In this deeply moving episode of America’s Veteran Stories, host Kim Monson engages with Aaron Peterson, a veteran Chinook helicopter pilot with the Colorado Army National Guard. Starting from his unexpected entry into the military to becoming a pivotal part of missions in Afghanistan, Aaron’s journey illustrates the powerful call of duty and camaraderie among military personnel. The conversation delves into the intricate details of military life, including the fascinating mechanics and strategic use of Chinook helicopters in war zones.
SPEAKER 07 :
World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Afghanistan, and our other wars and conflicts. America’s fighting men and women strapped on their boots and picked up their guns to fight tyranny and stand for liberty. We must never forget them. Welcome to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson. These stories will touch your heart, inspire you, and give you courage. We stand on the shoulders of giants. Here’s Kim Monson.
SPEAKER 06 :
Welcome to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteranStories.com. And this show started basically from a trip that I took in 2016 with a group that accompanied four D-Day veterans back to Normandy, France for the 72nd anniversary of the D-Day landings and realized that each and every individual story is unique and It needs to be told. It needs to be heard, broadcast, and archived. And hence, America’s veteran stories on the men and women that have been willing to give their all to stand against evil and to stand for our freedom and our liberty. And of course, liberty is the responsible exercise of freedom. And America was founded on this idea of liberty for all. And I encourage each and every one of you to stop tomorrow and just think about that. And I am so excited to have on the line with me Aaron Peterson. And he flew Chinook helicopters, which is pretty exciting. Aaron Peterson, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER 09 :
Thank you. I’m happy to be here.
SPEAKER 06 :
So let’s get a little information about you. Where did you grow up, Aaron?
SPEAKER 09 :
So I grew up in Mead, Colorado. and went to Meade Elementary and Meade Middle School and then Skyline High School.
SPEAKER 06 :
When did you decide that you were going to be in the military?
SPEAKER 09 :
Oh, you know, that’s kind of a funny story, but it was really all my my my girlfriend and a couple of my friends joined and I didn’t want to get left behind. So I had never planned on being in the military prior to and the and the intention was to get a little bit of money for school and go see some things. And I was going to go in two years and and in and out and get a little money for college. And I ended up staying for twenty four.
SPEAKER 06 :
Wow. And you ended up flying Chinook helicopter. So explain to me, branch of service, how does that work exactly? And I have to tell you, I know probably less about Afghanistan than I do World War II. I’m becoming somewhat of a kind of, I think I’m, I’ve just heard a lot of stories about that, but I’ve not interviewed very many guys that served when you did.
SPEAKER 09 :
Oh, well, well, yeah, as far as my my story goes, as far as getting there, I did it all backwards. I signed up for the military to get some money for school and then went on active duty in the army and drove tanks in Europe for a couple of years. Always with the hopes of getting into aviation, but couldn’t get plugged into the right people to get military training. So what I did was then I joined the reserves, the Army Reserves, and went back to civilian flight school, a regular college in Florida. I got my aviation training there with a bachelor’s degree in aeronautical science and then went to work for the airlines there. flying for United Express and American Eagle for about 10 years while I was doing reserves, Army reserves. And I did a number of different jobs in that time period. And then 9-11 rolled around and I found myself cleaning toilets in the military and being a captain on an airliner and went to the military and said, hey, I can be doing much more for you and would love to be doing much more for you, especially given the circumstances. And to my surprise, they agreed. And a month later, I was in helicopter school in Alabama.
SPEAKER 06 :
Wow. Now, just a question. You mentioned that you had gone to a civilian flight school in Florida. I remember right, the terrorists on 9-11, didn’t they go to some flight school in Florida as well?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, actually. And that was possibly our school. I think there was some connection there. But I’m not sure if that played out to actually be students that we had trained or if it was a nearby school. I don’t remember how that played out. But there were pilots involved in that, terrorists first, involved in that that had done some training down there. But if I remember correctly, it wasn’t actually our school. It was one of the neighboring schools. flight schools down there, but there was a close connection.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah. We have to be more vigilant and more careful. Of course, at that particular point in time, we hadn’t really thought about planes being used as a weapon. In fact, this is a funny story, Aaron. I knew some people that they’d moved out to Breckenridge from Chicago. He worked in Chicago, but they would come out to to Breckenridge and he was building his place and he needed a chainsaw. And this would have been back in the 60s. He carried a chainsaw onto the airline. I’m like, that’s not going to happen now. But we were so trusting before 9-11.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, it was a different, it was, we saw things differently.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes, most definitely. So you now, go ahead.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, I was just going to say one of the good things that I think came out of that was we started to see security as our own responsibility instead of somebody else’s. And as soon as the passengers started taking responsibility for the security of the airplanes, we all got a lot safer.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. Okay, well, let’s take this on. So 9-11 happens, and I think we can all remember where we were at the time when we saw those images. And it was difficult to register what had happened, but you stepped forward and said, I want to serve. And how did it become Chinook Helicopters?
