The World of Commander McFragg

Remember this cartoon?

Somewhere south of the Iraq border, January 1991
Let's return to the desert. Hundreds of thousands of troops now lay in protective posture very near the Iraq border. Here, 500,000 troops were arrayed in an arc running hundreds of miles. US Marines acted as an anchor against the Persian Gulf to the far east. To the extreme northwest end, the French had been placed so they can easily retreat, and not shoot any friendlies in the process.

French soldiers teach Afghans how to retreat (Readers Digest)

For weeks now our battalion was dug in like the old wagons of the west, in a circle. Helicopters were in the center of the circle. The encampment was ringed by guard positions studded with razor wire and gun emplacements. Along the entire front, this scene was repeated thousands of times. In some cases, scouts and aviation assets were probing far ahead, checking invasion routes for enemy positions and obstacles. During our many general support (GS) flights, we were afforded an eagle's eye view of the largest land army ever assembled for one battle and.....
 IT
WAS
AWESOME!!

(DoD Image)

The forces arrayed for this battle would set records for size, speed, lethality, and kinetic energy. Personally, while not flying, just before bed time, I sat outside my tent, and for weeks I watched Tapline road. Twenty four hours a day, everyday, for weeks, an endless stream of tractor trailers pulling low-boys carted tanks, fuel and ammo, down that road in preparation for invasion.

Our company commander, a twitchy fellow named Tim, was fairly new to us. So far, we were not impressed. He had taken on a female Lieutenant as a concubine, all of us having seen her sleeping over in his rack area. Also, he allowed that we were only issued 18 rounds for our Colt revolver .38 caliber pistols. We felt he may have set a little better example than that, and just possibly gone to bat for us to receive the newer M9 Beretta semi-automatic's; seeing how we were going to war with the worlds 4th largest land army. I guess not.

Our previous commander, Maj. John Henson, had been promoted to an "S" shop  at the battalion command level....S3 I believe. (Operations and Planning). He was sorely missed. Major H. was a decisive and cool southern customer from Alabama. The kind of guy Lee could have put in charge of artillery or cavalry in the civil war. We loved him and he loved us. This new guy, well, we never found a way to jell with him, mostly due to his personality and lack of leadership skills.

Leadership? You Betcha!

Getting to this position had taken months. We were now just one final move from our invasion position with the helicopter-borne infantry of the 101st Airborne. Those last five months saw us attacked with Scud missiles for several days, precipitating our move away from KFIA airport to the big sandbox. During one such Scud attack, we saw the Patriot missiles streaking out of their nearby launchers, like a gross of bottle rockets, only they weren't bottle rockets.

(DoD Image)

Always handy, were our gas masks. Having been primed to expect chemical attacks from Saddam, every time the Patriot missiles flew, we'd don our masks. During this notable attack, several of us pilots, old and new Warrant Officers, stood on the blistering flight line at KFIA and quickly donned our masks. Well, all but one anyway. A young, now wild-eyed WO1 named Glenn, had left his mask somewhere, which in itself was a crime and now potentially life threatening.

HAHAHAHA! (DoD training manual image)

In typical military style, we laughed at him. We told him not to be scared. We asked if we could have his shortwave radio if he died. We told him not to worry, we'd hit him with the anti-nerve agent auto-injectors if he started frothing at the mouth, and flailing around like a test goat on the government training films. The looks in his eyes were priceless. We gathered around him in a circle, and for a second he lined up on a stubby little CW2 we called Spuds McKenzie, and it looked like he was gonna maybe try and take away his mask. Finally he took off at a full sprint to find his mask.

Spuds McKenzie (Anheuser Busch)

 On a later occasion, while dispersed in the desert, we came under a Scud attack. Here were we about 20 miles north of Dammam. This attack occurred at night. This was one of the strangest nights of my life. I believe I either saw a UFO or a new, stealth-type aircraft. We were out in a sea of tall sand dunes and I was on night guard duty. Sitting on a pile of sand with a set of NVG's and an M-16 rifle with one 30 round magazine, I lay on my back stargazing. (Warrant Officers suck at guard duty) I saw something blotting out the stars but with no running lights or strobes, like you expect to see on aircraft. As it passed by, I saw one light centered on the aft end of the craft, moving back and forth like the eye of a Cylon robot from Battlestar Galactica, or Knightrider's Kit car. Not 30 minutes later, I see dozens of Patriots out of Dammam, screaming straight over our location.

