thedrifter
05-28-03, 06:23 PM
POW returns, forever changed
By KATE WILTROUT, The Virginian-Pilot
© May 25, 2003
COPPERAS COVE, Texas -- In the living room of his new brick house overlooking the plains of central Texas, Dave Williams sticks his arm into an orange plastic biohazard bag and pulls out a pair of grimy yellow pajamas.
The sight and smell immediately send clouds across his face.
``I haven't seen these,'' he says quietly, looking down at the soiled button-front shirt and pull-on pants. ``And the feelings I have going through my mind right now . . .'' His voice trails off.
``It's so doggone crazy.''
Just eight weeks earlier, Williams and another Army Apache helicopter pilot, Ron Young, had been captured by Iraqi forces after their chopper went down near Karbala. Soon afterward, they were forced out of their khaki flight suits and into the striped cotton pajamas.
Young's were blue, Williams' yellow.
The outfits were among the few constants in three weeks filled with fear and uncertainty.
They wore them in seven different prisons, their captors moving them every few days to stay ahead of the approaching American forces.
They wore them during sleepless nights as allied bombs buckled the prison walls that held them.
And they wore them onto the U.S. helicopter that finally spirited them away from their nightmare on April 13, when Marines liberated Williams, Young and five other POWs from a house near the city of Tikrit.
Since then, it's been a whirlwind six weeks for Williams, who grew up in Chesapeake and whose mother and sister still live there: Counseling. Repatriation. Teary reunions. Easter with the president. A vacation cruise. David Letterman and ``60 Minutes.''
Now, the first wave of the frenzy has died down, and the 30-year-old chief warrant officer and former special operations soldier is back home with his family. He's a stranger to the house, in a way -- they moved into it a few days before he went to war. Boxes from Korea, his last post, wait in the garage to be unpacked. Newspapers with his picture pile up in the study.
Williams is kind of a stranger in his own life, as well.
Since his boyhood days in Hampton Roads, when he was nearly obsessed with flying, he has always known what he wanted to do, has always mapped out the next step. Now, for the first time, after what he has endured, he's not so sure what the future holds.
Warding off tears, Williams -- still 20 pounds lighter than when he was captured -- puts the pajamas aside.
He is a long way, though, from being able to put aside the three weeks of terror that even his mother says will leave him forever changed.
Leader of the pack It began in darkness on March 23, when about 30 Apache attack helicopters left Kuwait and streaked toward Karbala, about 60 miles southwest of Baghdad.
Williams, trained as an Apache instructor, was the primary pilot, sitting in the rear of the two-person cockpit. Young, a co-pilot and gunner four years Williams' junior, sat up front.
They flew for two hours, stopped to refuel, and were in the air for another 20 minutes when anti-aircraft fire started lighting up the sky. Soon, Williams says, they were flying through a ``wall of lead.'' He could see two men on the ground, taking turns firing a 23 mm anti-aircraft gun at them, then diving for cover.
``It's the most advanced attack helicopter in the world,'' Williams says. ``But it's still susceptible to small-arms fire.''
At one point, a donkey scurried through the scene -- an absurdity he still laughs about.
Williams and Young waited for orders to move out, knowing that with each extra second they hovered, they were in more danger.
``I didn't want to be flying in that stuff,'' Williams says. ``But I stayed there. I sucked it up. I didn't go south.'' A round came through the floor and tore through the sole of his left boot, nicking a toe and leaving powder burns on his foot.
Another took out one of the helicopter's two engines.
The chopper's internal alarm system -- a recording of a woman's voice -- recited a list of warnings into his headset.
``She was vomiting all this information,'' Williams says. ``Ron joked later that she was stuttering.''
The worst message for the chief pilot: ``Rotor RPM low.''
If the blades don't spin fast enough, a helicopter can't stay airborne. Williams concentrated on keeping the helicopter level, and they landed in a field.
About 90 minutes later, after swimming a few hundred yards in a canal, the two were taken prisoner. They were interviewed and videotaped, their frightened faces broadcast around the world.
About five days later, in a Baghdad prison, they discovered they weren't alone. Five soldiers from Fort Bliss, Texas, were being held alongside them.