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, the military kind of picks the airframe. I just went to flight school and said, do with me what you will. And because I was living here in Colorado, they assigned me to a reserve unit in Colorado Springs. So I started out there. I did that for, well, then through flight school. Flight school is a long deal. So my family was still living here in Colorado, but the flight school was a year and a half long. And so I would fly back here on the weekends and see the family while I was in helicopter school in Fort Rucker, Alabama. And we did that for a year and a half. And then I switched to the reserves briefly and then ended up flying for the Colorado National Guard out of Denver. And then I did that for the last 10 years of my career. And it was with that unit, that Bravo company that we deployed to Afghanistan.
SPEAKER 06 :
And tell us about the Chinook, its utility and what it’s supposed to do.
SPEAKER 09 :
Oh, everybody loves to talk about their airframes. It is just a cool machine. It can do it all. It’s a giant flying tow truck, 5,000 horsepower each engine. And dual rotors, its max weight is 50,000 pounds. And most of our bread and butter is hanging loads off of the belly. So it can fly like a bus. We can lower the ramp and fill it with passengers. But the big utility is sling loading off the belly. We can do firefighting with that. I think it’s a 5,000-gallon bucket. I could be wrong on the size, but a huge water bucket that we can hang from the bottom and fight fires. We can carry Humvees and other trucks from the bottom, from the belly and lots of cargo. And that was the bulk of what we did in Afghanistan was… was sling loading or carrying these loads on the hooks under the belly.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay, I am going to ask a dumb question, but how does it work that if you have something slung underneath the helicopter, is it off to the side and it’s hooked on and then you take the helicopter up? How does that work, Aaron?
SPEAKER 09 :
No, it’s actually really cool to watch. What you do is you’ve got a crew on the ground. that has the buckles or the slings in hand and they’re standing on top of the load. And then you hover the helicopter in over the top of those crew members at a couple of feet above their heads. And then they hook this big buckle on a giant hook on the belly of the helicopter. Then they jump down and get clear and you raise the helicopter up until the slings are tight and then lift the load.
SPEAKER 06 :
Fascinating. When did the Chinook helicopters start to be used?
SPEAKER 09 :
Actually, the airframes that we had, there was a couple of the actual aircraft that we were flying in Afghanistan that had been used in Vietnam.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 09 :
So that was when they first got into use, and we were still flying some of those same aircraft up until just a few years ago.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. Now, the helicopter, there were, correct me, there were no helicopters in World War II, were there? I think somebody told me that really the precursor was the gliders. Is that true, or what’s your thoughts on that, Aaron?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, I would say that was fair. There was some in development, but they weren’t in any kind of a useful form yet. I think they were able to do it. If I remember correctly, they had some really primitive ones towards the end. But they were and I could even be wrong on that. I’m not positive exactly when the most primitive types started showing up, but they weren’t operational until quite a bit after that.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, and it really changed the battle, being able to have helicopters, a different type of flying machine, and it really changed things significantly. And it was important in Vietnam. I’ve done a number of interviews with Vietnam veterans, and the guerrilla warfare that they had there, it was a totally different kind of war than World War II. And so the helicopter was very important in Vietnam, correct? Yes.
SPEAKER 09 :
Oh, it changed the whole style of war, that single machine. Similar to what the tank did in World War II, it just changed the whole way that we fought because we could move large numbers of troops and equipment long distances and get them in where there was no runway.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, astonishing. And let me ask one other question. You said that you drove tanks in Europe for a number of years. Tell us a little bit about the modern tank.
SPEAKER 09 :
Oh, well, yeah, that’s a fun one too. I wasn’t, I was on it for just a couple of years, but it’s a turbine powered giant block of iron. It’ll go 65 miles an hour. At best, it doesn’t do that well. It’s shaking itself apart at that speed, but it’ll do it. And it’s turbine driven and man, it’s just a mean machine. I don’t know. It was one of those things like the like the Chinook where we get all the fun toys in the military. It’s just a beast, 68 tons of killing machine. It was fun to drive and fun to run over stuff and fun to shoot. I never did any deployments with it, so it was really just training and driving them around and scenario-based stuff. But, yeah, we’ve got all the best toys. There’s no machine like it out there.
