PI Parties

Those of you who have been in the military know that you work hard and party hard. We had parties. The best parties were the ones that the Negritos participated in. We had a cement pit and a spit over it that was long enough for two good sized pigs. The Negritos would cook the pigs, camote tops and camote, papaya, rice and other good things. And of course there was beer, San Miguel. It was it was iced down in a seven man life raft. There were games in the early part of the party such as contests with the blow gun and bows and arrows. There was music. Not music that you hear blasting out of boom boxes but Negrito music with little guitars, rhythm instruments and singing. Negritos would come from the village at the back gate and everyone would eat, play, drink and dance. One of the old Negrito women was called Queen Mary by everyone. She was probably in her late 70's or early 80's. Boy she loved to dance. I don't think she quit dancing until it was time to go home. When the party was over all the Negritos piled into a deuce and a half and we drove them out by the back gate and they all got out and crawled under the chain link fence, including Queen Mary, and went home.

Red Letter Day

Well I haven't been on for awhile because I'm still waiting to get my slides back so I can share them with you. BUT I had a red letter day today. I went over to the survival school at lunch with a couple of friends because the Survival Reunion was having a BBQ there. I talked with survival instructors that I hadn't seen in thirty eight years. What really prompted me to go was that I was told that Butch Poe would be there. If you will recall I told you that he was one of the two that took pictures of my Fulton Recovery ride. He was there and we met and talked. I'm looking forward to communicating with him some more. I also talked with Bob Kerr, Crash Carnahan (might have misspelled that one. Sorry Crash), and Bubba Grindle. I think that I will make plans to be at the next reunion. I enjoyed talking to my old friends. My heart in full.
By for now.

PI Thoughts and Events

The rest of my PI experiences will be in no particular order and will consume several posts because it's late now and I want to ponder my PI experiences and write about them a few at a time.
My very first recollection of the PI was getting off the airplane. It was afternoon and it was warm and humid. Someone from the PACAF Jungle Survival School, PJSS, came to pick me up. I thought it was so cool because they came driving a military Jeep with a canvas top and open sides. I got inprocessed and assigned a hootch, which I think I described earlier, and settled in.

This is a picture of the crew that picked me up. I was recently told that the Fulton recovery system was use in the new Batman movie.

Inside the C130

Good morning I hope you slept well.

Once the C130 hits the line the line is secured by the whiskers on the nose of the C130. Since the line is nylon and is braided there is a fair amount of stretch to it and it took a second or so for me to be lifted off the ground. When I did go, I went streight up and then there was a rubber band effect and I was snached in the direction of travel, I pulled a few G's at that time. There I was, trailing along 500 feet behind an airplane. Once stablized I could look down between my legs and watch the jungle passing below. It was great. At this time the line that I was attached to was below and behind the aircraft. The crew used a steel bomb, attached to a pully and winch, to snag the line. You can see the bomb being lowered in the left picture and the winch in the right picture. Once the line is secured to the winch I am pulled into the aircraft. The blue arrow is pointing at me. What a ride.

Fulton recovery cont.1

A special C130 comes by and if you look closely at the left picture you can see two things. A pair of whisker looking things that the pilot will use to engage the line on the balloon and if you look really close you will see or might see a wire extending from the whiskers out the end of each wing. This wire is serrated and it does two things, if the pilot misses the line the line will slide along the wire and it will be cut releasing me before I am even lifted off the ground, or so the theory goes. Also by cutting the line the line will not be caught up in the propellers. That would be a bad thing for everyone.

I'll talk about what happens in the airplane after the pick up later. I'm tired now.

Good night

Fulton recovery cont.

Once it is fully inflated you play out the line at a moderate rate until all the line is out. Then you sit down with your back to the wind as I am doing on the right and wait. By the way, while I was sitting there I was wondering what in the heck did I get myself into.