The Heart of A Pararescueman
(March 4, 2011) |
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| Moody Air Force Base (3/1/2011 - AFNS) -- When many people
hear the odds are against them, they simply give up. But for
Master Sgt. Robert Disney, he does just the opposite and
says "challenge accepted". |
Master Sgt. Robert Disney shows off a coin at his home Feb. 24, 2011, that he received from President George W. Bush. Sergeant Disney earned it while performing personnel recovery alert for the president in 2004. Sergeant Disney is a 14-year pararescueman assigned to the 347th Rescue Group. U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Jamal D. Sutter |
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Nearly 14 years ago, when a 19-year-old Robert
Disney walked in to the Air Force Recruiting office
and told the recruiter he had dreams of becoming a
cross between a doctor and a Navy SEAL, the
recruiter sent him to the back of the office to a
stack of dusty pararescue pamphlets.
He
said, "I think I have exactly what you're looking
for, but don't get your hopes up kid. No one I've
sent has made the cut, and you probably won't
either."
"That's all I needed to hear and I
was hooked," Sergeant Disney said. "Once I dusted
off that flyer and saw a dark-haired,
handsome-looking, Italian guy in a maroon beret on
the cover, I read through it. I immediately knew it
was something I wanted to do. I didn't stop talking
about it all summer until I left for basic
training." |
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Of the 86 students in his course, only six had what it took
to overcome this challenge and graduate to become a
pararescueman jumper: Sergeant Disney was one of those six.
That was the first of many challenges he has met.
"I
walked into the 38th Rescue Squadron, brand new, two stripes
on my arm, and this big, tall, muscular guy walked in, and I
recognized him immediately as being the guy from the
pamphlet," Sergeant Disney said. "He said to me in a New
York accent, 'Is that Bobby Disney? I hear you're a real
goofy guy,' and kind of chuckled to himself for his Disney
joke. That's how I met Mike (Maltz). He was the best."
That was Sergeant Disney's first encounter with the man
who would eventually become his mentor and impact his career
in more ways than one.
Aside from currently being
known as the 347th Rescue Group's standards and evaluations
superintendent, Sergeant Disney is also branded in Moody Air
Force Base's rescue community as the "Black Cloud."
He gained this nickname by fellow PJs after what he called
the "series of unfortunate three."
Rewind to August
2002. Seven thousand and five hundred miles away in the
mountains of Afghanistan, then-Staff Sgt. Disney was on his
second real-world rescue pick up.
They went to pick
up two men who had been involved in a firefight and
transported them to a tiny post in the middle of nowhere,
Sergeant Disney said. Since they were at such a high
altitude, the helicopter had to do a marginal power take
off.
He said unfortunately, they were asking more
than what the engines were capable of, which caused them to
not have enough altitude or airspeed to avoid a "brown-out;"
conditions caused by the Afghanistan's extremely fine soil,
known as 'moon dust', being spun up in the air creating a
dust cloud and dramatically decreasing visibility. The
helicopter browned-out and he was sitting in the left-side
door and began to see the ground racing toward them.
"It felt like we were coming down and fast," said
Sergeant Disney with an intense stare. "So I determined it'd
be best if I wasn't sitting in the doorway if we did impact
the ground. I moved inside the helicopter then I heard the
left gunner yelling 'STOP LEFT, STOP LEFT.' About that time
I felt a really hard impact.
"Somehow, I don't know
how ... I wasn't in that door when it slammed shut. Angels
on my shoulder, right?" Sergeant Disney said.
"The
rotors were chewing into the ground and there were no blades
on it anymore," he said. "The engines are full power and it
was just getting louder and louder, higher pitched, and
higher pitched, and I'm just laying there with everything on
me and it's very, very calm ... serene. It wasn't a struggle
to get out. There wasn't anything I could do. It was just
laying there until all the violent motion stopped. Knowing
what might have been coming was the worst part."
Finally the pilots shut down the engines and Sergeant Disney
said he recalls everything going quiet to the point of
deathly quiet and then completely soundless unless the
helicopter's team leader snapped everyone back to reality by
yelling out "SOUND OFF BY CREW POSITION." Once they sounded
off the team lead yelled "GET OUT."
Something saved
the whole crew that night, maybe it was Sergeant Disney's
'angels' but whatever it was, one pararescueman thought he'd
already survived the worst and reenlisted seven days later.
Six weeks later, a different enlistment, on a different
aircraft and in a different country, Sergeant Disney would
witness an event that would rock him to the core.
"We
starting hearing radio chatter of a boy and girl who fell
down a hill," he said. "We started referring to this rescue
as Jack and Jill. In a C-130 Hercules, we launched out of
Uzbekistan, and two helicopters launched out Afghanistan. It
was one of the darkest nights I've ever seen through night
vision goggles. Dark as can be ... could barely see the
ground. We refueled both helicopters by colored light
signals because of how dark it was."
He said he was
watching through the side window of the C-130. He could see
the ground through his night-vision goggles then he would
lose it again. He could swear they were punching in and out
of clouds even 400 feet above the ground. Then he felt a
familiar tug of the second helicopter disconnecting from the
refueling hose.
