SAN ANTONIO, Texas - Three Texas Army National Guard UH-60 helicopters and their crews played a small role in the drama involving the three U.S. contractors rescued from leftist forces in Colombia last week.
In the early afternoon of July 2, the San Antonio Army Aviation Support Facility (SAAASF) here at Martindale Field received a call from U.S. Army South (USARSO).
At the time, two of the Texas ARNG helicopters were on stand by to respond to spreading wildfires in the state.
"We were basically told to stand down, that we had a mission change, to pull out the Bambi Buckets and put in the seats," said Capt. Jeremy Eubanks, the SAASF operations officer, who piloted one of the helicopters. "Later, we found out it related to transportation for the [rescued] hostages."
The mission was simply to transport individuals from Lackland Air Force Base in southwest San Antonio to Brooke Army Medical Center (BAMC), which is on the city's east side.
The helicopter crews were ready for such a contingency, because of prior coordination with USARSO in anticipation of this type of mission.
The three helicopters were repositioned on Lackland when a C-17 aircraft carrying the former hostages touched down shortly before midnight. The trio boarded one of the helicopters, which carried them without incident to BAMC to undergo tests and treatment.
Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes and Keith Stansell, all employees of the Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman Corp., were held captive by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia for five years.
They were captured in February of 2003 after their drug-surveillance plane went down in the jungles of southern Columbia.