Weather for nothing

What can I say I am a sucker for a sob story. So we show up for our brief this morning and after the weather guy tells us what the weather is like outside our AO which was horrible to say the least. Our Battle Captain tells us about a US unit that will be outside the wire in a really bad province so we elect to push the bad weather. Thirty minutes later after skirting some really bad ceilings and visibility we arrive on station to find out that they canceled their mission hours ago. So needless to say I was not in a very good mood for the rest of the afternoon. I was the AMC today and we spent the rest of our gas jumping from FOB to FOB trying to give as many folks as we could a little support. Any time any FOB has two Apache’s on station they always have a few grids that they will try to pass us and get us to take a look. So we look at a lot of historical POO sites around many of the FOB’s in our AO. We saw a lot of NSTR “nothing significant to report” and that is not a bad thing but sometimes I just wish that I could have been there at the right time. One of the FOB’s that we provided some over watch to took indirect fire before I even got back to Sal. Thankfully no one was hurt on that FOB but it still makes me mad that while I was over head looking for bad guys they were there setting up for a rocket attack and could have hurt US troops.

I am on tomorrow with Bob and I am looking forward to it he and I always have a good flight. Bob and I are the only two AMC’s “air mission commanders” on our shift so we are not usually on together but he and I will fly together tomorrow with a few of our new front seaters. I have no idea what they have on the mission schedule for tomorrow but hopefully we will be gainfully employed. I am starting to get a little tired of these short flights lately. The weather has been shutting us down to about one bag of gas lately. Before I went on leave it was pretty normal to fly six to eight hours a day and as of late I have only been flying three to four.

Our Alabama Guard guys are switching out with another unit from Georgia and the new guys are just not as experienced as the last unit. Don’t get me wrong these guys have just as much heart as any unit that I have worked with it’s just that their PC’s “pilot in command” do not have near the hours that the last unit had. They are our CH-47 guys and they do a lot of our deliberate missions. I am sure in a month or so the new guys will be all over it and they will be up to speed on all of our code words and how we do business. Well I am in the double digits now and I see that light getting brighter and brighter. I am still being told that I will be in the last group out of here after I do my hand off to the next MG “master gunner” but I think I should still be home around 12 to 20 November and that puts me in the double digits. I need to hit the sack for my flight tomorrow I hope all is well at home and I would love to know what is going on in the news but I just don’t have the time tonight to look, night all

LUNCH

Ok back to my lunch story, I have been here for nine months now and I have known about a restaurant on our FOB that is run by the owner of the land that our FOB sits on. I have never eaten there until just the other day. I don’t know why really because you all know me I love to go out for a good meal. So I was on shift and the weather was not good enough for us to go out and complete our assigned mission and my front seater came into my office and asked me if I was ready for lunch. As he and I were heading to the chow hall for lunch I ran into Bob and he said that he was going to the restaurant and asked if I would like to come with him. Bob eats there a few times a month and has never gotten sick so I said what the heck I will try it. When we got there Bob introduced me to Hasiead the owner of the restaurant and the land that we are on. Bob ordered for all of us and I will have to say that it was a pretty nice experience and the food was fine. Not five stars but it was good, and the people that he has working for him are truly great people. Hasiead only leaves the FOB one or two times a month to buy the things that he cannot get from our chow hall. Basically the local cuisine that our chow hall does not have and they can’t get for him. He cooks in a traditional open face oven with fire wood inside that he has been using for decades. All and all I was enjoying myself, good company and good food and then our radio went off with the TIC “troops in contact” call. And as you all know I have a much lower requirement for bad weather when it comes to a TIC or Dustoff call. Needless to say in less than fifteen minutes we were in route and I have already told the rest of that story.

Today I was off and spent most of my time in my office grading gunnery tape for our sustainment gunnery. Our Task Force has done a lot of work over here and I think we are doing all the right things that will set this place up for success. Once our replacements get here they will have a much easier time settling in and continuing their mission. Our Brigade Commander came down yesterday to fly with us a bit to take a look at our AO. He will be here for a couple of days looking at how we are doing business and then he will be going back to BAF. After lunch today he wanted to see all the primary staff in the Bosses office and we had no idea what was up. As it turned out he only wanted to give us a pep talk and let us know that “we are great Americans” that his catch line he says it all the time. But anyway he also presented us all with his Commanders coin I will add a picture of it to this post tonight it’s a pretty big coin but I like it. This place has been a huge pain in my but lately and it’s nice when someone throws you a bone now and then. So I will add this coin to all my other Commanders coins and I think I may have a nice case made when I get home to keep them in. well it is getting late and I need my beauty sleep so I think I will close this one for tonight. I hope that you are all doing well and I look forward to seeing all of you, night all

COIN

Commanders Coin

A new Friend

I got an e-mail from a new friend today and I wanted to share it with all of you. I met Randy in the Atlanta airport the day I shipped back to Afghanistan. We had a nice conversation and we talked mostly about Afghanistan but in our short talk I could see that He totally got it. And it was so refreshing to meet someone who truly understood why it is that I have to go back to this place and try to make a difference.

Hi Rob,

I hope you remember me. I met you at the Atlanta airport on July 18th when you were on your way to Afghanistan. I hope you are safe and doing well! It was an absolute pleasure to meet you and in our brief encounter, I can tell that you are a man of extreme integrity. I know you must miss your family a lot and I just want you to know again how very much I appreciate all of your sacrifice and bravery! Men and women like you make me proud to call myself an American!

