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Wednesday, April 30, 2008
My War Diary Video
I have finally found a cable that I hope to use to download the My War Diary video from my TIVO box to my computer
if it works I can post the video to the website so those who have not experienced my uncomfortable television debut will have
something to laugh at. Thank God it was only about 15 seconds of screen time for me. It worked out just fine. So cross your
fingers everyone.
Mystery solved
Well we figured it out. All the posts that were unreadable were spam, each one had a website listed if you notice anyone
who posted a comment did not list a website. Well except for me anyway we figured it must be a spam filter that jumbled up
the messages. Now that I know they are junk mail I have deleted them. So all friends visisting feel free to post away, and
tell all your friends. I am currently waiting for some photos and stuff for the Ongoing Operations page. I hope to have a
bunch of good stuff up there soon, so stay tuned.
Willy Nilly
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Guestbook
Hi Everyone,
Well it
seems there has been a problem with the guestbook. If you have posted a comment since April 21st it is coming out unreadable.
verizon tells me it might be something on the posting persons side. I am trying to get it resolved, if you have posted a comment
check to see if it is readable to you if not please contact me through my e-mail and let me know if you are using a different
operating system or something. I am going to try to play with the settings as well. Please check your posts if it is one of
the unreadable ones please contact me. Thanks
Cliff
" Willy Nilly"
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The
Willy Nilly Story
"I Will Never Leave A Fallen Comrade" Those of you in the Army know this
as one of our "Warrior Ethos" A very Important one my buddies and I thought. Well just before we deployed to Iraq we had a
brief with the Air Force about search and rescue procedures should one of our aircrews go down.
During the brief one of our pilots asked the instructor. "If we are in the area when the call goes
out for a downed crew. Could we go pick them up or would we be stepping on your toes by doing that? Well the instructor started
to say by all means if you can... And that was when our Batallion Commander stood up and said. "I'll answer this. You
will follow orders you will not fly willy nilly around the country."
Well needless to say we were speechless the instructor was astounded. This man was a veteran
P.J. who made a carreer out of saving people's lives and he had just witnessed this woman ordering us
not to help. Well "Willy Nilly" became the big joke around the unit, because we all knew if we can help a fellow soldier,
aviator or not we were going to do it. When we got to Kuwait we all had tan nametags made for our flightsuits. I had the one
made in the picture at the top and said I will too fly willy nilly around the country! it remained on the back of
my helmet throughout the deployment. The nametag was a big hit and I became known as Sgt. Willy Nilly. The really great part
of this story is that I got to be a part of the first "WillyNilly" mission when we got to help out two soldiers from
the 2-7th Infantry who were injured by a vehicle born Improvised Explosive Device(IED) at a check point in Tikrit. We heard
them calling for a Medevac but the Medevac bird was 25 minutes out. We were two minutes away so we dropped off our passengers
at the Forward Operating Base(FOB) in Tikrit and went back to get them. We were stoked, after months of shuttling people
around the country were were actually going to directly help someone.
Willy Nilly is a story that needs to be told. It is the story of a Commander
who was eventually relieved of her Command. That is not the entire story though, the real story is that of a California
National Guard unit who started out as the bastard stepchildren of the State and who went on to show everyone just
what they were made of. A group of soldiers who had come to do a job and although their hands were often tied by
a Commander who ultimately would be found unfit, they would exceed everyones expectations and return home to their loved
ones with their heads high.
Sgt. Cliff Rodgers
UH-60 Blackhawk Crewchief
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What's New? It is April 28th right now in Iraq and it is the second anniversary of the "Willy
Nilly" mission a fitting day I think to launch the site. Captain Briggs and MR. Carpio I want to say thank you again for doing
the right thing. I would also like to thank someone who helped me put a few finishing touches on the story above,
but before I throw his name out I want to ask his permission. Enjoy the site and send pictures and stories. Cliff
Ok I can now officially thank SSG Robert Pruitt for helping me fine tune my front page.
The site is still a work in progress. This is my first web site so please bear with me. Thanks
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