User talk:74.209.43.110

I write about the Dominican Revolution. I was there with the only helicopter in the entire nation for a week. I personally evacuated MGen Tompkins from the American embassy. IM was attached to the Navy squadron HC-4.We arrived in the third week of April. The ship the president was going to leave on, if necessary, was blown up, sunk at the pier and on fire. VADM Masterson asked us to evacuate Americans from theEmbassy and first to ben MGEN Tompkins. It was 0300 or 3 AM. I said we had to wait until first light. Marius A Gache and I were the only two American aviators in Dom Rep at that moment. The reason had to wait is there was no light in the city. If we hit a wire or tower we would lose our only helicopter and possibly our lives. We had a UH-13P, the smallest helicopter in the entire Navy and a one pilot aircraft. I weight about 50m pounds less than Matty Gache so I flew in first. Matt had been a college football player and was simply larger than I was. I flew in at first light. There were fires in the city. What shocked me was the smell. There were over 2,000 dead people in the streets and it was hot. The stench was overpowering. I was surprised, but not sickened. The courtyard of the embassy was tiny and surrounded by stone walls about 14 feet high. My H-13 helicopter barely fit in there. Tw2o men came out. One Marine had a big briefcase and the other was the smallest Marine I ever saw with a rifle bigger than he was. It was a BAR. The officer asked if he could handcuff the big heavy briefcase to my wrist. In said I couldn't fly that way and asked MGEN Tompkins to handcuff it to the seat. He did. At that point I did not know I had a general in my helicopter. I lifted off with full power, just made it over the wall and flew up the street at the level of second floor windows; left west on another street, then south toward the ocean and out to the ship. VADM Masterson met me on the stern of the USS Newport News, a heavy cruiser. He asked me how it was in there. I told him it was very bad with a LOT of dead people in the streets. Matt and I took turns flying. On the fifth day the ship baked us a cake and brought it to the flight deck. It said, "Congratulations, 100 Landings". I saw the Dominican Republic Mustangs, but did not know they were operational. I did not see one fly. The second helicopter to arrive was an H-34 that came all the way from Roosevelt Roads in Puerto Rico. It was too big to land at the embassy. The ship was the USS Newport News