SPEAKER 06 :
How many people on the crew?
SPEAKER 09 :
It’s typically five, although I think the new one, and now mine was a dinosaur now even already, but it’s five typically. But I think they’re four now, the new ones. I think they’ve gotten rid of the loader. I think it’s all automatically drawn rounds into the chamber to shoot it. And when I was doing it, in fact, that’s what I did. Most of the time I didn’t drive most times. which is you pull around out of a storage compartment in the back of the tank and load it into the chamber for engaging. You know what? It’s a tank commander and a driver and loader and gunner, aimer.
SPEAKER 06 :
Erin, I just recently did an interview with a couple of guys, John Spence and Joe Weiss, on cybersecurity. And I see a real problem, or we could have a problem if everything is so mechanized that if we have some kind of a cybersecurity hack, that that could be a problem. If the ammunition is being loaded automatically, I see a possible problem. What do you think?
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, not with the tanks. There are miles from being able to do – well, I say that, but you can build anything, and I suppose the possibility would be there to make it fully automated. But all of the critical operations, at least on the machine, the way that it sits, it has to be run manually. It’s just the whole system is manual except for a mechanism that pulls these rounds. So we wouldn’t necessarily be any closer to that with an autoloader. But, you know, with the robots and stuff, it wouldn’t be a far cry to automate all of the positions and have it be a remote control. Right, right. And yeah, the more you consolidate, the more at risk you are.
SPEAKER 05 :
Exactly.
SPEAKER 09 :
There is a certain inherent security at having people involved in all of those pieces. Right. And even if you’ve got somebody going off the reservation doing the wrong thing, at least you’ve got one tank involved and not battalions of them through a hack. So, yeah, those are very valid concerns. Right.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. Well, fascinating. And I’m sure it was, as you say, it was fun because you were, you know, it was all make believe, if you will. But war when it’s not make believe is not fun at all. I remember talking with one of our World War II veterans about Iwo Jima. And the first time he was shot at, he’s like, wait a minute, they’re serious. And all of a sudden, everything changes. The official Marine Memorial is located right here in Colorado in Golden at 6th and Colfax. It was dedicated in 1977, and it is time for a facelift. And the USMC Memorial Foundation is working diligently. to raise the funds to make that happen. And a great way that you can honor our military, to say thank you to those people who have put their lives on the line or have given their lives for our freedom, is to support the USMC Memorial Foundation. And you can do that by going to usmcmemorialfoundation.org.
SPEAKER 04 :
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SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you so much for listening to America’s Veterans Stories. We are rebroadcasting some of the shows that we have recorded in the past because we have these amazing guests and these amazing stories, and we need to hear them. And so we thought that it would be a great idea to rebroadcast some of these so that you can hear our history and know our history because it is so important. So again, this is something that was recorded earlier, and thank you for listening. Talking with combat veterans, that combat is actually just really seared on their hearts. I encourage each and every one of you to stop and pause and be grateful for these men and women that have been willing to sacrifice everything, and many of them have, so that we can live in liberty and that we can thrive and prosper and flourish. On the line with me is Erin Peterson. And he flew Chinook helicopters in Afghanistan. But we did kind of a backstory on how he got into the Army, the Reserves, and actually ended up flying Chinooks. Aaron Peterson, I’ve got to think, tell us about the first time that you took a Chinook helicopter up.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well… It was uneventful that you pick a boring story. We didn’t break anything. I had an instructor right there to hold my hand. Just an amazing machine, though. I mean, that’s often like as as amazing, I suppose, as it was getting for getting in an M1 and driving it for the first time. But yeah. But being able to lift a 30,000-pound aircraft into the air and have it feel like you are weightless. And I think probably the most amazing thing about helicopters is I had flown fixed wing for many years before I got into the helicopters. And the most amazing thing about the helicopters is being able to do everything. anything. You can stop, you can back up, you can fly sideways. A helicopter could care less whether it’s flying sideways or forward. It just does not care. And that is such an amazing thing to be able to just stop above the trees and look down and see what is going on below you. and to feel weightless in a 30,000-pound machine. So I would say that was my biggest takeaway, not necessarily from a first flight, because I felt that every time the tires lifted up off the ground on that big, sweet machine.
