Military City


Sig Christenson: ‘Any day could be our day’


A few months ago in Iraq, a Texas Army National Guard helicopter unit faced a terrible crisis just as they were beginning operations. Night had fallen amid a sandstorm that limited visibility to less than a mile. As dangerous as it was, they were ready to fly.

This band of Alamo Dustoffs, a San Antonio medical evacuation company, was ready to give their lives if necessary to save one dying soldier struck by a roadside bomb.

On another day, in worse weather, they flew the mission and saved six soldiers.

You are very, very conscious of your mortality when flying in the war zone. There are so many ways to die, from being blasted out of the sky by a rocket to colliding with another helicopter in bad weather. But the crash of a UH-60 Black Hawk at Texas A&M University this past week underscores just how much these crews risk every day. They had barely lifted off the ground over the campus when something awful happened.

Eyewitnesses said the aircraft began to spin before swooning to the ground.

Second Lt. Zachary Cook, a recent Aggie ROTC graduate who dreamed of becoming a pilot himself, perished in the crash. Just 22, he was declared dead at a Bryan hospital.

Today word came that a second crash victim lost his life.

You see helicopters fly every day and no doubt take it for granted. One public affairs specialist told me the other day that some folks who make special flights on Black Hawks think of it as a carnival ride of sorts, a day at Disneyland.

It’s not. The Texas Guard crash was the first fatal incident on state soil in the organization’s history. But there have been plenty of crashes. Only last September, seven soldiers were killed when their Texas Guard CH-47 Chinook went down southwest of Baghdad. Staff photographer Nicole Fruge and I lived the event with the Alamo Dustoffs, who flew their missions despite being stunned and grief-stricken.

“We all know it is a possibility. Any day could be our day,” Staff Sgt. Oscar Vela of San Antonio told me after word got out on Sept. 18, the day of the Chinook crash.

We spent a lot of time in the presence of 89 men and women who tried to make sense of that loss, which included members of both the Texas and Oklahoma National Guard.

Staff Sgt. Richard Ramirez, a 32-year Texas Guard veteran, grappled with the death of his friend, Sgt. Maj. Julio Ordonez, 54, of San Antonio, one of the fallen Chinook crew.

How did Ramirez go on? It’s a question you could ask any guard or active-duty soldier after a helicopter crash, and the answer is probably what any one of them would tell you.

They love to fly and, indeed, must do so in the hours after a crash. It’s their job, and when they fly to save the lives of wounded GIs, it’s a righteous – if risky – cause.

“It just kicks up your situational awarness to the next level,” Ramirez, of Pleasanton, told me when I asked how the Chinook crash had affected him. “Don’t let your guard down.”

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