I just returned from a trip to Los Angeles and now I am working hard in my medical practice. It always seems that when you take some time off, you pay for it when you return to work.

I will certainly understand if you don't have time to respond to my email, but I would really enjoy hearing from you, even if just a brief note to tell me that you are doing well and are safe!

All my best,

Randy

Like I always say things happen for a reason, and today I got an e-mail from someone who I only met one time but he was able to reset my train of thought and help me to stay focused and deal with everything my day had to throw at me. Needless to say today was pretty busy, first we ran to our aircraft from lunch for a troops in contact out in our AO. When we got on station the gunfire was no longer directed at the troops on the ground it was coming our way. As we approached the POO site “point of origin” and almost immediately started to take Machine gun fire, not to worry we were at about 1000 feet off the ground and in a pretty safe profile. Unlike the troops on the ground that were surely in harm’s way from the machine gun fire, we are able to give them some cover just by being there. We set up for some inbound runs towards the POO site which was in a wooded area and after a few inbound runs the shooting stopped. I would like to think they just ran out of ammo for their machine guns and decided to call it a day and went home to their families. I know I would give anything to be able to go home to my family after a hard day’s work but I know I will be there soon enough. I wanted to talk more about my lunch today but I am afraid I am pretty tired and that story will have to wait till next time, night all

A Bad day, for us all

Bad day for us all, this morning I was awaken by big voice saying “Incoming, Incoming, Incoming” and that is not the way I like to start my day. We had a few rounds that rocked the FOB this morning but this time it was HE “high explosives” instead of WP “white phosphorous”. The problem today was one of the rounds went long and hit a small house just outside our FOB killing three small girls’ ages 4, 7 and 11 and this time it really hit me on a personal level. You see because we are here they ended up losing their lives by the hand of the Taliban and I totally get that. We did not kill those children by our own hand but yet our presence did have something to do with it. It is so hard to stay distant and unattached from what is going on in the day to day lives of the Afghani people when I see it so up close and personal every day. We pull a hundred locals out of the raging river and we are hero's and in the next few days a rocket intended to cause us harm kills three little kids. So it is totally understandable why the Afghani locals are afraid and a little stand offish. I am so ready to go home to my own three kids and I need to thank God every day for what he has given me. Life is too short, and I will not waste another minute of it, night all

Bad weather, but still flew

Great flight today, I flew 4.2 hours and it was in some pretty crappy weather but no one was hurt and we completed our mission. I am on tomorrow with the same person and after tomorrow she should be ready to go to nights to finish her RL2 to Rl1 progression, my work on days with her will be done. I watched a good movie tonight it was called Clash of the Titans, I am usually not one for all the gods and dragons and what not but it had a cute story and I liked it. I think before I go to bed I will try to watch another episode of Sons of Anarchy; it’s a new series that I downloaded from the shared drive that we have over here. They had the first two seasons up so that’s all I have right now if I like it I will go to the Hajji mart and buy more. I have downloaded more TV shows to watch than I have watched in the last ten years of my life but between that and spending time in my horizontal time machine what else is there to do other than work.

So I am three months from home, the light is on be it ever so dim but hey it’s on and I can see it. I think Marie and I will try to plan something for the family to do some time near the first part of the year. After Christmas but before the kids go back to school I think will be a great time for us to go and do something I am not sure what yet but I look forward to planning it. I am sitting here typing on my blog listening to my iPod and as I have said in the past it’s amazing how my life is changed by what I listen to or what kind of movies I watch. We are in the process of trying to do all the planning for the Unit that will eventfully come to replace us over here. It really is amazing how much is involved in the process of doing just that. One of the biggest things to overcome is the fact that we just don’t have the life support over to house everyone all at once so it’s done in phases a few in and a few out. The key is picking the right people at the right time to make it seamless and painless. As for me know that I am on primary staff I will be here till the end I am sure I will be one of the last people out. Not a big deal though we are all still suppose to be out of here by the middle of November so no sweet. I have a lot to hand over to the incoming Master Gunner I will try to set him or her up for success the best that I can. I hope to be able to have everything in place working before they even hit the street in late October. I think their advanced party should be starting to show up some time in October. And that will be here before we know it.

I just wanted to get on and put a quick note up so I am going to get off here for know, like I said today was not the best weather I have flown in over here but mission accomplished and not problems with any of our missions so all is well. I will try to post soon but I am flying for the next few days so till next time, night all

