I think this was August of 97 but I'm not 100% sure. I took then Vice-President Al Gore's limos to Memphis, TN. I stuck a squadron sticker on the transmission scrape pan while I was chaining the car down. The next day when we were loading the car back up for the leg of the mission, a local news crew laid their camera down between the ramp toes so they could get good footage of the limo going in the plane. Guess what showed up on the news that night! People in my chain of command were either really impressed, or not at all....it seemed to depend on their rank at the time!
In a semi related story, when we were at the second or third stop (seems like it was Kansas City) I was handing my crew chief his tool box. I reached across the hood and the handle broke off. The outside skin of the car isn't armored. The scratch and dent weren't pretty, once again Secret service guy wasn't happy.
Finally, after about a week of hauling the limo around we were finally heading back to Andrews AFB to leave it. During the descent, we hit severe turbulance and the limo began to bounce around real bad. One of the tie down rings broke loose from the frame of the car and I could see air under the left rear tire. The secret service agent sleeping in the car (no I wasn't supposed to let him) busted his nose against the roof and bled all over the place. I was trying to get another chain tied on the car and the turbulance threw me nearly to the roof of the plane. When I came down I hit one of the antennas with my back, snapping it off even with the top of the fender and leaving a scar on me. According to my Aircraft Commander, the last thing he heard from my was F.... this shi.....I'm coming up front! When we finally got on the ground, the car was bent so badly that it had to be towed from the plane. You could see dents in the floor of the plane where the car had bottomed out. One of the chrome strips broke off the left rear fender and as far as I know, it's still laying the the sqadron break room.
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