EDIT: I fucked up and reposted thinking it was March. My bad. I'm going to leave it up and not repost in March, while also giving myself lashes with a wet noodle.

Here is one of my earliest stories that I ran across while doing research for my book, that was reposted a couple of years ago. I still feel queasy riding on any plane with a prop. Hitting turbulence reminds of this flight. The "something" I tore was my fucking esophagus. The hole in it is still there 30 years later, and it still hurts like hell every time I vomit.

One of the things about being in a unit attached to XVIII Airborne is that we always had to be ready to go. More so than your average soldiers anyway. Fun fact: Some members of my battalion, an air defense unit, were some of the first guys on the ground as part of Desert Shield/Desert Storm. One of the things the US does when going to war is to make damn sure the airfield they are flying into is secure, even in a friendly country, and one way they do that is to send Rangers and Air Defense guys with missiles and such in to secure it.

That meant we went on alert a lot. We would be woken up at "zero-dark-thirty" and get our ruck and whatnot. Then we would draw our weapon, go to the motor pool, get our HMMWV's, load up, drive to Biggs Army Airfield at Ft. Bliss, get on a C-130, fly around for a while, then land. Most of the time we landed back at Biggs only to be told it was a drill. (No duh) Sometimes we would land somewhere in White Sands Missile Range for a FTX. Besides the fact I was usually hung over, I didn't mind much. Flying in a C-130 wasn't comfortable, but it wasn't horrible either. Sometimes it was easier than flying coach on whatever airline, because I am so tall. At least on a C-130 I could stretch my legs.

All that changed when we went on "the" FTX. I don't remember the date or any other details besides what I'm about to relate for you, due to the extreme trauma. Before you hear the details, you should know that by this point I'd been on several of these alerts. I loved high speed driving, rappelling, riding roller coasters (the bigger and faster, the better) etc. In other words, this wasn't my first outing, so I am surprised it went the way it did. (Hint: It didn't go well. At all.)

As usual, we loaded up at Biggs Army Airfield and took off. The first half hour or so was normal flight. We got up to whatever altitude we were at and things were fine. Then they weren't. Yeah, it happened that fast. We went into a long, steep dive, then started dipping, diving, climbing, turning, etc. A few of us started hollering and cussing. One of the officers yelled (cuz you can't hear shit in those planes) "It's OK men! The pilot is flying nap of the Earth!" Oh, awesome.

Nap of the Earth flight is used when an aircraft wants to avoid being seen and shot down in a high threat environment. So pilots fly very low, sometimes into valleys and such, basically following the geography to hopefully avoid being seen and hit.

So if our plane is doing this, it means that we are on a joint exercise with the Air Force. Up until now in my enlistment, the planes had either dropped us off in White Sands or returned to Biggs, which meant the pilots weren't part of it. They were getting in some flight time is all. However, even this wasn't too bad. After all, the C-130 isn't a fighter jet, so it isn't like we were doing barrel rolls or anything. None of the maneuvers was too extreme. After a couple of minutes we adjusted and most of us went back to sleep, swaying gently in the cargo nets, and eventually our plane slowly leveled off and climbed back up a ways.

Then we got attacked.

I found out later that a couple of F-16's were sent to "attack" our trail of planes ferrying us to Hell. In reaction, our pilot banked and dived. HARD. Then he started doing some other crazy shit that made the NOE flight seem like nothing. That's how bad it was - I can't even come up with a good comparison - it was so bad it has driven away all ability to write gracefully about it. Even now my head is swimming a bit thinking about it. I had no idea that cargo planes could fly and conduct maneuvers like this one without crashing. Someone from that flight should contact Lockheed and tell them about it. I'm sure the engineers who designed the plane would love to know how versatile it really is.

After a minute or so of listening to a couple of other guys get sick, I lost it. I'm sure some of you have done it - someone near you is barfing for some reason, and your stomach can't handle it. Well, I barfed. And barfed. Then threw up. Then vomited. Then barfed. I'm not sure how they are different, but I want to illustrate that I went through several stages of this, each one unique in how terrible it was. After a bit nothing was coming up, not even spittle, and I was dry-heaving.

This continued for a while, even after the plane leveled off. We eventually landed in the desert someplace (fucking White Sands again. Dammit. When will we invade Mexico or something fun?) and drove our HMMWV's off onto the tarmac. I'm still dry heaving, except by now I'm throwing up some blood. Yay. Fuck you, USAF. Thanks.

So my TC takes the wheel, drives over to the CO, finds out where the battalion aid station is, and drives over there.

At this point I had stopped throwing up and dry heaving totally, but I was exhausted. I swear, throwing up like that burns more calories than an entire day in the Army. I walked in to be greeted with 20 or so other guys from the battalion, sitting in a makeshift waiting area, who were all there for the same thing - extreme sickness from the "flight." So I took a seat to wait my turn and lowered my head, futilely hoping I would die.

After sitting there for a couple of minutes, I hear someone walking towards me. I open my eyes and I see a pair of boots covered in puke. I look up, and there is the battalion CO. I start to stand up to call us to attention, but he puts a hand on my shoulder and sits me down - letting me know it is OK.

"What's wrong with you soldier?"

"I got sick as hell, sir. Same thing for all of us." A few guys nodded assent, some just groaned. I hadn't had much experience with the Colonel before, but he was a bit of a hardass. I half expected him to slap me like Patton or something. Instead, he just laughed.

"My XO got sick too, all over my boots." He raised one boot off the floor and waggled it around for effect, almost like he was proud of it. The sight of the puke set another guy off into a fit of throwing up. With that, a couple of guys helped the esteemed Major into a seat next to me to wait his turn with the medics. The line wasn't moving at all it seemed. Fuck.

The Colonel gave some little pep talk, let us know it was all good, and left, presumably to find a brand new butter-bar to clean his boots.

The long and the short of it is that I tore something, hence the blood. I was told it would heal on its own. To be honest, I was kinda hoping I could go back to Ft. Bliss and sleep in my bunk, but nope. Off to dig another damn foxhole in the desert. Sigh.

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