Crazy Day Off

What a way to start my day, not on the flight schedule, a package from Marie with my favorite brownies and a card that lets me know just how lucky I am, It’s going to be a great day. So I get up and go to the Hajji Mart and get a couple of movies to watch today so I can spend a little time in my room relaxing. I bought Grown Ups and just got done watching it I thought it was pretty good but then I like Adam Sandler so what did I expect. I bought four other movies too but I don’t think I will get to them any time soon. We are getting ready to adjust to four shifts to cover down on the elections so that we can have more of a presence in the AO and we are still a little short handed so we will all have to pick up an extra shift or two. I think it will only last three or four weeks so hopefully we will all be able to suck it up and get through this ok. I read a great article in the news this morning about an Afghan girl who was horrifically mutilated who appeared on a controversial Time magazine cover who is to undergo surgery in the United States to rebuild her nose that Taliban cut from her face. The note on the cover was “What happens if we leave Afghanistan” It makes me think about this country and how far they have come and how much we have sacrificed. Surely this cannot all be for nothing, surely all of the wonderful programs and schools and town halls that have been built and started will not go empty. I pray that history will not repeat itself, that the US will not cut and run only to allow this country to fall back into the Stone Age. We have done this to these people once before and it has not been forgotten. We see it every day over here when it comes to the amount of assistance we get from the local populous. You see they are still really gun shy when it comes to stepping forward and pointing out the bad guys to us. They know that when it’s all said and done they will remain and they will have to suffer the consequences if we do not complete our mission over here. They will follow and help who they feel will come out as victorious and when the Boss keeps talking about we will start our withdraw next July in the news and on TV it’s hard for us to complete our mission. We have made so many advancements over here that it kills me when I read articles like this it’s like he hasn’t a clue as to what is going on over here. I can see why the last General cut and ran without getting the support he expected from the same Boss that put him in that job in the first place.

Sorry about that, it’s just been on my mind eating away at it for a few days and I wanted to share. So I have a metric ton of gunnery video to grade for our rolling gunnery but today I am not going to go into the office not even for one minute. Today is my day off and that is just what I will do, be off. However it’s 0600 in Savannah and I told a certain family that I would call before they go to school so I will have to cut this post short. Disregard its Saturday and I am sure that they are all still in bed. I wish I could be there with them I know I would be running around the house trying to wake them all up trying to figure out what we will be doing today. I love weekends when we have no plans I love when we can all just shoot from the hip and load up in the car and make a day of it. I think it has to do with some of my most fond memories when I was a kid. We would load up into the car and go to the park or to Brookville Lake with some cousins and Mom would pack a picnic lunch with all the snacks. I lived for those trips and I had so much fun every time we went. Now days it seems like I am trying to pull teeth sometimes with my three to get them to want to load up in the car and go and do anything. But times have changed so much and things that were the bomb thirty years ago just don’t have the same bite these days. I got it, kids want to do what they want to do and that doesn’t mean that they will want to jump into the car and run down to river street for the twenty fifth time. Wow I am all over the road with this post aren’t I, I think once again I have been affected by another Hollywood movie. I watch movies by myself and my mind just goes crazy and I get all emotional and I spend the next few hours trying to figure out how to make everything better. When the truth is I have no power to change anyone’s life but mine, and I think I am well under way in that department all ready. I think if it were up to me I would spend more time listening and less time talking and more time feeling and less time overreacting. Like I love to say and have said so many time before, life is short and we all have but one go at it so try not to screw it up. Marie, you are the greatest, you keep me grounded and you keep me going when I just want to call it a day. Without you my life would be so different, without you Marie I don’t really think any of this would matter. In my mind I would be over doing a job that has to be done not really thinking much about it. But knowing that I have you and the kids to come home to makes me think all too often about every little decision that I make over here, and believe me I make a lot of decisions over here. And thinking about what you would think of some of these decisions I know helps me to make the right ones. I love you and I can’t wait till we are whole again, we have a lot of catching up to do and I know that we are well on our way but I want you to know that I never want it to stop. I hope that you and our three precious children load up that car and go and do something special this weekend and think of me at some dinner table somewhere new and think that if Dad were here he would have loved this place. Night all

Went for a run

So I started running again and today was my third day running around the parameter of the FOB. I have a running buddy and he and I try to run as often as we can which seems like it should work out to be about three to four days a week which will work out fine for me. So we are half way around the FOB and we hear AK-47 fire, this does not usually bother me when I am nestled in the center of my FOB but as we are running around the parameter fence I start to think to myself as I look through the fence and see Afghani's out there working in the fields and driving their tractors that this might not be the best place to be. But the nice thing about the Parameter fence line is that one trip around and you have run about three and a half miles so it just works out pretty nicely in that respect. Where as if I run around some of the inner roads which are gravel I need to run many laps to cover the same distance. Not to mention the chance of twisting an ankle or hurting a knee. Decisions, decisions, I am sure that things will work out and the answers will come to me. It's not as if we don't have guard towers all the way around are FOB because we do and this FOB has never been breached. So as long as we are smart about it we should have no problems, besides have you seen how fast I run who could shoot such a fast moving target? Just kidding at 44 the Army gives me all afternoon to run my 2 miles for my PT test not to say I need all afternoon but I am just saying. Oh well I just wanted to get on tonight before I go to bed and tell this quick story and Post it. I am going to try to post everything that happens in these last few months as best I can so till next time, night all

River Crossing

We are finally starting to see a break in the weather, I got up today and the sky was clear and the sounds of choppers flying all around the airfield let me know that the weather is green meaning that it is good and we are back to work. I just had lunch with Joe and Tony and we talked about Joe’s flight yesterday and how he and the two Chester aircraft (UH-60s) were responsible for saving at least 100 local nationals. You see Joe was flying security around the FOB when he noticed that over in one of the watties or rivers as we call them, there were a whole bunch of local nationals stuck on sand bars out in the rising, raging water. So they made a call back to Salerno to launch the QRF Chester element to come help save some of the Afghani’s, many of them were woman and children and they were stuck in the racing water. Unfortunately before the aircraft could respond to the scene Joe had to watch a few of them get washed away. When they first got there the water was at their ankles but by the time Chester got there the water was above their knees and they were all holding each other in little groups to keep from getting washed away. After all said and done they removed over 100 people from the ever rising river that surely would have taken most of their lives. This is not a story that will be told on the news back home but it was nice to hear that today it was talked about on the local Afghani radio, who knows maybe the next time some of the bad guys are setting up rockets for an attack on our FOB one of these people will return the favor and alert us of what’s about to happen so we can stop it before one of our Soldiers gets hurt. Oh well wish I had more time but I need to get back to work, I just wanted to share this story before I forgot all the details, night all

