GRP 171-Death Waits in the Dark: Six Guns Don't Miss: My Conversation With an MH-6 Little Bird Pilot
Global Recon
John Hendricks
4.8 • 592 Ratings
🗓️ 1 February 2023
⏱️ 140 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Joining me for this week's podcast is retired Chief Warrant Officer 4 Gregory Coker. Coker wrote the book "Death Waits in the Dark: Six Guns Don't Miss!" and has donated 100% of the profits to organizations that support veterans. He flew helicopters in the Army for over 20 years and spent 15 of those years in the world's most elite helicopter unit, the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. He flew the MH-6 Little Bird, an attack helicopter with thousands of hours spent flying in and out of combat.
Coker was shot down in Iraq, supporting an assault force during a daytime operation. He remained with the assault force after he and his co-pilot made it out of the downed aircraft, where they were engaged in a six-hour gun battle. We discussed this operation in detail and some of the aerodynamics of controlling a helicopter as its crashes. Blades for Brothers is partnered with Shied 91, a 501c3 non-profit started by Greg, to craft blades and help veterans learn how to bladesmith. Greg had experienced a traumatic brain injury from combat, and we discussed this, plus veteran's mental health issues and much more. Tune in.
Main Takeaways
- Blades for brothers
- Early Army career
- Flying Apaches in Korea
- Joining the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment as an MH-6 Little Bird Pilot
- Deploying into Afghanistan in 2001
- Getting shot down in Iraq
This episode is sponsored by 4 Patriots, a survival food company. You can visit www.4patriots.com and use the code RECON for 10% off
Get a copy of Greg Coker's book: Death Waits in the Dark
Follow Greg on social media: www.instagram.com/bladesforbrothers
Connect With John Hendricks
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I was the pilot in command of Super 6-4, which was one of the Blackhawks, and I was actually leading an element of aircraft, and that means my responsibility is to fly, in this case four aircraft into the target area and put troops on the ground. You know, the mission itself was to capture a warlord and some of his senior people. We'd been doing that for a couple of months when the Black Hawk Down mission occurred on October 3rd. You know, there wasn't a person involved in that |
| 0:24.6 | mission who didn't put their life on the line that day for someone or to support the mission. |
| 0:30.6 | And I think that's a real important message. You know, we get caught up in a lot of other things, |
| 0:36.6 | but that selflessness and that commitment to each other and that commitment to the mission, I think, is at the core of this story. |
| 0:43.3 | The manifestation of it for me is Randy Shugart and Gary Gordon, the Medal of Honor recipients, who came to our crash site. |
| 0:49.3 | They insisted that they be dropped off and they were, and that's why I'm here today. |
| 0:55.0 | I went to survival school and in survival school they, you go without eating for three days and they slap you around a little bit. |
| 1:01.0 | And then for me, having experienced it for real, in the real world, it's not even close. |
| 1:06.0 | In my mind I died. When we crashed, I was knocked unconscious and I think psychologically that |
| 1:12.6 | was the end for me. It was a violent crash. It was, you know, you could argue not survivable |
| 1:17.6 | by looking at it. So you sort of have this rebirth where now you have this second life, you |
| 1:23.6 | thought your life was over, and what do you do with it? I have tried to raise the bar on myself, elevate my game, do things that I probably wouldn't have done if I hadn't had that experience. |
| 1:36.3 | I've done a lot of things that, you know, I would say, stray outside the lines for me, but I did them because I realized I've already had a second chance. |
| 1:46.6 | I'm not going to have a third, so I'm going to take full advantage of what's been offered to me. |
| 1:51.9 | From a military perspective, this mission was a success. |
| 1:55.7 | That mission, that day was a success. |
| 1:57.4 | We captured the people we were after. |
| 1:59.6 | You know, if you define success from |
| 2:01.4 | military perspective as casualties, the casualties on the other side, far outnumbered ours. But we |
| 2:06.9 | lost people. And anytime we lose people, we have such a high standard here with our military |
| 2:12.8 | in the United States that any loss whatsoever is viewed upon with great speculation. |
| 2:18.3 | But in the big picture, that's the price we're going to pay. |
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