thedrifter
04-13-07, 07:30 PM
Drug user haven demolished in New Town
Walter Taylor,staff writer
ELIZABETHTOWN — Even Phrogs cannot fly in the fog.
A Phrog is the nickname for the C-46 Sea Knight helicopters used by the U.S. Marine Corps, supposedly because they look like frogs when viewed from the front. On Wednesday two of the assault transport helicopters landed at the Curtis L. Brown Jr. field at Elizabethtown. According to pilot and section leader Capt. Rocky Checca, this was an unplanned stop for the eight Marines of Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 364 from Camp Pendleton, California, also known as “The Purple Foxes.”
“We had to pick up an aircraft from the Marine Corps Air Station at Cherry Point and fly it back to Camp Pendleton,” Checca said. “Normally the trip takes three or four days because we are only allowed to fly six hours a day. The weather was just too bad and we could not see.”
What the Marines did see was a big dose of Elizabethtown hospitality. Airport manager Oscar Taylor arranged a ride to town so the flying leathernecks could enjoy a feast at the Front Porch restaurant as they waited for the weather to break.
“We are giving our Marines the best of care,” Taylor said. “When they leave Elizabethtown I want our hospitality etched in their minds so they never forget it.”
For Sgt. Brian Denning, a crew chief who also serves as a machine gunner, the stop in Elizabethtown is another welcome dose of American warmth. The five year veteran has two tours in Iraq under his flight suit, and he just returned with his comrades last month from Al Taqaddum Air Base in the always dangerous Al Anbar province about 35 miles west of Baghdad.
“That is a busy area,” he said. “Iraq has the worst heat you will ever experience. Here you have the humidity but over there it gets up to 135 degrees. We were treated like kings when we returned to the states.”
Denning knows his helicopter. The Sea Knights came on line in 1964 and served in every theater of operations from Vietnam until the present Global War On Terror. He said the helicopters are older than the crew members. Eventually the the V-22 Osprey tilt rotor aircraft currently being tested will replace the aging helicopters. The reliable old Phrog has twin engines and rotors. According to Denning it requires seven man hours of maintenance for every hour in the air.
“It can carry 24 troops on a good day and cruise at 145 knots,” he said.
Denning said serving in the Marine Corps is a “fantastic career” but advises new recruits to choose their jobs wisely.
“I am not a big fan of walking around with an M-16,” he said. He prefers to fly over the enemy behind his Browning .50 caliber machine gun.
Prospective pilots must train for more than two years, according to 1st. Lt. Jason Harris, who earned his wings in February of 2006.
“I checked into this squadron and two months later we were in Iraq,” he said. “We just got back in the middle of March. It was sandy and hot over there, then it turned cold in the winter.”
While in Iraq Harris logged about 300 hours of combat flying time. During the day the “Purple Foxes” served as flying ambulance drivers, as they responded to calls to assist wounded Marines and soldiers on the ground. On some days they would fly up to 10 missions.
When the bell rang Harris said the chopper could be in the air in 10 minutes. They were long minutes for the troops on the ground.
“You could tell it from their voices on the radio,” he said. “They sounded real nervous and high strung. Then we heard the sighs of relief when we had the casualty on the way to the hospital.”
Unlike the Elizabethtown airport, Harris and his fellow aviators could not count on paved runways with a friendly host.
“We had some real interesting landing zones, sometimes in people’s back yards,” he said. “We would see horses, donkeys and crowds of people gathering around. I do not really like to see crowds.”
They also ferried troops and supplies, often in the dark while flying with night vision goggles. On assault missions they would carry squads of Marines to their objectives, or pick them up for the flight back to the base.
“Due to all the IEDs on the roads it is safer to move people by air,” he said. “It was interesting. We took ground fire a few times. Mostly small arms, machine guns and a few rockets. They were terrible shots because most of the rounds went behind the aircraft.”
Unfortunately, sometimes even terrible shots get lucky. That happened on Feb. 7, 2007, when a rocket took down a CH-46, call sign Morphine 12, and killed the five Marines and two navy corpsman aboard. Several of the Marines at the E-town airport wore memorial patches on their flight suits to honor their fallen comrades.
“They had already picked up their patient and successfully delivered him to the hospital before enemy fire bought them down,” he said.
