awesome, fantastic UH organization
and bringing out those awards and bringing people down there
to recognize them. I think for me it was just
purely UH timing of being you know, OIF one point

(43:51):
five to two, because we weren't OIF one, but we
weren't o I F two. We were kind of in
the middle there, and Uh, I had a really solid
tank commander who was well respected, and I also our
brigade commander was pretty well respected as well, went on
to be you know, Chief Staff of the Army mccondall,

(44:13):
who's our brigade commander. Lundy was our battalion commander, and
I was a W three IP in the unit. And
what led to probably being selected for the quada if
Eater of the Year was the event where my platoon
leader and my SP who is our senior stands pilot
crashed on a training mission that I was on with them,

(44:36):
and they were both met of act out of Germany,
out to Germany and then eventually back to the States,
which kind of put me in a position of being
with the platoon leader and now the stands guy in
charge of standardization, and I'm also just a regular instructor
pilot as well, So assuming those additional roles commanders, the

(45:01):
leadership was awesome at the time, and we just continued
flying a ton and you know, I think that's probably
the most you know, biggest item in the flying hours.
And then just having a commander that was willing to
go to bat for you, to put you in for
that and then being selected was pretty tremendous honor. Amazing

(45:21):
people out there manymore that could have received that, so
just blessed.

Speaker 1 (45:27):
Yeah, yeah, that was that was awesome.

Speaker 3 (45:28):
So then you get down, you ride that high for
a little while, and then you're back just being assigned
back at Rutger.

Speaker 2 (45:35):
Yep, back to for Rutger, doing kind of a requirements job,
thinking I'm probably going to retire and then end up
getting to go to the fixed wing course and fly airplanes,
which is kind of in the back of my mind
a dream, you know, you know, from our good friend
Darren who kind of mentored me all the way through,
who was a fixed wing pilot and a Gulf Stream
pilot and I always thought, man, that would be awesome

(45:56):
to do that. That's like the next level. And so
you got to start with King Airs and I was
able to do that and go to the C twelve
qualification course at Fort Rucker and follow on assignment came
a little bit later down the road, but that was
to Savannah, Georgia to the two two four am I
where I flew the Guardrail RC twelve Guardrail plane and

(46:20):
they were on a constant rotation at that time two
thousand and eight. They'd been going back and forth to
Iraq for years.

Speaker 3 (46:31):
A bot is a kind of an intelligence gathering, signal
and gathering kind of platform.

Speaker 2 (46:35):
Yeah, traditional Sigan comment, and then with the new technology
that was coming out, there were some other boxes that
could put on. We also had drones in our unit
assigned to us, so we in theater had what was
a version of the Predator what they called it ININAT
But that's gone through some evolutions. They're all kind of

(46:55):
the same now.

Speaker 3 (46:57):
So in UH, I mean, people they think of army,
they almost always think of rotary, very few think of
fixed wing. That's it got to be a very small
click that's got a very small group that doesn't.

Speaker 2 (47:07):
Yeah, it was fantastic. It was mostly kind of almost
like a little bit of a reward for having hard
assignments and muddy boots and being in the division. And
here you can go fix wing and take a break,
and it is a break from helicopters. There's no doubt.
Fix wing was was pretty pretty sweet job to have
at that time.

Speaker 3 (47:27):
And you went, you did a rotation, you went back
to our rack in two thousand and eight doing flying
those flying the guardrail.

Speaker 2 (47:33):
Yeah, flu guardrail out of ballot for four months. We
did four month rotations to three a year, So constant
rotation to people from Savannah Savannah is two to four
am I. And then there's a unit that's in Hood
and there's a unit that's in Germany that all would
send people in and that task force would just rotate
over and then you know, one battalion commander would have

(47:56):
the command for like a year, but the pilots would
be coming from also to different units to support that.

Speaker 1 (48:02):
Right, and there there was your did you have a
co pilot or were you solo on those?

Speaker 3 (48:06):
No?

Speaker 2 (48:06):
No, no, there's two of us up in the in
the king Air. But the flying was much different. It
was you know, take off out of b Lood, huge airfield,
big big the wires far out protecting that airport, and
we'd climb up, we'd climb fast, and we'd go up
to altitude and just basically fly tracks. Uh, two airplanes

(48:27):
at a time, and they would do some sort of
intelligence gathering and then direction finding with all the equipment
that would be piped back to ground stations and then
eventually back over to the state.

