"Er, no. But we have a motto. 'Unbridled Spirit'. It's also Kentucky's state motto." Works for me. I wanna be an Unbridled Spirit.
Then we went off to the A-E tent. "Areomedical Evacuation".
"90% of the med-evac in Iraq is done by the National Guard," I was told. "It used to take us ten days to get the wounded out. Now we get them out in three days -- giving us a 98% survival rate. We are the first medical group to arrive at CRW locations." Then we went into another air-conditioned tent. Maybe I could live in a tent like this -- after my housing co-op's "Six Million dollar Board" gets done running our property into the ground.
Then the reporter next to me dropped a bombshell. "Mr. Bush will be at Travis today."
Say what!
"Yep. He's coming here to raise money for the Republicans." Good grief!
"Can we actually get to go see him?"
"Maybe, if you wait around long enough. But frankly if you've seen one Bush, you've seen them all."
"But I've been trying to get that man thrown into jail for eight long dreary unsuccessful years now -- so I'd at least like to know what the guy looks like." Seeing as how I practically the president of the anti-Bush fan club and all that.
"I don't think that you would be allowed into the event," said another reporter. "The guest list is pretty strict. Plus only the White House press corps is credentialed for this." Ah, the usual Bush tap-dance with freedom of speech. "Also, I hear that they are charging $850,000 a plate at his fund-raiser." $850,000 a plate! I could live for the rest of my freaking LIFE on $850,000. And not only that, but Bush is flying here at us taxpayers' expense? Just to go to a partisan fund-raiser? Isn't that illegal? Hey, I pay my taxes. Shouldn't I be allowed to go to the fund-raiser too? Apparently not.
Meanwhile, back in Salinas, we got back on the plane, they handed us some box lunches and the plane backed up. "That's something that most planes can't do." The chicken patty in my sandwich looked and tasted like Spam. Plus Rice Krispie Treats, a fruit cup, some BBQ potato chips and an apple. Then there was a huge jolt and we were back in the air. I'm such a wus. I hate to fly.
Then an EMT told me that they were having a resuscitation demonstration right in the middle of the cargo space, so I rushed over to see that. There was a whole EMT crew resuscitating and operating on a medical dummy right there in the bowels of the freaking plane while in flight. It was better than an inflight movie. It was surreal. They did everything to that poor dummy except take out his tonsils! And we were only in the air for 20 minutes between when we went up and when we came down.
And speaking of coming down, we didn't need no stinkin' stewardess to tell us when to get back to our seats. Our plane started to go down really fast and we knew. Ah, the fine points of flying mil-air!
"We're at Castle AFB now. It's near Merced." Castle is serving as the hub of the Hydra operation. "Planes fly in from Fort Bragg as well as from Travis. This is a closed base so most of us are down here from Travis -- and about 200 are out from Fort Bragg. We run the operation's nerve center from here." We got out of the plane and it was hot. Rats! I left my truckers cap back in the plane.
We met another colonel here and he had a coolness cap....
There were more medical tents here on the flightline and more crash-test dummies. But they weren't wearing caps.
Then we went off to the A-E tent. "Areomedical Evacuation".
"90% of the med-evac in Iraq is done by the National Guard," I was told. "It used to take us ten days to get the wounded out. Now we get them out in three days -- giving us a 98% survival rate. We are the first medical group to arrive at CRW locations." Then we went into another air-conditioned tent. Maybe I could live in a tent like this -- after my housing co-op's "Six Million dollar Board" gets done running our property into the ground.
Then the reporter next to me dropped a bombshell. "Mr. Bush will be at Travis today."
"Yep. He's coming here to raise money for the Republicans." Good grief!
"Can we actually get to go see him?"
"Maybe, if you wait around long enough. But frankly if you've seen one Bush, you've seen them all."
"But I've been trying to get that man thrown into jail for eight long dreary unsuccessful years now -- so I'd at least like to know what the guy looks like." Seeing as how I practically the president of the anti-Bush fan club and all that.
"I don't think that you would be allowed into the event," said another reporter. "The guest list is pretty strict. Plus only the White House press corps is credentialed for this." Ah, the usual Bush tap-dance with freedom of speech. "Also, I hear that they are charging $850,000 a plate at his fund-raiser." $850,000 a plate! I could live for the rest of my freaking LIFE on $850,000. And not only that, but Bush is flying here at us taxpayers' expense? Just to go to a partisan fund-raiser? Isn't that illegal? Hey, I pay my taxes. Shouldn't I be allowed to go to the fund-raiser too? Apparently not.
Meanwhile, back in Salinas, we got back on the plane, they handed us some box lunches and the plane backed up. "That's something that most planes can't do." The chicken patty in my sandwich looked and tasted like Spam. Plus Rice Krispie Treats, a fruit cup, some BBQ potato chips and an apple. Then there was a huge jolt and we were back in the air. I'm such a wus. I hate to fly.
Then an EMT told me that they were having a resuscitation demonstration right in the middle of the cargo space, so I rushed over to see that. There was a whole EMT crew resuscitating and operating on a medical dummy right there in the bowels of the freaking plane while in flight. It was better than an inflight movie. It was surreal. They did everything to that poor dummy except take out his tonsils! And we were only in the air for 20 minutes between when we went up and when we came down.
And speaking of coming down, we didn't need no stinkin' stewardess to tell us when to get back to our seats. Our plane started to go down really fast and we knew. Ah, the fine points of flying mil-air!
"We're at Castle AFB now. It's near Merced." Castle is serving as the hub of the Hydra operation. "Planes fly in from Fort Bragg as well as from Travis. This is a closed base so most of us are down here from Travis -- and about 200 are out from Fort Bragg. We run the operation's nerve center from here." We got out of the plane and it was hot. Rats! I left my truckers cap back in the plane.
We met another colonel here and he had a coolness cap....
There were more medical tents here on the flightline and more crash-test dummies. But they weren't wearing caps.
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