Great 'Died story told by a Reservist

[Guest Chuck Sargent]

This is a no kidding story from our base. All of the following events did happen. The names have been omitted to protect the stupid. Some detailed information was added because it makes the story more real. The story was told second hand from a C-130 reservist working at our operations headquarters listening in on all the radios and speaking with most of the parties involved. This version is not very far from the truth. In fact, the naked truth is probably even more funny.

An active duty crew from Texas is taxiing off the ramp with 50+ Army guys in the back. It's two in the morning, but still kind of hot. The wind dies down at night, the humidity kicks on and it can stay well over 90 degrees. You add the heat of the flight line, engines running and aviation gas fumes and it can still be really hot. The active duty have older C-130E and C-130H1 models, so their air conditioning does not work so well. This heat and those fumes can make people airsick. Well as they taxi an Army guy pukes all other himself and a neighbor in the back of the airplane. Then a sympathetic puker takes out himself and the guy across from him. Then another. Then another until there are ten guys whistling beef in the back of the airplane. All this mind you and they haven't even taken off.

Rumor is there is a USAF regulation that states that after 20 pukers, it's a medical emergency. For 10 pukers it's only a mess.

The loadmaster relays his disgust to the pilot. The pilot, a Captain with not too many hours of pilot in command time, has two lieutenants for his copilot and navigator and he's frantic. As a crew they can't figure out the best course of action. It'll be a miserable three hours to wherever they are going and it could get worse. 'Another puker,' says the loadmaster. The pilot--who can now start to smell the vomit in the very front of the airplane as it wafts up in the heat--calls the command post to find out what he should do because he hasn't taken off yet and the floor in the back of his plane is getting repainted with these dudes' dinner. 'Another puker,' is the call from the back of the plane. The command post (probably a single or double striped airman that has never flown in a C-130 in his life and doesn't care to either) tells them to park the airplane where it is, shut down the engines and perform an emergency ground egress. Back to Play Station for the young airman, damn it...and don't call me again.

An emergency ground egress is what you would do if the plane caught on fire. It's what you'd do if you saw fuel pouring out of the wings. It is for really bad things. A ground egress is a tricky thing. You can't just shut down your engines and walk away. You have to declare an emergency with the tower (who hasn't heard any of the conversation with the command post because they are on different radio frequencies) who then calls the fire trucks and paramedics. All the passengers have to get far away from the plane because it is loaded with 44 thousand pounds of fuel and has a whole bunch of incendiary, pyrotechnic flares on board. Thus, an emergency ground egress is not something to be taken lightly.

These six aircrew members are all on headset when the command post tells them to do this. They know the facts: they are on a taxiway parallel to a two mile long runway active with fighters, bombers, tankers, JSTARS, C-17s, C-141s, C-5s, 747s, and other C-130s landing and taking off as they sit there. They have a full plane full of people, some of whom are puking. The smell is bad and getting worse. What do they do? What do these people who Donald Rumsfeld calls 'the best and brightest that our nation has to offer' choose to do? 'Captain, another puker, sir. What are we going to do?'

Those f****g dumba$$es shut down their engines blocking the only taxiway that runs alongside the runway and have everyone exit the airplane running like a herd of cats to get away from the explosive vomit. Un-f****g-believable. They have done al Quida's work for them. The have almost completely shut down air operations. Any departing aircraft will have to back taxi on the runway to leave which means that no one can take off or land while someone is taxiing and vice versa.

It gets better.

Who is first on the scene? Paramedics? Fire department? Rescue? Security Forces? No my friends, ATOC. (ATOC gives and receives our cargo and passengers. It stands for 'A$$h***s Taking Our Crap.')

Ready to lend a hand, or so it seems, the ATOC representative wants to find the aircraft commander. Remember, it's 2 am. They're not on the ramp anymore, so it's not well lit. It's a total cluster because these folks have run away from the airplane until they felt silly and then they ran some more. This ATOC guy is more than a little anxious in his voice as he sorts through the crowd so he finally starts shouting. The A/C works his way through the crowd to the vehicle, relieved that there is someone there with a radio. Someone with experience. Someone who can help. Salvation, no?

But what are the first words out of the ATOC rep's mouth? "Sir, I am writing you up for a safety violation. These passengers are on the airfield unescorted and none of them have on reflective belts. What is your squadron, name and rank?"