Speaker 3 (48:40):
Make sure the plane stayed up right, just flew around
and yeah, yeah, was there any anti air threats at that.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
Very little and it would be small arms. But like
I said, we came in pretty high and steep and
the wire that's pretty big base, very low threat at
that time for airplanes. Yeah, it felt totally safe every time.

Speaker 1 (49:05):
Was it boring? Was it exciting?

Speaker 2 (49:07):
It could be a little boring when you're up on
track as you're sitting up at twenty nine thousand feet
for five hours and then not a whole lot to
do because we're not doing any equipment ourselves. We just
fly the plane. Everything in the back is remote and
piped back to somebody else, the linguists.

Speaker 3 (49:24):
And.

Speaker 2 (49:26):
Yeah, so we just kind of drove drove the drove
the plane.

Speaker 1 (49:30):
Yeah. I remember you always like, hey, what new movies
do you got?

Speaker 3 (49:33):
What can you send me on your and uh, that's
why I thought that it probably need to find something
to occupy yourself for sure.

Speaker 2 (49:39):
Yeah. The best part about that was we had SAT phones, so,
uh we could be up on track, you know, twenty
five thousand feet having lunch and I could call home
on a satphone in the airplane and talk through my headset.
And that was pretty cool over our rack. Yeah yeah, yeah,
over ear bill it was pretty neat. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (50:00):
The uh okay, and that was a four month deployment
was used to used to do one of those.

Speaker 2 (50:04):
I just did one to Iraq, and then about eighteen
months later I went to Afghanistan. Got to go over
there and visit that beautiful country. And we were in Kandahar.
That was twenty eleven.

Speaker 4 (50:20):
They did the same mission, same mission, just different place
over the red desert, up a little bit to the north,
sometimes out to the Pakistani side.

Speaker 2 (50:33):
But yeah, super fun experience. Again, airplanes much easier, a
lot less, lower threat level, and even in twenty eleven,
I mean Kandahar wasn't really too bad at that time.

Speaker 1 (50:48):
Get Timmy Hose when you were there in Kandahar.

Speaker 2 (50:50):
They had that down there every Sunday.

Speaker 1 (50:54):
Yeah, we did play some hockey with the Canadians there.

Speaker 2 (50:58):
That was that was, that was a highlight. Yeah, so
we were at Candahar before that other general decided he
was going to take all of that boardwalk away and
get rid of I think we had the Chili's or
something like that there.

Speaker 1 (51:10):
It was. Yeah, I was.

Speaker 3 (51:11):
I came through there in twenty ten when I was
a contractor for the army and that was my only
time seeing Candahar and I was pretty well.

Speaker 1 (51:18):
I was blown away because.

Speaker 2 (51:19):
Yeah, the boardwalk was a big night out. Yeah, asking
Robbins maybe.

Speaker 1 (51:24):
There was a quiet one time and I could not
believe I was in Afghanistan. Yeah. Me.

Speaker 2 (51:29):
Crystal didn't believe it either, so he got rid of it.
That's who said no more of this. But we actually
had a good time. It was a great, great deployment,
a beautiful place to to fly out of and enjoyed
our time in Kndahar.

Speaker 1 (51:46):
Yeah. Not too many people say that, but but I
was fix wing.

Speaker 2 (51:50):
So again it was a little bit better than the
average deployment.

Speaker 1 (51:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (51:54):
So okay, so was that your last combat deployment. That
was yeah, but then you came back and it did
something else for the Army.

Speaker 2 (52:02):
I came back from well after shortly thereafter, and then
I was assigned to Fort Rutger in the as an
active duty augmentee to the two to two eighth Reserve,
which is the Army Reserve fixed wing VIP mission. So
they had two king Airs at Fort Rutger and then
maybe four UC thirty five jets that were at Dobbins

(52:26):
and I was part of that unit for about four
years until I retired in twenty fifteen.

Speaker 1 (52:31):
You're an active duty guy, but with the reserve, you know,
so you were like the full timer. Yes.

Speaker 3 (52:37):
On the National Guard side, right, we have active Guard
AGRs that would better full time, you know, earning their
way towards regular active duty kind of retirement. But in
the reserves, because it's not a state entity, is a
Title ten entity, an active duty person was assigned to them.
It was like the full time make sure every day
the lights were on and all the stuff got processed

(53:00):
and that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 (53:01):
It was a great it was a great experience. I
never thought that I would do that, but yeah, we
did have some full time AGR pilots that were at
the unit as well, and then maybe another twenty twenty
five traditional reservists that just flew when they could and
then you know, one weekend a month and doing their

(53:22):
normal reserve obligations.

Speaker 1 (53:26):
But.

