The day finally arrived! It was the day we were going to finally do something more than just load something up and fly once around Camp Bondsteel. One group was on Camp Bondsteel getting the equipment ready while another group was to drive to the site we were going to use. I was on Camp Bondsteel and helped get SGT Syke's equipment ready for the flight. Then we boarded a Blackhawk for the flight to the hilltop while some guys stayed behind to do the actual sling loading. We begin with the Blackhawk ride...
Here I am with orange ear plugs in place as the Blackhawk takes off.
Over the perimeter of part of Camp Bondsteel.
That's SGT Sykes on the right and a 2nd Platoon troop on the left.
The flight was fun and fast with the pilot doing a lot of stuff to
try and make us all sick. I'd ridden in Blackhawk's before, so it
wasn't anything new to me. I did fine and enjoyed the flight out.
These are some MP's who were on the hilltop as we landed. They told
us they thought their commander was flying out or something!
And of course, the waiting began. This is SGT Biyo from
1st ID DIVARTY. He was attached to us for the deployment.
I really had some time on my hands here. With the MP's here
we didn't have to pull any kind of perimeter guard so we messed
around a bit. Here is a picture of me behind my M249 SAW ready to go.
After about an hour or so, the first helicopter arrived with
SGT Biyo's truck. You can see the orange VS-17 Aircraft
Recognition Panel on the ground for the helicopter to land near.
This is a picture of the second trip made by the helicopter since
I didn't anticipate the wind and the size of the rocks it would
throw up so I didn't get but like one picture before I had to turn
around and let the rocks hit my back. This time, I got inside a Humvee
we were using to block the road and safely snapped picture after picture.
That's a AN/TRC-190(V)3 shelter coming in for a landing.
Here is a picture of the ground guide for the helicopter
and the person holding him up against the strong winds.
Almost on the ground.
Touchdown! And not a scratch either! Not too shabby.
After the safe landing, SGT Sykes had to put in two communications
links. Here is the section sergeant, SSG Vasser, grabbing a bite to eat
while SGT Sykes works hard. Just so you know, when it became my
turn to race the clock, I got my 28 minutes to his like 75 minutes. ;-)
A view of the shelter as they work on the system.
The whole site minus the camouflage. Usually we wouldn't sit on the side
of a hill like this all exposed, but it was just training and for anything
other than training, it was a crappy site to use. Steep on all sides.
View of the site from a different angle. One of the best things about being
deployed to Kosovo was being able to do the different sorts of training we
got to do there like sling loading and such. It was great stuff!
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