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Well once this hits the news, I'll put up a link to an article or something for those of you even interested. But today started out crappy at work, only got about 3 hours of sleep. Worked in the sun all day, and finally lunch time rolls around. Well in a nut shell, didn't even get to barely touch my lunch because seconds later, a CH-53 Crashed out in town. CH-53's are pretty big helicopters. Look kinda like the Blackhawk ones, but like twice the size.
I don't know specifics yet because it's still all being situated right now, but from what I've heard, the thing had some major malfunctions, hit the okinawa college, then basically exploded in a busy intersection. We saw the smoke because it was right near base, and saw the tail of it go behind the college then just FLASH and black smoke. Don't know how many people on board, but I'm hearing its 3 marines. So kinda a sad day knowing 3 marines more then likely just died in the crash. They have all sorts of search and rescue stuff going because I am sure a good amount of Okinawan's are in real bad shape.
The locals are pissed and we now have hightened security. A lot of them already don't like our presence on the island, and so I mean even though this is a total accident, it's just fuel for their fire to get us to leave. They still hold grudges about the bombs and stuff, and also i mean every so often a Marine will do something stupid in town and it will give us all a bad rap.
Anyway, my field I work in is Air Traffic Control. So more then likely, we're going to get shut down sometime in the future for a good while so they can do a JAG inspection to find shit out. Obviously to me it was a mechanical issue and not a controller or our gear that fucked up, because no matter what a controller or a beacon says, you're not gunna just believe it while you're heading into the side of a building. But protocal has to be followed, and they will look through our stuff to see if there's anyway it could be us. I'm not worried personally because our radar is down for maintenance and training, and has been down for weeks, so as a radar section we are fine because they weren't using radar.
Anywho just thought I'd share my lovely day. Going out in town now will be a little hairy because this is a huge thing because the japanese have expressed the importance of their schools and what not, and we go and nail it with a helo. Good thing its summer and a lot of people aren't at school, but like i said, they'll use it as fuel for their fire so they will blow it up ememsly and we'll probably get less freedom now because they want to keep us safe. OK I'm going to sleep now to make up for the 3 hours I got last night.
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