Not 'What's your emergency?' Not 'How can I help?' Not 'Let me help you.' I am writing you up for a safety violation. There is great irony in this. The army guys are sporting the brand new electronic pattern camouflaged fatigues. It's night out and no one can see them because they are wearing camo--kind of the whole point, right? So the USAF in all it's wisdom hands everyone who transits the Al Udeid Air Base a reflective belt (along with a man purse, but that's not germane to this conversation) that the user MUST wear under penalty of death from sundown to sunup. Even if you are just walking that meager 300 feet to the toilet in the middle of night, you must wear this belt. God forbid you don't wear this belt when you go to take a squirt. We can't win the war without this belt! What in God's name are thinking trying to walk around in camo at night without a reflective belt?

These are Army guys. When they land in Iraq, the whole point is that you are not supposed to see them. That whole 'fighting the insurgents thing' or something. They kill people and blow stuff up. They get hostile fire pay and their taxes back as compensation for what they do. It is a very dangerous and difficult job. People are trying to kill them because of what they are trying to do. It is easier for them to do their job, from what I gather, when the insurgents can't see you. These are Army guys.

This is an ATOC guy. He is in Qatar. He is getting hostile fire pay and will get his federal and state taxes that he has paid while in Qatar refunded to him. He will never see Iraq. He will never see Afghanistan. The reality of this conflict is very far from his own personal understanding of what is truly important. While he is eating Dairy Queen *****ing that he has to walk that 300 feet to use the lavatory, there are people in Iraq *****ing that a mortar landed 300 feet from their tent. This is an Air Force guy.

It gets better.

They call off the emergency response vehicles, who never showed anyway, and the aircraft commander pockets his write-up for a safety violation.

Frustrated, the young captain asks his loadmaster to get the plane cleaned up as fast as possible so they can depart. The powers that be are really worried that the C-130s won't take off on time. God help you if you take off more than 14 minutes late. You boss will come to see you. Your boss's boss will come to see your boss. Hell, your boss's boss's boss might even come to see your boss's boss. This is stressed. And on the chance that you have a Distinguished Vistor (e.g. Admiral, General, Colonel, politician, or some other pain in the ass), getting that DV to their destination is your number one priority. You are ordered to bump passengers (war-fighters) and cargo (bullets and bombs) off of your airplane so some perfumed prince of the Pentagon or DC can spend ten minutes on the ground in Iraq and figure it all out. They even alert our crews almost four hours prior to takeoff so that we can take off on time!

The Captain has the weight of the world on his shoulders as he thinks about this. He needs the loadmaster to clean that Hercules as fast as possible to get the hell out of there. Now the loadmaster, in true loadmaster form, tells the a/c that he's not cleaning up ten vomit puddles because it's not his fault. He asked the Army guys when they got on the plane if they needed airsick bags and they all said no. It is clearly the army's fault and they should clean it up.

The a/c approaches the Army troop commander, who outranks him by the way, and asks him to get his people back on the plane to clean it. 'No can do, Captain...they don't want to do it. I can't make my people clean up another guy's vomit because it is a biohazard. Since I didn't see who puked, how can I punish the right solders. And even if I did know which guys puked, look how the puke is now all mashed together. It's all mixed up. I can't make a soldier clean up another's vomit without PPE. And who can remember where they were sitting anyway? No, I'm sorry young captain, you'll have to clean it up yourself.'

I love it! I can't figure out why these interservice operations never really work. Look at the love between the branches of the military! One team, one fight!

The young captain takes the ATOC radio and asks maintenance to clean the vomit because he's too scared to push the issue with this Army Major (Army guys must look scary to him) or with his loadmaster (maybe enlisted guys scare him, too.)

Maintenance says, 'Nuts. Maybe if you have brought it back to the ramp where we keep our equipment we could have helped you out. But since you parked it way out in the middle of nowhere right next to an active runway, we'll let you handle it. After all, it's your plane. You clean it.' The aircraft commander is really frustrated. He is now very late for his take off. No one is listening to his orders. He thinks that the puke smell is starting to permanently seep into his flightsuit. Who can he turn to for guidance?

He calls the genius at the command post. 'Who can I make clean this plane?' he asks. The command post guy is pretty mad at this point. He was either playing 'Grand Theft Auto' on his PlayStation, reading a comic book or 'Stuff' magazine, or he was sleeping. This fool has bothered him again. What to do?

