A Letter from Shamus
Hi William,
I was a Kiowa pilot in 1-17 CAV in Kandahar from June 2009 – June 2010 and it was truly a pleasure to hear about your experience. I was also very excited to discover a personal connection to your story.
On 23 FEB 2010, I was flying in one of the KW’s (Shamus Callsign) that supported your unit after LT Eric Mayfield was hit by an IED. My flight lead was the one who landed and attempted to pick him up. Anyway, below is what I wrote about this incident at the time in my journal:
“After spending the time out in Howz-e-Madad, we refueled at Wilson then went to the ARV to do our original mission. We started working for 2 Fury around 1400 just doing some normal sweeps. At about 1430 we were notified of an IED strike on a dismounted patrol (B26). We were overhead within 2 minutes of being notified. We had a hard time getting in touch with the ground element, but we were able to determine that B26 actual was the one who was injured.
He had shrapnel wounds from his head to his feet. A RCIED in a wall blew up only a few feet from him. Anyway, we couldn’t get a clear answer on when a MEDEVAC would arrive. The best answer we got was about 20 minutes.
Based on that we as team discussed, one of the aircraft would go and pull the LT out and take him to ROLE 3 at KAF with the left seater riding on the UWP. Rob and Randall went in. I was desperately trying to get comes with the TOC.
Initially I couldn’t get them on BFT or SATCOM. Carlos tried them on FM, but that didn’t work either. I finally got a BFT out telling them what we were doing and once Rob and Randall were on the ground, the TOC sent a BFT saying they could hear us on SATCOM.
I started doing play by play on the SATCOM. They got the LT loaded into the helicopter, but apparently he was a really big dude. When Rob tried to takeoff, he couldn’t get the collective up. Randall got up and started to remove the collective when the MEDEVAC finally showed up.
At that point, the loaded the guy onto the MEDEVAC and Rob took off. We ended up staying out there with those Bravo Co. dudes for another 2 hours. I wish we could have found the trigger man. All in all, that was a truly different experience, but I still think it was the right call.”
Anyway, I thought it would be cool to share… I also apparently took some photos of the incident as well.
Again, I really enjoyed reading your book and I’m proud to have been able to fly cover for you. We supported everyone in RC-South, but it really meant more for a lot of us when we got to support our fellow 82nd guys in 2 Fury.
-Sam Brown
D TRP, 1-17TH CAV (TF Saber), 82ND CAB
