Camp Roberts is a facility used by the National Guard for Annual Training. It is located in central California on US 101 near Paso Robles. Like all military facilities it is too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. It was built during the second world war and was designed to last five years, well it�s still there with many of the original buildings..

Camp Roberts has large open areas and range facilities so Guard artillery and armor units have a place to maneuver and shoot the big guns. Infantry and engineer units also had plenty of space for their Annual Training needs.

The 126th provided the vast majority of medevac coverage for this facility. It seemed every weekend one or two birds would be sent there on stand by. Crews who manned these missions would do so in place of drill or be given AFTP�s (additional flight training program). Each crew member had to have 24 AFTP�s each year and a trip to Camp Roberts would earn five.

In the summer Camp Roberts was bustling with activity and full time medevac support was needed, crews would be sent down on Annual Training status and some other crews would go down for part of the summer on FTTD (full time training duty). This was a good thing as some of the unit members were in school and it worked out as a nice summer job. One good thing that can be said about the 126th is if you are in school you could often find supplementary income doing extra missions.

On the average weekend mission you would leave on Friday night around 17:00. Depending on the winds it was a one and a half to two hour flight. The alert pad was a section of the parade ground next to the troop medical clinic. Just across the street was the medevac shack, a proper name for the structure. It was one of the original buildings left over from the second world war. It had a kitchen, small office, a fair size common area and a number of small rooms. We did have a TV but could only get one channel.

In the summer when Camp Roberts was at the height of its activity you could stay very busy with medevacs. The two items in the military inventory that were the bain of our existence was the immersion heater and the M151 jeep. I don�t think a summer went by that we did not have the early morning call out for eye burns from people trying to get the immersion heaters lit. The M151 jeep is another matter. We would always have jeep rollovers, usually at night and often with multiple occupants.

Once the patients had field treatment and were loaded we transported to the troop medical clinic. Those patients who required a higher level of care would be then be transported to a regular hospital. The patients condition and weather determined the destination hospital. The military preferred us to transport to the Fort Ord hospital. It was a about forty minutes flight time and would often be fogged in. If the case was critical or weather would not allow us to go to Fort Ord we would transport to a civilian hospital in San Luis Obispo.

Whenever possible the flight crews preferred to go to the civilian hospital not only was it close but they took very good care of us. I think the administrator looked on us as a cash cow and always laid out the red carpet. We would always be given free meals in the hospital cafeteria and if we had to wait for any reason they would give us a room with a TV and a couple of couches.

Each year we would go down as a company for annual training. The flight crews who did not manage to escape this by doing their annual training on post medevac would come down now. Of course when we went as a company we would stay in the old open bay barracks , gone were the nice individual rooms of the medevac shack.. No annual training with the company would be complete without the obligatory trip to the field. Of course a trip to the field with the 126th was different then your normal army unit. We had camouflaged coolers and our own doom tents and of course the portable TV. If it�s one thing medevac people understand it�s how to make the best of things.

There are a number of things I am leaving out of this story and it�s because I feel the military has lost their sense of humor in a sea of political correctness. I would not want to hurt anyone still serving or put a damper on any fun people in the unit still may have.