The command post calls and wakes (a little past three am now) the full bird colonel who heads the medical group. 'We have a C-130 shut down blocking the parallel taxiway because there a large human biohazard-type spill. Could you please send a team down to clean it up?' I'm sure the colonel is scratching his head at this point. He asks if it was an aeromedical evacuation mission and what type of biohazard it is. (Smart question, really. If it's air evac, let the aero-meds clean it and he goes back to bed.) The command post tells him that it was not an aero-med mission and that he doesn't know what type of biohazard it is but he does know that it is delaying the mission. Colonel wakes his team and sends them to the flight line on their fool's errand.

They show up and find out why they are there. They don't ask any questions. They clean the vomit. They leave. (The next day they report to the colonel what they were used for and he is livid. He will have someone's balls for this.)

The Army guys, each with their own personal airsick bag and some with two, board the plane. The young a/c takes off and returns well after sunset. His boss, his boss's boss and his boss's boss's boss are all waiting to chat with him when he lands.

That was some time ago. They chewed this kid out for quite some time. I love it. I almost peed my pants when I was told that story. We have met the enemy and we are him. I need to leave this place.

It's from my brother so it has to be true!

Cheers!

-HW

[Guest toughnuts]

WOW...

[FourFans]

outfreakin'standing!

[Guest JL]

Deffinetly sounds like the reasons I'm glad I'm in the guard.

Those god damn reflective belts!!!!

Its the end of the world if you dont have and wear yours! I got a big long speach about why i should be wearing one when i was in al udied waiting for a rotator to come back to the states. I looked at the guy and said "i just spent 8 months in iraq, I'm sorry I didnt think to get one when i got here, but shiny things have a habit of getting shot at." The guy mumbled "well you need one anyway" Then I asked where he supposed i could find one at 2 in the morning, he just mumbled "you need to get one" and walked away

[Hacker]

One night into the first week of OIF I was stepping off the bus from tent city to ops town about 1130 at night. I was about 15 minutes away from briefing up a combat mission.

As I crossed the street from the bus stop to my squadron's ops tent, I heard from over my shoulder, "YOU! Come over here!"

I looked over my shoulder, not thinking that this booming voice could be talking to me. Sure enough, in the darkness, I could see a figure in DCUs with his arm outstretched, clearly pointing at me.

So, thinking I had just pissed off some O-5, I begrudgingly turned around while looking at my watch, wondering if I was going to make my brief time.

A few steps closer to the figure in DCUs, I see that it is a Master Sergeant, and about that time he opens his mouth...

"Where is your reflective belt?"

And at this point, I lose it.

"Reflective belt? How about we start off with something else, such as the fact that my name is 'sir' and not 'you'? Second of all, I'm getting ready to go brief up a mission on which I'm going to fly into a country where a lot of the people will be shooting guns and missiles at me. If you think I'm the least bit worried about not wearing my reflective belt while walking the 30 feet from the but to the ops tent..."

<interrupts me> I'm going to have to write you up.."

I turn around and start to walk away.

"Good luck doing that without my name."

[Toro]

Originally posted by Hollywood:

"Sir, I am writing you up for a safety violation. These passengers are on the airfield unescorted and none of them have on reflective belts."

Ahhh...the f***ing 'Died reflector belts. We'd wear them below the survival vest so it wasn't visible and just wait for some safety geek to call us on.

"What? We're wearing the belt" (lifts survival vest) "See?"

The sad thing was that apparently the war had become so second priority to us at that point that the WG/CC drove around base threatening to pick up anybody spotted without their safety belts at night.

Great story, Hollywood.

[HerkDerka]

I'll buy everybit about the disco belts and ATOC though. The Morale Suppression Police are always out in full force. I'm still amazed my ass had gotten Article 15'ed. Seems everyone else has.

I enjoy the story but I don't think we should mudsling (STS) to quickly. I can think of several times I stepped and got refragged to a 16-18 FDP thanks to a loadmaster who "had a headache".

HD

[ 29. July 2005, 08:37: Message edited by: HerkDriver24 ]

[HerkDerka]

Originally posted by KC135GuardPilot:

I hope someday one of y'all becomes general and DE-GAYS this place.

A-friggin-men

HD

[Wing Sweep]

Great story. Was that red tails or blue tails? Sounds like the same recurring theme throughout the AOR. People who don't know what it's like to go on a mish and get shot at have no freaking clue. Their idea of duty is "writing someone up" for not wearing something properly. Has the Deid ever realized there's a war going on? That people die everyday in OIF? WTFO?!

Freaking non-combatants!

