Operation Bear Change

Excellent work as gunner in the Cobra, destroying a huge number of targets responsively and accurately. In particular, close support of Morse when she was down alone with a pilot to be resuced and was jumped by a squad of Chelt.

Stepped up to take over ground/air comms when Morse went down, and apparently also control of the squad for the evacuation - decisive action which led to the squad evauating without taking any fatalities.

Not only did Pvt Chaos remember he could use the 77 when I was unconcious, but he also realised it would be a good idea to update air -and- then did so. Also effective tactical level squad leadership when required.

After our Ah-1 Cobra was shoot down by enemy fast air and my gunner and I were left mortally wounded in the wreck, Captain Scatter heroically and courageously risked his own life to attempt to rescue us. Captain Scatter landed his OH-6 Cayuse close to our crash site, exited his aircraft to pull us both from the wreck, he gave us medical aid and then loaded us into his aircraft that as he started to power back up came under close assault from enemy forces. Captain Scatter successfully lifted off under fire and returned us to the friendly airbase where we received additional medical aid. without Captain scatters swift action we likely would have been captured or even killed.

Capt Scatters keen eyes ensured the discovery and recovery of (nearly) all the downed aviators.

During the extraction of a downed aircrew ERG came under sustained fire and was assaulted by a significant Chelt force. The force charged into the bowl shaped valley ERG found themselves in retrieving the aircrew. Goat climber onto a building, exposing himself to enemy fire and proceeded to lay down a withering hail of fire that blunted the assault and bought ERG time to retrieve casualties and extract the HVT all whilst round were shooting past him. Goats fire did not falter and the enemy were driven back.

Excellent work taking out the gunners of hostile boats appraoching the squads position, beathing air to getting rounds on target by a notable amount! Also found a downed pilot, and was always alert ot squadmembers in trouble and needing assistance.

Top medicing, rescued me numerous times.

Excellent work as pilot of the Cobra gunship, co-ordinating well with his crew and with the ground/air net. Bravely went air to air with a pair of MiGs, protecting the vulnerable ground team and extraction helicopter from being strafed during extraction.

Pvt Potshots expert flying of the gunship gave cover to the ground element during critical moments, and suppressed numerous enemy attacks.

Provided essential co-ordination between air and ground assets, triangulation of downed aircrew positions. Due to these actions ERG was able to retrieve 4 of the downed air crew.

This evening's cocktail was a Blood and Sand (Difford's recipe).

Hey Mom

Not my greatest day today, the drop-off helo started lifting before I could scramble out, and I couldn’t raise the pilot on the radio to put me back down, so I tried to use the rappelling ropes but he was already too high to jump by the time I got one deployed. He did eventually get low enough, but I was on my own and a long way from the squad by that point. Fortunately, Mr Scatter Sir had a spare seat in his helicopter, so I called him up on the radio. Unfortunately no one else in the squad had a radio that could talk to him, or the cobra gunship giving us cover, so they were on their own without anyone being able to tell them where to go, or give them fire support.

Oh, I should have mentioned, we’re on SAR duty again, and were sent to find the crew of an E2 Hawkeye. That’s a plane full of boffins who do clever stuff to let us know what the CheltCong are up to.

Anyway, he was taking me back to them (don’t tell the Air Force I got mud in their aircraft), when a parachute was spotted close to us so we landed there instead to pick up the pilot. Or tried to. He wouldn’t get into the helicopter, and then Mr Scatter had to lift because we were under attack, leaving me on the ground with the idiot. I Managed to convince him to come with me and take cover while our gunship did its work, and only a couple of people got through to try and murder us, but I was faster and so Mr Scatter came back in to pick us up again, but the guy refused to board again!

I was getting a little antsy by this point. I had no idea how the rest of the squad were, and this one Air Force puke is being picky about his ride! While we were arguing the point a single Chelt rushed the helo and shot Mr Scatter, but I dealt with him before he could do any more damage. Well, any more damage other than forcing Mr Scatter to have to return to base for medical treatment and get his helicopter fixed. If only the Hawkeye guy had got in as well but he was still upset about something, so we had to call in the big extract helicopter to take him home. So there I am, along with this jumped up idiot, no idea if the squad are even still alive at this point, and the only thing between me and the oncoming hordes of enemy is the cobra which is still circling overhead. Eventually though he evac helo arrives and takes him, while I hop into Mr Scatter Sir’s helo for a lift back to the squad.