“It was kind of a shock, but we all knew the risk. Unfortunately we had a job to do so we could not take a day off to properly mourn our dead
until we got home. Then we had memorial services and that provided a lot of good closure for everybody.”
The risk is high in Iraq, he said, but so are the rewards.
“It is really hard for anyone to understand until you go over there and see the difference we are making,” he said. “There are the things that never get reported in the news, like when our Marines free up a school occupied by insurgents so children can get an education, or liberate hospitals where insurgents use murder and intimidation to make doctors to treat their wounded.”
Back in the states Harris said people welcomed them home properly. They also gave his unit a proper sendoff.
“One of the airports we passed through had a nice sending off crew for us with the VFW and bands playing,” he said. “They had free cell phones so Marines could call home one last time before we went across the pond. That was kind of nice.”
Still, Harris is aware that many of his fellow countrymen do not support the war or the troops.
“There are two schools of thought about the war on terror,” he said. “People have their beliefs, they stand by them and I am all in favor of that.
That is why we are fighting over there, so people can have the freedom to believe and say what they want. However I think that the majority of people who are anti-war, anti-troops are whatever, their ideas are just based on ignorance because they do not know the full story.”
Part of that full story this time around is that brave women are fighting, and dying alongside the men. Captain Macalynn Sebastian logged 1100 hours of flying time during two tours in Iraq. She said serving in the squadron is like “living with 154 brothers.”
Then her smile fades and her soft voice gets an edge.
“I am the only female pilot in the squadron right now,” she said. “There was another one, Jenn Harris, she was on the bird that went down. Jenn was my roommate.”
Despite the loss, Sebastian is still part of the Marine Corps family. Her husband is also a Marine. Capt. Jason Sebastian is currently flying a Super Cobra helicopter gunship in Iraq. For a time they served together at Al Taqaddum. Gunships often fly escort for the Sea Knights on medical missions and other jobs.
“One time my husband got to fly with me and that was fun,” she said. “I could look in my rear view mirror and see Jason protecting me.”
Jason Sebastian and the other warriors are protecting all of us. Friendly Americans in Elizabethtown offered a a friendly meal and assistance to his fellow Marines, as they made their way back home on a foggy day.
Ellie
Walter Taylor,staff writer
ELIZABETHTOWN — Even Phrogs cannot fly in the fog.
A Phrog is the nickname for the C-46 Sea Knight helicopters used by the U.S. Marine Corps, supposedly because they look like frogs when viewed from the front. On Wednesday two of the assault transport helicopters landed at the Curtis L. Brown Jr. field at Elizabethtown. According to pilot and section leader Capt. Rocky Checca, this was an unplanned stop for the eight Marines of Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 364 from Camp Pendleton, California, also known as “The Purple Foxes.”
“We had to pick up an aircraft from the Marine Corps Air Station at Cherry Point and fly it back to Camp Pendleton,” Checca said. “Normally the trip takes three or four days because we are only allowed to fly six hours a day. The weather was just too bad and we could not see.”
What the Marines did see was a big dose of Elizabethtown hospitality. Airport manager Oscar Taylor arranged a ride to town so the flying leathernecks could enjoy a feast at the Front Porch restaurant as they waited for the weather to break.
“We are giving our Marines the best of care,” Taylor said. “When they leave Elizabethtown I want our hospitality etched in their minds so they never forget it.”
For Sgt. Brian Denning, a crew chief who also serves as a machine gunner, the stop in Elizabethtown is another welcome dose of American warmth. The five year veteran has two tours in Iraq under his flight suit, and he just returned with his comrades last month from Al Taqaddum Air Base in the always dangerous Al Anbar province about 35 miles west of Baghdad.
“That is a busy area,” he said. “Iraq has the worst heat you will ever experience. Here you have the humidity but over there it gets up to 135 degrees. We were treated like kings when we returned to the states.”
Denning knows his helicopter. The Sea Knights came on line in 1964 and served in every theater of operations from Vietnam until the present Global War On Terror. He said the helicopters are older than the crew members. Eventually the the V-22 Osprey tilt rotor aircraft currently being tested will replace the aging helicopters. The reliable old Phrog has twin engines and rotors. According to Denning it requires seven man hours of maintenance for every hour in the air.
“It can carry 24 troops on a good day and cruise at 145 knots,” he said.
