"Safari with a mission!" a Somalia Travel Page by lakedog72

In the fall of 1992 the country of Somalia was in the middle of a national crises. The Somoli government fell to greedy warlords and the nation's infrastructure dissolved into ruin. About this time the UN was mobilized to help the thousands of tribal peoples who were starving because of the non-existant food supply. Soon after the UN started delivering rice and food to the helpless Somolis the detructive warlord factions sized the opportunity to fill their greedy mouths. The warlord malitias soon began attacking UN convoys and stealing the food that was so desperately need by the nomadic tribes. I would end up spending three and a half months trying to help the tribes get much needed food supplies and taking weapons from the evil men who were ruining there country.

This is where I come in.

I was a Blackhawk helicopter crewchief station in Germany with the 1st Armored Division when the UN called on the U.S. to send troops for support. On Christmas day 1992 an Airforce C-141 touched down with me on board. As I climed down the ramp of the cargo plane I knew I was not in wintery Germany anymore. The 105 degree air hit my face like an open oven door. I was only 20 years old at the time and it was my first deployment.

We were only in Mogadishu long enough to recieve our helicopters and equipment from the Airforce C-5 transport planes and put everything back in working order. 24 hours after touching down we were flying our first missions along the Somolian coast. The redish white sand beaches and blue water were an amazing site (especially for a young kid from Florida). The Indian Ocean and hot, salty beach breeze remided me of home. It is my opinion that Somolia would make a great vacation spot if not for the vicious Warlords and Osama Bin Laden supported Muslim Terrorists.

The next time I would stay in this port city everything would be different!

My unit and I soon moved into the interior of the country to the small deserted Russian airfield called Balidogal (spelling) This air strip was littered with Soviet MiG fighters and other abandon equipment. We ran all of our mission out of this airfield and eventually another airfield in Chisimayu. My aircrew was mostly assigned to flying recon of routes for the French and Australian UN food distrobution teams. We got to fly deep into the country to isolated nomadic villages where we would meet with the tribes to discuss the delivery of food to their camps. This was by far the most interesting of the missions that I flew on. The Somali people are tall with thin facial features and on occasion quite attractive. The Somali children were very excited to see us land at their remote village and would stand by us examining our helicopters and trying to communicate with us. All the tribes I visited had a tribal elder who would come out to talk to the head person in charge. Chewing kot is a commom practice during a meeting between the elders of two tribes. On one occasion our Pilot in Command Jim was standing next to the bird and pulled out his can of Copenhagen Snuff to put in a fresh dip (helicopters crews often chew because smoking is not allowed in the Helicopter). The tribal elder at this particular village was a woman and she immediatly insisted that Jim share in the cerimonial tobbaco. Jim (smiling) handed her the brown and black Copenhagen can and she did exactly what she had seen him do and put a large pinch of the stuff in her lip. She did not even wince and seemed to enjoy the tobacco buzz.

There is so much more I would love to share about my adventures in this unfortunate country but this space is limited. If you would like to hear more just let me know.