Word: berndt
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...rescue team would have preferred going in under cover of darkness, but by the time Smith's order came through, streaks of morning light were already appearing above the Dalmatian coast. At sunrise Berndt and his Marines, their faces covered with camouflage paint, had boarded a pair of enormous CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters-16-ton, seven-blade monsters. "We were so focused on the mission, I don't think anybody had any time to be nervous," recalls Berndt. "We were all excited that our young captain was alive and well...
After leaving the ship, the helicopters had to circle over the Adriatic for 45 minutes waiting for the rest of the rescue package to arrive from other carriers and Italian bases. "That was probably good," Berndt later said. "It took the edge off us, and it got everybody focused and thinking perhaps a little bit straighter." Then came the "push"-authorization from the awacs to enter Balkan airspace-and the mission was under way. Within minutes the aircraft had reached Bosnian Serb territory. At one point, Admiral William A. Owens, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called Lake...
...second helicopter, Berndt's, inadvertently landed on part of the fence, forcing the pilot to pick up again and move a few feet before setting down. In the front seat, sitting between the two pilots, Berndt peered through the cockpit and saw, to his astonishment, a young man running toward him with a pistol. The man was 50 or 60 yards away, coming up a little rise between some pine trees. The fog was fairly dense, and at first Berndt was not sure who it was. "But," he recalls, "I quickly figured...
...helicopter's side door had been open for all of three seconds when O'Grady tumbled across its threshold. He relinquished his 9-mm Beretta pistol to the crew and pulled on Berndt's Gore-Tex parka and a crash helmet. "I'll never forget the look on his face as he was running toward our aircraft," said Berndt. "He had this pistol in his right hand -- looking like he had been in the field trying to survive for six days, and knowing we were there to pull him out." Nobody, Berndt added somewhat incredulously, "even got off our helicopter...
...then, suddenly, they were in the clear. As the helicopters drew near the Adriatic, the Marines could feel the warm air and smell the cypress and pine trees of the Dalmatian coast. When Berndt turned to see how his passenger was doing, O'Grady looked up at the commander, gave a grin and a thumbs-up. "I knew then," Berndt says, "that...