Operation Substantial Grapefruit

Good flying and very accurate and responsive use of weapons. Effective escape and evasion after being shot down performing CAS, inluding winning a firefight with his .38 revolver against a Chelt with an automatic weapon.

First drop was awesome, having to try and sneak through the chelt strongpoints was great. Also love a shorty RPD.

Effective use of fire to cover medical operations accompanied by hood trash talk.

Excellent cool-headedness under fire and suppressing fire during the engagement at the entrenched village. Saving Howser and holding off Chelt forces long enough for the former to be treated and the scattered elements of the squad to link up once again to assault the village.

The Air Force (Mr Kent) said we couldn't do it, SSgt Grym proved that the USMC could do it, and indeed -did- do it. Oorah!

Saved me after I was stupid and stood up in view of a machine gun.

Accurate use of rockets during the initial assault up the hill towards the village.

To be highly commended for running to the downed helicopter, crewing the door gun, and mowing down the bad guys from the door.

Mom

It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster of a day all told. Well, we went up and down a lot.I tell you, that new ski place they’re building back home has nothing on even the smallest hill here, I swear you’d get a nosebleed just thinking about them. Anyway, thanks to my buddies RDX and Bagpipe I’ve got some new jokes for Dad at Thanksgiving, so be warned!

Today our mission was to rescue a skyraider pilot who’d been shot down while doing air support for a radar station that was under ground attack. We jumped into the Jolly Green and staged over a place called The Plain of Jars, which is pretty much as you’d think given the name. I guess it’s some sort of historical or archaeological thing, but we didn’t have time to take in the views alas.

We waited a while for our spotter aircraft to find the crash site, which turned out to be in a valley to the north of the radar array, but they couldn’t find the pilot or his chute, so we had to go land at the radar site, repel the attack, then ask the local platoon if they’d seen anything. Thankfully it turns out they had, and they thought the pilot had been taken by the Chelt to the north or north west of the crash site into an area of heavy AA and what one of them muttered was a ‘mountain fortress’. We’re AmeriCANs though, so we got back in the chopper and were taken down into the valley to go get our flyboy back.

Our LZ in the valley was actually pretty quiet, but as soon as we started to climb we found some light contact. Air was busy with several peaks a little further north of us so we dealt with it ourselves and continued to climb. Around this point we met up with Mr Kent, who’d parachuted down to check out the skyraider’s crash site and then hiked across to link up. He thought the hill was too busy with hostiles to climb, but we showed his Air Force ass how Marines do it!

By which I mean we got shot at a lot, split up as half the platoon followed Sarge up a rocky cliff while the others took the easy option of the road, got hit by emplaced machine guns, got hit by artillery (repeatedly), and then found the pilot in a small village. I wouldn’t say it was quite a fortress, but it was a hard fight, and I’m glad it’s over. Then we had to come down again of course, but there was a handy hill sub peak to the south west that was much closer than the original LZ so we tried to go there.

There was a small pocket of resistance on the way, but we mopped it up pretty quickly and found the hilltop to be a nice, wide, open space and perfect for an LZ. So we called the helo in. Turns out though, we hadn’t managed to get all the AA sites, and as the helo came in, close enough that we could almost touch it, it was shot down. I’m not sure what plummeted fast, my stomach or the burning wreckage.

We didn’t have time to dwell on it though, as spotter smoke for their artillery landed amongst us and we had to run for it. Bagpipe and Patches were behind me but I was the last one down the hill to cover before the world shook beneath us. Leroy was first up the slope as soon as the explosions stopped, and found them emerging from where they’d taken shelter in the rocks on the far side. It likely saved them, but did quite the opposite for my blood pressure in that moment! As that LZ was clearly too hot we re-vectored back to where we’d inserted. Our route took us to within spitting distance of the helo’s crash site, so we went to take a look, but there was nothing we could do, so we continued down into the valley and evacced back to Maxwell with the rescued skyraider pilot.

If only things stayed that simple though. Turns out our skyraider pilot, Snuffy, had also crashed, so Mr Scatter Sir stayed on station suppressing the Chelt round him, while we grabbed some more ammo and grenades and flew back to rescue him as well. Thankfully he was easy enough to find, and had sprinted across a clearing and into the back of our helo before we’d even finished deploying out of it, so we’re two for two toda... I shouldn’t have said anything, that's the scramble alarm, I’ll fill you in when I’m back.

Morse

This evening's cocktail was a black cherry martini.