Kaleidoscope Eyes Pt. 01

"Hey, you two," said the guy approaching us, "I need a gunner... fast!"

This guy had a 'slick uniform', no patches, rank... nothing. He just had to be one of those Night Stalkers, the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, who had commandeered the big aircraft shelter next to ours just the week before. We never seemed to see much of them, as they were always out on missions more than hanging around here on the base.

"And just who are you, and what do you mean, you need a gunner?" I asked. I had a sinking feeling that I was about to get 'voluntold' to do something dangerous.

"CW2 Sandy Crawford; 160th S-O-A-R," he said by way of minimal essential introduction. "We gotta lift in a few minutes to get some guys out of the shit and I need someone on my GAU-19."

I knew that Jake was not even close to being able to do this, and the possibility of a POG, or Person Other than a Grunt, like me getting to do something exciting and meaningful, besides replacing an auxiliary power unit on an Apache, was both thrilling and terrifying at the same time.

"Let me grab my battle rattle and my M4," I said, quickly turning toward a back wall.

"You won't need the M4," said the Warrant Officer.

"No, Sir, Chief," I replied. "I ain't going outside the wire... or above it, for that matter without my own weapon." I would find out later just how prophetic my choice was.

I grabbed my gear and then CW2 Crawford and I hot-footed it over to the next hangar. There, I saw two Special Operations MH-60 Blackhawks with their pilots (strange... there were no enlisted crew chiefs) doing rapid final prep and walk-arounds.

I also got my first close-up look at an AH-6 Little Bird Special Operations gunship that sat there, slightly away from the larger lift birds. It had a massive GAU-19 attached to a mount on the starboard side, and Hydra rocket pod balancing the load on the port side.

Mr. Crawford said, "What's your name, Kid?" I almost laughed in his face, because he could not be more than four years older than I was.

"Russ Holloway," I answered with a grin.

"Well, Spec Four Russ Holloway, you are about to get your chance to man the GAU-19 .50-caliber Gatling-style machinegun with NATO standard M-9 linked ammunition," he said with his own grin, as he mock-lectured me in the time-honored fashion of Soldier-leaders in the U.S. Army.

"I thought that you managed that thing remotely from inside," I said to Mr. Crawford.

"I can... when the piece-of-shit circuit is up to snuff. Right now, my fire control circuit from the cockpit ain't working for shit, we gotta go, and I ain't got time to get it fixed. So, I need to have you handle it with a manual electric trigger." He reached in and pulled out an electrical cord with a simple manual press button on one end—like you would expect to see on a professional camera mounted on a stand in a photography studio—and the other end trailed into what I guess was the electrically-operated trigger box for the massive three-barreled Gatling gun.

"Never done this, Chief. Give me the basics," I said. He showed me how to manage the feed, charging, manual safe-arm switch, and finished up with, "What else?"

"Aiming?" I asked.

He just laughed and said, "Boy, you just let me point the helicopter at a target and tell you when to release the safety and mash that button, and then, you just cut loose with a short burst. Then, we will just walk the tracers to the target together. They come so fast that it will look like a Star Trek episode. But don't squeeze it all off at once. Here," and he reached over and hit another switch. "I need it set for 1,000 rounds-per-minute instead of 2,000. That way, you won't burn through it too fast. But you still gotta show restraint—so, listen for my command to fire, and hold off when I tell you to stop. Okay?

"And remember—keep your thumb off that damned button until I give you the go-ahead. We don't want to shoot up half of Shindand on the way out of here by mistake. Clear?"

To my surprise, he then reached out and pulled off the Screaming Eagle patch that had been attached to my right shoulder by Velcro. I was shocked for a second, because I had been so proud when my CO had given us our Combat Patches (right-shoulder version of what we wore on the left shoulder normally), after being in country long enough to qualify.

"I'll put these in the locker over there," he said, as he proceeded to remove my left shoulder 101st patch, and my air assault wings and name strip from the Velcro points on my chest. He also asked for my wallet, surprising me.

"You ride with the Night Stalkers? You go in 'slick'."

He clapped me on the back and showed me how to slip inside the small tight interior space behind the copilot's seat on the starboard side of the aircraft. I had to duck under the ammunition feed line running from the huge box of .50 caliber rounds in the interior of the helicopter with which I would have to share space in the cramped quarters.

