Guard given green light Guard given green light (September 16, 2005)

After a late start, Moffett parajumpers return from New Orleans

By Jon Wiener

Mickey Chan and Tristan Grell were watching the news on television and waiting. After graduating in June from a two-year training program for parajumpers in the Air National Guard, Chan and Grell were sure they would be pressed into duty.

The National Guard has only three wings across the country that specialize in search and rescue operations. The 129th, stationed at Moffett Field, is one of them.

But days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and decimated the city, no one was asking the guardsmen for any help.

The week before, 200 of the 950 guardsmen in the unit had already been deployed to Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf, along with several of the unit's spare helicopters and airplanes. The deployment had so strained the unit that a spokesperson told the Voice Sept. 2 that no troops were available to help with the relief efforts.

"I was a little upset, to be honest," said Chan, who spoke with reporters last Thursday after returning from New Orleans the night before. "But you gotta wait for that green light."

That green light finally came Friday afternoon.

Along with 10 other parajumpers from their squad, Chan and Grell packed their bags and prepared for what would become the largest rescue operation in the history of the unit. Over the next few days, they went door to door throughout the ruined city, wading through millions of gallons of toxic stink to pull 212 people to safety.

The parajumpers, who had started taking antibiotics even before they left, said they brushed aside dead bodies and ignored warnings about the toxicity of the water, which was brimming with raw sewage, gasoline and chemicals.

"Like death," said parajumper Jimmy Petrolio, when asked to describe the smell.

Even so, by the time the 129th arrived Saturday, many of the survivors -- despite running low on provisions and lacking electricity and running water -- weren't ready to leave.

"A lot of them were adamant about staying. That's all they had," said Chan, who estimated that the unit left behind as many people as it pulled out.

In one instance, Chan and team leader Don Allie spent two hours trying to convince a group of 20 people who had holed up on several cots on the second floor of a mausoleum that the city was unsafe.

Some of them had escaped from the squalor of the Superdome, where they had been directed by officials, and then abandoned. Allie said it was all a matter of gaining their trust.

Grell said he personally pulled out as many as 60 people Sunday, the unit's first day there. By Monday, the total dwindled to single digits. And by Tuesday, nobody could be found.

The diminishing returns indicated that the rescue operations were successful, but it also left a lingering question about how many more people the parajumpers might have saved had anyone asked for their help earlier.

"I would like to think that we could have done more," said Grell. Even so, Grell said, he felt lucky to get the chance to help at all, especially so soon after graduating.

"It's that one opportunity," said Grell. "It's what makes the job. It's what I signed up for."

E-mail Jon Wiener at jwiener@mv-voice.com

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