Medevac Units Fly In Thick of Battle: A few minutes earlier they were standing in line for breakfast at the crowded chow hall, reconstituted eggs puddled on the griddle, coffee warming the Styrofoam in their hands. Then the walkie-talkies clipped to their pockets started talking to them. Now the two air medic crews are pounding north into the other side of the war in Afghanistan, their helicopters banking down over the pine-covered mountains of Kunar province’s bad-legend Korengal Valley. The red trail of a smoke grenade rises from among the earthen roofs of a village packed between the valley walls. Not far away stands a column of black smoke marking where, in retrospect, the military said a U.S. and Afghan army patrol caught in a firefight was hit by an errant American mortar round. The beleaguered patrol is holed up in a compound in the middle of the village, still taking fire. One U.S. soldier had been killed by the mortar. A half-dozen other soldiers — U.S. and Afghan — are wounded. The Apache gunships escorting the medical birds break off and begin firing at the muzzle flashes on the mountainsides. They produce a lull. The first medevac helicopter circles down, kicking up a storm of dust and scattering the red smoke. There is nowhere to land and the pilot hovers at 50 meters as the medic, Staff Sgt. Bradley Robbins, attaches himself to a winch and swings out through the open door. A crew chief with a remote control lowers him to the ground, where Robbins unclips the winch-line and goes to work. The bird cycles out and the second flight moves in, dropping off its medic, Staff Sgt. Matthew Kinney. The two men run through their triage. One Afghan soldier with an arm and a leg blown off. An American with an ugly shrapnel wound. An Afghan shot in the groin, an American with a chunk blown out of his calf. Another Afghan with a shrapnel wound, going pale, clinging to his cell phone. Five minutes pass. The gunfire picks up again, slapping down into the courtyard. The first helicopter returns for Robbins, but by the time he’s hoisted up two litter patients and attaches himself to the winch line, the pilot, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Wayne McDonald, decides there’s no more time to wait. They can see bullets hitting the ground nearby and think they could feel them hitting the helicopter, and later they find a half-dozen bullet holes in the bird and one in the rotor blade. So they pull out of there with Robbins still dangling from the line. "It was like a roller coaster," Robbins says later, but thinks better of the comparison. "Actually, more like a fair ride."
Posted on: Tue, 20 Aug 2013 10:58:23 +0000
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