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Wednesday 04 March 2009
FRANCE 24's Marie-Sophie Joubert is embedded with the French Navy in the
Gulf of Aden. Today, her notebook tells the story of Sebastian, a
helicopter pilot who looses his mojo when his "bird" is on the ground.
Deprived of his "better half", he wanders around aimlessly. Sebastian D.
is a helicopter pilot without a helicopter: under the Top Gun uniform,
the mojo is gone. His Panther B 6452 helicopter is broken. It’s an oil
leak, nothing too serious, but serious enough to keep it on the ground
for five days. In other words, forever.
Every day, Sebastien hopes to hear from the chief mechanic of the Hyères
military base, the “panther doctor”, if you will. Every night, he tells
the others: “He should be in Mombasa any day now.” But every day the
expected day of arrival changes.
This afternoon, my colleague Lucas and I were watching the video of the
arrest of Somalian pirates by the Floréal’s crew. The soundtrack is
crude: just the noise of a chopper in the background. Sebastian joins us
almost instantly: “Did I hear a helicopter?”, he asks. He’s joking, but
only half-heartedly. He sits down to watch the air footage with us, his
face a picture of longing.
He’s got the blues. He should be having fun instead: de-facto off duty,
he is now allowed to drink as opposed to fellow crewmembers. He could
drink his sorrows away… But no, he remains fairly sober and fairly
miserable.
During the daytime, he stays next to his broken “toy”, as he likes to
call it. Stuck in the oven (editor’s note: a hangar), the “bird” (its
nickname) continues to roast, as French rock group Louise Attack plays
in the background. You wouldn't blame Sebastian for not taking care of
it. It could just lie there and rust. In fact, it is taken apart,
cleaned, polished, fussed over and put back together again.
Just a few more days to go. “Let’s say it's resting to bounce back
stronger,” muses Sebastian philosophically. To cheer him up, I offer to
watch the videos of him hunting drug traffickers with his “bird”.
He feels better already.
Source: FRANCE 24
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