I tell you, if I see that guy around base he’s getting a piece of my mind! Or maybe I’ll just pray to Darkon that he finds his next bunking is in the middle of a mosquito swarm, cos it’s generally frowned on to tell officers what you actually think of them.

Back with the squad it turns out they’d assaulted a hostile camp, but no pilots were there. From the air though, we could see that they were very close to another chute, so after a few short firefights, and a willy pete marking round from the air that was a bit too close for comfort we got the second crewmember in the air and back to base. He also refused to ride in Mr Scatter’s helo, so I guess it’s an Air Force Puke thing, or something. We were quite close now to the one chute we’d seen before the squad landed, so we set off north to go collect that guy, while the air support went to do some attack runs on some nearby flak sites.

It wasn’t too bad getting close to where the chute was, there was a bunch of people on the road we had to cross to get to them, but once we got to the chute there were a whole load more, and they were above us on a hillside, which always makes things worse. I don’t know who found the pilot, but we’d killed a bunch of the guys shooting at us by the time the call went up that they had. A few pickets were then dealing with any others that tried to take us out as the medics did their job, but then I heard air talking to each other about a boat approaching our position. I told Jump and she turned round and immediately shot the gunner of it before the helos could even start their first attack run, so Go Marines! Trying to get the guy back to the evac helo was spicy though, and we were being assaulted on multiple sides the whole way, and in the end we set up a blocking force while our new Sarge ran with him to where the helo had put down without any other escort. Risky, but it worked.

Not sure if you’re keeping count, but that’s now three of five rescued.

We had to resupply again, but there were no handy clearings, so we just called it in and got Mr Scatter Sir to help us find it. Thankfully Chaos has a good eye and got there sharpish, so we all restocked on bullets and bandages and sent off for number four, who apparently wasn’t too far away to our north. Things started to go poorly quickly though, as air reported two unfriendly helicopters landing near his position. The cobra took them out before they could take off again, but we found no trace of him when we got there a few minutes later, so it seems like he had been captured and was killed in the strike to take them out. Sad, but probably better than his fate if they’d taken him back to be interrogated in the cheese mines.

We weren’t sure on that at the time though, and there was a village nearby he could have been taken to, so we went and cleared that too. And the fort on a giant rock in the middle of the river that could only be reached by a narrow rickety rope bridge. I tell you Mom, it was like something out of a kid’s adventure book, only less treasure, and more people trying to kill us. There was no sign of the pilot and we were about to go hunting elsewhere when air told us the 5th and final parachute had been seen just across the river. Blue Team (Best Team!) swam across and met some resistance before Jump found the pilot and we turned back towards the rest of the squad. It was a fighting withdrawal and this guy didn’t want to swim which complicated matters, but eventually we reunited with Yellow Team and started to make our way to the evac helo which had landed nearby.

It was what we call a hot extraction though, with Chelt pouring out of the trees to try and stop us. We got the Hawkeye guy onboard, and a couple of ours who were wounded, but the evac pilot was demanding to lift in 15 seconds, while a bunch of the squad were about a minute out. We had a bit of an argument on the radio via Mr Scatter Sir, but the guy lifted anyway. We later found out that the air force, including our support, thought we weren’t getting in because we wanted to go back and have another look for pilot four as they thought the whole squad was there, so I guess I can understand why they were getting grumpy with us, but we weren’t going to leave our mates behind.

Somewhere about this time the Sarge got shot, or blown up, or something, so I had to start running the squad, as well as yelling at the airforce to come and get us again. Fortunately, I had Pvt Chaos to handle the tactical stuff while I both ran, and tried to work out a point that was safe for another helo to come in for us. We’d just about settled on a run out back to where the second and third pilot had been collected from, when we got word that one had landed on the riverbank we’d just run away from. Thankfully by this point the sarge was up so he could do the yelling about changing direction and heading back the way we had come. The helo was really close to us though, so it didn’t take long before we were all aboard and heading home.

All bar the cobra team that is, as they’d been engaged by a MIG and shot down.

On the flight back I also lost contact with Mr Scatter Sir, and assumed he’d gone down too. As soon as we landed I grabbed a load more bullets and was explaining to the Sarge that we needed to go back out again when the radio went again with Mr Scatter Sir telling the base he was coming in with two casualties. We were closest to the landing pad so our medics got ready and as soon as he got down we dragged those cobra boys out and get them to medical.

In total that made six of five rescued. Seven of five would have been better, but we did what we could in trying circumstances. And next time I’ll try and get out of the helicopter quicker.

Morse.