Speaker 2 (53:27):
Being a pilot they could fly a lot more. So
we did aftps additional flight training periods and you could
bring those guys in. Most of them were all helicopter
instructors at Fort Rutger that were fixing pilots in the reserve,
and so I had about thirty strong, including all the
active guys, and that was fantastic. I thought it was

(53:50):
probably my most enjoyable four years in the Army was
being a part of that.

Speaker 1 (53:56):
Another we select.

Speaker 3 (54:00):
Select kind of small niche unit that you know, I
just now, when you went through everything in your career,
I think back in like, Okay, you got dumped at Drum.

Speaker 1 (54:09):
You didn't pick that, they picked you.

Speaker 3 (54:12):
You went and asked for Hawaii, But just about everything
else you were put into very small, you know, click
kind of units that does not everyone even even knows
about much less got to I mean, you know, some
people may get one or two of those in a career,
but boy, you really lucked out with some of the
ones that you got, you know, short of your big

(54:32):
army ones.

Speaker 2 (54:32):
You did a lot.

Speaker 3 (54:34):
But to get that I remember when you got that
right to get fixed wing and you flew another kind
of fixed wing in that unit, right, you didn't It
wasn't the same when you flew in.

Speaker 2 (54:43):
Yeah, so the reservestam but they had some older king
airs that were kind of like to see twelve that
you would have remembered from anything previous to like twenty ten.
We were really really lucky. I was very lucky. We
had received two brand new you know, beach craft from

(55:04):
the factory, full leather chairs, all glass cockpit, a huge
upgrade from what we had been flying, and we got
two of those to Fort Rucker. We're one of the
first units in the Reserve to get them and literally
pulled the car plastic off of the carpet after the
test pilots at Huntsville had to have it first, so

(55:27):
they put about twenty five hours on the planes qualifying
all their fixing pilots in that model, and then they
delivered it down to us in at Fort Rutcker and
then we got signed off by des trainers there at
Fort Rucker who were qualified.

Speaker 1 (55:43):
Did it still have that new plane's mill totally?

Speaker 2 (55:46):
Yeah, it was beautiful. The generals would get in that
plane and say what what plane is? This completely blown
away from what an old C twelve looked like inside.

Speaker 3 (55:56):
So now, and you said you flew VIPs, can you
talk little bit about like who did you? I mean,
I know you met and flew a lot of people,
but if I remember right, certain levels of generals or
this or that got qualified for certain kinds of aircraft, right, So.

Speaker 2 (56:10):
Yeah, it really varies on who can get what and
what availability was open. So we did fly some four
star generals, which typically would not be in a King
Air or even a citation. But if you know, if
you said pat, which is the golf streams were all
tasked out, then it could fall on somebody else who

(56:31):
would pick up a mission. King Air being kind of
at the bottom of the level for a four star.
But I got to fly in Dunwoodie four star general
I think first female four star and she was also
a brigade commander when I was a drum so I
thought that was kind of cool. I told her that.
So yeah, we flew her, but it was it was

(56:51):
Veterans Day. It was a holiday, nobody else wanted to work,
so we said, absolutely, we'll do it. And Buddy rich right,
and I jumped in a plane, went down to Baton
Rouge and picked her up. I think she was speaking
at some sort of event at LSU. So it was
pretty cool. Flew General Mulholland. I thought that was pretty

(57:12):
cool too, because he's got some neat history, takes us
back to the beginning of where all this started. And
I mean that's that's the first source soldier right there.
You know, he was the group commander at the time,
So I thought that was pretty neat. Definitely got to
fly a lot of general officers and admirals as well.

Speaker 1 (57:33):
He probably picked up a few coins along the way.

Speaker 2 (57:35):
Yeah, got good, got good, a little collection, yeah yeah,
most of them are very nice.

Speaker 1 (57:41):
Yeah yeah. And you flew a lot of guys who
and gals who probably were ones, twos and.

Speaker 3 (57:45):
Three stars who probably worked their way to four star
or you know ones and twos that worked their way
to three and four stars and significant commanders.

Speaker 2 (57:52):
Yeah. Another cool Another cool one is is my Batanion
commander in Iraq, General Lieutenant Colonel Lundy was I flew
him as the Aviation branch branch commander as a two star,
so that was pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (58:06):
Yeah, seeing him again.

Speaker 3 (58:08):
Yeah, I know you said Irako eight in Afghanistan in
twenty eleven were pretty you know, pretty quiet, pretty cold.
Any any stories are I kind of almost pass that up.
Anything from that time. You know, you kind of saw
war from a different perspective in those deployments versus your
first one, especially after April of four. But any anything

(58:28):
that stood out from you for those deployments or anything
big that stands out from your Afghanistan deployment versus your
couple of our Iraq ones specifically.

