---
The next day began as usual... "Up in the mornin' with the Risin' Sun!"
Breakfast, then over to the hangar for a day of aviation maintenance. Same old routine, 12 to 16 hour day.
Scheduled flights continued the same training of 2v1, which I put out of my mind. I was just glad I had a day off from flying and could keep my feet on the ground. I did not allow the previous day's events to enter my mind.
I wish they'd done the same for me...
Early evening brought news that there was a mishap. An aviation accident. When you hear this, you know, it's not like someone just had a little fender bender. In aviation, you can't just pull over to the side of the road. No, when we got this kind of news, we knew it was dire.
My gut began wrenching. Many of my fellow marines, ran from room to room and out into the hangar asking what was going on. Maintenance Control was packed as the observer aircraft radioed in, "chopper down!"
My heart sunk. The Bell was tolling, but for whom? Which one went down, who was on it? Our minds reeled.
Here comes Comer. Good old top gun pilot Comer. Piloting his chopper back to base, uh... missing a front wheel assembly!
We scrambled and placed some pallets and a mattress on a small trailer and coaxed Comer to rest the nose/belly of the aircraft on this trailer. He'd been sitting, turning and burning with the nose up for about 10 minutes while we prepared to aid his landing. He set it down and we secured it before he shut down the engines/rotors.
Cpl. Maldonado, the crew chief, came off the chopper and explained, "once tally and fight's on was called out, the maneuvers began." He checked his wing man as they split with the OV10 in pursuit. They split in the same direction with the wing-man going under Comer and Maldonado's CH46 helicopter.
Maldonado said all he could do was press the intercom button on his long cord and keep yelling, "up, Up, UP!"
Then BOOM... the nose of their aircraft was forced upward. In front of them, the other helicopter, with four men on board, was headed for the forest. It's aft rotor had struck the nose wheel of the lead aircraft. It was doomed; the glide slope of a chopper with damaged blades is the same as a sinker on the end of a fishing line... None.
Soon, the observation chopper came back to the base. The crew chief got out with the helicopter rotors still turning. Flight Equipment was sending out some body bags. They were to return to the site. I remember the crew chief's mouth looked odd as I strained to hear him over the wop-wop-wop of the turning rotors. I reached up and slid the sun shield back to look in his eyes, he was in complete shock. Totally traumatized. He said, "There's just a burnt spot. The chopper broke in three parts! They're dead," he screamed, terror in his eyes. "They're all dead!" His whole body trembled. I ripped the helmet off his head and ordered him to remove his flight vest. I would return to the crash site. He needed help.
I suited up, the pilot radioed in to place me on the manifest of this flight and the body bags were brought to me. I boarded and no wasted effort was made to get back out there, taking off from the tarmac, rather than taxiing out to the runway.
Arriving on the scene, it was as the previous crew chief had described. A burn swatch cut from a previously lush forest setting. We lowered in altitude, our rotors kicking dust, disturbing the site and blowing everything ferociously, as I dropped body bags to Marines on the ground. Not sure who they were.
We slide over towards one side and I prepare the hoist. We slide back over and the guys on the ground place the clip on the bag. I begin to hoist up this fallen comrade. We slowly begin to rise. Then... as I'm looking down, the bag splits open on the bottom and the body plummets earthward.
It was surreal. Everything moved in slow motion. The rotors went by, wop.... wop.... wop, with seconds between each one. The body looked like there was a strobe light on as the arms flailed and just as it bounced off the ground,
I fell on to my back screaming, "Noooooooooooooooooo!"
I flash back to a day in boot camp, the words of one of my Drill Instructors ringing in my ears, "The only men that have earned the right to wear the uniform of the United States Marine Corps were those who died while serving in it!"
I remember being told to just toss the other couple of body bags out and as I do, I notice they are dry rotted. They'd been folded into squares and in storage since the Viet Nam era.
I don't remember returning to base.
---
I failed. I didn't inspect the bags before attempting to use them. I allowed a dead Marine's body to be mishandled. The only Marine I ever met that had earned the right to wear the uniform.
I didn't go beyond Maintenance Control the day before and make more of an issue about an out of control pilot who was endangering lives.
I failed and I wore the guilt and developed self defeating behaviors to punish me. I didn't understand anything. Except this: I failed and people died.
---
I remember drinking, again.
I remember nightmares...
and not wanting to go to bed, fighting sleep, out of fear of returning nightmares...
and I'd drink...
until I passed out.
This became my existence for the next ten years. A down hill slide I could not comprehend.
