From DefenseLINK News:
It all started as Chief Warrant Officer James Gisclair was giving an orientation flight to a pilot new to the area. He and the new pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Nathan Scott, spotted a flash flood occurring after heavy rains hit the area earlier that day. They noticed a group of people standing alongside the banks of a flooding river, pointing toward the middle as they followed its path.
“As we looked closer we saw three kids stuck on a concrete foundation with the river rushing past them,” Gisclair said. “We went back to Salerno, where we asked to go back to rescue the kids. We were approved to go back and get them, and when we got back there, the water had risen to above their feet.”
The pilots, flying a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter configured for medical evacuations, couldn’t land close enough to pull the stranded kids to safety. They had to rely on a hoist system called a jungle penetrator. The hoist basically is a cable with a seat at the end, and it’s lowered or raised with the help of the aircraft’s crew chief. To rescue the children, someone had to sit on the end of the hoist while someone else lowered him to the children.
The arduous task fell to Sgt. Tyrone Jordan. As Jordan got ready to be lowered to the now panic-stricken children, Spc. Christopher Zimmerman set the winch in motion, lowering him toward the rapidly moving water.
“They were real scared—scared and cold. Shivering, in fact,” said Jordan. “They didn’t want to come to me at first, but when I smiled and held out my hand they came running.”
The hoist could only hold three people at a time, so Jordan took the two youngest boys, who he guesses were ages 5 and 8, with him up to the helicopter.
“They were really scared of heights, I think,” he said. “One of them panicked and kicked me off the hoist when I put them into the aircraft, but thanks to Zimmerman I was secured to the cable and was able to pull myself back on to it.”
Gisclair and Scott flew the helicopter a short distance away to let the two children out before going back for the last one.
“We flew them about three football fields away,” Gisclair said. “We set them down in an open backyard and then went back for the last kid.”
The crowd of onlookers, which had looked disappointed and even angry when the aircrew flew away after first spotting the children, had now swelled to about 600 people, Gisclair said. The aircrew had no way to tell them they had to go to Salerno Air Base before they could rescue the children, he said. In the end, it didn’t matter, and their intent soon was clear enough for all too see.
“They were happy to see us, I could tell,” he said. “They were clapping and waving their hands at us when we picked up and set down the first two. The kids were scared, but they were safe.”
The third boy, who Jordan guesses was 10, came quickly to the aircraft. “He wasn’t scared at all of me or the helicopter, but he was cold and shivering very badly,” Jordan said. “The wind near the water was whipping around pretty good, and the water was flowing very fast.”
The aircraft’s pilots and crew are made up of a hodgepodge of units from across the world. Gislair and Zimmerman are from the 68th Medical Evacuation Company in Hawaii and Alaska, and Scott is from the 159th Medical Evacuation Company from Germany. Jordan also is based out of Germany with the 45th Medical Evacuation Company.
WITH THEIR AERIAL AGRESSION, YOUR GUNG-HO DEATHMONGERS IN THEIR KEVLAR AND THEIR OMINOUS FLYING MACHINES SHALL TURN THE MUSLIM WORLD INTO MAD DOGS, MR BUSH—MAD DOGS OF ALLAH WHO WILL TEAR AT THE THROATS OF YOUR IMPERIAL HUBRIS UNTIL THE GREAT SATAN LAY DEFEATED IN A POOL OF ITS OWN EVIL ACCURSED GORE!
Sadly, this is the kind of story you have to go to DefenseLINK to find (or, in my case, have Robb email it to me, via a link on QandO)—and not, say, on the front page New York Times. No, the only way something like this would show up on the front page of the Times is if a brave undercover investigation instigated by the Paper of Record finds that the soldiers forgot to wear gloves while handling a Muslim. Especially if one of the soldiers is a Jew. Because then we’d have a story, baby!
WHY DO YOU JARHEADS SO HATE ‘THE OTHER’?
Makes me proud that my tax dollars support soldiers like this.
And that we have a leader who supports a military like this.
CHICKENHAWK!
though, we all know what a propaganda mill defenslink is, right?
First Militant:” Say my brother, perhaps we could afford a blackhawk or two to rescue some Iraqi children ourselves someday, yes? Then we could recruit more brothers to help bring down the satans oppressing our people, yes? I mean, Zarqawi always seems to have such fine suits. Perhaps he could ask our fellow mujihadeen to fork over a few to win some hearts and minds, yes?”
Second Militant:”All of your talk is wasting our time when we need to finish stuffing semtex inside this schoolbus. Hurry my brother, the kindergartners get out at noon, and we must be on time to fight the oppressors, Allah be praised…”
You bastard, coke all over my damn screen due to the rant at the end of that sucker.
Sure, but they left out the part where they turned the kids over to Haliburton to be used in their Giant Naked Iraqi Pyramid project…
[pop pop pop] Did you hear that? That was my skull!
