I guess I was naive, but at the time it seemed like a good way to make some extra money for very little work. Looking back on it now, joining the Air National Guard was a dumbshit idea. Sure, it wasn't too bad doing drill weekends, and for that matter, summer camp was not all that bad either. I actually sort of enjoyed it. I was working in the Guard as an aircraft mechanic, and because of licenses, ratings, and experience in the civilian world, I had a dual specialty code, one for fixed wing, and one for helicopter.

I didn't realize that it was a dumbshit idea until my unit was called up to go to the other side of the planet to some little third-world country that none of us had ever even heard of. Our mission, of course, was to save the American way of life, although for the life of me, I didn't understand how us being there would do that.

I didn't realize how serious this was until they issued weapons and ammo to us prior to departure. The "grunts" were given M-16's, and the technicians (me included) were issued sidearms. They figured it was too hard to work on an aircraft with an M- 16 strapped to your back. They were right, but it was no picnic to do it while wearing a sidearm, either.

I still figured I would be okay when I got there. I figured that since I was dual qualified, and was one of the older, more experienced guys in the group, I would surely be put in a back area maintenance base where my experience could be best utilized. Murphy was with me, of course, so I was put in a front area doing line maintenance on helicopters. The good side was that we were told that this was only a police action, and that we would only be there 60 to 90 days. Yeah, right. You know about how accurate that turned out to be, too.

The base (and I use the term very loosely....) was a clearing in the middle of a large forest. There was about a hundred and fifty yards of clear area between the helicopter pads and the edge of the woods, even less than that is some places. The area had been bulldozed out of the forest by the Army Corps of Engineers, and they had laid down some WW-II surplus metal portable runway material to make helipads. Line shacks were nothing more than portable buildings. We had all the neccesities, which was one of the reasons that the Air Guard is a better choice than the others. We always had hot meals available, and always had a clean, dry place to sleep. The other services could never say that.

We got shot at quite a bit, but fortunately the enemy weren't very good shots. I patched bullet holes in the helicopters almost every day, some picked up in flight, and some done by snipers while the aircraft was on the pad. I had the sidearm with me all the time, but I didn't feel real good about it. It wasn't much good against a sniper with a rifle and a scope in a tree 150 yards away.

I saw the enemy a few times when they were captured and flown into the base. They were a ragtag bunch, most of them very young, and all of them obviously untrained or poorly trained at best. Theirs was an equal opportunity army, and was made up of women and girls as well as men and boys. My first direct contact with them came about as sort of fluke. It had rained hard all night the night before. The helipads were hard surface, but the rest of the ground was wet and pretty soft. By afternoon, the sun had dried the top layer of dirt, but the dry part was only a crust less than an inch thick. Underneath, it was still muddy and soft.

It was about two in the afternoon. I was on the ramp preflighting a helicopter for a mission. In the distance, I heard another helicopter coming in. I quit what I was doing and went to the next helipad, waiting to marshall him in. About the time I saw him over the top of the trees, I heard the engine surge, followed by a couple of rapid compressor stalls. More work for me, I thought. As I watched him come in, I knew his approach angle was all wrong. He didn't have enough power or altitude to make the pad, and it was obvious he was going to land well short. He went into auto-rotation, and set the helicopter down about ten yards from the edge of the forest. As soon as I saw him flare, I started out to the aircraft with fire extinguisher in hand.

He brought it in safely, and as soon as he got it shut down, I talked to the pilot a little. I made a quick diagnosis of the problem based on the information he gave me. I figured I had about two or three hours of work to do to get the aircraft back up again............(cont)