Mid Tour Picture

This is a picture of me and my posse and believe me I could not ask for a better posse. We had a wonderful time in the mountains and I can't wait till I can take them back to those same mountains to go camping and sleep in a tent, that right Shirley we will sleep in a tent in the woods with no electric and no cell phone reception. But we will do just fine because we will all be together for a few nights then its off to plush condo or something, I Love you guys

Rain Rain Rain

Well this is just great, more rain than I have seen in this country in the last eight months all in the last week. Not that I am complaining about the cooler weather that it has brought us but I am getting tired of getting wet every time I need to go to the office or to the chow hall. Did I mention that I am tired of getting wet, yea I thought so? So anyway we are all in the chow hall the other night our normal group and we are all talking about how this tour has impacted our lives. I was a little caught off guard from some of the comments that I heard. I was really expecting to hear how the time away from love ones has ruined our lives and made it hard to keep relationships both with family and friends close. But no one had stories like that to tell instead I heard similar stories of how this experience has strengthened those same relationships in the same way that I have felt. I can’t really put my finger on it but I think it has something to do with the uncertainty of our situation and how all we have time to do is think about better times both ahead and in the past. And for me it has also given me the opportunity to look back at some of those previous experiences and think about how I would have done some things a little different. Don’t get me wrong, there are not too many things in my life that I would have done any different. It’s just that I might have approached them a bit differently and with more tact. But like I love to say life is too short to spend one second thinking about things that we have no chance to change. But to try to learn from our mistakes and not make those same mistakes in the future is how we grow as people. Alright I am putting myself to sleep so I will try to change the subject and talk about how my day is going so far. I got up around 08:00 and checked e-mail and then I went to the office to see if there were any changes to the flight schedule and to my surprise there were not. I have a fairly light schedule this week; I am only on it 4 days and 3 of those days I will be flying our new Captain trying to get her to RL1. She is doing pretty well and I know she is glad to be here flying as opposed to what she was doing before she got here. Before she arrived at FOB Salerno she was the BDE “brigade” commander’s secretary and not flying at all and trust me that is a thankless job at best. She has not had an engagement yet seeing how she just started flying missions but I am sure that will change soon. I remember thinking to myself before I had my first engagement that if I could influence the battle field with just my presence and keep the guys on the ground safe by just flying above them in the most threatening attack helicopter in the world I would leave here the same guy. Well unfortunately sometimes it takes a little more than just looking tough to get the job done and I am ok with that as long as I can leave here without a bad shoot. I try to maintain tactical patience and rule out all possible alternative options to pulling the trigger and I truly believe that this will be all I need to accomplish my mission without incident.

Enough on all that, I called to talk to Marie this morning to let her know what 06:00 feels like. She will be getting use to that schedule soon enough with getting the kids ready for school. I can’t wait till I am home and we can both get them ready for school together. This is one of those things that I wish I would have done a little differently, at least on days when I had nothing to do, when I was not flying that night. I think the time Marie got to spend with our kids was pretty special in the morning getting them ready for school and I completely blew it. But like I said a change in my behavior as a result of an experience is what learning is all about. And even though “I am not a very smart man” I can learn from my experiences and change my behavior. So what I am trying to say is the Cleavers are going to have nothing on me when I get home if you know what I am saying.

As for the first part of next year, I just don’t know what is going on yet. I will be going to Ft. Rucker for six weeks for the Instrument Examiners course and another week or so for the Master Gunners course. And I know we have a spring gunnery and a midsummer NTC “national training center” rotation. But other than those two events I am not too sure what will come down the pipeline for us. All I do know is that I will have over 60 days on the books for vacation and that is more than I have ever had the entire time I have been in the army. I think I just might take an entire month off and spend as much of it with my best friend as I can. Until she gets sick of me and sends me on my way, which might only take 5 or 6 days. Time now is 16:00 and diner chow is rapidly approaching so I must once again cut this post short and get ready for din din. You all know me I try not to miss many meals especially when there is chocolate cheese cake on the desert line, so to all my friends and family till next time, night all

