We had many different tasks to accomplish on daily sorties, some of them seemed rather boring others were really exciting. And sometimes it got interesting, very interesting.

There was a very high-ranking person touring his soldier's positions throughout the conflict area. Some of these sites could only be reached by air. So, he was dropped in earlier that day and it was our job to get him back out and to his next location.

So the facts were clear to us, pick up the "boss" and his protective unit and get away as soon as possible. We had a maximum of 30 seconds on the ground. A helicopter itself was a great target, with a full crew even better one, but with a cluster of golden shoulders onboard, well, that would make the wrong people happy.

On approach, they were informed to be ready and off our reduced time on the ground. Before we even landed the heli door was opened, the skid was mounted and signals were passed to the incoming passengers to make their way to us. As the first of the security team moved towards us, we touched down. Clearly, the security team had advised him (the boss) to move quickly because 5 of a 6 man pickup were onboard in seconds and the Brigadier obviously didn't care, continuing to wander slowly to the Helicopter talking to the men on the ground.

I was frantically signalling to him to hurry up. Our commander was screaming in my ear to hurry up. I got down from the skid and tried to reach him but he was still too far away. 

Then I heard it, "I don't care who he is, get him in now or I'm leaving without him!"

I unplugged my comms cable and ran towards him, grabbed his shoulder lapel and spun him around to the helicopter door, pulling him as he stumbled through the door and onto the floor before his team. I connected my comms again, announced the load was complete, shut the door and clear and off we went.

It was then I noticed I had a handful of golden lapel in my hand. As I looked around at the passengers, some smirking, some discretely giving a thumbs up I noticed an angry (boss) requesting a headset to talk to us. The commander took control and told me to pass him a headset and hide the lapel. "Don't worry, you have done nothing wrong" said the commander and opened a direct line between him and the "Boss". None of us could hear exactly what was being said, but it looked very loud and aggressive.

Once we touched down and he left the helicopter, he turned briefly, apologised and then walked off. Once they had all left and we were on our way again, the commander apologised for his Brigadier's behaviour and that there were no consequences to fear, at worst you were following orders.