Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, September 26, 1993                   TAG: 9309260118
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

COPTER DOWNED; GILES COUNTY PILOT SURVIVES A3 A1 PILOT PILOT

"I thought, `Could this be Dale?' " she said, referring to her brother, G. Dale Shrader, a U.S. Army warrant officer who'd shipped out to Somalia four months ago.

Brackenrich stuck close to the television, listening for details. She knew Dale flew Blackhawk helicopters. She knew he was with the 105th Airborne.

But early news reports included none of that information.

"I thought, `Surely it's not him,' " Brackenrich said.

At 3:30 a.m., she went to bed.

Two and a half hours later, she was awakened by a phone call from Dale's wife, Shanna, an Army lieutenant who joined her husband in Somalia earlier this month.

Dale was piloting the helicopter - a Blackhawk - that had been shot down.

He had managed to land the helicopter between two buildings and was able to pull his co-pilot out amid explosion and fire, Brackenrich said her sister-in-law told her. The two then barricaded themselves in a nearby building.

"He had to pull out his handgun and defend himself until quick-action troops rescued him," Brackenrich said.

Shanna was calling from a medical unit, where Dale was being treated for a broken wrist and second- and third-degree burns on his arm, back and face, Brackenrich said.

"She said he was doing OK but that he was really upset over the three crew members," Brackenrich said. "She said they were leaving today for Frankfurt, Germany. They're going to stay there for about seven days, then go to a burn unit in Texas. The third-degree burn on [Dale's] arm might have to have a skin graft."

From there, Dale and Shanna will return to Fort Campbell, Ky., where they were stationed, or return to Dale's home in Giles County, Brackenrich said. The couple married a week before Dale was sent to Somalia.

Brackenrich said she sensed from Dale's recent letters that his spirits were waning.

"But if he sounded a little negative, he would always say `I'm the one who signed on the dotted line, so I can't complain,' " Brackenrich said.

She said she, too, questions the mission that is to bring peace to Somalia.

"We went over to feed them and it's gone way past that," Brackenrich said. "Dale said in his letters that the Somalis were becoming more sophisticated with their attacks. And as their attacks become more precise, he felt that we were going to have more casualties."

Watching television footage Saturday of Somalis celebrating around the helicopter wreckage gave Brackenrich "cold chills," she said.

"I feel good knowing [Dale] is safe and that he is coming home," Brackenrich said. "I had a bad feeling when he left that we might not see him again. He'd written me recently with a request to send him M&M's so I sent some four or five days ago.

"I know he won't get them now but I don't really care."

Keywords:
FATALITY