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T-Tail-Tall-Tail:
Desert One?
Jeff Sherman
One afternoon I was alerted (I might have been in
bravo) for a SAAM Mission out of Clark AB, C-141A
#957. The flight was April 22, 1980. Clark to Diego.
We were to haul a bunch of civilian-dressed guys and
their gear to the destination. While on the ramp at
Clark, I was finishing up my TOLD card on the flight
deck when the Loadmaster came up and complained to
the AC that "they won't tell me what's in the ramp
pallet." The guy's leader was in uniform and he was
an Army full-bird. The AC called for the Colonel to
come on up and the argument started. "We need to
know what you guys have in that box on the ramp"
"No you don't"
"Is it weapons?"
"Maybe, maybe not."
So, we just assumed we were
hauling some Class A. After we finished climbing-out
and leveling-off, I got up and went to the back and
these guys were mixing drinks with whiskey and coke
and smoking big cigars. Half way to Diego they
changed into uniforms, some wore flight suits,
others fatigues. One dude I'll never forget. He was
a short, stocky, bad-ass, long-haired blond guy in
tiger-striped fatigues. The guy had blue eyes that
said "Don't f with me." We logged a 10.4, went into
crew rest for 12 hours and picked up another
airplane which came in from Oman. We took it back to
Clark. One of the inbound crew-members forgot a
souvenir Mandolin on the bunk. Not sure what
happened to that instrument.
The next day the "Desert One" tragedy went down.
Later we all got letters of appreciation for this
SAAM mission.
I later read Col. Charlie Beckwith's book, "Delta
Force". Charlie described the blond commando to the
"T" (he was a Delta sniper). I think we may have
hauled some Delta guys AND Charlie Beckwith to Diego
that day. He never mentions this leg to Diego from
Clark in his book, nor does Col. James H. Kyle,
USAF, author of "The Guts to Try".
I wonder why this flight was left out of the history
books? l wonder what ever happened to these guys we
had on our airplane that day, did they all make it?
Who were they?
Nice Sharing this story with you,
All the Best,
Jeff Sherman