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The Dustoffer THE DUSTOFFER The DUSTOFF Association Newsletter SPRING/SUMMER 2020 In this issue: The Hero Project In Afghanistan’s “Valley of Death,” a MEDEVAC Team’s Miracle Rescue by Tony Dokoupil and John Ryan bc 1940s Burma, a New Kind of Flying Machine Joined the War: The Helicopter by Bob Bergin The Last Sunset Spring/Summer 2020 1 President’s Message reetings, fellow DUSTOFFers, family, and friends. As always, please feel free to provide any insight and/or First, let me say how honored I am to serve as your recommendations at any time throughout the year, either to GAssociation President. I have been a member since me or a member of the Executive Council. I’m proud to be a I was a 2LT. I am also blessed to have my best friend, John member of our organization and look forward to seeing you McMahan, serving beside me as Vice President. John brings all at Fort Benning in 2021! a wealth of energy and ideas to the Executive Council. I know that everyone is saddened by the postponement DUSTOFF! of the 2020 reunion. The EC made the right choice in the in- terest of safety for all our members. We remain on glide path Dave Zimmerman for a re-check back at Fort Benning in April 2021. Please President, DUSTOFF Association stay tuned for details. Our world has changed forever. We all will have to adapt to a different way of day-to-day living. As we establish our “new normal,” my promise to you is to keep Dustoff at the forefront of my efforts and to build momentum for the As- sociation going forward. DUSTOFF Association Officers & Leadership President: David [email protected] Vice President: John [email protected] Executive Director: Dan Gower ................. ,[email protected] Treasurer: Dan Gower ................. [email protected] Secretary: Jeff Mankoff ............... [email protected] Historian: Patrick Zenk ............... [email protected] Social Media: Christopher Wingate .. [email protected] DUSTOFFer Editor: Jim Truscott ................ [email protected] Web Site: https://dustoff.org Dan Gower ................. [email protected] DUSTOFFer layout & design Suzie Gower ..................................... [email protected] Founder Thomas “Egor” Johnson Printing The Sorceror’s apPRINTice 2 The DUSTOFFer The Hero Project In Afghanistan’s “Valley of Death,” a MEDEVAC Team’s Miracle Rescue THE ASSAULT TARGETED A KEY TALIBAN TRAINING CAMP IN AFGHANISTAN’S KUNAR PROVINCE. THE MISSION WAS FAILING. THE WOUNDED WERE DYING. THE MEDEVAC TEAM TOOK OFF ON THE PERILOUS MISSION TO SAVE THEM ... by Tony Dokoupil and John Ryan, published in Newsweek, November 12, 2012 he first bodies came on the first day of the opera- DUSTOFF 72—darted out of their tents, a rehearsed riot tion. It was a Saturday, hot and quiet, the wind spin- of belts and straps, buckles, and Velcro. Usually, going by Tning eddies of sand around Forward Operating Base the manual, it takes more than an hour to prep a Blackhawk Joyce in eastern Afghanistan. Out of the midmorning si- helicopter for flight. But both of these birds were airborne lence came the crackle of a hand radio. “Medevac! Mede- within five minutes, the pilots still blinking sleep from their vac! Medevac!” said the dispatcher, and eight camou- eyes. flaged figures—the helicopter crews of DUSTOFF 73 and The call came from a unit in Operation Hammer Down, a mission to clear Taliban training camps in the Watapur Valley, just over the border from Pakistan’s most dangerous tribal regions. The same terrain stymied the Soviets in the DUSTOFF Association 1980s, and controlling it was an elusive centerpiece of the Executive Council war against the. Taliban and al Qaeda. Every summer U.S. John Hosley (1981–82) .................. [email protected] forces charged in by the hundreds, but every fall the bad Ed Taylor (1983–84) ...................... [email protected] guys were back again, and the cycle repeated. This mission Thomas Scofield (1984–85) ........... [email protected] was meant to be the last dance, a crucial partnership with Donald Conkright (1987–88) ......... [email protected] the Afghan National Army before the Obama administra- Gerald Nolan (1990–91) ................ [email protected] Jim Truscott (1991–92) .................. [email protected] tion began unwinding the war. Ed Bradshaw (1993–94) ................ [email protected] It broke down almost immediately. Before dawn, a lum- Daniel Gower (1996–97) ............... [email protected] bering Chinook transport helicopter clipped a tree line and Charlie Webb (1997–98) ................ [email protected] crash-landed high in the mountains, stranding a platoon Herb Coley (1998–99) ................... [email protected] of infantry Soldiers. At least two other platoons were am- Merle Snyder (1999–2000) ............ [email protected] Gregg Griffin (2000–01) ................ [email protected] bushed at dawn as they moved into the valley. By midday, Jeff Mankoff (2001–02) ................. [email protected] the medic calls were stacking up like bids at an auction. Ken Crook (2002–03) .................... [email protected] The most urgent came from Gambir, a village notched into Art Hapner (2003–04) ................... [email protected] the mountainside, where 40 Soldiers dug in against the on- Garry Atkins (2005–06) ................. [email protected] slaught. The first in command was already dead, shot in the Doug Moore (2006–07) ................. [email protected] Timothy Burke (2007–08) ............. [email protected] neck as he moved to higher ground to organize an evacua- Robert Mitchell (2008–10) ............ [email protected] tion. Now a skinny black private was slowly choking on his Bryant Harp (2010–11) .................. [email protected] own blood, his jaw shot away. Scott Drennon (2011-12) ............... [email protected] Inside the cockpit of DUSTOFF 73, the pilot, Chief Johnny West (2012-14) .................. [email protected] Warrant Officer Erik Sabiston, 38, stared out from behind Jonathan Fristoe (2014-15) ............ [email protected] Brian Almquist (2015-16) .............. [email protected] dark shades. Back at base he was known as a jokester, Ben Knisely (2016-17) .................. [email protected] the guy who carpets a Red Sox fan’s locker with Yankee Mike Pouncey (2017-18) ............... [email protected] paraphernalia. But not in the air. Now Sabiston talked ma- Chris Irwin (2018-2020)[email protected] neuvers with co-pilot Kenneth Brodhead, 44, one of the David Zimmerman (2020-2021)[email protected] most experienced fliers in the Army. Behind them were two relative rookies, 24-year-old Specialist David Capps, the Members at Large crew’s technician, and next to him the medic herself, Sgt. Chris Wingate [email protected] Julia Bringloe, one of the few women on the front lines. Hank Tuell [email protected] They were flying over a region where more than 100 Amer- Allen Rhodes [email protected] icans have died fighting, a many-named series of valleys Rob Howe .......................................robert.f.howe4.mil@mail.mil known among some veterans by only one: the “Valley of Dennis Doyle [email protected] Death.” There was no way to land in Gambir; the fighting around the gravely wounded Soldier was too intense. Spring/Summer 2020 Trees burned; buildings smoldered. Taliban reinforcements 3 streamed in from a network of caves the details of those days—the shark- once saved his wife and unborn twin and the homes of sympathetic locals. toothed terrain, thin air, and thinner sons, flying them from rural Califor- Over the next few hours, while Amer- margins—but the weirdly pedestrian nia to San Diego for a complicated ican gunships tried to clear Gambir nature of it all. The Army air ambu- birth, and he is the kind who believes for an emergency landing, the two lance corps is the only fully equipped he owes a debt. DUSTOFF helicopters knocked down emergency fleet in the military, and Then there is Bringloe, whose jour- their rescue lists elsewhere. There was heroism is inscribed in its basic job ney is perhaps the most roundabout a patient with shrapnel in his thigh, description. Its helicopters are on the and almost certainly the most inter- two patients with gunshot wounds, front lines of a parallel war effort, a esting. She is a former student-body and then two more with the same. Nei- mission not to take lives but to save president, the daughter of an engineer, ther helicopter landed; instead, Bring- them—and, almost unbelievably, it is and yet she dropped out of college and loe and the other medic were hoisted a mission that is working. ended up digging ditches and hauling down on hooks, and then hoisted back If you are wounded in action in lumber for a living. By her late 20s, up along with the stricken. No shots Iraq or Afghanistan, you have a more she was working as a contractor in Ha- were fired, no enemy engaged. It was waii, where she married and had a son. almost like a training day. Then there is Bringloe, But she tired of building houses Then Sabiston swung the helicop- for rich people. She also noticed that ter toward Gambir. The village came whose journey is perhaps when co-workers were hurt—dropped into view all at once. the most roundabout and from ladders, separated from fin- “It looks like a war movie,” Sabis- almost certainly the most gers—she had an uncanny ability to ton thought to himself, “like Apoca- stay calm and help them. So, why not lypse Now.” A hot tide of adrenaline interesting. be a medic? To pay for the training, rushed through him. she enlisted. “My family and friends Capps, who flew with an American than 90 percent chance of coming thought I had completely lost my flag wrapped beneath his body armor, home with a heartbeat. That is the best brain,” she recalls, and in a sense she thought of his son, just five months survival rate in the history of war: up had.
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