[Guest AF2ANG]

Originally posted by gabe2surf:

Great story. Was that red tails or blue tails?

I was wondering the same thing. I used to be part of the red tails in Texas. No that I should admit that after reading this story.

Haha, oh well. You can't win 'em all.

Michaela

[Guest SATCOM]

I guess I'm lucky, as I've experienced minimal incidents such as the dreaded "disco belt" saga. Working mainly with the Army though will give you an even deeper appreciation for the USAF. Here's a true story along the lines of the above. The scene is Irbil AB in April of 2003. I had just spent two-plus months living/eating/fighting/crying and dying with the Kurds. I have a pretty good beard going, similar to the lead singer in ZZ Top. I enter Irbil with my Army SF team (the only USAF guy) and promptly head for the USAF Special Tactics TOC. I report in and they show me to a hooch. The place is bustling with activity.

I have not had a quality, hot shower in two months and feel that I deserve one. It's 0900 in the morning, so I gather my towel etc and head for the designated bathing area. I get there and the showers (two showers for 1000+ people) are padlocked with some serious friggin' chain. There are no signs on the mobile showers indicating hours of operation or anything. I hail a passing trooper and ask why the showers are padlocked. He gives me the up/down and says "Cuz the Sarn't Major sez so." Of course I ask for further details and he says he don't know and that I could find the Sergeant Major in the Brigade TOC.

Dutifully off I go to seek the almighty Sar't Major. Upon entering the TOC I get the stares, due to the lack of uniform and ZZ Top-like facial covering. I track down the man and see him in starched desert BDU's. Starched BDU's in Northern Iraq less than a month AFTER the war began! Immediately I know that Big ARMY is on scene and IN-CONTROL. I ask why the showers are padlocked. He says "The shower operating hours are 0700 to 0800, every day." Now I'm no mental genius, but if the showers are open from 0700 to 0800 and there are about 1000 troops at Irbil, and each troop/soldier takes a five minute shower....well you can see where my mind was!

I asked the fully starched and pressed E-9 why couldn't the showers remain open 24 hours a day. Further I asked why couldn't troops be the judge of when they needed to cleanse. He gave me this quizzical look and said "You must be Air Force or CIA. In the Army we do NOT trust our people to make those kinds of decisions. If I have the showers open 24/7, then Private Snuffy might make the excuse that he wasn't at his post because he was showering." He tried in vain to expalin his position to me.

He ranted for a while longer and never did let me take a shower. The next day a mobile bathroom facility with closed toilets shows up. Get this, the posted hours for taking a crap in the new, clean, mobile crapper were from 0700-0800! You could only take an enclosed crap during those hours, because the Sarn't Major said that his people might hide out in the new, clean, mobile crapper!

[HerkDerka]

Was that red tails or blue tails?

Red tails.

People who don't know what it's like to go on a mish and get shot at have no freaking clue.

I hope you mean the NSPFs at the Died. I can't quite tell who that's directed at.

HD

[ 29. July 2005, 17:12: Message edited by: HerkDriver24 ]

[AFCS_Actuator]

Wow. I've read all of this thread and the other "Deid" thread. Please Lord, strike me down if I ever behave like those I have just read about. Amen.

[Guest Critical Mass]

What I don't understand is how this stuff happens. Nobody has come by this thread and said "hey, that sounds pretty sensible", so where are the people without common sense coming from?

[Guest toughnuts]

People complaining about reflective belts, didn't you get the memo;)? Sounds to me like an unintelligent rule made by a bureaucracy that apparently wants to keep itself inefficient. In other words, some ass clown high up on the ladder got an idea stuck in his head that may look good on paper, but in real life is ludicrous. IMO.

[Wing Sweep]

Originally posted by HerkDriver24:

Red tails.

People who don't know what it's like to go on a mish and get shot at have no freaking clue.

I hope you mean the NSPFs at the Died. I can't quite tell who that's directed at.

HD

[Wing Sweep]

And also throughout the rest of the AORs for that matter.

[Guest Rainman A-10]

Originally posted by JL:

Deffinetly sounds like the reasons I'm glad I'm in the guard.

Roger that, no one in the Guard ever does anything stupid.

[Guest Rainman A-10]

Originally posted by Critical Mass:

Nobody has come by this thread and said "hey, that sounds pretty sensible", so where are the people without common sense coming from?

I'll do it.

People have been killed on the ramp because no one saw them. The leadership says it will not tolerate the loss of a single person if that loss can be prevented by wearing a reflective belt.

