“God loves the infantry and God loves Airborne Willy.”
ALCON: The following is a recently declassified true story. Tactical Fanboy cannot guarantee the safety of anyone reading this. The information contained herein may be too sensitive to prevent everyone involved from compromise and potential elimination. (Mongrel)
The first time I saw Airborne Willy was on the Tactical Fanboy site. It was a funny post of an older black gentleman wearing a cowboy hat and what looked like an old 1960/70’sera Class B uniform shirt both covered in awards, decorations, ribbons – some not even awarded by the U.S. Army- and patches. Above the shirt’s pocket were two white nametapes. AIRBORN WILLY stitched into the material in bold black letters. I laughed him off. Just another nut ball that never served a day in uniform or was weeded out in the first weeks of Basic because he couldn’t hack it or was too unstable yet went on to claim that he was this or that and earned award after award. They are everywhere. Many apparently can’t spell. He was supposed to be a new hire for the site but as the months wore on I didn’t see anything of Willy, no mention, no posts, nothing. And that got me thinking. What if I was wrong? Could it be that Willy actually is one of those guys that did the missions we, the public, never hear about? But, instead of staying in the shadows he decided to come out into the light. I wanted to know more, to hear his story. Maybe I was crazy; maybe I was just going to find myself talking to a nutty old coot that smelled of stale beer, cigarette smoke, and urine. I didn’t know. What I did know was that one way or another I was going to find out.
Who IS Airborn Willy?
I contacted the site admins at Tactical Fanboy about wanting to interview Airborne Willy. They replied the same day telling me they would contact “Willy’s people” and get back to me. So, Willy has people? Weeks went by as I waited, hearing nothing. Maybe Willy was just what he appeared to be, a nut. Some digging on the internet brought up a few articles about Willy, the first from the Star-News dating back to August 2004 featuring a picture of Willy singing the national anthem at a rally for then Presidential hopeful John Kerry. Seems Willy is a Democrat. Interesting. The other two articles were blog postings, one about Willy not being a Navy SEAL and the other about Willy attempting to access one of the control points at Ft Bragg, N.C. without an ID. Seems my impression about him was correct all along.
About a month later I returned home to find a blank padded envelope on my doorstep. Thinking nothing of it I broke the seal and looked inside. A cell phone. No markings, just a simple flip phone. Taped to the back was a note.
TURN ME ON. WAIT FOR CALL.
I instantly thought of the scene from The Matrix when Neo received a phone in nearly the same manor. My head snapped up and scanned the street in front of my house. I don’t know what I was expecting to see. An unmarked van, an idling black Ford Crown Victoria with pig tail antennas on the trunk and two military aged males inside watching me but trying not to look like they were watching. The street was empty, just as it was when I arrived. The phone was a dead weight in my hand, just a sleeping piece of technology waiting for me to push the button and give it life. The note, however, compelled me with its instructions. TURN ME ON. WAIT FOR CALL. So much packed into six words.
“What the hell, right?” I flipped it open and hit POWER. The phone beeped and powered on. Nothing. I stood at my door looking at it, waiting. What as I expecting? I shook my head, unlocked my door and went inside. Two steps into the house the phone rang and vibrated. I nearly dropped it. It continued to ring and vibrate, once, twice… I looked at the screen. No number showed up. Seemingly on its own my thumb found the answer button and pressed it as I brought the phone to my ear.
“Ahh…Hello?”
“Mr. DeVore, it’s come to our attention that you wish to interview the man known as Airborne Willy. We can arrange that.”
To Be Continued…
“Mongrel” DeVore; Official TFB Airborne Willy investigating correspondent
It looks like Willy was a Colonial Marine as well judging from the patch on his left side.
And a graduate of the Buckaroo Banzai Institute, apparently.
I’m hooked!
Please continue…………
Interested to hear more. Must say I would not be eager to handle mysterious electronic devices left on my doorstep, turn them on and then hold them to my head. The Israelis used a somewhat similar tactic to take out some of their enemies via cell phones packed with semtex.
Right, cause you’re so important someone is going to try to wax ‘KAA’ out with a elaborate cellphone ED.