I have faith....... :) but if he doesn't soon'ish'ish, I'll ask another.

worst day of my life here.... its hard to even type it...

well i dunno if some of yall heard about the aircraft go down west of Basrah.... well it was a ch47 and it was a part of 3 chinooks going from kuwait to balad. routine, transporting troops. well... after exiting kuwaiti lines, it basically wrecked... still no word as to why. no enemy fire, or pilot error, or mechanical failure.. we still dont know..

well the 7 men in the aircraft died instantly... i knew 3 of the 7 guys... SGM Ordonez. CW2 Edwards. CPT Vallejo. and was acquainted with 4. SSG Mason. CPL Thompson. CW3 Rudolph. and SGT Eshbaugh.... between the 7 men... 17 kids lost their dads... and one specific child will never KNOW HER dad...cpt vallejo found out a few weeks prior that he was having a little girl...

well the most painful part was at their funeral service we had here.... the company commanders just got finished giving their speeches... then taps was played.... the volleys were fired... and our sergeant major called for final roll call...

he called the batallion to attention...
"BATALLION ATTENTION... FINAL ROLL CALL!"
so we all snapped to attention... and he yells out...
"LIEUTENANT MALDONADO!" ... "here sergeant major!"
" SGT RODRIGUEZ!"... "HOOAH SERGEANT MAJOR..."
... "private HERNANDEZ!"... "HOOAHH!"
... "CAPTAIN VALLEJO!"...... silence...
"captain robert vallejo!".... silence...
"CAPTAIN ROBERT VALLEJO...SOUND OFF!"... SILENCE...

it went on for about another 5 minutes.... he called out all of their names... and all you heard was nothing.... that was the most painful thing to hear.... nothing... its a memory thats so vivid... i can even picture MY helmet on one of their M-4s.... watching the montage of their pictures on the screen.... listening to nothing.... watching the flag fly.... its the single most difficult thing ive ever done.

it was an honor to have my flight helmet used as one of theirs...i never found out whos weapon my helmet was on though. they were all post-humanely promoted, they were all one grade below what i mentioned in the beginning of my post...

they died on September 18 at 1201am.

.... soooooo.... binary!!!!!! i think we all need to know this!!! where do you get all those programs from man!!?!?!? and how!!!? you must have like 3 terabytes of that shit! i wonder what your porn collection looks like...

Holy fucking shit man, that is poignant. I never thought to ask my cousin how the funerals were arranged. That shit must break down even the steeliest of hearts bro.

yeah... its all good though. i guess some good comes out of bad.... it made all of the mechanics and flight engineers that much more careful... the pilots wont be as complacent and people will just enjoy life that much more now...

thanks for the answer.

Yes, I did know about the Chinook. 3 of the men were from my state (Thompson, Rudolph, and Eshbaugh). Rudolph I knew in a round about way through the National Guard. I have a couple of people there now that I know, and when I heard about the crash I was worried that a friend of mine might have been on it, but he wasn't.

Hang in there bro, keep safe, and hurry back.

yeah oklahoma boys... the rest were from mine.. texas... that oklahoma unit is attached to my unit... which is attached to 34th cab.. from minnesota. haha. were from all over.

were all good now... got patches made for our sleeves... they say "Red River 44" and have 7 stars under the call sign and date

Proud of you and all our Troops, Coolbeans. That post chilled me to the bone.

Damn Coolbeans... my arm hair stood on end, thanks. Be safe and God speed.

yo, binary
 

BUMP

last chance to save a great thread?