I figured out real-quick-like that my view of things would be limited just to what I could see by craning my neck and head around the door frame and out the starboard crew access. That was simplified by the fact that all the doors had been removed from the aircraft.

Mr. Crawford then handed me a simple body harness that I put on like a backpack and clicked the link of one strap across my chest; it also had a tether line and a snap hook at the end. He showed me the D-rings on the interior deck and let me pick the one that gave me the most freedom of movement, while still allowing me to look outside the aircraft when we approached the target area without falling out. I just parked my ass as he put on his helmet and ran around the front of the aircraft.

I could hear the 'Hawks' firing up and moving out ahead of us. I had no doubt that this guy could catch up in this 'sports car' of helicopters.

I could not help but admire Mr. Crawford's determination. He disappeared for about fifteen or twenty seconds; I guess, stashing all my identifying patches and wallet, and getting some stuff that he needed. He came back around the bird with an odd-looking flight helmet and reached it out toward me.

"Here, put this on. Wireless comms," he said over the increasing noise of the Blackhawks, and showed me the quick flip settings for intercom. He did not mention the operational net at all, though. He went around and climbed into the pilot's seat.

In about two more minutes, he had fired up the aircraft and we seemed to float a bit as we cleared the hangar. I only had a second to realize that he was going to fly this thing without a copilot... more strangeness... before we began to pick up horizontal speed.

Then the G's hit me as he pulled a fast vertical climb, causing my stomach to clench, and we were on our way, with the wind whipping me something fierce, combined with the rotor wash.

As we began to catch up to the 'Hawks', I could not help but wonder about how this guy had talked me into this so easily.

And what was there about this CW2 Sandy Crawford that was so special? I discovered later, in discussions with him, the answer to that question.

****

Four years before the Afghanistan meeting of Russ and Sandy—Forts Benning and Rucker

Sanford Aaron "Sandy" Crawford was originally from a stretch of highway in Alabama just across the Georgia Line from Columbus and Fort Benning, called Fort Mitchell. He had always been very friendly, and gregarious.

He was also a bit naïve. He had never traveled any farther from home than Tuscaloosa, Mobile, and Atlanta before joining the Army. He had been a speedy wide receiver on the Russell County High School football team, with almost unbelievable reflexes in making his moves and in catching some very difficult passes. And he had always dreamed of flying, someday.

It took him about a week into Basic before he got over his country-bumpkin freshness. He had overheard his platoon's Drill Sergeant disparaging his limited experience about the world to the Company Senior Drill Sergeant.

"That boy's so dumb he thinks Poontang is the capital of Viet Nam."

Sandy got really serious at that point and set out to prove the Drill Sergeant wrong about his being 'dumb'. He ended up at the end of the nine weeks of Basic Combat Training as the Trainee of the Cycle.

As he had already passed all the preliminary tests for the Army Aviation program, he would not go on into the Advanced Individual Training at Fort Benning. Instead, he was bussed over to Fort Rucker, Alabama, near the town of Ozark, for six weeks of Warrant Officer Candidate School.

When he was getting his uniforms, he noted the WOC collar insignia, and lapsing momentarily into his youthful naiveté, asked, "What's a wock?"

One of the NCOs got in his face pretty quickly and yelled, "A wock is somethin' you fwow at a wabbit, Knothead. You are not a wock! You are a Warrant Officer Candidate. Do... You... Understand?" Sandy acknowledged that he understood and moved out smartly.

He also moved out academically as well. He finished second in his class at warrant officer candidate school and proceeded on to the flight training program, where, over the next eight-and-a-half months, he mastered handling the simulator and the training helicopter, and then did transition training to learn to fly the premier attack helicopter in the world: the AH-64D Apache Longbow, where he finished top of his class.

"Mr. Crawford," said his Chief Instructor as he bade Sandy a farewell before the young aviator's departure for Fort Campbell, "you are a very talented aviator. Don't let them treat you like a Spec Four with a Club Card when you get to Two-Seventeen Cav.

"You earn their respect real quick-like, and make them see your talent. You hear?" said Chief

Warrant Officer Five Harold Makin as he shook Sandy's hand.

"I will do that, Chief," Sandy had said with real gratitude as he shook the old veteran aviator's hand on his way out the door.

Sandy had done just that; proving his exceptional skills in the air and on the ground with the 101st, both at Fort Campbell and in Afghanistan. When the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, the "Night Stalkers," had come knocking, he had answered the call, gone through their initiation, called 'Green Platoon', and had made the transition to the AH-6 Little Bird quite easily.