The revelation gave Williams even more to worry about. Because he was the senior ranking officer, the welfare of the other soldiers -- ranging in age from 21 to 31 -- became his responsibility.
His training helped him recognize signs of trouble in his fellow captives.
He pleaded with their guards to move them to safer quarters when American bombs started hitting nearby. They didn't. He asked an English-speaking doctor who examined them to bring him a copy of the Geneva Convention, which establishes the rules for treating prisoners of war. The doctor never returned.
He tried to answer the scared soldiers' questions and give them hope.
Are we going to make it out of here?
Are the Americans going to bomb us?
Are our captors going to kill us?
Do the Americans know where we're at?
``I told them, `They're looking for us. Never forget that.' '' They could read the fear in his eyes when he got nervous, Williams says. In his mind, he constantly replayed his last flight, wondering what he could have done differently, how he could have avoided being hit.
``All night long, I would think, `What if?' '' he says. ``I played `What if?' a million times.''
Everyone from his psychologist to his mother tells him he did everything right.
``It's hard for someone like me to accept that,'' he admits.
He's still in close touch with the former prisoners from the 507th Maintenance Company: Shoshana Johnson, Edgar Hernandez, Joseph Hudson, Patrick Miller and James Riley.
He still feels very protective of them, referring to them all as kids.
``Maybe it was meant to happen, for those kids' sakes,'' Williams says of his own capture.
And maybe his own upbringing, as well as the military training that came afterward, prepared him to be the man his fellow soldiers could depend on, the one who would find a way to land the crippled helicopter safely and survive everything that followed.
Chesapeake childhood Williams moved to Hampton Roads from Florida in 1981 with his parents and his younger sister, Farrah. His dad, David C. Williams, worked in retail; his mom, Pam, later got a job with the Chesapeake Police Department. Both expected Dave and his sister to behave.
Treat others the way you want to be treated, they were taught. No lying, cheating or stealing.
He has good memories of Great Bridge, which he says was a smaller, more tightly knit community 20 years ago than it is now.
``I think Chesapeake was a good place to grow up,'' he says.
continued
By KATE WILTROUT, The Virginian-Pilot
© May 25, 2003
COPPERAS COVE, Texas -- In the living room of his new brick house overlooking the plains of central Texas, Dave Williams sticks his arm into an orange plastic biohazard bag and pulls out a pair of grimy yellow pajamas.
The sight and smell immediately send clouds across his face.
``I haven't seen these,'' he says quietly, looking down at the soiled button-front shirt and pull-on pants. ``And the feelings I have going through my mind right now . . .'' His voice trails off.
``It's so doggone crazy.''
Just eight weeks earlier, Williams and another Army Apache helicopter pilot, Ron Young, had been captured by Iraqi forces after their chopper went down near Karbala. Soon afterward, they were forced out of their khaki flight suits and into the striped cotton pajamas.
Young's were blue, Williams' yellow.
The outfits were among the few constants in three weeks filled with fear and uncertainty.
They wore them in seven different prisons, their captors moving them every few days to stay ahead of the approaching American forces.
They wore them during sleepless nights as allied bombs buckled the prison walls that held them.
And they wore them onto the U.S. helicopter that finally spirited them away from their nightmare on April 13, when Marines liberated Williams, Young and five other POWs from a house near the city of Tikrit.
Since then, it's been a whirlwind six weeks for Williams, who grew up in Chesapeake and whose mother and sister still live there: Counseling. Repatriation. Teary reunions. Easter with the president. A vacation cruise. David Letterman and ``60 Minutes.''
Now, the first wave of the frenzy has died down, and the 30-year-old chief warrant officer and former special operations soldier is back home with his family. He's a stranger to the house, in a way -- they moved into it a few days before he went to war. Boxes from Korea, his last post, wait in the garage to be unpacked. Newspapers with his picture pile up in the study.
Williams is kind of a stranger in his own life, as well.
Since his boyhood days in Hampton Roads, when he was nearly obsessed with flying, he has always known what he wanted to do, has always mapped out the next step. Now, for the first time, after what he has endured, he's not so sure what the future holds.
