Marine Week Boston: Hitching a Ride in the Osprey

As part of Marine Week Boston, I (along with a few other boston social media community members) were lucky enough to be invited for a ride on the V-22 Osprey vehicle on Tuesday, May 4. First, big thanks to our host, Eric Schwartzman, for the invitation. Here’s the bird we flew out of Hanscom AFB:

Of course, I brought out the Flip camera for some glimpses of the experience.

Marine Week Boston; MV-22 Osprey Flight from Hanscom AFB from Doug Haslam on Vimeo.

And here is the group; from left: Eric Schwartzman, David Meerman Scott, Todd Van Hoosear, Marine Sgt Sean McNevin (corrected– thank you, Todd)), Steve Garfield (stevegarfield.com), CC Chapman, and YT.

After our ride, the Marines introduced us to several native New Englander marines. I had a nice chat with Lt Col (I believe, trying to remember the insignia)  Desgroselliers from Auburn Maine, who finally set me straight on the pronunciation, despite my having a childhood friend with the same name (we called him “Gus”).  I also chatted briefly with Lt Francona, who moved to Brookline, Mass. back in 2004. It was only later I realized (thanks to Todd V) that he was the son of Red Sox manager Terry Francona. Talk about unassuming.

Finally– I couldn’t resist getting this glimpse of CC, by the way– to be fair, we all looked this ridiculous in the gear (helmet = “cranial” – great lingo). Even though I took this photo with the Droid phone, I got lucky with the lighting.

For a slicker video of the ride, please see Eric Schwartzman’s blog here.

And for the record- I enjoyed making friends, neighbors, and members of my sons Little League team extremely jealous yesterday.