SPEAKER 06 :
That is so cool. How many people in the crew?
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, it depends, peacetime or not. In combat, there’s, what, five crew members, three in the back, two gunners, and the engineer, and then the two pilots.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 06 :
And what does the engineer do?
SPEAKER 09 :
You know, a lot like what it sounds like. He is the go-to guy for the mechanical side, the loading, the unloading, the health and the maintenance of the machine, monitoring everything in the back, making sure everybody’s doing what they’re supposed to be doing. Loads are strapped down. He’s the operational coordinator for the whole dance.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay, so pilot, co-pilot, engineer, and two gunners, right? Did I get that right? Yes. Okay, and what’s the armaments on the Chinook, or does it vary?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, really, it can be anything. But generally, there is two machine guns either side, midway back, well, behind the cockpit. And then there’s a 50-cal machine gun on the ramp for, you know, defending the rear of the aircraft.
SPEAKER 06 :
And what’s the ramp?
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, it’s the thing, the big flying bus. So the ramp is the back door. So the back of the machine opens up and lowers down and makes a ramp that you can drive vehicles up into the Chinook with.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. And so that’s where one of the guns is as well. So two sides and then one in the back. Yep. Okay. Correct. And then your rank was Master Chief, which, tell us about that.
SPEAKER 09 :
Actually, it was Chief Warrant Officer. The Master Chief is a Navy thing. Oh, okay. It’s okay. I was a CW2, so Chief Warrant Officer 2.
SPEAKER 06 :
And it seems like, I recall, I mean, that is really, I mean, all ranks are really important, but that’s really kind of a utility, a very important rank. Correct.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, it’s a it’s kind of a it’s a small crowd in the military and it’s a it’s a kind of an in-between. It’s kind of a hybrid. So it came about from the necessity of having troops. having an officer in a leadership position, but being a material expert. So being an expert in a specific area. Generally speaking, at least speaking to the Army, we’ve got the enlisted that are the guys that make it all happen. They’re the guys that do all the heavy lifting. In the military, they’re the guys that makes the show go. And then there’s the officers that are specifically leadership. And they’re generally, I say that generally, and sooner or later I’m going to get in trouble in this conversation with somebody, but generally speaking, they’re the coordinators.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right.
SPEAKER 09 :
You know, giving the orders and directing everybody. The warrant officers came about, and they’re interchangeable. You can put an aviation officer in an infantry position, and they may not like it, but it can be done. And where the warrant officers came in was they needed a hybrid of the two because you needed somebody that was specifically highly trained in aviation and or boat. or all of the different specialties, but that had leadership training. So it was kind of a combination.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. So Afghanistan is your first war zone, is that correct?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yes, yep.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. Tell us how you got there.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, just the orders show up. Okay. They deployed our battalion in Buckley. To Afghanistan. And I was, you know, at the time, it’s always kind of a revolving door. So there’s folks in and there’s folks out all the time. And it just happened to be that I was there as one of the trained crew when the orders came and away we went. I don’t know what more I can say.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah. What year was that?
SPEAKER 09 :
That was 11 and 12, second half of 11 and first half of 12.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. And how did you get there? Did you fly through Munich or how did you get to Afghanistan? Yeah, it’s just we… And is it military flights, probably?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, it would have to be. Charter was what we had. So it was a civilian airplane that… But it was all military. It was all our units. And then we went and I believe we had a layover, if I remember correctly, in England and then went on to Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgyzstan, I believe, was where we had just a couple of nights before we then flew into country. And then we had a couple of nights at a reception in Afghanistan and then out to our military base shank where we were stationed.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. And what was going through your mind as you were traveling to Afghanistan?
