Because I can't leave well enough alone...

Today, I'd like to start by polling the audience. By a show of hands, who knows that I just can't leave well enough alone? Very good! I try. I really do. But there are just so many targets of opportunity in my day-to-day dealings that sometimes, my cup runneth over and I feel the need to act.

Case in point? The black flag! A refresher for my military friends; a primer for my civilian readers. The military has never been an organization fond of "free thinking" on the part of its urchins. To be honest, they like to inform of us everything. I'm fairly certain this "information" comes only from committees formed for the sole purpose of holding meetings to establish the need for meetings where they then hold a meeting to discuss the results of the meeting.

When it comes to the ambient temperature, we're not trusted to simply "feel" whether it's warm or not. Someone, somewhere (surely with the help of a committee and contracted scientists who held studies) decided we needed a "system" in place to let us know just how hot it is. I know, I know... My techie friends like to take a more direct route and actually open a door or window and decide for themselves what it feels like outdoors. There is also the camp that likes to get crazy and switch over to the Weather Channel to decide how hot the day will be.

But not the military. The military has settled on FLAGS as the best means to announce the temperature. Before you scoot over to http://www.m-w.com/ to look up the word "flag" and any alternate meanings, let me stop you. By flag, I clearly mean a usually rectangular piece of fabric of distinctive design that is used as a symbol, as a signaling device or as a decoration.

Our flags are much like a color chart for five year olds. Green means good. The weather is nice, you're free to wreak havoc outdoors. Yellow means use caution; it's getting warmer. Red means it's rather hot and you should think before spending a prolonged amount of time in the sun. Then there's black. The black flag means (and this is a loose definition) good lawd it's hot out here. Get indoors. You have no business being out here. Stand in one place too long and you just might burst in to flames.

The problem with this system, for me at least, is that we are in "black flag" here by 8 a.m. - consistently. So as I walk to work in the morning, I see that 3' by 5' piece of nylon mocking me from its place atop the flag pole. It's right there on Main Street for all to see. It would proudly snap in the wind here, but there is NO wind and therefore it hangs there limply, like my spirits each morning when I see it. We're in a place where the LOW (as in l-o-w) was 102 the other day. That's not low - not in golf, not in age, and certainly NOT in tempature.

Now, by 2 p.m., when the mercury has climbed past Africa Hot and is working its way steadily toward 100 and stupid, a black flag just doesn't do justice. The flag has now been on the mast for more than 6 hours of the day. Birds have fallen from the sky simply because it's too hot to fly any farther. But there's the flag - taunting me.

So I decided we needed something that signifies how hot it really is here. Enter the Jolly Roger. And yes, ladies and gentlemen, that is me in the photo. I walked proudly down Main Street at 2:30 in the afternoon, lowered the understated and offensive plain black flag and replaced it with something I deemed much more fitting for the temperatures of mid-July in Djibouti.

Wait, wait... Before you think "Kati, won't you get in TROUBLE for this?" let me tell you. I did my research. It's not vandalism - I didn't actually willfully or maliciously destroy or deface public or private property. It's not theft - I returned the original flag to its rightful owner immediately. And it's not malicious - no one was harmed in the raising of the new flag. I even went so far as to research the regulations regarding the "flags" and read that it must be "black in color and made of nylon or cloth and be at least 3' by 5' in nature." No where did it specify that it must be "unadorned."

WILL I get in trouble for this? Possibly. I'm sure there is someone, somewhere on this camp who will not see the humor in this exercise. I may be accused of "making a mockery" of the flag system (valid) and I might be accused of being "insubordinate" (guilty) but I can tell you this... No one, in my entire life, has ever yelled louder than my father, and a little verbal dressing down never hurt anyone.

I promise you this: should I get reprimanded for my little stunt, I will certainly post the transcripts right here for all to see. And if it comes in the form of a written counseling, I will be sure to ask that they detail my actions. And then I will frame it and hang it for all to see.

Start collecting bail money please. There is a pool being conducting right now "aboard" Camp Lemonier and the smart money has me incarcerated before I actually get on a plane out of here. I don't think it's EVER smart to bet against Kati, but we'll see!

Until next time!

(Look at the random guy taking a pic of my flag as he walked by. HE thought it was funny!)

Am I crazy?

That's me on the far left of the photo, hook in hand, waiting for the CH-53 to drop low enough that we can attach to it.