One I could not discuss with anyone. You do not have weaknesses when you're a United States Marine.
They're not permitted. If you needed them you would have been issued some!
I was in the Philippines one day, Okinawa the next and Hawaii the next. Two weeks later I was headed for my next duty station. I didn't get to grieve and share the event with those who were grieving it.
I just tried to drown it. Night after night, after night.
I met a Filipino woman/party animal who introduced me to crack. I went in to say I needed help but the drug amnesty guy was on leave. The XO had said call me anytime, unless you're on dope.
I went back home and got high.
Booted out, on a general discharge under "other than" honorable conditions, I went to a VA hospital. The VA became a revolving door of numerous 3 to 6 month stays in the Psych ward and through programs with ever changing medications and still no one of common ground to discuss this with. I was diagnosed with PTSD and Bipolar yet I was still refused entry into a PTSD program because I was not a combat veteran.
I had served with meritorious promotions and a gung-ho attitude and I was spit out like a cancerous cell. I was denied treatment. We were taught that Marines never leave anyone behind. I was beginning to believe that "Semper Fi" no longer meant what I'd been taught.
I was hurt and troubled and my life screwed deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole.
Numerous lost jobs, ruined marriages/relationships, including 16 years of separation from my one and only son.
In and out of jail for stupid stuff.
I quit drinking and drugging when I landed in prison in 1998.
---
---
As a squadron, from 1985 to 1988, HMM 262 crashed four helicopters in peace time training exercises, resulting in the loss of seven lives, hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment and broken hearts, families and minds forever.
That's all I can take for today... I'll post more another day.
---
If anyone is interested, I wrote a book -
The next day began as usual... "Up in the mornin' with the Risin' Sun!"
At MCAS Futenma, in Okinawa, the Japanese flag flew high over the base.
Breakfast, then over to the hangar for a day of aviation maintenance. Same old routine, 12 to 16 hour day.
Scheduled flights continued the same training of 2v1, which I put out of my mind. I was just glad I had a day off from flying and could keep my feet on the ground. I did not allow the previous day's events to enter my mind.
I wish they'd done the same for me...
Early evening brought news that there was a mishap. An aviation accident. When you hear this, you know, it's not like someone just had a little fender bender. In aviation, you can't just pull over to the side of the road. No, when we got this kind of news, we knew it was dire.
My gut began wrenching. Many of my fellow marines, ran from room to room and out into the hangar asking what was going on. Maintenance Control was packed as the observer aircraft radioed in, "chopper down!"
My heart sunk. The Bell was tolling, but for whom? Which one went down, who was on it? Our minds reeled.
Here comes Comer. Good old top gun pilot Comer. Piloting his chopper back to base, uh... missing a front wheel assembly!
We scrambled and placed some pallets and a mattress on a small trailer and coaxed Comer to rest the nose/belly of the aircraft on this trailer. He'd been sitting, turning and burning with the nose up for about 10 minutes while we prepared to aid his landing. He set it down and we secured it before he shut down the engines/rotors.
Cpl. Maldonado, the crew chief, came off the chopper and explained, "once tally and fight's on was called out, the maneuvers began." He checked his wing man as they split with the OV10 in pursuit. They split in the same direction with the wing-man going under Comer and Maldonado's CH46 helicopter.
Maldonado said all he could do was press the intercom button on his long cord and keep yelling, "up, Up, UP!"
Then BOOM... the nose of their aircraft was forced upward. In front of them, the other helicopter, with four men on board, was headed for the forest. It's aft rotor had struck the nose wheel of the lead aircraft. It was doomed; the glide slope of a chopper with damaged blades is the same as a sinker on the end of a fishing line... None.
Soon, the observation chopper came back to the base. The crew chief got out with the helicopter rotors still turning. Flight Equipment was sending out some body bags. They were to return to the site. I remember the crew chief's mouth looked odd as I strained to hear him over the wop-wop-wop of the turning rotors. I reached up and slid the sun shield back to look in his eyes, he was in complete shock. Totally traumatized. He said, "There's just a burnt spot. The chopper broke in three parts! They're dead," he screamed, terror in his eyes. "They're all dead!" His whole body trembled. I ripped the helmet off his head and ordered him to remove his flight vest. I would return to the crash site. He needed help.
I suited up, the pilot radioed in to place me on the manifest of this flight and the body bags were brought to me. I boarded and no wasted effort was made to get back out there, taking off from the tarmac, rather than taxiing out to the runway.
