Having Some Fun

My book, "21 Months, 24 Days" has a whole chapter about these snapshots.  What you are looking at is the bottom of a Huey helicopter with three soldiers dangling from it.  I was one of those soldiers!  That day was maybe the craziest day of my life.

When we are young, a lot of us take risks on a dare or just for the thrill of it.  Some take a day and learn to parachute from an airplane.  Some climb rock walls hundreds of feet high.  Some take dangerous rafting trips on wild river rapids.  Others bungee jump from bridges.  In this case, I didn't get pushed into it on a dare.  Nor did I do it because of the thrill.  I did it because I thought I was going to die anyway over there so why not.

What you see in the picture was part of a fifteen minute thrill ride.  The ride began when we stepped into the harness.  The harness was formed into a simple loop that we tucked under our ass like a kids swing.  The helicopter was hovering one-hundred feet over our head, waiting for our signal.  When ready, with nothing more than a thumbs-up, the pilot began to rise straight up until we were about 750 feet in the air.  Then he tipped the main rotor forward while increasing the pitch of the blades and we found ourselves accelerating forward while continuing to rise.  Before you knew it, we were flying at an elevation of 1,500 feet and traveling forward at 80 knots.  Air resistance swung us back behind the helicopter so when you looked up, the helicopter was actually out in front of us.  In that position we cruised over the countryside.  Thankfully, we were out of range from enemy rifle fire below.  Too soon, we were back to where the ride began and then lowered to the ground.

Well that is enough about what we did.  You will have to read the book to learn why the ride was offered to us in the first place.