Crazy Day

Ok so I am sitting next to my aircraft looking at the log book when all of the sudden I hear the familiar sound of an inbound rocket. I look to my left and low and behold I see the rocket on its last fifty yards or so of flight and then boom it hits the ground. Fortunately for me it’s about two hundred feet away and it’s not an HE “high explosive” round but instead it’s a white phosphorous round. It lands on the next taxi way behind the aircraft parked behind me where it can do no real damage. It burns for a long while but its on the concrete so no problem. And at this very moment I realize that what I have been saying all of my life is so true when it’s your time to go it’s your time to go. All and all we had four rockets hit the FOB within ten seconds of each other and none of them did any damage or hurt anyone. We have been having a lot of bad weather which makes it a little easier for the bad guys to get close enough to our FOB to set these rockets up. They usually use some sort of a fuse that will allow them to leave before the rockets launch. I was on QRF this morning but we had a deliberate operation so we did not launch to look for the POO site”point of origin” instead they launched the OH-58Ds which is a scout recon platform. I ended up flying almost five hours today in support of my deliberate operation which for the most part was a dry hole we were not able to remove any bad guys from the battle field. My front seater is doing pretty well though this was her first no kidding deliberate operation where she was in direct support of over one hundred and fifty special ops guys on the ground. We in filled them with two CH-47s doing two turns a piece and kept a close eye on them as they completed their mission. But like I said we came across no bad guys and after an hour or two it gets a little monotonous but I know the guys on the ground feel so much safer hearing us and seeing us over head. I wish that I could post more but we have a command and staff tonight so I need to eat and get to my meeting till next time, night all

Sunday, ice cream day

Back in the groove flew 4 hours today and for the most part it was ok, but we did have to come back to Sal to get a different aircraft to finish our mission mine had some electrical issues and didn’t want to cooperate. But like I said we flew 4 hours and except for that short delay we got all of our missions completed on time. I am on tomorrow with the same person a new Captain that we just got from another FOB a few months ago she is doing well for having not flown for over two and a half years. I have done most of her progression and she should be fully mission capable in a few weeks. I think she is glad to be RL2 and going out on missions with me. Tomorrow my wing man is the Task Force commander and I am sure he will want to be in the lead aircraft which actually works out great for me because it allows me more opportunity to teach and talk to the young Captain while we follow the Boss around.

I went for a run tonight and it felt pretty good I ran with another IP he and I are about the same age and we ran about 2 miles and then we walked another 2 I think it was good for both of us. I hope to start doing that two to three times a week it actually seemed to give me some energy. I am getting ready to call it a night and I just wanted to get on here and hit the high lights of my day. Chow for lunch was great they had my favorite, chicken cordon blue and I am not able to get that two often it seems like they only have it a couple of times a month and at least one of those times it seems like I am always flying. Although Bob will get me a to go plate because he know how much I like it, good old Bob. Dinner was pretty good to and I had my usual Sunday night ice cream not that I deprive myself of some of the finer deserts in the chow hall mind you because I am a sucker for the chocolate cheese cake, if it’s available I have to get a slice and I would say it’s available 4 to 5 days a week. I am really surprised that I am not as big as a house, I guess it’s the fact that we only get 1 to 2 meals a day and I have had some days where I only got one meal without any snacks in the aircraft either. My favorite snack food in the aircraft is a Cliff Bar, they have them in the chow hall most of the time and they are your typical granola bar except that they are 75% organic which I like and they taste pretty good too. I am off the day after next and I can’t wait to make some calls home, the kids start back to school soon and I want to wish them all the best for another great school year. I made a deal with Robby and I am sure that he will make me proud, but it’s going to cost me I just know it. Well I want to get this posted so till next time, night all

Back in the groove

Flew last night for the first time since I have been back in country, went well had a good flight. I flew night time to reset my NVS and now I am going back to days where I will remain till something needs to be fixed on another shift. I got to bed last night around midnight and low and behold the repair men are here at 06:00 to fix our air conditioner, lucky us. No big deal though because I am off today so that I can get back on shift tomorrow my show time will be 06:00 and I hate it. I never liked getting up to an alarm clock but I have no choice so I will just have to suck it up.

I have my work cut out for me over these next three months trying to get this gunnery off the ground. Not to mention planning the first gunnery for once we get home and the biggest challenge for that one will be the fact that 50% of the people that we have here will be gone to other units. You see once we get home many of the people that are here with me will be going to other units because they have been in Savannah over 6 years and it’s time for them to go. Not that they want to go it’s just that many of them have been here since flight school and they need to track and go to other units which will make them more diversified and help them to get promoted.

The weather here is so different since I left we have thunderstorms almost every afternoon kind of like we do in Savannah. This is the end of our hot months here and starting next month it will start to get a little cooler, thank you baby Jesus. It is not that I don’t like warm weather it’s just that I hate 110 degree and higher weather, especially when I have to wear a flight suit that covers me from head to toe. So like I said I look forward to the cooler weather that is coming our way.

As for our mission here we are still just as busy as we were when I left for mid tour, the natives are still pretty restless and they are getting into trouble on a daily basis. We try to help them with their troubles each and every day as best we can so they never have troubles again. As much as I can’t wait to leave this country and got home to my family it scares me to think that we may cut and run next summer and throw away all of the progress that we have worked so hard to accomplish. I hope that this does not happen and I hope that all of the lives lost and I mean all the lives are not for nothing.