Wait… let me get this straight. Now you’re implying that the **New York Times** is subtly anti-Semitic? Really? Really, Jeff? Do you really mean that? Because I don’t know, that one seems like, hmmm, a bit of a stretch – to put it mildly – even in the context an all-out anti-MSM-apalooza. I mean, we’re talking about the New York Times, Jeff. Even you should be able to recognize the futility of trying to use that rhetorical angle to fulfill the “America-hating liberal media” narrative in this one particular instance.
No, I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying the New York Times is above all multiculturalist and internationalist—and so can therefore recognize the offense a Jew poses to Muslims when he touches something of theirs, even though from our particular Western, post-enlightenment paradigm, we see such a taboo as perhaps less than compelling.
But really, who are we to judge?
For instance, shooting Muslims with bullets made in Israel? That’s just so insensitive, given the predominant—and equally valid, contingently speaking—worldview held by Muslims as pertains to Jews.
But Jeff, what if the soldiers wore latex gloves while shooting the Muslims with Zionist bullets. Much more sensitive, no?
Damn government employees wasting tax dollars like that.
Just how much did that little ‘rescue’ operation using multi-million dollar equipment, highly trained personnel and all that Haliburton fuel cost the American taxpayer?
(You can’t hear my voice or you would be able to note the sarcasm in it.)
Er, Salerno is a Forward Operating Base in Afghanistan, not far outside of Khowst. Therefore, this was obviously part of the Halibushitler oil pipeline project, not the Giant Naked Iraqi Pyramid project… heh.
It makes me sick that very few know that our people at Salerno FOB, Bagram AF, Khandahar, etc., do things like this quite often. I had so many volunteers to go on Humanitarian Assistance missions at Bagram, that it would be weeks before I could get to any one unit or group.
Really, I’m ashamed to be an American. Such blatant propagandist techniques. I will not be suckered in.
not to mention some of the personal projects as well. Camp Phoenix is near an orphanage and we sent lots of clothes, toys and school supplies to soldiers there to distribute. i have other friends in differents ao’s and i think all of them have at some point asked for similar items to be sent.
Let me get this straight, no comment on the gist and thrust of this post from CJ (namely, that the elite media ignores “feel good” stories like this in favor of the East Coast news-cycle friendly car bomb de jour) and focuses on El Jeffe’s off the cuff inclusion of a jewish refernce at the end?
Curious.
Fred: I think Citizen’s last little bit about the “narrative” may show where he’s coming from on this one.
I’m saying the New York Times is above all multiculturalist and internationalistâ€â€and so can therefore recognize the offense a Jew poses to Muslims when he touches something of theirs, even though from our particular Western, post-enlightenment paradigm, we see such a taboo as perhaps less than compelling.
Alright. I don’t agree with your characterization of either the NYT or multiculturalism, but I understand the point you were trying to make, and I see it wasn’t the one I thought you were. My bad.
Oh, sweet (partial) vindication! I’ve arrived!
No need for snark… I was just acknowledging my mistake.
Great! Don’t get cocky kid. /Han Solo off/
Fred: I think Citizen’s last little bit about the “narrative†may show where he’s coming from on this one.
Oh, do enlighten us, RS. Where am I “coming from on this”? (And please, make it something interesting, because if you just lay the usual line about loving terrorists or other such nonsense on me, that would be so frightfully boring)
And Fred, I’m not quite sure I get your point. This post contained nothing surprising to me, other than that single line. The “MSM intentionally undermines the war effort by showing only bad news etc etc” narrative is pretty old hat, so I don’t really see any point in debating it. It’s sort of like what some of you were saying a few days back when Jeff had a post mocking the “why are you afraid of the truth?” refrain… it’s not that I’m “avoiding” it, or “afraid” of it; it’s more just that I’ve heard it so many times, whenever I see a new iteration, I just sort of roll my eyes and move on. But the thing about the soldier being Jewish just sort of jumped out at me, because it seemed so out of place.
All is old hat to such a world-weary sage. It is your curse: all the good narratives have been written, and your capacity to absorb them knows no bounds.
Related: Anybody else notice that Hollywood is doing virtually nothing but remakes these days?
Yeah, it makes me want to go to the movies as much as I did when I was a kid (ie, not at all).
TW – ten, as in I couldn’t fit 5 movies in the top 10 movies of the year.
All is old hat to such a world-weary sage. It is your curse: all the good narratives have been written, and your capacity to absorb them knows no bounds.
Oh, snap! You go, girlfriend!
MISOGYNIST! SEXIST! HOMOPHOBE!
don’t forget CHRISTOPHOBE!
I think you forgot “racist” and “Nazi” as well.
I mean, since you’re trying to stifle dissent, and all.
Speaking of oft-heard narratives.
There’s nothing quite as familiar as the familiar narrative narrative.
I’m just asking the question, CJ. Perhaps you chafe beneath the scratchy blanket of my bold, transgressive truth telling?
Why are you so afraid of the dialogue?
Because I haven’t read my script yet.
CITIZEN JOURNALIST = PC police.
(Puts on new Che t-shirt)
It doesn’t rain often here at Salerno…but when it does…lookout! BTW that was only 2 weeks after our last rocket attack.