[Stras]

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.