SPEAKER 09 :
Oh, gosh. You know, I think the waiting is always the hardest. Yeah. just trying to process the unknown is the worst part about that. I was, I was, uh, well, it’s hard to say happier because we got, we got hit right, right away. Um, but it was certainly, um, all unknowns and it’s always miserable, you know, traveling in general is miserable and it’s less fun in the waiting hours in warehouses with piles of gear and it could have been worse. We were well fed and we were warm and dry, but it’s just tons of waiting and, and anxiety and just wondering what is coming, but, but you’re with your brothers and it’s, and it’s all, uh, you know, similar discomfort that is just part of the military. So that part of it wasn’t, wasn’t that big a deal. The biggest thing was just the unknowns, nothing about where we were going. And the military can be its own worst enemy sometimes because one of my big concerns was in the modern battlefield, they really break you up. In World War II, at least my impression from a historical perspective was that They deployed a unit. The unit stayed together. They trained together. And when they went over there, they fought together. And that was not the case with us. So I was really nervous about they broke the unit up into multiple pieces and then sent us in multiple places and attached us to other places and then broke us up some more. and attached us some more. And by the time we got over there, I barely knew anybody that I was with.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, it breaks up the brotherhood, which, like you say, the military can’t be its own worst enemy. And one interesting thing about World War II is they went and they stayed until the job was done. And that’s hard. That was really hard on them. And so the military has changed that to maybe shorter deployments, correct?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yes, yes. And I’m not sure if that’s better. I’m honestly not sure if that’s better or for worse. It depends on what your goal is. Always my biggest frustration with Afghanistan in general was that there was no plan. Nobody knew what winning looked like. We just went. We were going to go over there and try and straighten things out. But nobody had a well-articulated plan. So we go in and we just kind of do stuff and there was never really any end point. And so I think that really led to a lot of wasted effort being there.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, I’m going to say wasted lives. There’s one thing to mess around with resources, which I think is irresponsible, but to not have a plan when we’re talking about our lives. I think that’s uncalled for. I think we’ve got to have a plan. You’ve got a story that you’re going to share with us on this, Aaron Peterson. Before we go to break, though, tell me a little bit about what did the camp look like? What accommodations? What was a day like?
SPEAKER 09 :
It was just a big dirt hole. It was this camp out in the middle of the desert. We had these massive, I don’t even remember what they’re called anymore, these massive bags that are 10 feet tall and 10 feet wide, and they fill them with sand. And then they surround a big area of the desert with it. And inside is dust and sand, just like outside. And we stayed in tents that had spray foam on the outside of them. And plywood huts where we had offices and computer gear and handled the operations. And then there was a big runway. It all surrounded a big runway and a bunch of landing pads and supply shacks. And, uh, you know, our day, um, as, as aviation was, uh, planning, we, we were typically, um, split into two alternating groups where you would plan your mission the next day. And then the next day you would go out and fly it. So typically we flew every other day. Um, and, uh, but we hadn’t even gotten to that point when, uh, when all this happened with, uh, With one seven. So so we hadn’t even gotten to that routine yet, but it was just a dusty, filthy, nasty, no fun.
SPEAKER 06 :
And showers. How often did you get a shower?
SPEAKER 09 :
You know, the army took pretty good care of us for what it was. We had there was a shower trailer nearby and you could take one daily. OK. Unless you were unless you were out in the woods. You know, the infantry, we were aviation. We were spoiled. They take really good care of the flight crews. It’s just part of the nature of having aircraft and the support and all the things that need to go along with it. The guys that were in the trucks and the guys that were in the infantry had a much harder time. We were pretty spoiled. We were well fed and showered and just there to fly.
SPEAKER 06 :
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SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you so much for listening to America’s Veterans Stories. We are rebroadcasting some of the shows that we have recorded in the past because we have these amazing guests and these amazing stories, and we need to hear them. And so we thought that it would be a great idea to rebroadcast some of these so that you can hear our history and know our history because it is so important. So again, this is something that was recorded earlier, and thank you for listening. I’m talking with Aaron Peterson and he was a chief warrant officer in the army and he flew Chinook helicopters. And we’ve gotten to the point where he is in Afghanistan. And tell us a bit about your, your best friend. And that is David Carter. Tell us about that relationship.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, um, he was, he was, uh, he was one of those people that you just loved to be around. Um, he could, he could, uh, make that aircraft fly like it was in a ballet, and he loved every minute of it. He was like a 10-year-old in a candy store every time we’d get into that aircraft, and yet was a devout Christian. You knew where his priorities were. He loved Chinooks. He loved to fly. And he loved his fellow soldiers. And he was a mentor in life, not just in flying. And just one of those people you just can’t wait to be around. Everybody loved to be around Dave. He was the instructor pilot for the main instructor pilot. There’s always a cadre of them. But at the time, he was the main check pilot for the unit. And… you know, more than that, just a wonderful, neat Christian mentor and example and good friend in every aspect of his life. He had a beautiful family and a wonderful wife, Laura, and kids and just everything that we all want to be successful in his career. And, you And knew how to do anything with that helicopter. So it was, it was, he was just a pleasure to be around. What can I say?
SPEAKER 06 :
And how many children?
SPEAKER 09 :
Two children.