(Before I start, let me mention that the LOW day before yesterday was 102. So maybe it's the heat getting to me...)

I think I'm crazy. It's official. Remember my "friends" from the Army's 2-18 FAR? The ones that left me in the middle of the Djiboutian desert in the middle of the night as "training"? The same ones who taught me to throw live grenades? Well... here we go again.

Bravo Platoon Sergeant - "Hey Kati...wanna come to sling loads with us?" (Grunt, hooah, grunt)

Kati - Sure, sounds GREAT... (Type, type, enter...Kati frantically looks up the definition of "sling load" on Google. God bless Google, right?)

So I'll save you the search on the world wide web and explain to you what I had no clue about... Here's how it works. You fly on a CH-53. Just so you know, the CH-53 is 88 and a half feet long. It can carry a crew of up to 55 (although that's a bit much and 37 is more standard). It's an inch shy of 25 feet tall. The rotor has a 72 foot diameter. And it weighs 33,500 pounds. So it's not small.

They fly you out to an "airfield" (in Djibouti that's a fancy word for some hard ground in the middle of NOWHERE!) in the desert and you get left (hmmmm...it's becoming a trend with these guys).

There, parked in the middle of the "airfield", is a humvee. This is what you're going to "sling load." You take some pretty churched up ropes and some chains and hook them to the humvee. Then (and this is the part even the Web fails to mention) the helicopter comes over you and hovers. And by "over you" I mean that while this Winnebago with wings is beating the air into submission, you can reach up and slap the belly. It's not like you're standing under the Channel 7 Eyewitness News 'Copter, right? No, it's more like Good Morning Vietnam has landed on your head.

Oh, and just so you know, slapping the belly isn't a wise move. Rumor has it (and I certainly wasn't going to try to disprove THIS theory) that as the helo hovers, it builds up static. So if you touch it before someone grounds it, it will send 75,000 volts through you. Doesn't seem like a fun party trick to me so I decided to avoid that part.

Well anyway, while you're under the helicopter, it's pretty calm. But as it comes in, it's pushing down 194 knots of rotor wash (that's like 220 mph winds for normal people) so you're getting blown around. To combat this, every "hooker" (yes, today I was a hooker - let's just choose to pass that one up please...) has a bracer. A "bracer" is someone who hunkers down, grabs your waist with both arms and braces you to the ground using your weight and theirs. The goal is to combine weights to obtain more than 350 pounds (not too difficult, considering we're all wearing 35 pounds of combat gear and these are grown men). The intent is that you don't want to get tossed around the desert like Raggedy Andy (or in my case, Raggedy Ann).

So there is a "front" man and his bracer, the ground guy and his bracer and the "leg" man (moi) and my bracer. Plus there's a spotter and a safety guy under there. All in all, we're throwing a little party under a machine that God never intended to fly. The intention is that the helicopter will come in, hover, you'll "ground" it and then the hookers (yes, yes, I'm a hooker) will attach their chains to giant hooks extending from the bird. Then you need to get out of there ASAP so they can take off without smacking you with the humvee as they lift it off the ground.

So here's how you get out...You run - backward - as fast as you can. And once you get to the point where the wind is too strong, you drop down to your knees. Then, you pull your feet up, push off with your hands and SLIDE backward on your kneepads as far back as you can, as fast as you can. Really...that's how it works. So now, close your eyes and picture ME, in a helmet and goggles, 35 pounds of body armor and gear, dressed in knee pads, getting tossed around by rotor wash and sliding backward on the hardpack. No, really, try hard. Come on... You can do it! Not so much? It's okay - I wouldn't have believed it either.

As we were under the helo for the first iteration, I looked up and realized that I had the WHEEL of a helicopter swaying at shoulder level and 15 some odd tons of steel bouncing inches from my dome. It was right then that I thought "Maybe this is it... Maybe this is the time I actually went too far and got in over my head..." But as quickly as I had the thought, it was over with, the hook was there, I was connecting the clevise to the hook and getting the heck out of dodge.

Once you're out of the way, the 53 takes off, humvee dangling beneath, flies around the desert and then comes back. It drops the humvee back to earth, shakes off the ropes and flies away. Then we get to reset the ropes and chains and get in position for it to come back and pick up the vehicle again. This, my friends, is sling load training.

Tomorrow, we'll talk about Kati and the joys of spy rigging, but really, I will only have so many "GI Kati" experiences in my life - I want to be able to milk them just a little.