Learning to Hover and Diable goes nuts.

Before I get into the madness of learning how to hover, I would like to welcome former Chief Warrant Officer Mike Olinger to the blog watchers list. Right after I left the Slick Platoon and finished my career as a Night Hawk Gunship Pilot, I transferred to the Scout Platoon and transitioned into the Hughes 500/OH-6. Mike and I flew scouts with the Cobra Gunships and were, for the most part, referred to as the "low boys" on Hunter Killer Teams with the scouts being the hunters. During my time in the Scout Platoon, Mike was my closest friend. All of that ended when Mike was shot down and wounded so badly that he had to be evacuated back to the U.S. WELCOME ABOARD, MIKE. There are many Air Cav Troopers reading this blog and Lt. Doug Haywood, Raider 6, is one of them. DIABLE GOES NUTS. Despite the fact that we were knee deep in studies, inspections and the first couple of days of actual flight training, a little inter Flight competition unfolded. We had a couple of close friends in A2 and, like a group of fraternity boys, we started stirring the pot. Oddly enough, the more we stirred it, the more we had to pay the price for doing so. It could have been Bandusky or Larabee that took the bait but we stepped up the rumors that we spent our evenings shooting the breeze with Diable about flying instead of spit polishing everything in sight and preparing for inspections. In a sense, this was true but it wasn't, by any stretch of the imagination, an everyday occurrence. Diable stayed on us and continued to hammer home his attention to detail mantra and we spent countless hours polishing everything in sight. I don't know exactly how it started but the guys in A2 almost certainly told Savage that A1 was doing "this or that". I don't know how all of that translated into a punishment tour commanded by me, but it sure did. I ended up at the head of the Flight, all neatly standing at attention in the parking lot, listening to Diable chew our butts out for starting "craziness" with the other Flights. From that, he decided that we had it too easy and needed to get a little excercise to calm us down. Before I knew it, I was given orders to march the 30 man Flight until he returned with futher instructions. I called the Flight to attention, ordered left face, forward march, and off we went across the parking lot. When Diable was out of sight, we heard the guys in A2 laughing at us from the open windows on the second floor. I called out "first squad to the rear, march, Second squad to the rear, march, Third squad to the rear, march". By the time I had the entire Flight marching along in a single file instead of the proper 4 column formation, I really started a show. The other Candidates were laughing at us and I wanted to show them that we had our military marching maneuvers down pat and much better than the other 3 Flights. Before it was over with, I had the Flight engaged in marching maneuvers all over the parking lot. I even moved them 90 degrees off the marching line followed by an immediate column right maneuver with more "to the rear march" commands to put them back in single file. With regard to marching in precision military formations, we had it as together as any Flight in the 5th WOC if not the entire school. As a final show of "COOL" to the other Flights that were watching us closely, I ordered them in the direction of our barracks where I opened the door and had them march single file through the main entrance door. I had to get us out of sight. I can only imagine what the other Flights thought but as soon as we made it inside the barracks the rest of A1 started laughing their butts off. There was more than one "Way to Go Butler" from the Flight. I marched them down the hallway,gave them a left turn into the showers and then began the march back to the parking lot. Unfortunately for me and Steve Diehl, the other co-conspirator involved here, Diable caught us before we reached the barracks door. He jumped me immediately and began giving me the standard Matlock styled cross examination. When he found out that I did it because the other Flights were looking at us and laughing, I noticed that his eyebrows dropped. I had no idea what was going on in that head of his but I knew that the statement about the other Flights looking and laughing at us, changed his demeanor. I just told him the truth and admitted that I was going to take our Flight completely out of sight and remove the opportunity for the other Flights to keep screwing with us. Oddly enough, even though I'm sure he got it and agreed it was a cool maneuver, he had us march outside so he could chew our asses out in front of the other Flights. Right after that, he sent us to the barracks and followed us in. He went to the shower stalls, found tracks on the floor and ordered a complete refurbishment of the shower area, including paint. You may wonder how in the hell I could remember all of this after 42 years and 7 months. Rather than get into all of that, I will simply publish a picture of me and Diehl on the night of the paint punishment tour because I had one of the guys take one for my records concerning our time under Diable's command. How's that for having proof? I'll probably need to get Tim Jr to post the picture so that I won't have another duplication like you see with the pictures (plural) of Flight A1 on the first page of this blog. In any event, not only was it a madhouse in the barracks, we started hover practise in the morning. To add to the craziness, Fred Thompson and the guys had returned from California and their simulator training. That may not sound like much but the fact that Fred brought his POV with him, a very strict rule and a "NO NO", was enough to completely screw up our entire world. No place was safe and everyplace was full of pressure. I didn't know it until much later but despite Fred's infraction of driving a customized California Surfer's Van back from simulator training, a guaranteed wash out infraction, Diable went to work at Company Headquarters on his behalf. He was so certain that Fred had the "Right Stuff". Kicking him out of the program because he wanted his van to take to Rucker when we graduated, was NOT acceptable to him. Diable ended up having an argument with the 5th WOC Commanding Officer and threatened to throw his Warrant Officer bars on the line if he didn't let Fred stay. He backed Fred's spirit and his cohesion in the Flight by actually threatening to leave the Army if the Captain kicked Fred out of flight school. That, my boys, is what you call a bad ass Tac Officer and Diable was surely one of those. I didn't realize it would take so long for me to get this post together as it took much longer for me to get my old lap top started and bring up the picture of me and Steve Diehl. Despite that, the first day of hover training will have to wait until tonight or tomorrow as it is Saturday and noon time is approaching fast. Stand by guys, hovering starts very soon.