Dale Comstock

Was hit time on December 20th.

And we're like, well, we really don't have a lot of room to flex right or flex left because in the air right now from Fort Bragg and Camp Lejeune, there's probably a hundred plus

you know, aircraft in the air carrying troopers, paratroopers, and rangers inbound, right?

Because we're getting ready to invade the whole country, but the invasion is not going to start until we go in and get Kurt Muse out of the prison, okay?

So... A hundred aircraft to get this one guy out of this prison.

Yeah.

Well, it wasn't just to get him out.

It was also to basically...

if you will, basically invade the country, right?

And take it over, control it, get rid of Noriega, his troops and neutralize it.

And so we got a big signature in the air, right?

You can't erase that now, they're inbound.

And even if we were able to turn them around, the whole mission's compromised, right?

We're probably not going to be able to pull that off a second time, right?

So it was, we got to go.

So the decision was made to push hit time 20 minutes to the right.

So 0020 hours on December 20th was hit time, 20 minutes.

not much but just something right so um so right before so that night we loaded the aircraft so before we load the aircraft if i remember right we had 15 helicopters total um we had four mh6 the little birds with the little pods on the side you guys sit on right you see pictures of those uh we had four h6s which is the little birds with the gun chips uh we had four cobras and

if I remember right, four Apaches and at least two UH-60 Blackhawks, CNC control birds, right?

And medevacs.