Speaker 2 (58:36):
So i'd say that, you know, flying flying guardrail, flying
at twenty nine thousand feet and below.

Speaker 1 (58:42):
You know, we.

Speaker 2 (58:44):
We were a little bit detached from the ground force
being up up high provided but we have they have
a specific mission and we're doing our mission. It's just
completely different than people that are on the ground. I'd say,
you know, one of the really cool things that we
did in Kandahar was we were in a stack above
Candahar one day. They had a rose that was I

(59:08):
don't know, surface to infinity, and there were so many
different types of aircraft that were in that all doing
circles over the city. And I'll never forget that there
was a B one bomber that was a thousand feet
above us and we'd pass it in our circles and
the tea cast would go off and say, you know,
the aircraft are too close. But everybody knew what you

(59:30):
were doing there, and you know, it was pretty neat.
But it is definitely not high excitement flying airplanes in
especially airplanes that are just doing guard rail mission in theater,
as compared to flying helicopters, which was extremely busy and
there's no autopilot. There's no time to sit back and

(59:54):
relax and you know, catch your breath when you're out
just flying in the helicopter.

Speaker 3 (59:58):
Yeah, flying rooftop level, you're you're slipping and dipping, worried
about some kind of you know, ground fire or yeah, wires, wires, yeah, wires, Yeah,
on the ground when you were on the ground in
Iraq and Afghanistan. But when you weren't up in there
for those two and was Afghanistan four months also, yes.

Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
All of our rotations for four months at a time.

Speaker 3 (01:00:20):
Anything when you weren't flying that you just like you
talked about Tim Horton's and the chili's and basket anything
else that kind of stood out.

Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
Did you go like hang out by the poop pond
or you know anything.

Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
Yeah, we walked by that. I loved. I'll tell you
what we We had awesome people that we worked with.
All the pilots were just fantastic people. Fantastic pilots. We
almost always went to dinner together, and one guy especially
would yell around the CP you know, time chow, and

(01:00:54):
we would we'd all get together and go eat together,
you know, almost every night. It was very loose in
that regard where sometimes in you know in Iraq, people
are on different schedules and you might not see another
troop company for days or weeks because opposite schedules and
you're only close with a small number of people that

(01:01:15):
you're working with. But fine fixing was was pretty neat.
We had We had a lot of time together, played
a lot of volleyball.

Speaker 1 (01:01:26):
It's not just naval aviators that do that.

Speaker 2 (01:01:29):
No, no, no, no, we started that. We were first.

Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
Yeah, Tom Cruise has got nothing on you.

Speaker 2 (01:01:34):
We went to the gym a lot. I'll tell you that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:36):
Yeah, you go to the gym, you eat, you go
to the gym, you.

Speaker 2 (01:01:39):
Gotta do something, you know, get outside, And.

Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
Is it that kind of is do you kind of
weed out the a hole? I mean, is it? Is
it such a small thing that you just have good
people there, like just people are.

Speaker 2 (01:01:51):
Just and so at the time, Fixing was almost all
fours and W five's, which is crazy to sound that
people like nowadays, Wait a second, you had twelve W
fives in your company. Yeah, we had two W threes
in our battalion.

Speaker 1 (01:02:09):
Everything else was fours and fives.

Speaker 2 (01:02:10):
I was like twenty five W four's and a dozen
W fives and a couple W threes that were going
to be W four pretty soon. So super senior group.
They're all accomplished. Nobody's trying to get one up on
you for another job. Yeah, everybody's just laid back. They're
just professionals and just really good people. A little different

(01:02:32):
in the helicopter, you know, unit people are still trying
to make a name for themselves and get promoted, have
those key jobs and stuff. But at the time in
the fix wing when I was there, it was very
senior and it was really really it was nice to
be a part of. Now flight school has changed, you know,
seven or eight years ago, and fix Wing is actually
a track, so there's no more fifty eight delta. But

(01:02:55):
you can actually select fix wing as a track out
of flight school. That's been probably eight years ago.

Speaker 1 (01:03:01):
They have that many airframes now that they can. They
didn't need to.

Speaker 2 (01:03:05):
It's still a small number, but it's a track and
they call it fix Wing for life. So they didn't
Actually they'd get trained in the helicopter and then when
they would go to Apache or Blackhawk or Schnook, somebody
would go to fix Wing and then they would grow
them in fix wing rather than via W three or
W four with several thousand hours in helicopter. And that's

(01:03:29):
how it used to be, and so training was fairly
easy because everybody had been an aviator for a long time.

