Manuel Noriega
 

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Speaking of which, I was there for 3 yrs, including the invasion, whatever happen to him, I know he is or was in jail and is or will be released soon.

I was in Panama in Oct 1989........ sightseeing.:D

TS

Back in the day when the Black Beret meant something
 

Dec 1989, Manuel Noriega has finally pissed off the US and actions are taken to remove him. The ammunition pallets are right by our tents, and my Fire Team Leader hands me my “shopping list” of what I must have, anything else is up to me. Talk about a kid in a candy store. We load up the airplanes at Ft. Benning, GA in a freezing rain for the long flight to Panama. They bring out the baggage carts to load us up and take us to the planes as we are literally carrying about 200 lbs of equipment each. We are packed like sardines in the aircraft. About an hour prior to drop time, word is passed back that “they know we’re coming”. Oh that’s not good at all; we like to be the surpriser, not the surprisee. Someone starts shouting the Ranger Creed, and every joins in. The planes slow down to 130 knots about 3 min from the Drop Zone and the doors open. Our Jumpmaster conducts his safety inspection of the door and the outside. It’s extremely quiet in the aircraft while we wait, until the Jumpmaster comes back inside the aircraft and announces “DZ is hot!!”, seeing the red and green tracer rounds crossing behind his head puts a serious exclamation point on that statement. About that time there is a repeated pinging sound, like the tapping of a ballpeen hammer on metal. We realize that we are under fire and it’s the rounds hitting the aircraft. The loadmasters look on in shock as the green jump light illuminates and we jump into combat carrying the fight to the enemy. All they want to do is get the hell out of there, and we’re jumping from the frying pan straight into the fire. We seize Rio Hato in a manner of hours with the help of 3-75 RGR (-). Sadly we lose 2 Rangers from 2-75 in the assault. 18 years later, I’m still alive and kicking and it all seems like it happened yesterday.

And the bitch of it all... We missed Pineapple Head by 15 frigging minutes. He drove away as we were jumping in.

Every year at 0100hrs 20 Dec, I raise a cold one in honor of two fallen Warriors.

The only body armor we had was Starched BDU's and a K-pot :D

I was on 'loan' down there from 1/7th when Trujillo bought it a couple of years before the pineapple-faced porcine one came to power. Once we 'confirmed' Omar was no longer a card carrying member of the surface world, we 'borrowed' a uniform from a La Guardia trooper, pinned every ribbon and badge we could come up with on it, procured a coffin, and draped a Panamian flag across the end. FS painted his face white, dressed in the uniform and sat in the coffin up in the HHC dayroom...giving long, rambling speeches in crappy Spanish on the glory of Panama and his (Trujillo's) obvious place forever in history as we toasted him with 'Him's...' all night long and had a hell of a good time. I wish I had a recording of it...but that was before cell phone cameras and video recording capability and MySpace and YouTube. Good memories, though. :cool:

I was in grad school at IU when JUST CAUSE took place.

Richard's $.02 :munchin

So was I. July even. LOL;)

Fascinating stories. Thank you.

Coming right up, brother.

Right around the corner.

s.
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Guys, I don't know if you'll believe this or not,but Manuel Noriega has been "born again". He was visited by a very well known Evangelical by the name of Ravi Zacharias who met with him in jail. Ravi said Mr. Noriega had a worn out Bible and had professed his past and accepted Jesus Christ as his Load and Savior. Ravi believed his conversion was sincere. Noriega can never get out of jail. He is convicted for life in prison with "No" chance of parole or pardon...........

GB TFS :munchin

Shall we all sing a Hymn for Pineapple Face then?
 

Hymn, Hymn, F**K Him !!!!!

Rasta headgear
 

You forgot the Rastafarian Ragtop that we all had to wear so the 7th ID wouldn't take us for the enemy and shoot us. It didn't help, my first two big firefights were with the Panamanians, the 3rd one was the Dirt Bag 7th ID in a "Secure perimeter" inside the 2-75 perimeter, who were shooting first (no questions required) at any movement or sound outside the 7th's perimeter.

Let's see, they all received their CIBs for combat. But if I recall correctly you can't receive any decorations for Friendly Fire engagements. They were in firefights with the Rangers, 82nd, 5th ID, "someone else", and possibly shot down a little bird. Guess they were too busy to engage the PDF.

To this day, I still can't find one of those 7th ID "veterans" who will admit to being at Rio Hato. 19 yrs later, I still want to kick their sorry asses.

I was sitting in Manny's office in the Commandancia a few days after his arrest and found a stack of embossed invitations, obviously for the Christmas party we crashed....well, I took one and wrote Manny a thank you note for having us in his country over the Christmas holidays and how much we were enjoying ourselves and how I hoped he enjoyed the US equally as much, addressed it Gen Manual A. Noreiga (Ret) c/o DEA, Dade County FLA......mailed it,
but I never heard if he received it or not.......

Manny....you couldn't write back?

We were staging out of Albrook AFB. Just as we were moving to the Helicopters to head out, the entire City erupted like the 4th of July. Guess no one synchronized their Watches. Aw some night and days to follow

I was with the 1/504 back then so no manchu hair on my helmet :p
all i remember after the jump was damn it !!!! I dident bring bug spray.... and why are the rangers shooting all the passanger jets with Law rockets lol