It is really pretty simple.

I don't think it is about wearing the belt. Wearing the belt is easy and it doesn't cost a thing. It is the way people point out that you don't have a belt that offends most people.

It is very different being in a place where no one is wearing a belt and people are getting screamed at for the tiniest little light leak but the "base" is a total madhouse of aviation and ground activity with jets and helos and ATVs and dirtbikes and forklifts and all order of funky vehicles raging all over the place and no one has any lights on at all. I'm not sure how we do that without killing 50 people a night...maybe because the price of admission is to be full-up.

In the end, I would rather be flying out of a place where it looks like the bar scene from Star Wars to an outsider because you can't tell who does what based on their clothing or mannerisms and I can mission plan on the flightline leaning over the map with the very same ground guys I'll be talking to on the radio in a few hours. No hard billets or fancy sh!tters but no reflective belt police either.

[Wing Sweep]

You hit the nail on the head Rainman. When OEF kicked off, we were HANDS ON with the guys we were infil/exfiling, dropping, resupplying, dropping bombs and big bullets for (this one's for you), etc...

It was bare bones bases were the "Brown Saunas" were a luxury and good food meant a spaghetti MRE. We'd show up to a base and start from scratch. There was no nice sinks and good water pressure, so shaving was optional. There was no MWR tent, so we made our own fun. There was no barber shops, so we let our fros get wild and nasty. There was no tent inspections, so we... wait a minute we were sleeping in the hangars and had pet owls, rats, bugs, etc... Yeah, quality of life sucked, but it was a simple life. We'd eat, sleep, fly, eat, sleep, fly, eat, sleep, fly. Didn't know what day it was and didn't care. It was either a fly day, no fly day or alert. Centralized control, decentralized execution was the name of the game and it worked! Yeah, it had its quirks like anything else, but overall it worked.

Then along came the super-duper mega base. Now everything comes and goes through Mother Goose. On top of that, the base/cc's in the AOR have the added pressure of not bringing anybody home dead that isn't actually in combat. One would think common sense would dictate, but no such luck. Someone sooner or later gets hurt. As soon as that happens, BAM! A new safety rule must be implemented and we can keep this process going until we safety ourselves to death. Safety rules are good, but they go to the extreme like having to wear a reflective belt at night when you want to go take a piss. I think the extreme they go to is what torques people the wrong way.

[Guest JL]

Originally posted by Rainman A-10:

Roger that, no one in the Guard ever does anything stupid.

[Guest Rainman A-10]

Noted!

[Toro]

Originally posted by CrewDawg1:

It happens because some O-6 wants to become an O-7. Gotta leave their mark somehow.

[Guest briscoe]

I hope you don't mind but I copied the original story and sent it out to everyone I know who can read... that would be two people.

Along the same lines of stupidity... I am currently at Al Asad Air Base in Western Iraq. Prior to coming here I worked in the Green Zone in downtown Baghdad. If you've ever been there you know if you want to go from one site to another you have to leave the barrier protected area, drive down the street anywhere from two blocks to 2 miles to get to where you want to go. That means, as you are driving down the street the person next to you could be just as scared as you are about a car bomb or drive by shooter or they are a drive by shooter or they have their finger on a suicide button. So... stopping at stop signs is just something you do not do. After a while you get used to doing things a specific way. I get to Al Asad and I'm driving down the street on a Gator and I slow for a stop sign but I do not stop... no traffic coming, no soldiers walking anywhere near the intersection. A young PFC MP pulls me over and gives me a ticket. I told her I just got here from the Green Zone and it was dangerous to stop at stop signs in the Green Zone. My young PFC told me I was in a war zone now and that I needed to obey the laws just like I would in the States. For those of you at Al Asad or who have been to Al Asad you know it is usually pretty quiet here as far as the war goes... we have our moments but mostly it's quiet. If you are reading the paper and hear of a car bomb going off in Baghdad you can figure 8 out of 10 times it is in the green zone… which means about 4 to 10 times a week there is a car bomb or drive by shooter in the Green Zone. I asked my young MP if she knew where or what the Green Zone was... she looked at me and was dead serious when she said, "I know Green Bay is in Wisconsin but I'm really not sure where and besides... I'm sure a Green Bay Police Officer would give you a ticket too." I just smiled, shook my head and said a short prayer to God that this stupid little girl would never find herself looking at the business end of a shooter.

[Scooter14]

Green Zone...Green Bay...whatever.

That's classic!