Well as for me I am doing pretty well my moral is high and like I have said before the light is on. I look forward to all of the little hurtles that we have in our future like the replacing units equipment showing up and the advanced party showing up and whatever else happens that says Rob you will be home before you know it. I hope to see Barry somehow before I get out of here he is part of the unit that will be replacing us except he is going to a different FOB as of right now, but who knows. Time will tell and it’s been my experience in the Army that everything is subject to change at any time. I think I was lucky to be stationed here at Salerno from all I have heard from all of my friends from other FOBs we have it so much nicer here between hard buildings and our chow hall and all of the other things that make this place more like a Korea tour and not a combat tour. Don’t get me wrong there has been plenty of combat it’s just that our digs are pretty nice. Well I need to get this posted so I can begin my day and get some needed stuff done before I hit the ground running tomorrow so till next time, night all

Back At Salerno

I am back in the Stan and I am looking at that dimly lit light at the end of my tunnel. I hope that the time continues to fly past and that I am able to have an uneventful tour. My time at home was the best time I have had in many years and I truly think that this was just the start of something wonderful. All the family on both sides seem to be doing well and Marie and the Kids are doing great. Saying goodbye this time was a little harder than last time and I will only be gone just short of 4 months. I left on a Saturday and I got back to my room in Afghanistan on that next Friday. The trip was painful to say the least, trying to live for a week out of a small back pack meant for three days at best was more than I wanted to deal with. The worst place I got stuck was Ali Al Salem in Kuwait the temperature was in the 120s and the blowing dust was awful. I took a shower one night at 22:00 and by the time I walked to my tent I was covered with dust and my hair was filthy, it was horrible. I wanted to take some pictures there but I did not want my camera to get ruined so unfortunately there will be no pictures of that place from this trip.

Our new Task Force SIP showed up today someone that I have worked with before and things should be good. Our last SIP was involved in a really bad shoot and as the AMC on the flight he was removed from the position and sent back to the states to retire. He will not be missed, not by me anyway. I have much work to get done between now and when we redeploy in regards to our aerial gunnery I need to qualify as many pilots as I can using gun videos and the gunnery range ten miles to our west. Should not be to hard most of our pilots should have more than enough engagements to facilitate completing a gunnery.

The weather here at Salerno has been pretty nice it is so much better than what I just came through, not as much dust and the temperature is so much nicer than down south. My room is just the way I left it with just a little more dust here and there. But my room is cold and my friends are all here and I can’t ask for more than that. We have a lot of new faces around here with the 4-4 guys coming in and trying to get them all trained up for their mission over at Sharana. They will be staying here till all of the life support is in place for them to move to their FOB. They are building new buildings and taxi ways for them at Sharana so they have places to live and parking for their aircraft. A couple of them I have worked with before, but they are all really great guys and I am happy to see them showing up to help lighten our work load. Well at this point I am just rambling on so I think I will close this post for now but I promise many more and I hope more often as this month progresses, night all

Back to the Stan

Back to the Stan, well for starters I had the time of my life at home with the family. It was nice to see everyone and I had a wonderful time catching up with them all. Marie drove me to Savannah airport yesterday and I flew to Atlanta where I spent the night. I was a little upset to say the least that even after I called Atlanta to make sure that I would not miss my connecting flight, I miss my connecting flight and end up spending the night in Atlanta, alone. But today I am sitting here in the Delta sky lounge waiting on my 18:00 departure making my first post to my blog and I hope to be able to make many more before I come back to Savannah.

I was walking from the ticketing counter to my gate and ran into a really nice older gentleman that was going to Paris and we began to talk and one thing lead to another and he brought me into the Sky Lounge as a guest. I talked to him till he had to go to his gate for his flight and I traded info with him and he tried to give me 100 dollars for next month’s internet bill. I declined and told him to try and find another Soldier out in the airport that was wearing stripes and give the money to them he seemed even more thankful for what it is that all of us who wear this uniform are all about. His name is Randy and he is a doctor and he totally gets it. I was so impressed with how much we had in common as far as political views and politics. He asked me to try to keep in touch and drop him a line when I get home to let him know I made it home safe. Then he thanked me one more time for my service to his great country and he walked off. All I can say is times have changed and I think people have a much higher opinion for our troops these days and it shows every time I am out in uniform.

Well as for my next post I will try to get on in Ali-Asaliem but who knows. If I can’t I will make my next post from my little room in Salerno, till then, night all

Mid Tour

Home on mid tour having a great time and wishing that this time would last forever. But at least when I get back to the Stan I will see that dimly lit light at the end of the tunnel and it will continue to get brighter and brighter until I come home for good in November. A few weeks after I get back to the Stan there will be no more mid tour leaves and I am hoping to have more time to myself to put more post on here. Till I am back in the Stan, night all

Fender Bender

First I will just say that it was not my fault, second its hard to have a fender bender when you are 8 to 10 feet off the ground. But yesterday I was flying a mission and we stopped at Kushman FOB to get some gas and when I was repositioning to set up for a take off into the wind I had a steel parking panel the size of a house lift off the ground and try to eat my aircraft. The steel panel is actually 149 smaller 4 foot by 4 foot panels that all interlink to make great big pads that we can park on to help keep the dust down. As I was hover taxing near this landing panel my rotor wash got under the side and lifted this parking panel 10 to 12 feet into the air. I was already power limited and could not climb over it so I was forced to crash into it and have a hard landing. After I shut the aircraft down we got out and took a closer look and found that I did damage to the 30mm gun on the front and in trying to maneuver away from the panel I stroked the tail wheel strut causing damage to it also. I am not sure what the accident will price out at but for it to remain a class D accident the repairs have to be less than 2,000 dollars and that doesn't seem likely. Fortunately for me my wing man this day was Viper 6 my Task Force Commander. After we both shut down and took a good look at everything he told me that from where they were sitting they thought the panel was going to go into my rotor system and he could not believe that I was able to avoid rotor blade contact. This made me feel a little better but none the less we still damaged the aircraft and it will be out of the fight for a few days till it can be repaired. I ended up pushing the parking panel 3 feet which does not seem like much but this pad weighs 7500 pounds, I really was lucky. Not that I could have been seriously injured but had the rotor blades contacted the parking pad when it was up in the air we would have had parts and pieces flying all over the place and possibly destroyed my aircraft and done serious damage to my wing man as well.

