I had just left CABC so knew a lot of people that went. Pulling up in a large stretch Lincoln with J3PK and someone from the J6 staff at Mirabel made a real impression on all the people from Pet going on the recce that had endured a green pickle bus ride to Mirabel. Sure of your date? I recall the recce was about this time, and the deployment after that closer to Christmas, or were you part of the mission that was in Modadishu? They were there when I got there on the recce. We flew KLM all the way to Nairobi via Amsterdam, then hopped a C130 out of JKIA.
I was on the recce as J4 Log Ops 2-something or another, and Recce Admin Officer, which largely was a wasted effort given the location deployed was not where we had a look see(Bassasso).I still remember being on the tarmac at Mog and being invited into a Candid for a Heiniken, the aircrew was almost naked from the heat and very loaded. Talk about drinking and driving, it was interesting watching that thing take off, somebody must have been sober. The "Security" reminded me of Mad Max movies not klingons. Meeting J-j-j-j-j-jimmie there was also a treat, he sort of got shuffled aside when the mission went from Cordon to Deliverance. At home got royally sick from that damned mefloquin, and the shits. I refused to take it when I went to Kabul. Then spent the next six months in Fort Fumble of the Rideau trying to coord support from a national perspective on the J4 staff, which was NOT fun given the extreme state of unpreparedness to fight a desert war from an equipment perspective. What a juggle-f. I used to speak to the Task Force HQ or whatever it was called everyday, apparently my phone bill was $100000 for the six months. Friend of mine was in AB Recce Pl and he stayed home to go on a career course at CTC which probably was the best thing that ever happened to him given everyone else I knew there went down in flames. We flew out of Somalia every night to either Nairobi or Djibouti on our Herc. No arms, just blue berets which we were wearing without the approval of UNNY-I fished mine out of my kit that was left over from Cyprus.
I wanted to go as well, as the amount of liaison I could accomplish was next to zero 8000 miles away, but apparently my presence was more valuable in NDHQ given the manning ceiling imposed! Plus I too had a CTC held career course, AKA how to freeze your a s s off in the training area trying to write with a frozen grease pencil, that was a complete waste of time other than it got me out of Ottawa!
Fond memories LOL. I positively knew I was getting out of the military after 20 after this six months of BS and did exactly that on FRP three years later.