Arriving on the scene, it was as the previous crew chief had described. A burn swatch cut from a previously lush forest setting. We lowered in altitude, our rotors kicking dust, disturbing the site and blowing everything ferociously, as I dropped body bags to Marines on the ground. Not sure who they were.
We slide over towards one side and I prepare the hoist. We slide back over and the guys on the ground place the clip on the bag. I begin to hoist up this fallen comrade. We slowly begin to rise. Then... as I'm looking down, the bag splits open on the bottom and the body plummets earthward.
It was surreal. Everything moved in slow motion. The rotors went by, wop.... wop.... wop, with seconds between each one. The body looked like there was a strobe light on as the arms flailed and just as it bounced off the ground,
I fell on to my back screaming, "Noooooooooooooooooo!"
I flash back to a day in boot camp, the words of one of my Drill Instructors ringing in my ears, "The only men that have earned the right to wear the uniform of the United States Marine Corps were those who died while serving in it!"
I remember being told to just toss the other couple of body bags out and as I do, I notice they are dry rotted. They'd been folded into squares and in storage since the Viet Nam era.
I don't remember returning to base.
---
I failed. I didn't inspect the bags before attempting to use them. I allowed a dead Marine's body to be mishandled. The only Marine I ever met that had earned the right to wear the uniform.
I didn't go beyond Maintenance Control the day before and make more of an issue about an out of control pilot who was endangering lives.
I failed and I wore the guilt and developed self defeating behaviors to punish me. I didn't understand anything. Except this: I failed and people died.
---
I remember drinking, again.
I remember nightmares...
and not wanting to go to bed, fighting sleep, out of fear of returning nightmares...
and I'd drink...
until I passed out.
This became my existence for the next ten years. A down hill slide I could not comprehend.
One I could not discuss with anyone. You do not have weaknesses when you're a United States Marine.
They're not permitted. If you needed them you would have been issued some!
I was in the Philippines one day, Okinawa the next and Hawaii the next. Two weeks later I was headed for my next duty station. I didn't get to grieve and share the event with those who were grieving it.
I just tried to drown it. Night after night, after night.
I met a Filipino woman/party animal who introduced me to crack. I went in to say I needed help but the drug amnesty guy was on leave. The XO had said call me anytime, unless you're on dope.
I went back home and got high.
Booted out, on a general discharge under "other than" honorable conditions, I went to a VA hospital. The VA became a revolving door of numerous 3 to 6 month stays in the Psych ward and through programs with ever changing medications and still no one of common ground to discuss this with. I was diagnosed with PTSD and Bipolar yet I was still refused entry into a PTSD program because I was not a combat veteran.
I had served with meritorious promotions and a gung-ho attitude and I was spit out like a cancerous cell. I was denied treatment. We were taught that Marines never leave anyone behind. I was beginning to believe that "Semper Fi" no longer meant what I'd been taught.
I was hurt and troubled and my life screwed deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole.
Numerous lost jobs, ruined marriages/relationships, including 16 years of separation from my one and only son.
In and out of jail for stupid stuff.
I quit drinking and drugging when I landed in prison in 1998.
---
Tribute
It is not the critic that counts.
The critic who thinks he knows how the strong man stumbled and fell,
Or where the doer of deeds could have done better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.
Whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood.
Who strives valiantly.
Who errs and comes up short again and again.
Who knows the great enthusiasm – the great devotion
And spends in a worthy cause;
And if he fails
At least he fails while daring greatly.
So that he’ll never be with those cold and timid souls.
Who know neither victory nor its pursuit.
Theodore Roosevelt
In Memory Of
Capt. John E. Nesbit 1st Lt. Andrew G. First Cpl. Jeffery | Maj. Richard J. Eisloeffel Capt. Michael F. King Cpl. Sean M. Timmons Cpl. Charles F. Dehn Jr. |
11 May 1988 | 31 October 1988 |
---
As a squadron, from 1985 to 1988, HMM 262 crashed four helicopters in peace time training exercises, resulting in the loss of seven lives, hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment and broken hearts, families and minds forever.
That's all I can take for today... I'll post more another day.
---
If anyone is interested, I wrote a book -
Available at these links -
* all proceeds are used for missions to Africa to help give clean drinking water to those who thirst.
** If you're a fellow Marine, contact me at dwaters59@gmail.com and I will send you a copy.
---
Hang in there. Praying for strength. Love you, REALLY !!!
ReplyDeleteTouched, moved and inspired once again. Thank you for sharing your heart David. Love you.
ReplyDeleteBrother sorry you had to go thought that, but remember if it doesn't kill you it makes you stronger.
ReplyDelete