So all that being said I am ready for tomorrow to be my last mission flight for a couple of weeks and I can't wait to get home. This may be my last post till I get back in country so until next time and I hope to see all of you between now and then, Night All

Wow what can I say, two more mission flights and I am out of here. Today's mission went well we did not fly as much as we usually do because of the afternoon thunder storms we have over here but none the less we got the job done. I will be going home to the states in four more days and I cant wait. I hope that once I get back from leave I will have more energy to get back on here and post more like I use to. I have been taking my camera and my video with me on more flights lately than I have in the past and I hope to keep that going after I get back too. As for the video when I take my HD camera its is impossible to post any video because of the file sizes. I use my little point and shoot for those videos. Needless to say I am getting pretty excited to be going home for a break even if it is only for 15 days. I will see everyone real soon, till then, night all

47's

A shot of big windy on the ground picking up the good guys after a mission

What it looks like when the try to land in this place, it gets pretty dusty

More Pictures

Walking to the neighbors house to get some sugar

All kidding aside the way these people live makes me appreciate what I have and how truly lucky I am

typical live stock just out walking around

My wing man

This was the prettiest day that I can remember flying in Afghanistan

Pictures

Some of the area getting a little green

Trying to fly and take pictures is a real trick

I flew this one with our new Commander

Another shot of me trying to get the job done

And another day without a scratch, Getting pretty hot out here

Long week

Once again I find myself sitting here typing after not posting for many days. I wish I had more time in my day and I wish I was not flying as much but the truth of the matter is that is what it takes over here to get the job done. We are all doing what we must to get the job done. I am flying 5 to 6 days a week and three of those days I fly another bag of gas after my mission flight doing a RL Progression on a new pilot we just got. I often wonder what this place might have been like when the Soviets were here wreaking havoc. There are fighting positions all over this country on every hill top and in every valley it makes it easy for the enemy to find positions to fight from. The people here are so poor yet they seem so proud of what little they do have. I try to imagine what it must be like for them to see all the US troops trying to do good things for them and their villages. What they must think, I mean do they truly understand what we are trying to do for them or do they think we have an ulterior motive. I hope that someday once we are gone they can look back at the time when the Americans were here and think that was when our country took shape and made it what it is today. I know this might be a bridge to far but it is what I hope for; I hope that all this bloodshed is worth something in the long run. I think that this war would be so much easier to win if this country was not 75% illiterate. If they knew what we were trying to accomplish over here for them and their children they would try to help us get the job done.

We had another rocket attack a few days back and one of our civilian contractors were hurt. I don’t know how bad the contractor was injured but I had heard that it was a white phosphorous rocket and that could not have been good. But at least the person is alive and going back to the States for recovery. We have so many contractors over here covering down on so many jobs that have to be done to make this place work like a well oiled machine. I know that most of them are just here for the tax free money but I think some are here because they truly want to help.

Well I am down to less than one month and I will be back in the states!! And I can’t wait. I am really looking forward to spending time with the Kids and Marie and going to Cincinnati for a visit. I look forward to spending the 4^th in Cincy and after that who knows we will just play the rest by ear. I am looking forward to throwing a certain little girl into our new swimming pool though and I am sure she is too.

Well Joe is still in the states for his eye and I am not too sure when he will be coming back to the Stan but I did hear that his eye will be fine. We will be losing our Germany guys at the end of July and they will be taking their two aircraft with them back to Germany. One of them will be leaving Germany once he gets back and going to the IP course and joining us in Savannah after we get home he is a brand new PC “pilot in command” He is a great guy and he will be an asset to our unit back in Savannah I can’t wait to work with him back in the states.

Business here in Afghanistan is picking up for us and we are trying to make a difference but sometimes it takes a toll on you. I tend to keep to myself and listen to music and watch TV shows on my computer to decompress. I wish that I was better at helping people find something that allows them to decompress but sometimes you just have to send them off to the Chaplain. The Chaplain and I have become really good friends and I have great respect for him he is a great guy that has done some really great things in his life. Any time one of our pilots is involved in an engagement Chaplain Authers will find them as soon as they are off shift and be there to listen. He and I came over together and we got to be pretty good friends through our trip. I remember the first time we had a discussion about my job and what I am here to do. I told him that as long as I was saving American lives and keeping our coalition forces safe that I think I will be able deal with anything that is put in front of me. I told him that the only thing that worried me about my mission here was the chances that I would have a bad engagement, like an innocent person or God forbid a US Soldier. A few weeks back I was involved in a mission and we were flying security for ground unites that we just in filled to an objective area. The unit on the ground told us to use containment fires on two squirters that they had leaving the village. Squirters are MAMs “military aged males” that try to leave the target area. I was the AMC on this flight and I was ok with the containment fires. Containment fires are when we shoot our 30mm cannon in front of them to get them to stop so the ground unit can catch up and detain them. We shot four different 10 round burst but the two men kept walking and would not stop. Then we got the call from the GFC “ground force commander” that we were cleared to engage the two MAMs. This did not sit too well with me or my wing man so we tried to explain to the GFC that they did not appear to be armed and they were not exhibiting hostile intent in any way. At this time the GFC told us to engage the two MAMs, as the AMC I told my wing man that we would engage the targets single ship. Single ship is not how we usually do things; usually we discuss a course of action and set it up for both ships to engage targets. But in my mind I felt that this might get ugly and if it had to be done no sense in both aircrews having to deal with it. So we engaged the targets and continued our security mission over the objective area. Five hours later after the ex fill and mission complete I called the GFC on the phone to debrief the mission and he told me that two women in the village told him that those two men were Taliban and that under their cloths they had AK-47s and chest racks along with explosives. Later that day they sent a team to search those men and they found exactly that along with some documents. I explained to the GFC that that would have been nice to know prior to us pulling the trigger. This was by far the hardest mission I have dealt with as an AMC but once again it was nice to decompress with the Chaplain. I feel for him though because I know he is always there for the soldiers but who is there for him. I try to talk to him whenever I can but there is only so much he can talk about but I think he enjoys talking to me as much as I like to talk to him. Well I need to try to post this before I go to bed, night all

