Memorable assignments ,PART 3

Here we go again, Here I am drinking beer and eating egg rolls, in a third world country with the bad guys doing bad things to the country. Welcome to San Salvador, El Salvador CA.

The hotel we were checked into was a 3 or 4 star hotel, that is before the Earthquake hit late in 1986, I don't know the magnitude but it shifted the hotel about 18 inches, collapsed a children's hospital, moved the US Embassy down the middle and cleared off the side of a mountain, that's not all just lots of damage. The room was nice and clean and was to American standards, The first night I slept well, and had a 6AM Wake-up call.

Up and at-Um Breakfast with Tino, We had breakfast and was as you would expect at a hotel but there was plenty of fruit, Fresh and tropical. Other than that it was really good and cheap.

One of our crew picked us up and headed downtown, our mission today was to process into the Embassy. We got there and went through security had our orientation got our badges and all that stuff. I mentioned before that the Embassy was split in half, sure enough there in the middle of the 2nd floor the hall had moved about 18 or 20 inches the hall was no longer straight.

We left the embassy and headed to our work sight. Illipongo AFB about 18 KM to the south of San Salvador. This was to be our route for the next 24 or so months.

Work is a four letter word! Here we are at the Air Base, our hanger was old, think it was used by Columbus on his journey across the Central American countries from the Pacific to the Carri bean, well maybe not but it looked like it tons of rust, dirt bird poop and lots of birds. You just could not keep them out.

Then to the job at hand, we were a team of 10 men, I would call us experts in the Helicopter field but I guess that could be debated, any way we had the Job. That was to perform scheduled maintenance on OLD Viet Nam era Helicopters which had been rebuilt once or twice, for their age really they were in good shape for as old as they were. This maintenance would be our routine for the rest of our tour in El Salvador. The first day, I experienced my first Tremolo, Earth Quake , a little one but the streets and buildings looked as if they were made of rubber, the poles swayed back and forth and the street went up and down, you have never lived till you ride a moving street.

Thats about all for the first day It was interesting to say the least, more next time
POP