Warding off tears, Williams -- still 20 pounds lighter than when he was captured -- puts the pajamas aside.
He is a long way, though, from being able to put aside the three weeks of terror that even his mother says will leave him forever changed.
Leader of the pack It began in darkness on March 23, when about 30 Apache attack helicopters left Kuwait and streaked toward Karbala, about 60 miles southwest of Baghdad.
Williams, trained as an Apache instructor, was the primary pilot, sitting in the rear of the two-person cockpit. Young, a co-pilot and gunner four years Williams' junior, sat up front.
They flew for two hours, stopped to refuel, and were in the air for another 20 minutes when anti-aircraft fire started lighting up the sky. Soon, Williams says, they were flying through a ``wall of lead.'' He could see two men on the ground, taking turns firing a 23 mm anti-aircraft gun at them, then diving for cover.
``It's the most advanced attack helicopter in the world,'' Williams says. ``But it's still susceptible to small-arms fire.''
At one point, a donkey scurried through the scene -- an absurdity he still laughs about.
Williams and Young waited for orders to move out, knowing that with each extra second they hovered, they were in more danger.
``I didn't want to be flying in that stuff,'' Williams says. ``But I stayed there. I sucked it up. I didn't go south.'' A round came through the floor and tore through the sole of his left boot, nicking a toe and leaving powder burns on his foot.
Another took out one of the helicopter's two engines.
The chopper's internal alarm system -- a recording of a woman's voice -- recited a list of warnings into his headset.
``She was vomiting all this information,'' Williams says. ``Ron joked later that she was stuttering.''
The worst message for the chief pilot: ``Rotor RPM low.''
If the blades don't spin fast enough, a helicopter can't stay airborne. Williams concentrated on keeping the helicopter level, and they landed in a field.
About 90 minutes later, after swimming a few hundred yards in a canal, the two were taken prisoner. They were interviewed and videotaped, their frightened faces broadcast around the world.
About five days later, in a Baghdad prison, they discovered they weren't alone. Five soldiers from Fort Bliss, Texas, were being held alongside them.
The revelation gave Williams even more to worry about. Because he was the senior ranking officer, the welfare of the other soldiers -- ranging in age from 21 to 31 -- became his responsibility.
His training helped him recognize signs of trouble in his fellow captives.
He pleaded with their guards to move them to safer quarters when American bombs started hitting nearby. They didn't. He asked an English-speaking doctor who examined them to bring him a copy of the Geneva Convention, which establishes the rules for treating prisoners of war. The doctor never returned.
He tried to answer the scared soldiers' questions and give them hope.
Are we going to make it out of here?
Are the Americans going to bomb us?
Are our captors going to kill us?
Do the Americans know where we're at?
``I told them, `They're looking for us. Never forget that.' '' They could read the fear in his eyes when he got nervous, Williams says. In his mind, he constantly replayed his last flight, wondering what he could have done differently, how he could have avoided being hit.
``All night long, I would think, `What if?' '' he says. ``I played `What if?' a million times.''
Everyone from his psychologist to his mother tells him he did everything right.
``It's hard for someone like me to accept that,'' he admits.
He's still in close touch with the former prisoners from the 507th Maintenance Company: Shoshana Johnson, Edgar Hernandez, Joseph Hudson, Patrick Miller and James Riley.
He still feels very protective of them, referring to them all as kids.
``Maybe it was meant to happen, for those kids' sakes,'' Williams says of his own capture.
And maybe his own upbringing, as well as the military training that came afterward, prepared him to be the man his fellow soldiers could depend on, the one who would find a way to land the crippled helicopter safely and survive everything that followed.
Chesapeake childhood Williams moved to Hampton Roads from Florida in 1981 with his parents and his younger sister, Farrah. His dad, David C. Williams, worked in retail; his mom, Pam, later got a job with the Chesapeake Police Department. Both expected Dave and his sister to behave.
Treat others the way you want to be treated, they were taught. No lying, cheating or stealing.
He has good memories of Great Bridge, which he says was a smaller, more tightly knit community 20 years ago than it is now.
``I think Chesapeake was a good place to grow up,'' he says.
continued