Normalcy Bias

Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Feet shuffled in darkness as the civilians we were evacuating tried to balance luggage that wasn’t meant for austere environments and strained to see helicopters that weren’t there yet. Someone suppressed a cough. Physiological reaction to being nervous as their mouth went dry. You could still smell the burned out cars next to our hasty HLZ. The cars belonged to our local security team, and represented what remained of pooled family savings. Anger simmered in the back of my mind. Neither the permanent security lead or his deputy had kitted up and went with us to clear roadblocks this morning or were interested in helping their locals, leaving them to fend for themselves when the gang rolled through last night to send the message we couldn’t leave without their permission.

The gangs were smart, more like organized militias now. Using stolen bulldozers to breach obstacles and setting roadblocks to trap and then attack the flanks of police. The gangs had grown until Port-au-Prince resembled The Purge with them shutting the airport by shooting holes in planes and besieging the port.

None of the civilians should still be here but normalcy bias is a bitch. People get numb to risks as they happen more frequently until all of sudden their life is at risk, they are not prepared, and expect to be saved from their own decisions and lack of action.

That is how we ended up standing in gangland in the middle of the night waiting for a ride from the 160^th SOAR and counting on a deal with a warlord to hold so we could leave. He had a $5 million bounty on his head, was evading FBI custody, and leadership called him “a reasonable security partner.”

We had spent the last month watching by drone as this warlord’s fighters chopped limbs off people while still alive then poured gas on them and burned them in the street. Leadership told us to wave at them as we drove past because we had an understanding with the warlord through a priest.

My phone buzzed and I looked at the screen. On approach

Two of the team were staying behind to assist the next team coming in with more capabilities. They had a drone up for security. Making sure the militia was staying away, not trying to ambush us, and not shooting at the helicopters coming in to get us.

Out in the night I heard it faintly at first then growing, the powerful thump, thump, thump of the dual rotor CH-47s coming into land. I moved a bit to stand behind some of the civilians, using them as a wind break. I’d watched the Haitians we’d paid to use their field for this hasty HLZ cutting down the brush earlier today and shooing goats out of the field. I didn’t want to get pelted with goat shit, pieces of wire, and splinters from the rotor wash.

The rhythmic thumps of the helos grew until I could feel more than hear them. Turned my head away feeling my peltors, half my face, and neck get pelted with dirt as they came into land. I was ready to go. As angry as I was about what I saw here professionally, personally it was a great experience. Realized high threat work didn’t move the needle on my net worth anymore. This one was my last time.

The first CH-47 sat down with a team moving fast under NODs to pre-assigned positions to secure the HLZ. As the second one came to rest, another team from our agency that had caught a ride with the 160^th started moving gear out fast. They were coming to stay, heavier weapons, more comms, would be standing up sustained helo ops since this was now the Alamo. As they moved past us to the waiting vehicles under NODs there were brief handshakes in the dark like little kids telling the other team good game as we went opposite directions. The two guys who had stayed behind would brief them up. 

Yelling the pax count to the chief we loaded the civilians, their luggage, cats, and one Haitian rescue dog that acted like he always took helicopter rides off the island. The CH-47 looked like Noah’s Ark with people, animals, and bags strapped down inside it.

The pilots had barely throttled down enough to stay on the ground. As soon as the chief was satisfied and gotten a thumbs up from us, the whole airframe started to shimmy as we powered up and lifted off into the night. As we gained altitude and banked out over the ocean, followed by the team on their helo and a third helo that had stayed airborne and been circling the entire time for close air support I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. The air cooled off now that we were over the water and I dozed fitfully, never quite comfortable. It was a long flight over water to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba before freezing on a charter jet back to DC that for some reason didn’t have any blankets.