The day after Christmas 1998, I flew out from Naval Support Activity Bahrain aboard an H-3 Sea King helicopter crewed by the Desert Ducks of Helicopter Support Squadron (HC-2). My current orders had me going to USS Normandy (CG 60) to provide Arabic linguist support. Mine was the last of five hops on this Duck flight.
While refueling at the fourth hop, one of the aircrewmen informed me there was an issue. Apparently, the Ducks were known to play practical jokes. For instance, sometimes they took paddles in the shape of duck feet, dipped them in yellow paint and smacked them on helipads just before liftoff. Hilarious to the squadron, but not so much to COs.
So the aircrewman said we did not have clearance to land on Normandy. I had to be hoisted down to the forward deck. He looked at me trying to judge my reaction. Almost instantly, my face lit up with a big smile. I finally had my “Hunt for Red October” moment!
We lifted off for the final hop to Normandy, and the smile never left my face. As we hovered over the ship’s forward deck, the aircrewman prepped me with the harness, then eased me out of the doorway. I touched down smoothly on the deck and waited for one of the ship’s crew to unhook me from the harness.
Instead, I spotted two blue-shirted chock and chain crewmen slowly stalking toward me with a hooked cable. My instinct kicked into high gear, and I worked furiously to unhook myself from the helicopter winching cable. The blue shirts stopped in their tracks and looked at one another trying to figure out what to do. I finally unhooked myself and scrambled away from them, running to the nearest hatch and disappearing inside to find the crypto shack.
Later in the chow line, one of the ship’s crew told me it was a good thing that I had gotten away from the chock and chain crew and their hooked cable. If they had tagged me with it, it might have blown 20,000 volts of static electricity through me. The force of it could have blown me out of the harness and overboard to be food for those big Persian Gulf sea snakes.
Curiously, USS Normandy is the only ship I supported in the Gulf where the CO never introduced himself to me. In my experience, most COs love to welcome newcomers to their ship. I figured it was either an oversight, or he was embarrassed that his crew almost killed me. Well, I got a good sea story out of it.
Thank You, Normandy!
Bravo Zulu, Desert Ducks!
God Bless You, Tom Clancy!
