I used to feel like a VIP when my "personal Puma" landed on the peritack at Upavon to pick us up for an exercise. Or mighty Wokka would drop us off after night flying. As a mere 22-year old Lance Corporal! To think.. I could have been stacking shelves in Sainsburys.. or playing with big, noisy, expensive, flying things, that came to personally pick me up! Ramp ride in a Wokka, or unload another trailer of dog food? Door gunnery with GPMG or stocktake frozen chips? If I could have bottled that feeling, and had it issued to new recruits, we would never have had a recruiting or retention problem. F***ing great!
Went up in the world as a Corporal in Bos. I happened to be the sole pax on the "round robin" heli bus, usually a GE CH53. On this day however... was a US Black Hawk, with AH-64 "top cover". Lots of eyes looking, as the sole bod getting off the Black Hawk at Sarajevo with the Apache standing off at about 100ft. Made me think of the days of the AOC and whites!