SPEAKER 06 :
Two children. Okay. Okay. So tell us, tell us about the day, I guess, when, when, what happened with Dave?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, well, we had gotten there. There’s always a, there’s always a period in a new environment like that where um, where all the pilots will get checked out, right? It’s kind of like, it’s, it’s kind of like, uh, when you’re learning to fly too, is you get in and, and you learn the ropes, learn the operations of how things are being done. You learn the, the, the area of operations, the procedures that are, that are all done because that’s a lot different than being back here. Um, So we were in the phase of just getting everybody trained up, learning what the mission was going to look like and getting people checked out. And if I remember correctly, we had only had about a third of the units even checked out in the aircraft yet. We had gotten them there. We had gotten them all put back together and ready to run. And we were in the process of getting checked out and just starting to do missions so that the most senior folks were the, were the only ones that were actually doing missions. And, uh, I, I was not, I was not in the command post, uh, when, when this played out. So, so I have all the secondhand, there’s certainly folks out there, uh, that, that may have more accurate information, but, but, um, they, uh, they went out on a, uh, and they were, uh, there was active engagement going on with special forces and they had brought in a couple of first loads and first loads. Would that be of first loads of special forces? Got it. Okay. There was, there was the first teams were on the ground and they were engaging the Taliban. Um, and the Chinooks had gone to get reinforcements. And so they were bringing back a second load of special forces, um, And Dave and the rest of the crew were flying that night. The first load of reinforcements, I believe, was on the ground and had left.
SPEAKER 06 :
And how many guys can the Chinook carry?
SPEAKER 09 :
Special forces combat loaded like that. There was 38 people fully loaded, so… Um, 32 in the back. Okay. Um, and then, and then the five, my math, right. 33 in the back.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah. 33 in the back. Yeah. 33 in the back.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay. Yeah. Um, and so they were, they, the first load had been, had been offloaded and, uh, and they were bringing in the next Dave and the, and the, and their crew were chalked to, and they were coming in to, to put in the next load. And the Chinook, when it’s most vulnerable is when it’s heavy like they were. And right before landing, you’re loud and visible and slow. And they had come in and they were slowing back to set it down in this valley. And they came in in front of a collot, which is this little mud hut that the locals build everywhere. That’s all of their structures are. And there was a high ranking Taliban that was there with an RPG and he got a, he had a, he had a perfect shot. They came in, they came in low and slow right in front of this a lot. And he was there with a rocket shot out the window and, and hit them broadside. And they, uh, and the, and the helicopter came apart.
SPEAKER 06 :
Everybody was my, it was, everybody was killed.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah. Everybody died. It was, it was, um, The Chinook has fuel tanks that run down both sides, most of the full length. And I’m sure that they hit the fuel tanks because the Chinooks can take a lot. In fact, I’ve seen a video of them taking RPGs right in the side, broadside, but hitting the cabin. And the Chinook survives and goes and lands while it’s on fire. But no, no, that is not what happened that time. They broke apart. And for my own piece of it, you know, I got all of this secondhand. And where were you then, Aaron? I was back at the base, and I hadn’t even started flying yet. Our unit had been there six days.
SPEAKER 06 :
So did you know Dave before, or I was thinking you had this long relationship, or did you just meet there?
SPEAKER 09 :
No, no, no. We did. You know, I was complaining about being broken up, and we were. But I was there with a handful of Colorado Army National Guard from Buckley, and Dave was one of those.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. So you did know each other well, and you’d gone through a whole lot of things together. We did.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yes. We were we were pretty longtime friends. You know, I met him at the unit. So it was probably let’s see. I probably known Dave five or six years. OK. By this time. OK. And and so for my piece of it, I was I was not firsthand for any of any of that. You know, my my part was was back at the back at the command center and we were actually in bed already getting ready for the. for the next day’s training missions. And, uh, and we got the call, um, they call it fallen angel when we’re, um, when, when we’re shot down. And so they came and got us and, uh, and we went into the, went into the command center to see what was going on. And, uh, at the time they didn’t know how bad it was. And the Chinook is such a, such a resilient machine, um, that, uh, that we were so hopeful that there were survivors. They had satellite pictures of what was going on and they could see that the aircraft burned, but if it had gotten down before it burned, there was a chance. The biggest concern of mine, the biggest thing that was of immediate concern is that we have combat radios that are on our vests and all of us carry them. And there’s a special button on there that with a single press of the button, it switches to an emergency frequency and contacts all the local radios on that emergency frequency. And they hadn’t gotten any contact from any of those radios. And it’s a really easy thing to do. It’s unlikely that there was technical difficulties. And so that was my biggest fear because they would have certainly… had they gotten clear of the aircraft, they would have been on those emergency radios. And, uh, and so we waited, um, they couldn’t get anybody in nearby where the crash was to, to check it out. And so we held our breath for two or three hours, I think, while they landed on a nearby hill and, uh, and, and offloaded more special forces to go down and, and check out the crash site and see if anybody survived. And, uh, And, of course, when they finally got down there, nobody was alive. It had burned to the ground. And that was 38 souls in one rocket. We waited the rest of that night. just waiting for news and getting updates. There wasn’t much to tell.
