Got this at work today...

I'm back home for a few days while we work on our helicopters and wait for the crowd at the naval air station in NO to thin out.

I flew Wednesday, Friday, Monday, and Tuesday with the D.C. Guard before we left. My crew had 81 saves in the days we flew. Tuesday, I couldn't find anyone alive who needed to come out, but we marked the location of 5 bodies for retrieval. My unit got into NO as soon as the wind abated, and as soon as we could get fuel to sustain operations. I've heard that the National Guard did nothing, but the "Red Cross" helicopters did a great job. Guess what's painted on the side of our aircraft?

Some observations:

1) The mayor of NO, Nagins, dropped the ball in a huge way. The whole fiasco at the Superdome and the people left there is in his lap. The Governor also is culpable.

2) We trained our enlisted men, specifically the Medics and Crew Chiefs, very hard on the rescue hoist. During our deployment in Operation Enduring Freedom, we only had 2 hoist missions. The same number is typical for an experienced Medic in a Guard Medevac unit over his whole career. We now have Medics and Crew Chiefs with 50 hoists under their belts - many of them difficult precision hoists onto car hoods, 18 wheeler cab roofs, and onto covered porches. We kept out Crew Chiefs and Medics together as battle rostered crews and they developed advanced techniques early and amazed me with their skill and bravery.

3) Some people just don't get it. Yesterday, I flew over people with grills and coolers on their roofs, and they raised signs saying, "We OK." Two houses down, bodies were floating.

4) The violence you heard about was only the tip of the iceberg. One of our Guard members was with the Fish & Wildlife and deployed early to NO as security. They encountered four dead men in a neighborhood who had been shot, execution style. Their wives had been raped.

5) Our hangar in Baton Rouge housed 300 Border Patrol agents with all kinds of exotic weaponry. They were inserted into the bad neighborhoods and reportedly nailed about 25 of the goons from roving armed bands. They then just withdrew and let them lay.

6) Some have claimed that racism caused black people to be left while white people were brought out. Of the 81 people I brought out, 2 were white. Both thanked me. Only 3 other people thanked us, as I recollect. When we cruised over flooded neighborhoods, we'd say to each other, "Hey, this is a high dollar neighborhood. Let's go back to the projects." We never pulled anyone out of a good neighborhood. They left before the storm. We were trying to maximize the number of saves we had, so we'd go to the "hood."

7) There were more helicopters in NO than I've ever seen before. We lost one of our Hueys doing a rooftop pickup. He rocked back on his skids and broke through the roof, and was unable to free himself. They hoisted the crew out and recovered the aircraft with a CH-47 a few days later.

8) We all have personal firearms. I briefed my crews to expect a "Blackhawk Down" scenario if we went down. Unbelievable over a US city.

9) I flew within 100 yards of Air Force One at Louis Armstrong Int'l airport. Bush flew in and out without shutting down the airspace. I was cautioned by ATC to "not overfly THE AIRPLANE." I complied by flying back behind THE AIRPLANE and the following SUVs full of instant death.

10) Two things would have made things better for us. The first is Iridium phones. 10 at each flight facility would have made all the difference. Our radio communications sucked. The second is getting our own refuel tankers in place early. By the time they got ready to refuel us, the Naval
Air Station and Louis Armstrong Int'l were pumping fuel.

11) The airspace over NO turned into the Wild West. All the other aircraft over the city were using our VHF and UHF internal frequencies for the first few days. As time went on, the airport towers came back on line and we started using the normal freqs again. I saw every conceivable helicopter over NO, including Soviet designs.

12) I'm glad to be home for a few days. The Search and Rescue phase is over. Now, it's all body retrieval and cleanup.

13) We're still waiting for the French contingent to show up.



Aviator

Not to be a skeptic, but is this info verifiable?  Trusted source?

I'd say it's probably pretty accurate. I took some parts out with names.

Aviator

Aviator:  Unless you can vouch personally for the veracity and reliability of the source I must call...



Nothing personal.

SBG

No worries. Thought you guys might find it interesting.

It come from my 1SGT. I think he got it from the source.


Aviator

This was posted before, is this captainpoopies <--sp? friend who is a helicopter pilot??

Quoted: This was posted before, is this captainpoopies <--sp? friend who is a helicopter pilot??

No. My buddy was flying a private Allouette contracted out to the ACO mostly.
He's home now and I talked to him last weekend and saw a boatload of pics he took. I have no reason to doubt any of the above account because my buddy tells much the same story.
He flew armed and when on the ground  the pistol was out of the holster or the guys he was flying wouldnt get out of the helo. Before landing in some areas, he would hover for a minute to see if they took any fire before he landed. He personally took no incoming fire but it did happen.
Teams were put in at night to take care of 'problems' with NVDs and Kiowa Warriors as guides/scouts.
All true.

this exact email was posted over a week ago.

Quoted: Aviator:  Unless you can vouch personally for the veracity and reliability of the source I must call... Nothing personal. SBG

I love the armchair commandos sitting in the heartland of america surrounded by corn fields safe and sound so far away from any possibillity of reality and not living, eating and breathing what is really going on down here.

All the above is very true. Many more true stories will come out and many more will be so unbelievable they won't be believed!

4) The violence you heard about was only the tip of the iceberg. One of our Guard members was with the Fish & Wildlife and deployed early to NO as security. They encountered four dead men in a neighborhood who had been shot, execution style. Their wives had been raped.


Makes me wonder... how many citizens, after being disarmed by Oklahoma National Guard and Kommiefornia Hwy Patrol later met with personal harm from looters?

I hold these gun grabbers personally responsible for any citizens harmed by their actions.

Quoted: Quoted: Aviator:  Unless you can vouch personally for the veracity and reliability of the source I must call... Nothing personal. SBG I love the armchair commandos sitting in the heartland of america surrounded by corn fields safe and sound so far away from any possibillity of reality and not living, eating and breathing what is really going on down here. All the above is very true. Many more true stories will come out and many more will be so unbelievable they won't be believed!

I'm not calling anyone on this site a liar and I am not suggesting that shit hasn't been fucked up down there.  However, we have seen to many hoax emails assocaited with Katrina and New Orleans to just believe anyhting that comes in our inboxes.

SBG