Speaker 3 (01:03:36):
Right right, So that that left you retired, and that
kind of left the you know, kind of a good
taste in your mouth if you would that's what you
wanted to do. You like flying fix wing and you know,
we won't go into the details, but you've been a
you've been a commercial airline pilot now for a number
of years.

Speaker 2 (01:03:54):
Yeah, it just went over ten years. Yeah, I was
really really lucky to find my her current job while
I was still on active duty, and then just waited
for a class date for a few months after official retirement,
and I've been flying Airbus three twenty three twenty ones
all around the world and wonderful job, love it, a

(01:04:17):
lot of time with the family, and it's been good
and very very very blessed to be where I am.

Speaker 3 (01:04:24):
So it started out as an aviation operation specialist because
that looked pretty cool in that little viewfinder, and then
all these cool units in career and and getting to
do things like fly fixing that that many get to
do it, and it pretty much, you know, definitely assisted.
It's not what got you your job, obviously, but definitely
was a major contributing factor I'm sure in being able

(01:04:45):
to get to get the job you have now for life.
All came from you know, processing operations and then and
then flying some kiawad's a frame you didn't want in
a place you didn't want for a drum.

Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
Yeah, but look what it led to. Yeah, every job,
every single thing that I've been able to do from
the Army was a gift that just you know, led
to something different, took us to a different place and
meet new people, and the opportunity I mean to go
to college and to you know, work your way through

(01:05:20):
college while you're still on active duty, and then fly
different types of helicopters and airplanes and then set you
up for a career at the airlines when you're done.
I wouldn't change a thing, and I've just been extremely
fortunate to have been able to do what I did,
meet who I had met, and had lifelong friends like you.

Speaker 1 (01:05:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:05:44):
Yeah, that's you took my one question away from me.
I was gonna ask if you could turn back the
clock for anything. Is there anything you would change or
do different in your military career?

Speaker 1 (01:05:54):
Not a one. No.

Speaker 2 (01:05:56):
As much as you don't like certain things, when it
happens to you, you have to remember or at least
have faith that it's the best course for you. You
just might not know it at the time.

Speaker 1 (01:06:08):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it would be nice if you
can turn back time.

Speaker 3 (01:06:12):
You got back down you got down to anchorage more
so we could fish more together because we did a
lot of good uh good of that.

Speaker 2 (01:06:19):
Yeah. Yeah, it would have been fun too, but it
was awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:06:23):
Yeah, we got a lot of good fishing.

Speaker 3 (01:06:24):
Well, Hey man, Chris, I thank you so much, buddy
for for giving us as just a touch over an
hour tonight, letting people hear your story and hear this
unique career that you've had.

Speaker 1 (01:06:33):
Uh, definitely one. A lot of people don't even know
who you know.

Speaker 3 (01:06:36):
Army aviators are much less one that's gotten to do
some of the crazy and very unique things you've got
to do.

Speaker 1 (01:06:42):
Man, I appreciate you coming on, buddy.

Speaker 2 (01:06:44):
Hey, Troy, thanks so much. I mean, it's fantastic. I
love sharing the story and and I'm glad to see
that JT was on and yeah somebody else, but it's yeah,
I mean I wouldn't be here without you, you know
what I mean?

Speaker 1 (01:06:59):
Yeah, now I need to get JT on here.

Speaker 2 (01:07:01):
Thirty four years ago. Lifelong friends.

Speaker 3 (01:07:05):
Yeah yeah, just two dudes in a class mountaineering school,
class going.

Speaker 1 (01:07:09):
I'm like, who's this? Poge dude? What do you do? Army?

Speaker 2 (01:07:13):
I got a house here.

Speaker 1 (01:07:15):
Oh you're my best friend.

Speaker 2 (01:07:17):
Come on, get out of the barracks, let's go, let's go.

Speaker 1 (01:07:19):
I got a sega.

Speaker 2 (01:07:20):
Let's yeah. A lot of sea at all right.

Speaker 1 (01:07:24):
Man. Well, hey, thank you so much, Chris, good to.

Speaker 2 (01:07:25):
See Yeah, thank you, all right, Troy, good night, thank.

Speaker 1 (01:07:28):
You, We'll see everyone later with tune in Thursday night.
Check us out. It's here on Steward the Nun. We
are live back on the air Thursday evening.

Speaker 2 (01:08:00):
SI stands sixty six sty