FRAMP and a SEAL Attack
What is a FRAMP you ask?
A FRAMP is, or was where Sailors and Marines in the Aviation go to learn the aircraft they will be working on. It's a step above the generalized training offered by A-school. Since my final duty station was to be at Naval Air Station Cecil Field, which was located in Jacksonville, Florida, the US Navy in it's infinite wisdom sent me to NAS Lemoore, California. Which is just south of Fresno. Makes since doesn't it? Well actually it does because the school for Airlant (Naval Air Force Atlantic Fleet) had closed. Let me tell you one thing, I loved that base. The Operations side is like two or three miles away from the mainside. Which means hardly any low flying jets, and flightline noise. This is an issue that will come up later in life for me.
Plus, here's the kicker....I had actual freedom. I mean freedom not seen by me since I was a civilian. I was given a schedule for the course of the next several months. Any day that I did not have at least one class I was to report to the Training Squadron and check-in for 'training' there. Let me say this about that, it sucked going to that squadron. The thing is if you went there you either scrubbed shitters all day, or ended up sitting in an office all day trying to find neat imaginary pictures in the linoleum. But, if you had at least one class in a day, that was good enough. So I might have a class at 1000, that only lasted maybe 1/2 hour...I'm good for that whole day. That was the shit!
Then when it came down to actually learning the systems of the A-7E in the classroom, I had night classes. This was awesome, man what a life.
One morning around 0600 (way too early for this squid), an explosion goes off in the stairwell of my barracks. Almost immediately the fire alarm goes off, and shouts of warning from other students. So my roommate, along with everyone else get out of the barracks. We head over to the Marine barracks, and are told that the Seals have attacked the base. The base knew this was going to happen, it was a planned exercise, nobody knew when or where the attack would take place, but apparently my barracks was the diversion. So after the smoke was cleared we were allowed to return to our room, in our 'bombed out' barracks. I went back to sleep, only to be awakened several hours later by the sound of a police radio coming from outside my window. I looked outside, and here was a Deputy sheriff from King's County outside my window. So, I started shooting the shit with her, and her partners trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Apparently the Seal Team had taken over the barracks next door and had 'booby trapped' all points of entry. They had hostages in the Quarterdeck (Lobby) and were demanding breakfast, for a hostage. I had a front row seat.....fucking cool!
I ran down to the lounge got some snacky treats, pulled up a chair, and listened in on the days happenings. At some point the food was delivered, and the 'bad guys' didn't like that it came from the base galley, so they shot the hostage on his way to safety. The bad guys were pissed because they wanted McDonald's, which was right next door. I guess the hostage was shot with a paint ball, I couldn't see, all I could do was listen in. Eventually the exercise was called off, I guess some loon tune had brought a real weapon to work, and they had to go take care of a real problem, before any war games. When it was called off, the base Helo dropped a flare in the field next to the barracks to signify game off........and started a wild fire, that was contained rather quickly...just seemed really funny at the time.
A FRAMP is, or was where Sailors and Marines in the Aviation go to learn the aircraft they will be working on. It's a step above the generalized training offered by A-school. Since my final duty station was to be at Naval Air Station Cecil Field, which was located in Jacksonville, Florida, the US Navy in it's infinite wisdom sent me to NAS Lemoore, California. Which is just south of Fresno. Makes since doesn't it? Well actually it does because the school for Airlant (Naval Air Force Atlantic Fleet) had closed. Let me tell you one thing, I loved that base. The Operations side is like two or three miles away from the mainside. Which means hardly any low flying jets, and flightline noise. This is an issue that will come up later in life for me.
Plus, here's the kicker....I had actual freedom. I mean freedom not seen by me since I was a civilian. I was given a schedule for the course of the next several months. Any day that I did not have at least one class I was to report to the Training Squadron and check-in for 'training' there. Let me say this about that, it sucked going to that squadron. The thing is if you went there you either scrubbed shitters all day, or ended up sitting in an office all day trying to find neat imaginary pictures in the linoleum. But, if you had at least one class in a day, that was good enough. So I might have a class at 1000, that only lasted maybe 1/2 hour...I'm good for that whole day. That was the shit!
Then when it came down to actually learning the systems of the A-7E in the classroom, I had night classes. This was awesome, man what a life.
One morning around 0600 (way too early for this squid), an explosion goes off in the stairwell of my barracks. Almost immediately the fire alarm goes off, and shouts of warning from other students. So my roommate, along with everyone else get out of the barracks. We head over to the Marine barracks, and are told that the Seals have attacked the base. The base knew this was going to happen, it was a planned exercise, nobody knew when or where the attack would take place, but apparently my barracks was the diversion. So after the smoke was cleared we were allowed to return to our room, in our 'bombed out' barracks. I went back to sleep, only to be awakened several hours later by the sound of a police radio coming from outside my window. I looked outside, and here was a Deputy sheriff from King's County outside my window. So, I started shooting the shit with her, and her partners trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Apparently the Seal Team had taken over the barracks next door and had 'booby trapped' all points of entry. They had hostages in the Quarterdeck (Lobby) and were demanding breakfast, for a hostage. I had a front row seat.....fucking cool!
I ran down to the lounge got some snacky treats, pulled up a chair, and listened in on the days happenings. At some point the food was delivered, and the 'bad guys' didn't like that it came from the base galley, so they shot the hostage on his way to safety. The bad guys were pissed because they wanted McDonald's, which was right next door. I guess the hostage was shot with a paint ball, I couldn't see, all I could do was listen in. Eventually the exercise was called off, I guess some loon tune had brought a real weapon to work, and they had to go take care of a real problem, before any war games. When it was called off, the base Helo dropped a flare in the field next to the barracks to signify game off........and started a wild fire, that was contained rather quickly...just seemed really funny at the time.
posted by Tall Molly Man at 1:47 AM
2 Comments:
I love your stories form your days in the service. I think it's cause my daddy is retred army and I ocassionally get to hear his stories too. He doesn't talk about his time much, though.
That maybe why I write about it. There are some horribly tragic things that happened too, I doubt I will ever share those.
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