SPEAKER 06 :
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SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you so much for listening to America’s Veterans Stories. We are rebroadcasting some of the shows that we have recorded in the past because we have these amazing guests and these amazing stories, and we need to hear them. And so we thought that it would be a great idea to rebroadcast some of these so that you can hear our history and know our history because it is so important. So again, this is something that was recorded earlier, and thank you for listening.
SPEAKER 07 :
mountains, to the
SPEAKER 06 :
On the line with me is Chief Warrant Officer Aaron Peterson, and he flew Chinook helicopters in Afghanistan and told the tragic story of his friend David Carter, who was flying a Chinook when it was hit with, let’s see, an RPG, and all 38 men on board were killed. And Aaron, you said that there was a God component of this. Tell us about that.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, there was a little, let’s see, where do I start on this one? The recovery the second day was long and slow and we weren’t involved in it. So it was painful weight.
SPEAKER 06 :
So your emotions had to be very, very raw, I would think.
SPEAKER 09 :
Oh, gosh, we’re all in shock. And it’s twofold. I mean, we had lost, these are pretty small units, you know, these aviation units. You know, we’re not talking about an infantry battalion. There’s, you know, a dozen helicopters and the crews that fly them, and that’s it. This was a big thing, yeah. To lose this handful of crew that was our most experienced, you know, the core of the unit. We were we were reeling from any number of of, you know, components to this from how are we going to proceed without, you know, the best of us to how are we going to survive this if we’ve only been here six days and we’ve just lost, you know. We’ve just had the worst day in all of Afghanistan, and we’ve been here six days. How are we going to make it out of this? So trying to grasp that and being simultaneously powerless. We could do nothing but rely on others to deal with the fallout, literally, of what we were dealing with. So it was a long day. Yeah. You know, I am a Christian, and I’m fond of saying that often we can see the things only that we are looking for, and that we can look past very many things. And it’s always surprising to me how many things I see God in while we live in and around folks that deny His existence entirely. And in those in those dark places, they say they say the military knows God well. And and and there’s a reason, you know, in these in these dark places, it’s much easier to see him. And and I can remember one of the hardest pieces was waiting all day for for some word still holding out hope. Right. We still it’s never for sure. It’s never for sure until. until it really is. And so we’re holding out hope that some of these folks made it. Maybe they were hiding in the woods and whatever else. We’re cut off from all contact with families because they didn’t know who was lost. So there was no calling family or reassuring. And we had no idea what the folks back home knew. News flies lightning fast. And military notifications do not. And they weren’t going to let us call our families until we knew who was lost. And those families were notified. So we couldn’t call families. We couldn’t reassure anybody. We didn’t know what the folks back home knew. And And we’re waiting and trying to cope with all of our own loss and grappling with what is coming. And I think one of the hardest points in that was trying to lay down and get some sleep that night, although I gave up shortly thereafter, and having the Muslim call to prayer being broadcast over the loudspeaker in the village nearby. And this place is dirty and dark. And I just lost my best friend. And we’re listening to the Muslim call to prayer over the loudspeaker echoing through this crappy little hole in the desert. And it was dark. It was dark. And so we continued to wait and then ended up getting back up shortly thereafter because realized it was useless trying to get any kind of sleep. And there was this little, we had built a little, well, we didn’t, but there’s a little deck on top of one of the shacks out there where you could see out beyond the wall. And so we were sitting up there waiting and then waiting for the remains to be returned to the camp. And it’s important to understand that we were out in the middle of the desert. There’s no water anywhere. And it’s important to the story later on. So just to understand that this is this crappy little dust hole in the middle of the desert where we were sitting. And would it be possible to read a short excerpt from my diary on the arrival of the helicopters?
SPEAKER 06 :
Sure. We’ve got probably about six minutes. So we’ve got time.