****

Russ and Sandy in Afghanistan

"Shit!" I thought to myself as the wind whipped me fiercely. "It is fucking COLD up here. And this is August!"

Our three birds had flown up into a more mountainous region now. They weren't Alps-like, but bigger than the simple hills in the area around Shindand. It was cold at altitude, regardless of its being summer.

"Just what the hell is going on, Chief?" I finally asked him over the wireless mic. I waited a second and looked over and around the back of the pilot's seat at him.

Mr. Crawford's lips were moving, so I figured that he was on the operational network, so I waited before trying to speak to the pilot again. Then I heard my headset crackle and I heard CW2 Crawford speak.

"It's like this, Specialist," he began, his Alabama accent coming through loud and clear over the IC. "This hyeah is one of them ad hoc missions you hear about every now and then."

"Ad hoc?" I asked and then waited as I heard a click and looked to see his lips moving again; obviously coordinating something over one of his myriad set of radios.

"Look ... Hey, whadja say yer first name was again?" he asked when he next spoke.

"Russ, Chief," I answered.

"Look, Russ, this shit is sorta fucked up, so I need you to know," he said, and then paused. "A group of vehicles from one of the FOBs was out resupplying a COP." I knew he was talking about forward operating bases and combat outposts, even with my limited time in country.

"Well, it seems that they got hit on their way back by an ambush out there in Injun Territory and have been holding out for about two hours now." He paused to answer a call on one of his radios, and then came back on with me.

"As it happens, Third Group," I just assumed he meant Third Special Forces Group, who had been operating in our area for several months, "has assets in that area who moved quickly to help 'em. But things began to escalate about an hour ago when one-a-their A-Teams reached the blowed-up vehicles and the Taliban seemed to have been reinforced by more fightin' men gittin' there right about that same time.

"My brother, Darryl, just happens to be a Weapons Sergeant with ODA-3432—that's the team on the ground, along with them poor suckers who got ambushed. And, right now, they are up to their asses in Taliban. Knowing I am in the area, he called me on my cell phone and said he needed the cavalry to come a-ridin'."

I had not been in the Army very long, but even I could begin to see just what kind of shit storm was waiting for us back at Shindand after this. Then I heard Mr. Crawford continue.

"When I asked a coupla the 'Hawk' drivers, they volunteered, but said they didn't want their enlisted guys to get in trouble along with 'em. Hell, I didn't even ask Mike Weatherby, my Number 2, to come along. He's such a straight arrow he woulda gone straight to Ops to try and stop us.

"We had-ta put this package together on the fly, so to speak. In old aviation jargon, it became, one-a those mission orders that begins with, 'Kick the tires; light the fires; first bird up take lead; check in on Guard; fire plan en route...' That sorta thing ..."

I was speechless. I did not want to spend the rest of my enlistment at the Detention Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, but that was becoming more of a likelihood as the minutes clicked by.

Our first touchdown took place in a shallow valley, where we saw a green smoke grenade marking four friendly troops who had gotten separated from the main body of friendlies after the initial ambush, as we found out later. I did not see any sign of enemy fire at this point. After they jumped on board one of the Hawks, we were off and over a hilltop, where we could now see into the valley beyond.

Man, could we see the tracers of heavy fighting flying back and forth.

Mr. Crawford swooped over a ridgeline where some green tracers, the kind that enemy AK-47s produce, were originating and told me to, "Light 'em up, Russ!" as he lined up for a run.

The first time that I pressed the trigger on the big Minigun, I was shocked for a second by the noise and light. It was sort of a loud hum, but I could feel the vibration of it so much that it was almost as loud as a semi-truck air horn. And the light from the tracers... Man, Crawford had been right, it was like the beam of one of those Star Trek phaser weapons in the movies and on TV.

I had only done a short burst, but I got the hang of it really fast. The mechanism was aligned with some sort of aiming do-hickey on the heads-up display on the pilot's faceplate. We simply swept the pattern of tracers along the ridge as I depressed the trigger when I heard him say, "Fire," in my helmet headset. Likewise, I would let off when he called, "Hold it."

The old line about a Minigun "turning Merry Mountain into Happy Hollow in no time" came to mind. All enemy fire from that ridgeline just came to an abrupt halt as Mr. Crawford turned us toward more targets.

