On the road with Luis Castillo

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Friday, Mar 14, 2008
By Luis Castillo , Chargers.com

I know I’m still a few days behind, but I had so many incredible experiences I’m trying to spread it out a bit and share as much as I can.

We left Afghanistan last Saturday but I decided that while I’m on this side of the world, I’ve got to take advantage of some unique opportunities. My mom and my good friend and former teammate Greg Camarillo joined me in Egypt for a few days of vacation. We’re also going to spend some time in Greece before we head back to the States next week.

The last time I discussed the USO tour, I detailed the time we spent last Thursday in Kanduhar. On Friday we went to Jalalabad, which is more in the Eastern part of Afghanistan near the Pakistani boarder. The closer you get to the Pakistani boarder obviously a little more intense the fighting is. You definitely see it in the troops in that they’ve been through some tougher things.

We got a chance to meet these four great guys, two gunners and two pilots and go up in one of their maintenance runs. They were doing these wheel touches on these mountain peaks about 5,000 feet up. Imagine these mountain peaks and these guys are touching one wheel to the side of the mountain. You look left and all you see is sky. You look right and the ground is two feet under you. They do these wheel touches and hold them for about 10-15 seconds to simulate them dropping off troops in these mountainous areas.

We get up in a Blackhawk and it was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. I’ve never been up in a helicopter before. You have these two pilots. You’re on the headset with them, listening to all their checks and their communication with the tower. You see the gunners strapped in with M249 assault rifles on either side.

When we took off, it was probably the closest we got to Afghani culture. We were about 50 feet off the ground and you could see the country side. You could see these compounds where all these farmers live. You see the farm grounds, the rivers and just the beautiful, beautiful countryside in between all the mountain ranges. You’re flying through this and you’re so low that people are looking up at you waving. If you didn’t know where you were, the last thing you’d think is you’re in an active war zone.

That was the closest they let us get to experiencing the Afghani culture. They didn’t let us go outside the wire of any bases. They didn’t let us see any of the people. They let us go a few miles from the base in this semi-secure area and then we flew through the mountain ranges as they were doing their practice runs. It was very cool.

As we got closer to the mountain range, they have a little test fire area and they let go of about 500 rounds. You’re sitting in this helicopter and it’s ridiculously loud and these guys are firing away. I’ve got bullet shells hitting me in the leg when I’m sitting right next to him. They’re turning the helicopter on these sharp banks as they’re going through the mountains. Honestly if you look back, you can’t really tell if you’re looking at level ground or if you’re looking at a 45-degree angled mountain. It felt like I was in a roller coaster.

The coolest thing about it was they let us go out with the doors open. Because we were flying so low, they made us wear a bulletproof vest and a helmet. These guys are just flying through the mountains, banking left and right. The door is open next to me and if it weren’t for my harness, I felt like I was going to fall out the side. You have the wind in your face. You see mountain goats running around. It was an incredible experience.

The most memorable thing we did Friday, we got to go into the Special Forces compound in Jalalabad and hang out with those guys. It was kind of like hanging out with the varsity team on campus. It’s a small team of guys, no more than 10 or 12 guys per team. Most of the guys weren’t that old, maybe late 20’s to 30’s. You get to talking to them and you just realize how well trained they are in their field, whether it’s communications, weapons, demolition, mechanics, languages. They’re all cross-trained with another field.

Just like with the Army Rangers we met, you start talking to these guys and you see that bond between them. You see that team. They’re type-A personalities who want to achieve things. That gets you fired up because you want to be a part of it.

They go out in their 12-man groups and that’s just it. It’s just them. They go out, do what they have to do and come back. They don’t go out in a huge infantry. They really have to rely on each other. As experienced and as highly trained as they were, they were also some of the coolest guys we got to be around. They didn’t talk about any of their accomplishments or brag about all they’ve done. You could see they’ve experienced a lot but they were just really cool about it. Hanging out with them in the compound really felt like sitting around the locker room with some of my teammates.

I’ll check back in tomorrow and give the details on the final day of our USO tour and I’ll leave you with some of my general thoughts on the trip. It changed the way I think about a lot of things, and I’m so grateful for this opportunity.

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