SPEAKER 09 :
I think it’s only two or three. Okay. I don’t want to mess up the timeline here, but it was a little, so the commander came up and said that the Chinooks were coming with the remains. So they came up and told us, and then I wrote a little journal entry on what happened next. It was a little over a mile, and I think we were grateful for the walk. It was the only funeral procession we could give, but I think it was an appropriate one. We walked through the darkness, single file in complete silence. It was comforting to hear the soft footfalls in front and behind of my comrades. Ooh, I’m going to have a hard time getting through it. In the soft powdery dust of the fob. We gathered in a corner of a square rock gravel pad surrounded by a high concrete wall. The square area was just big enough to get in a single Chinook into the center of the pad, and there was a small concrete square with a red cross painted on it. Although in the pitch black of the night, it was merely a gray pad with a black cross on it. We waited and faintly heard the sound in the distance, the sound of the thumping of air that only a Chinook makes. Quickly now formed ranks, boys. As each row knew their place, we fell into ranks, tight against a wall, as there was barely enough room for us and the Chinook to come in. Slowly at first, then louder and faster, came the thump of our brothers coming home. The big black Chinook comes in high and fast over the wall and rears its nose high to arrest the speed. The big black bird begins to settle into the gray, dusty place. As she settles into a hover above us, the scream of the engines and the pounding of the blades is deafening. Just above the din, I hear a single voice. Company, attention. We snap to attention just as the 80 mile per hour downwash strikes the formation. The first rank tips like trees in the wind, but only until the second rank catches them. We held each other as the Blackbird descended and settled to the ground in front of us. Above the roar, company, present arms. We all salute. As the ramp lowers, we don’t move as a line of special forces forms at the aft ramp of the Blackbird. One by one, the black bags are carried off, those black bags with our brothers, fathers. And sons. Sorry. I get it. Dave is there somewhere, I think, for a moment. Then I think, no, he’s not. We are only shadows and dust. Dave is at home with our Lord where he belongs. Tears roll down my face as I weep for my loss and that of the families. We wait. We wait as the bodies pass. The only light in the dark place is the light spilling out of the back. of the Blackbird as she gives up her dead. Finally, after what seems like hours, the light extinguishes, the ramp raises, and the grizzly parade ends. That was the arrival of the aircraft. We left and continued back up to the deck, and this is where Where we saw a thunderstorm building over the crash site. We watched as that thunderstorm sat over the valley where these guys died. And the thunderstorm didn’t move. And it was the only thing in the sky. And we’re in the middle of a desert where it doesn’t rain. And the thunderstorm sat there all night and poured six feet of water in that valley of the crash site and washed it clean.
SPEAKER 06 :
Like a baptism. Washing us clean. We only have just a couple of minutes. You are doing something very important here now that you’re back in Colorado. Tell us what you’re doing.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, I appreciate the opportunity. We are concerned about our nation and its future. And I have felt a great responsibility to keep our country safe my whole life. And we realized this past year that instead of complaining about the pandemic, the political state of our nation that we were going to do something about it. Um, so, um, I got together with, with another, uh, another veteran and a business owner, and we put together a group called the civic society. And what we’re trying to do is organize, um, organize our communities to, uh, to care for ourselves, uh, uh, politically and, and, uh, Materially, I felt a real call to get to get to know my neighbors again, to to build real communities where we know the folks that we that we do business with and that we live and die with in our communities. And I and I thought I felt a real need for us to organize and take back our our political world. And so what we what we are doing is teaching constitution and trying to organize.
SPEAKER 06 :
Awesome. How can people get in touch with you on this, Aaron Peterson?
SPEAKER 09 :
So we have a website called CivicSocietyUSA.org.
SPEAKER 06 :
CivicSocietyUSA.org?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yep. And we teach constitution and schedule meetings and talk about how to affect our communities politically and otherwise.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, fantastic work. You’re doing something on that. Aaron Peterson, I so appreciate you joining us.
SPEAKER 09 :
Thank you. It was a pleasure.
SPEAKER 06 :
My friends, you’ve heard it. We stand on the shoulders of giants. We were made for this time. We have a responsibility to step into this. Thank you to each. Thank you to our veterans, our military that have been willing to put their lives on the line or who have given their lives so that we can live in peace. And God bless you and God bless America.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you for listening to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure to tune in again next Sunday, 3 to 4 p.m. here on KLZ 560 and KLZ 100.7.
SPEAKER 03 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
