Quake Aid Helps U.S. Alter Image in Pakistan

Perhaps most important, the United States has supplied 17 helicopters, including 12 from the military and five that were already in Pakistan on counter-narcotics duty. An additional 20 choppers are en route, according to Rear Adm. Michael A. LeFever, who is heading the U.S. military relief effort.

The lumbering, twin-rotor Chinook that landed on the riverbed Thursday was part of an Army National Guard unit that draws its personnel from several Western states and is deployed in southeastern Afghanistan.

Its pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Aaron Wallace, is a father of four and a former high school teacher who works back home as a helicopter instructor at an Army training center in Reno, Nev. His co-pilot, Capt. Dan Lewis, is a state trooper who flies for the California Highway Patrol and lives in Fresno, where he has a wife and 2-year-old son.

For them and the rest of the crew -- including Chasteen and another medic, a flight engineer and another soldier who normally mans a door-mounted machine gun -- the earthquake relief mission has come as something of a respite.

Since their unit arrived in Afghanistan in March, enemy ground fire has struck more than half of its 12 choppers, one of which was downed in Zabul province several weeks ago with the loss of all five on board; another has been shot at so many times that it has been nicknamed "the lead sled," according to Lewis, 35, whose laconic state trooper's demeanor fairly screams, "Driver's license and registration, please."

"It's a nice break," Lewis said. "It was strange for us to come over from Afghanistan because we had no idea how we'd be treated. But they came out, shook our hands. They're very nice people."

Thursday was a typical workday for the Chinook and its crew.

Loaded with tents, blankets and a small amount of food, the chopper took off from Chaklala Air Base near Islamabad at 8:35 a.m. under blue skies, then turned east toward the forested mountains of Kashmir. As is customary on such missions, a Pakistani army pilot, Capt. Saad Ullah Khan, rode in the cockpit jump seat to help identify targets for aid deliveries and communicate with people on the ground.

Just a few minutes from the Line of Control, Wallace pushed the aircraft into a slow spiral, dipping to within a few feet of the valley floor. The crew deposited its first load next to a creek, the helicopter's powerful rotors kicking up a storm of spray as villagers scrambled through the maelstrom to retrieve the bundles. Working their way slowly up the valley, the pilots and crew made several more deliveries, exchanging constant warnings over the intercom about the power lines that laced the area.

Following the last delivery, at the riverbed, they eventually landed at a military camp, where soldiers in surgical masks were digging graves and injured men, women and children awaited evacuation. After the injured were loaded on board and the chopper took off, Chasteen and another medic crouched at the side of a 12-year-old girl, gently applying a splint to her badly broken leg.

"She'll get to keep her leg," Chasteen said later that morning, once the chopper was safely back at base. "She's one of the lucky ones."

Chasteen, stocky and blond, the oldest of seven children, said he wants to pursue bachelor's and master's degrees in international relations when he gets out of the Army next year.

But in the meantime, he said, he is glad to be in Pakistan. "At least these people aren't trying to kill us," he said. "That makes it a little easier."

Special correspondent Kamran Khan in Karachi contributed to this report.