Flying With Armed PJs

  • Thread starter Boondocksaint375
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Boondocksaint375

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The Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) helicopters operated by the U.S. Air Force in Afghanistan are the paramedics of combat. Their job is to get a soldier or civilian treatment during the "golden hour," the timeframe that can make a difference between life and death.
They listen to the radio from their wooden hut at Khandahar Air Field in southern Afghanistan waiting for the call. They get a debriefing about combat operations that day, including where they may be sent. A large map pinpoints the locations

They share lunch, heaving pieces of chicken onto paper plates, drinking sodas, chatting and waiting.

Suddenly, a voice squawks over the intercom and they dash from the hut to their specially-designed Black Hawk helicopters on the nearby tarmac.

Within minutes they are in the air. Two Pararescuemen, Staff Sgt. Mark Bedell and Senior Airman Andrew Rios, sit with their feet dangling hundreds of feet above Khandahar Province. Known as PJs (Pararescue Jumpers), they are trained to bring back downed pilots or provide emergency treatment to soldiers and civilians caught up in fighting.

The helicopter is all business. All the seats have been taken out and supplies are neatly stocked to one side. There is only a wide and empty metal space. Senior Master Sgt. Walter Bacio mans an M4 machine gun, while flight engineer Senior Airman Andrew Gibson gazes out the window.

In a blur, we pass over mud huts, grazing sheep and then bank a bit too close to a mountainside. A sort of super seatbelt is holding me to the floor, but I'm convinced I'll roll out of the helicopter like a marble into the dust below. NPR photographer David Gilkey is somehow snapping pictures without holding on for dear life.

The pilot, Major. Tom Roberts, and his co-pilot Capt. Hung Nguyen, then turn in a sharp angle and drop into a compound, less than 10 miles from Khandahar Air Field. The whoosh of the helicopter blades is almost deafening. Two Americans are carrying an Afghan man on a stretcher. He looks bewildered. He yells to the PJs that the man has stepped on a mine.

He has lacerations and an injured groin. Within seconds they are hustling him onboard, the stretcher fastened to the metal floor. His head lolls back and forth as the PJs work on him. An IV needle is put into his arm. As he is stabilized, a peaceful look covers his face.

The helicopter banks again and drops into a dirt field next to an Afghan military hospital. The man is carried out and placed inside an ancient ambulance. The CSAR crew rises once more into the sky, heading back to the wooden hut, waiting for still another call.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2009/09/flying_with_armed_pjs.html
 
Honorable Men, doing an Honorable Job while putting those lives you save above your own!!! Thanks to all the PJ's past, present and future! You guys ROCK!!!!
 
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