We flew passes over two other positions that screened enemy fighters from ground engagement, but left them open from the air. We were able to make short work of them as well: twice when he told me to fire the big GAU; and once when he lit off his seven Hydra rockets at what looked to be some enemy fighters using a boulder field for protection.

With danger to the 'Hawks' from the ground out of action now, the big troop-carrying birds were able to land within a short distance of the friendly U.S. Soldiers. Once the lift birds were on the ground, Mr. Crawford cautiously landed our attack craft, as well, but all the pilots kept the blades turning.

I saw that there were several wounded Soldiers being assisted to the 'Hawks'. At the back end of the group, one Soldier who was 'Walking Wounded' was being assisted by another big Soldier, well back from the others. These would evidently be the last ones to reach the relative safety of the evac birds.

I did not hear the shot, but I saw the big Soldier who had been helping the wounded guy twist suddenly, stagger, and fall. I squeezed the safety spring lock on the hook to release my tether line from the D-ring on the deck of the aircraft, slid under the ammo feed line, and jumped down, swinging my M4, that I had slung diagonally behind me for the trip, around into combat carry mode, and with my tether bouncing around against my calves, I rushed to help the two Soldiers.

"Hey!" Mr. Crawford had tried to shout at me over our wireless connection to try to stop me, but I was up to a sprint by that time.

When I reached the pair, I noted that the big Soldier had received a grazing wound to his right thigh; not enough to put him out of action, but he would not be able to assist the other guy, a young Captain with the name strip 'Dawson' on his chest and a subdued MP patch on his sleeve.

"I got this guy," I told the big Soldier. Now that I was up close, I could see that his uniform was also 'slick,' marking him as one of the Tier-One Special Operators. "You okay yourself, Sergeant...?" Given his age and the fact that he was probably Special Forces, I just assumed that he was a senior NCO.

"SFC Darryl Crawford; and you are?" Now, I knew that I had found CW2 Crawford's brother.

"Specialist Russ Holloway. I got this guy."

SFC Crawford nodded quickly and brought up his own M4 rifle to cover us as I began to help Captain Dawson toward the big MH-60 Blackhawk. But SFC Crawford's M4 was so much more sophisticated than mine. I had heard the gun nuts in my unit describe it, but I had not seen it until now. This was the standard M4, but it was outfitted with the new Special Operations Modification package, which included a holographic sight, infrared laser, special foregrip, bright tactical light, and a bunch of other goodies.

As I was lifting the wounded Captain Dawson into the well of the Blackhawk, with the help of a couple of others already on board, I felt more than heard enemy gunfire. AK rounds were kicking up dust at my feet. I turned just as SFC Crawford cut loose on one enemy fighter and put him down with three quick rounds. I nodded to him and he waved me back toward his brother's Little Bird as he staggered toward this MH-60, which was to be his ride out. I nodded and took off at a sprint, not encountering and not caring about any more enemy fighters.

As I got close enough to get in wireless range, I heard over my helmet communicator, "Get yer ass back in place, Russ; we got more company!"

Before I could strap in, I saw another enemy fighter crawling to get into position to fire at 'my' bird, as I now thought of it. I hit him with three rounds from my M4 and looked around quickly for any more threats. Seeing none, I turned back toward the AH-6.

I quickly swung my M4 behind me, slid up under the ammo feed line, hooked the snap-hook to the D-ring, and got back on my knees in position so that I could activate the GAU when Mr. Crawford gave me the word. I had barely completed the final click when Mr. Crawford had us off the ground and climbing. I could see the two MH-60s beginning to take off now as well.

I also saw movement on the roadway coming from the northwest ... two white trucks, the type of which we had become all-too familiar; Toyota Hilux pickup trucks; trucks that had taken on the nickname 'Technicals' by the intel wienies whenever they were mounted with heavy weapons like those we saw below us.

Evidently, CW2 Crawford was well aware of the threat they posed to us and the other birds.

"Let me get closer, Russ, and then you take 'em out! But do it quick! They can chew us all up with those Fifty-Ones!" Mr. Crawford shouted into the wireless comms. I did not respond, but I got ready and waited for his signal. But the decision to wait was sort of taken out of our hands, as I saw one Taliban fighter leap from the now-stopped second truck and place a long tubular weapon across his shoulder as he took aim at the Blackhawks.