Chinook Chicas

On Thursday I had the rare opportunity to fly in a Chinook helicopter!  The vast majority of spouses I know have never had the chance and I was delighted to take a day away from my job to get a tiny taste of Andrew's.

The purpose of the flight was to roughly simulate an evacuation in the event of war.  All families here are issued gas masks and given instructions of what special paperwork and emergency kits to have on hand in case (God forbid!) of a war breaking out, presumably between North and South Korea.  I'm don't have a the-sky-is-falling mentality but it's sobering to think of all the soldiers marching off to war and the families here being hurriedly evacuated in the middle of the night.

To begin the simulation, thirty of us spouses learned more about the evacuation procedures, had our emergency paperwork packets reviewed, and listened to a briefing about Chinook safety.  Once we drove out to the flight line and saw the Chinooks though, I'm pretty certain we all forgot about the potential crisis that we were preparing for and instead focused on the joyride ahead of us.

We loaded up the rear ramp of the power-ed up Chinook and it was incredible how loud, hot, and powerful the wind was from the engines/rotors.  We rode with our backs to the sides of the helicopter, 15 women on each side, seatbelted in with airplane-style belts.  With earplugs in, barfbags handy, and amazing views out the windows and rear ramp, I think everyone was in awe.  The flight was forty minutes in each direction: over Seoul on the way North and over the colorful mountains on the way home.  (Yes, I said it was a "rough" simulation because obviously we wouldn't be flying North if war broke out....)

I took pictures constantly but we were asked not to share on any "social networking sites," which I think is more to prevent complaints of jealousy from other spouses than to prevent Army secrets from being shared.  Either way, I'm hoping they keep practicing these evacuations and we get to do it again!