Pope Army Airfield

It's a it's an army town.

And I don't know what the air now that Pope Air Force Base is not Pope Air Force Base anymore.

Pope Army Airfield and Pope Army Airfield.

I don't know what the air force population is locally anymore.

Jared?

I got memories around the game, and I've got memories around October of '95, but they're not the same, because I ended up picking this game up at my first duty location in, uh, North Carolina, Pope Air Force Base.

We had a really cool local place where you could pick up games called Cash Converters, and I got it there.

Mm.

So anyway, long story short, uh, uh, I'm not, I'm not necessarily from here.

I, I, I, I was stationed here for three years, uh, back in the '80s when, at, at Fort Bragg, Pope Air Force Base.

Uh-

Mm-hmm

When I was in the first, second, and third grade, uh, we lived in Raeford, North Carolina.

My dad was stationed at Pope Air Force Base, which was, uh, over by Fayetteville, and, uh, there was a busy state highway that was, uh, just, uh ...

Our little street was a cul-de-sac, and, uh, it hit out on the main road, and this was a very, very busy highway, and this was in the '50s, so people weren't really conscious of littering.

So- People threw their, uh, Coke bottles and, uh, trash just out the window as they're driving along.

We leave in 25 hours.

We'll be at Green Ramp, Green Reps, where you go to load up at Pope Air Force Base, get on the aircraft that you're going to be taking.

What did being a medic teach you about the responsibility of having other people's lives, you know, trusted in your hands?

Yes, that's a big ask, right? Still try to wrap my brain around that now.

Yeah.

And, and at the time Pope Air Force Base was next to it and still open.

Right.

So you had this huge complex of-

Right

... you know, Fort Bragg and Pope Air Force Base.

There was actually more soldiers than civilians that lived in-

Oh, of course

It seems the aircraft were eight C-four-- C" [clears throat] Let me do that again so there's no confusion.

"It seems the aircraft were eight C-one forty-one transport jets on a flight that had originated at Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina.

As reported by witnesses, they had traveled across this area from the southeast to the northwest at a low altitude and speed on their way to Fort Irwin in California.

They carried paratroopers of the eighty-second Airborne and were flying, uh, legally low at the one-thousand-foot level as part of an exercise that called for," get this, folks, "sneak attack tactics." Now, listen to the excuse that the military gave for why they were where they were at.

Yeah, right.

Uh, [coughs] I went to SERE school and then I show up at the 14th AOSHS at Pope Air Force Base, Fort Bragg.

Um, and we had, um, a, a officer transferred there that was a proud of B- B-52, uh, officer that had came from the 20th AOSHS and had just finished Operation Anaconda, and his name was Pete Donnelly.

And so he showed up at our unit as an operations officer, uh, quickly became and took the director of operations, and then eventually became our commander.