Voted Most Likely to Say "Yes" if Asked: "If Your Friends Jumped Off a Cliff, Would You?" (Most Daring)

Here’s a quick little synopsis of the past 10 years. After Kennedy I went to the Air Force Academy where I spent the next few years at one of America’s finest institutions of education and torture. I can honestly say, as most grads do, it is a great place to be from, but not a great place to be at. Well, I survived with most of my sanity intact. I then spent the next one and half years in Undergraduate Pilot Training or in transit from one base to another. I then moved to my aircraft of choice which is the C-130 Hercules aka The Herk. We specialize in low level ingress/egress to resupply friendly forces via airdrop or airland. Basically what that boils down to is we fly into not so friendly areas with Army Grunts or supplies for Army Grunts and we either drop them out at anywhere from 500-1000 feet over a drop zone; or we land on a dirt landing zone which can be as small as 3000x60 feet and then offload them. Once I finished my initial training in the C-130 I moved to Anchorage Alaska which I have to say is an amazing place to live. I think it evens tops Colorado Springs, Co where the Academy is located not to mention the plethora of other locations I lived since leaving Fremont. I’ve been in Anchorage for almost three years now as I should be moving shortly to North Carolina to go to my next C-130 Squadron. As you can imagine I’ve been rather busy since 9-11. Most of the time I’ve been working in the Pacific theater but I will be missing the reunion due to a deployment to a lovely little location in the Middle East where the sand is plenty and the sun is hotter than a….. well, lets just say its really hot! As an Aircraft commander I have a copilot, navigator, flight engineer and two loadmasters as part of my crew. Usually our mission over here now is resupply via airland as we own most of the airstrips around here now. In the beginning our preferred method is to fly into the airfield at night without lights using Night Vision Goggles. While a lot of our missions were at night there are now plenty of times and locations where we venture in the daytime as well as most of the really dangerous stuff has died down. The first picture I’ll include is of me behind my Herk on the ramp at Kandahar Afghanistan. The second is me in the seat about ready to fly into the box so we’re all about to go lights out and fly in on NVGs. Well that’s it in a nutshell. Enjoy the reunion and I’ll try to make the next one! ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Location: Anchorage, AK Email: bbrandow99@msn.com * Below is a short story by someone far more elequent than I who happens to do the same job as I do... There I was at six thousand feet over central Iraq, two hundred eighty knots and we're dropping faster than Paris Hilton's panties. It's a typical September evening in the Persian Gulf; hotter than a rectal thermometer and I'm sweating like a priest at a Cub Scout meeting. But that's neither here nor there. The night is moonless over Baghdad tonight, and blacker than a Steven King novel. But it's 2003, folks, and I'm sporting the latest in night-combat technology. Namely, hand-me-down night vision goggles (NVGs) thrown out by the fighter boys. Additionally, my 1962 Lockheed C-130E Hercules is equipped with an obsolete, yet, semi-effective missile warning system (MWS). The MWS conveniently makes a nice soothing tone in your headset just before the missile explodes into your airplane. Who says you can't polish a turd? At any rate, the NVGs are illuminating Baghdad International Airport like the Las Vegas Strip during a Mike Tyson fight. These NVGs are the cat's ass. But I've digressed. The preferred method of approach tonight is the random shallow. This tactical maneuver allows the pilot to ingress the landing zone in an unpredictable manner, thus exploiting the supposedly secured perimeter of the airfield in an attempt to avoid enemy surface-to-air-missiles and small arms fire. Personally, I wouldn't bet my pink ass on that theory but the approach is fun as hell and that's the real reason we fly it. We get a visual on the runway at three miles out, drop down to one thousand feet above the ground, still maintaining two hundred eighty knots. Now the fun starts. It's pilot appreciation time as I descend the mighty Herk to six hundred feet and smoothly, yet very deliberately, yank into a sixty degree left bank, turning the aircraft ninety degrees offset from runway heading. As soon as we roll out of the turn, I reverse turn to the right a full two hundred seventy degrees in order to roll out aligned with the runway. Some aeronautical genius coined this maneuver the "Ninety/Two-Seventy." Chopping the power during the turn, I pull back on the yoke just to the point my nether regions start to sag, bleeding off energy in order to configure the pig for landing. "Flaps Fifty!, Landing Gear Down!, Before Landing Checklist!" I look over at the copilot and he's shaking like a cat shitting on a sheet of ice. Looking further back at the navigator, and even through the NVGs, I can clearly see the wet spot spreading around his crotch. Finally, I glance at my steely-eyed flight engineer. His eyebrows rise in unison as a grin forms on his face. I can tell he's thinking the same thing I am. "Where do we find such fine young men?" "Flaps One Hundred!" I bark at the shaking cat. Now it's all aimpoint and airspeed. Aviation 101, with the exception there's no lights, I'm on NVGs, it's Baghdad, and now tracers are starting to crisscross the black sky. Naturally, and not at all surprisingly, I grease the Goodyear's on brick-one of runway 33 left, bring the throttles to ground idle and then force the props to full reverse pitch. Tonight, the sound of freedom is my four Hamilton Standard propellers chewing through the thick, putrid, Baghdad air. The huge, one hundred thirty thousand pound, lumbering whisper pig comes to a lurching stop in less than two thousand feet. Let's see a Viper do that! We exit the runway to a welcoming committee of government issued Army grunts. It's time to download their beans and bullets and letters from their sweethearts. Walking down the crew entry steps with my lowest-bidder, Beretta 92F, 9 millimeter strapped smartly to my side, I look around and I thank God I'm not in the Army. Knowing once again I've cheated death, I ask myself, "What in the hell am I doing in this mess?" Is it Duty, Honor, and Country? You bet your ass. Or could it possibly be for the glory, the swag, and not to mention, chicks dig the Air Medal. There's probably some truth there too. But now is not the time to derive the complexities of the superior, cerebral properties of the human portion of the aviator-man-machine model. It is however, time to get out of this shit-hole. "Hey copilot clean yourself up! And how's 'bout the 'Before Starting Engines Checklist."! God, I love this job! <<   BACK to Class List