"Not five seconds later, I saw a
bright flash of light that flooded out my NVGs," he said.
"Then, all I heard was blood curdling screaming coming from
the loadmaster. It looked like an explosion. It lit up the
whole country side. I thought someone had been hit by a
surface-to-air missile, and we were next. Then I heard
'helicopter crash, seven o'clock.'"
The wheels in the
veteran PJ's head began turning, knowing they were at 400
feet and configured to jump, he was ready. The combat rescue
officer aboard the C-130 made the decision not to jump until
they knew more because the second helicopter was performing
self search and rescue and already found three of the six
crash victims.
Because the area in which the crash
happened was unknown and determined by the Joint Personnel
Recovery Center to be hostile, the crew was recalled back to
home base and Sergeant Disney had to leave the crash site
against his will.
"When I got back on the ground, I
got the word of the guys who were on the bird," Sergeant
Disney said. "One of them was Mike Maltz. I can't tell you
how I will always feel about that night. I mean, the
Airmen's Creed says 'I will never leave Airman behind' ...
and we had to leave guys behind, on the ground that night.
Everything in me wishes I could have jumped in, I could have
done something.
"It was like losing a father, losing
a mentor and losing a friend all at the same time," said a
choked-up Sergeant Disney. "It was one of the hardest
moments, it was hard."
A few months passed since the
tragic event of losing the iconic figure who graced the
cover of his recruiting pamphlet, and Sergeant Disney was
yet again deployed and back in the mix of things. Little did
he know he was about to stumble upon the last event in his
serious of unfortunate three.
"It was April 18, Good
Friday," Sergeant Disney said. "I know the date because I
had been practicing to play my guitar at the Easter Sunday
service. We were going on a training mission or exercise. It
was about a 45-minute flight to get where we were going.
When the pilots said it's out there, when I looked out I saw
what looked like people."
By the time they were
committed to land, the people were gone, Sergeant Disney
said. Then he heard two sounds, the second sound confirming
they were taking gunfire from at least four people.
"I racked my weapon. As I moved to sit down, I brought my
weapon up, and I can see flashes now coming out the back now
and (with) one of those flashes there was a weird
disturbance of air," he said. "Then came a sensation of two
things at the same time. It was like someone swung a
baseball bat in my face and the other was a shockwave that
rippled through my whole body."
Defending the
helicopter and killing the bad guys who were shooting at
them was he said was his only thought at the time.
"I looked over at the guy across from me and yelled 'I'M
SHOT!!! I'M HIT!!' and then I moved into a position to
return fire. He yells 'shoot back shoot back shoot back,'"
Sergeant Disney said.
Within seconds of the
helicopter touching down, three people were wounded. Through
the barrage of gunfire Sergeant Disney, with a gunshot wound
to right side of his cheek, returned fire to the enemy. By
the time they departed the scene, only 30 seconds had lapsed
since initial contact.
Much like the first
helicopter crash that occurred not even a year prior, all
the crew survived and returned to base to seek medical care.
Upon his return to Moody AFB, the Purple Heart recipient
said he could have counted the number of people who weren't
there to greet him. Now being back stateside, Sergeant
Disney could focus on getting back to normal and performing
with his guitar in clubs around Valdosta.
Jumping to
two years later, the only thing that was missing in Sergeant
Disney's life was a little romance. After searching, he
found Tess, a local girl from Nashville, Ga. The two soon
fell in love, but the Air Force had other plans, sending the
master sergeant to RAF Mildenhall, England.
Knowing
that Tess was the one, Sergeant Disney had but one choice
and that was to ask for her hand over the phone.
"I
asked Tess to marry me on Christmas day over the phone,"
Sergeant Disney said. "I sent her a ring in the mail. The
company sent her both of the rings at the same time and she
opened the wedding band first and was like 'Awww.'"
Tess Disney laughed and said, "It was messed up," as she
continued to tell the story. "This is a wedding band, this
isn't an engagement ring ... I was like, wait a minute
that's for later on."
Now nearly six years later,
back at Moody AFB, the Disneys are living happily with two
horses and three dogs.
When asked how Tess handles
her husband's many deployments, knowing that his nickname is
Black Cloud, she responded "I'm a strong wife and I have
strong faith. Worrying isn't going to help anything.
"This is what I tell people, I imagine Robert is off
staying at some resort," she said laughing. "I know he has
someone watching out for him. He's been through all that
already. He's here for a reason."
So after all that
has happened in his life, this PJ still has one ongoing
challenge to face and that is living up to his name.
"Someone I looked up to once said to me, "When people
meet you, you're either going to be one of two things,"
Sergeant Disney said. "You're either going to be a big
disappointment, a dirt bag who got shot in the face, or
you're actually going to be that guy, the one people can
look up to."
These words were something that Sergeant
Disney said changed his life and since then, he hasn't
stopped saying, "Challenge accepted." |
By USAF SSgt. Andrea Thacker
23rd Wing Public Affairs
Copyright 2011 | |
Reprinted from
Air Force News
Service
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