Cylon Robot Drone

Multiple explosions are occurring right above us now. I give the alarm, waking everybody up to don their masks. I can see the Scuds, hyper-fast streaks of burning metal, coming down in little starbursts, as they are being intercepted. Standing there I can't help feeling naked as I realize 1000lb rocket motors and booster tanks are falling out of the sky, directly above me. Most pathetic of all, well after the attack was over, this one clueless female soldier nobody liked, emerges from her tent banging her mess kit together sounding the gas attack alarm. Ummm, kinda late for that...but good try.

Scud being intercepted (CNN)

Downed Scud (DoD Image)

Note: During that particular attack an American troop barracks was struck by the remnants of a Scud missile, killing and wounding many personnel. My brother, an Army operating room surgical technician, worked the operating room at the MASH hospital there in Dammam as these heroes were rushed into surgery. No movie could ever do justice to what he saw that night.

But I digress. Back to our illustrious commander. While in the field, all of us had to pull guard duty and as we got closer to the Iraq border. As we increased the number of guard positions, more and more people were added to the roster. It reached the point where every one of us was pulling duty either nightly, or every other night. One particular morning, our commander went to every tent in our company area telling all personnel to line up outside with all their kit (TA-50 gear). So there we were, lined up outside in formation with all of our gear laid out in front of us. The captain was rummaging through everyone's stuff. (Last night a high explosive, fragmentation grenade had come up missing from a guard position.) Note: Containing 6.5 ounces of composition B, the 14 ounce grenade has a 15 meter casualty radius and a 5 meter kill zone.

M-67

Our captain is now pacing back and forth in front of the company, some white spittle stuck in the corner of his mouth. He's on the verge of screaming. "I know one of you took it! Step forward and turn in the grenade! We will stand here all day!! I know you did it to make me look bad! I will fight you right now!!" He then takes off his BDU blouse top. He say, "No rank now, come on and fight me!!" Now, you know, sometimes when put in a stressful situation, you see people's true colors. This was one of those times. Several of us warrant officers exchange looks with raised eyebrows. WTF? He's lost it. This guy is going to lead us in combat? We're fucked. I ain't following this guy to the shitter. After a few hours, the grenade is never produced, and by lunchtime we were dismissed. We were all wondering who the hell took the grenade, more amused than anything else.

UH-1H Huey (DoD Image)

Fast forward 9 months. The war is over. We won. Yay. Our helicopters are nestled in the belly of a USNS merchant marine ship making port in Jacksonville, Florida. I am assigned to meet the ship with our maintenance officer and fly the aircraft from the docks to a nearby staging area. During one such flight I make note of a flickering low fuel caution warning light and advised the maintenance officer of the erroneous indication. All of our aircraft are then flown back to Ft. Campbell, KY, many of them are immediately placed into maintenance for much needed work, some, however, are flown on routine missions, including this one.

In September, the bird with the caution light issue is finally in phase maintenance. As the phase team works deeper into the fuel system of this bird, they find contaminated fuel filters. Opening the fuel cell they find contaminated fuel boost pump screens. Working on further into the bottom of the tank they find about 4 feet of duct tape connected to an M-67 fragmentation grenade with it's pin pulled. The hangar is evacuated and EOD is called. A soldier held this grenade until the EOD arrived. Apparently, on the night in question, the grenade's fuse spoon was taped with about 5-7' of duct tape (aka 100 mile an hr tape) and the pin was pulled. The grenade was then dropped into the fuel filler opening. It was assumed by this asshole that the tape would quickly dissolve and the commanders aircraft would be blown to bits. However, jet fuel is not gasoline and is not a very good solvent.

Ft Leavenworth, KS (DoD Image)

A simple investigation quickly determined who had not flown on this aircraft since the grenade disappeared. A crew chief was discovered to have not flown on the bird, and after questioning, was arrested. Many of us had flown that aircraft, for many hours, while this fuckhead must have sat there thinking what?? He was convicted and sent to the military prison at Ft Leavenworth. I hope he's still rotting there.

See attached article link: http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=266&dat=19910905&id=A9wrAAAAIBAJ&sjid=dmQFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4979,352537