tdeane
02-27-2003, 04:55 PM
Curious to see if any Desert Rats spent time at Khobar Towers, Dharhan after Storm and through Calm. I know a bunch of you guys did, since we ran the TMC and Khobar was the main stopping point before you returned stateside. Anyway, we used to do "KT" Night sorties off the top of our building...Hell, we were Combat Medics with nothing else to do. Our sorties were condoms filled with water (we couldnt find any balloons and we were a Med U so the condoms were easy to come by).
Every other night from a month after the war ended til June, 91 we would hit the roof and drop our payload on unsuspecting walkers down below. Everybody had a good laugh (even the ones who got hit) and it was a great stress breaker. After a month or so we got good...aiming, how to lead, wind effects and so on. One night (in June), which turned out to be our last night on sortie runs, we saw a Saudi walking from the chow hall/parking garage and we sighted him up real good. We watched and waited as he came closer. At this point of waiting we were holding onto some 40 water filled condoms (we were expecting a long night of "missions"). He came right under our drop zone. We had 7 guys, standing by, along the edge of the roof and all at once, we unloaded...not a few, but the whole damn nine yards on this Saudi that we thought was a cook. All 40 condoms fell and damn near everyone hit the mark and that little Saudi was doing the "Mobile Jig" just to try to avoid any further hits.
Happy that we completed our mission, we tossed our boxes over the north side of the roof and laughed about dropping all 40 and calmly proceeded to our area, 3 floors from the roof (aka, The Above Ground). Unknown to us...the Saudi we hit was no cook, but a Saudi "High" Priest. Well, this fella (more on that in a sec.) stormed towards our CQ desk, raising all kinds of hell, wanting anybody and everybody in charge. The MP's heard shouting and yelling and then they were in on it too (the MP's were two buildings away from us, right across from the phone center and across the street from our TMC). This "Saudi High Priest" was furious that he was hit by...none other than...CONDOMS!
We always had a saying...The first step of truth in numbers is to deny...hell it works for the CIA right? We were a tight knit group and we really became like brothers, all of us. We took up for each other. Our CO (Col. Blake) had our entire Unit in Parade Rest until the guilty party fessed. For near 1 hour we were out in that sand area off the sidewalk when one of our brothers broke and stepped out and saw "Top". The jig was up, we were ratted out.
Laughing all the way, the MP's came and got the remainder of us out of formation, one by one and then escorted us to MP HQ for "interrogation", Ha! While we sat in the room, all of us, the MP's and the Officer on duty couldnt stop laughing. They knew us and we knew them. We all watched the gates, entrances, roof tops and fence lines together and we treated them (with the occassional profile) at our TMC.
The MP's informed us that this "Saudi" was rather upset and that he wanted to press charges and was even considering going to the American Consolate...uh-oh, the threat of a International Incident. He wanted the MP's to take action. Ok, they brought us in. Not good enough. We were informed by the MP that the "Priest" wanted to speak with us. So, in comes the soaked priest. He's giving us "a what for" IN PERFECT ENGLISH. We had come to find out, in his yelling and Allah curses on us, that this freak was from NEW YORK CITY and no damn Saudi at all. He was the teacher and Priest at the Saudi Culture Tent at the Khobar Bazaar (remember that dump?) and that he left NY to follow the Islam...blah, blah, blah. We ended up buying him a new prayer garb (new bed sheet), he made us (all of us) write a hand written apology to him (for his personal diary I guess), and we had to sit through 3 weeks worth of Culture classes in his tent at the bazaar. But hell...thinking about it afterwards...it was worth it.
Well, after it was all said and done, the MP's gave us a Stop Action Order and our CO made our NCO remove all condoms from the TMC...from there, we found new ways of keeping ourselves entertained...the Khobar Long Range Recon Patrol Snatch and Grab...but, thats a story for a different day! Don't get a Medic bored.
Anybody here ever get hit by us?
Every other night from a month after the war ended til June, 91 we would hit the roof and drop our payload on unsuspecting walkers down below. Everybody had a good laugh (even the ones who got hit) and it was a great stress breaker. After a month or so we got good...aiming, how to lead, wind effects and so on. One night (in June), which turned out to be our last night on sortie runs, we saw a Saudi walking from the chow hall/parking garage and we sighted him up real good. We watched and waited as he came closer. At this point of waiting we were holding onto some 40 water filled condoms (we were expecting a long night of "missions"). He came right under our drop zone. We had 7 guys, standing by, along the edge of the roof and all at once, we unloaded...not a few, but the whole damn nine yards on this Saudi that we thought was a cook. All 40 condoms fell and damn near everyone hit the mark and that little Saudi was doing the "Mobile Jig" just to try to avoid any further hits.
Happy that we completed our mission, we tossed our boxes over the north side of the roof and laughed about dropping all 40 and calmly proceeded to our area, 3 floors from the roof (aka, The Above Ground). Unknown to us...the Saudi we hit was no cook, but a Saudi "High" Priest. Well, this fella (more on that in a sec.) stormed towards our CQ desk, raising all kinds of hell, wanting anybody and everybody in charge. The MP's heard shouting and yelling and then they were in on it too (the MP's were two buildings away from us, right across from the phone center and across the street from our TMC). This "Saudi High Priest" was furious that he was hit by...none other than...CONDOMS!
We always had a saying...The first step of truth in numbers is to deny...hell it works for the CIA right? We were a tight knit group and we really became like brothers, all of us. We took up for each other. Our CO (Col. Blake) had our entire Unit in Parade Rest until the guilty party fessed. For near 1 hour we were out in that sand area off the sidewalk when one of our brothers broke and stepped out and saw "Top". The jig was up, we were ratted out.
Laughing all the way, the MP's came and got the remainder of us out of formation, one by one and then escorted us to MP HQ for "interrogation", Ha! While we sat in the room, all of us, the MP's and the Officer on duty couldnt stop laughing. They knew us and we knew them. We all watched the gates, entrances, roof tops and fence lines together and we treated them (with the occassional profile) at our TMC.
The MP's informed us that this "Saudi" was rather upset and that he wanted to press charges and was even considering going to the American Consolate...uh-oh, the threat of a International Incident. He wanted the MP's to take action. Ok, they brought us in. Not good enough. We were informed by the MP that the "Priest" wanted to speak with us. So, in comes the soaked priest. He's giving us "a what for" IN PERFECT ENGLISH. We had come to find out, in his yelling and Allah curses on us, that this freak was from NEW YORK CITY and no damn Saudi at all. He was the teacher and Priest at the Saudi Culture Tent at the Khobar Bazaar (remember that dump?) and that he left NY to follow the Islam...blah, blah, blah. We ended up buying him a new prayer garb (new bed sheet), he made us (all of us) write a hand written apology to him (for his personal diary I guess), and we had to sit through 3 weeks worth of Culture classes in his tent at the bazaar. But hell...thinking about it afterwards...it was worth it.
Well, after it was all said and done, the MP's gave us a Stop Action Order and our CO made our NCO remove all condoms from the TMC...from there, we found new ways of keeping ourselves entertained...the Khobar Long Range Recon Patrol Snatch and Grab...but, thats a story for a different day! Don't get a Medic bored.
Anybody here ever get hit by us?