Denning said serving in the Marine Corps is a “fantastic career” but advises new recruits to choose their jobs wisely.
“I am not a big fan of walking around with an M-16,” he said. He prefers to fly over the enemy behind his Browning .50 caliber machine gun.
Prospective pilots must train for more than two years, according to 1st. Lt. Jason Harris, who earned his wings in February of 2006.
“I checked into this squadron and two months later we were in Iraq,” he said. “We just got back in the middle of March. It was sandy and hot over there, then it turned cold in the winter.”
While in Iraq Harris logged about 300 hours of combat flying time. During the day the “Purple Foxes” served as flying ambulance drivers, as they responded to calls to assist wounded Marines and soldiers on the ground. On some days they would fly up to 10 missions.
When the bell rang Harris said the chopper could be in the air in 10 minutes. They were long minutes for the troops on the ground.
“You could tell it from their voices on the radio,” he said. “They sounded real nervous and high strung. Then we heard the sighs of relief when we had the casualty on the way to the hospital.”
Unlike the Elizabethtown airport, Harris and his fellow aviators could not count on paved runways with a friendly host.
“We had some real interesting landing zones, sometimes in people’s back yards,” he said. “We would see horses, donkeys and crowds of people gathering around. I do not really like to see crowds.”
They also ferried troops and supplies, often in the dark while flying with night vision goggles. On assault missions they would carry squads of Marines to their objectives, or pick them up for the flight back to the base.
“Due to all the IEDs on the roads it is safer to move people by air,” he said. “It was interesting. We took ground fire a few times. Mostly small arms, machine guns and a few rockets. They were terrible shots because most of the rounds went behind the aircraft.”
Unfortunately, sometimes even terrible shots get lucky. That happened on Feb. 7, 2007, when a rocket took down a CH-46, call sign Morphine 12, and killed the five Marines and two navy corpsman aboard. Several of the Marines at the E-town airport wore memorial patches on their flight suits to honor their fallen comrades.
“They had already picked up their patient and successfully delivered him to the hospital before enemy fire bought them down,” he said.
“It was kind of a shock, but we all knew the risk. Unfortunately we had a job to do so we could not take a day off to properly mourn our dead
until we got home. Then we had memorial services and that provided a lot of good closure for everybody.”
The risk is high in Iraq, he said, but so are the rewards.
“It is really hard for anyone to understand until you go over there and see the difference we are making,” he said. “There are the things that never get reported in the news, like when our Marines free up a school occupied by insurgents so children can get an education, or liberate hospitals where insurgents use murder and intimidation to make doctors to treat their wounded.”
Back in the states Harris said people welcomed them home properly. They also gave his unit a proper sendoff.
“One of the airports we passed through had a nice sending off crew for us with the VFW and bands playing,” he said. “They had free cell phones so Marines could call home one last time before we went across the pond. That was kind of nice.”
Still, Harris is aware that many of his fellow countrymen do not support the war or the troops.
“There are two schools of thought about the war on terror,” he said. “People have their beliefs, they stand by them and I am all in favor of that.
That is why we are fighting over there, so people can have the freedom to believe and say what they want. However I think that the majority of people who are anti-war, anti-troops are whatever, their ideas are just based on ignorance because they do not know the full story.”
Part of that full story this time around is that brave women are fighting, and dying alongside the men. Captain Macalynn Sebastian logged 1100 hours of flying time during two tours in Iraq. She said serving in the squadron is like “living with 154 brothers.”
Then her smile fades and her soft voice gets an edge.
“I am the only female pilot in the squadron right now,” she said. “There was another one, Jenn Harris, she was on the bird that went down. Jenn was my roommate.”
Despite the loss, Sebastian is still part of the Marine Corps family. Her husband is also a Marine. Capt. Jason Sebastian is currently flying a Super Cobra helicopter gunship in Iraq. For a time they served together at Al Taqaddum. Gunships often fly escort for the Sea Knights on medical missions and other jobs.
“One time my husband got to fly with me and that was fun,” she said. “I could look in my rear view mirror and see Jason protecting me.”
Jason Sebastian and the other warriors are protecting all of us. Friendly Americans in Elizabethtown offered a a friendly meal and assistance to his fellow Marines, as they made their way back home on a foggy day.
Ellie