BUSY

BUSY, that’s about all I can say about that! The weather is getting hot the sky’s are clear and the bad guys are coming out of the wood work. I will be going back to days tomorrow and I am going to be even busier than I have in the past. We have a new pilot that just showed up to Salerno and I will be doing her refresher training after I am done with my mission flights. She has not flown for two and a half years so it may take a while, time will tell. We have many pilots on leave and it is getting to be tough to keep up with all of our mission sets with the amount of pilots that are gone right now. I fly, sleep, eat and try to keep from losing my mind, not that there is much gray matter left after all of these years, but I try. The night missions were a lot different from the missions that I will be flying on day shift but I am looking forward to the change, Again. On days I will spend more time going to put out fires where as on nights we did most of our deliberate operations. We would do in-fills almost every night and in doing so we had to really be on our A game. It was up to us to keep all the crunchies “ground troops” safe and out of harm’s way. It’s a difficult task to perform sometimes because the objective areas can be so busy with the chrunchies going all over the place and at times they are all asking us for directions over the radio to target houses and objective areas. Like I said we do missions every night and we try to do the best we can but sometimes things don’t go as planned. Some time ago we were doing an exfill and while we were getting our HVT out of the target house one of our heavy lift aircraft took fire and we lost a soldier and had a few more wounded. All said and done we looked over this target area for over six hours while our crunchies went house to house looking for our HVT and no one saw the bad guy hiding in the tree line waiting for exfill. I was part of the in-fill and did not do the exfill but I shared their pain not being able to keep our guys out of harm’s way. It’s probably one of the hardest things to do over here is deal with the loss of any life let alone a US Soldier. We lose people every day but the only ones that make the news are the coalition forces “CF” we have so many Afghani Soldiers over here putting their lives on the line every day but they just don’t seem to make the news. We have a few forces over here that we work with, we have the ANA “Afghanistan National Army” and for the most part they are Soldiers that want a better life for them, their families and their Country. Then we have the ANP “Afghanistan National Police” these guys are 50/50 some are good and some are corrupt you just don’t know who is who. The problem with the ANP is that they are all locals and there for a little easier corrupted unlike ANA where the Soldiers are trained and then sent all over the Country to serve in the Afghanistan Army so they are less likely to become corrupt. The ANA are trying to make a difference and they will charge the bunker throwing caution to the wind in the most courageous way and they typically suffer a lot of casualties. They are extremely respected for their selfless courageous service and they are doing great things for this Country.

Last week we had a formation to promote a few of our LT’s to Captain which seems to happen way to quickly these days but it is what it is. We also took the time to award some folks their CAB’s “combat action badges” and Air Medals. I was on nights and fast asleep so that will have to come later, we only have two pilots left in our Task force that fly 64’s that have not been awarded their CAB’s. I truly wish that we could have all gotten out of here without one. I do understand however that its why we are here and that we are making a difference and it comes down to its you or them and you have to do what you have to do.

My friend Joe is still back in the states tending to his self induced eye wound but I have been told that he will have a full recovery and his eye will be 100%. Judging by his face book page it looks like he is having an OK time back in the states going to the beach and eating real food out. But hey I am not jealous I will be home soon enough. I have never looked forward to a vacation this much in my entire life, I truly miss Marie and the Kids so much and I can’t wait to see all of them. Living here has been unlike anything that I have ever gone through in my time in the Army; the simple things seem so special like when you can score a couple of your favorite cookies from the chow hall to have as a snack later. It’s crazy over here and I will never forget this trip for as long as I live. I have never flown this many hours in such a short time in my life. Like I said earlier I eat fly and sleep and that’s my life right now, crazy. Well as much as I would like to continue rambling on I need to go get some chow and turn in for the night so till next time, night all

Rocket attack

I flew five hours last night and I was looking forward to some time off and as I was walking to turn in my gear I hear this funny whinny whirly sound going over my head. I look up and see nothing but within a second or two I hear this great big explosion followed by Big voice going off saying “incoming, incoming, incoming”. So off I run to one of our hardened buildings and there I sit till Big Voice announces “all clear”. I have been spoiled lately we have not had an attack for a few weeks and most of the time they happen when I am in bed. You see they usually happen during the day because the enemy can’t video the attacks in the hours of darkness and it all about them advancing their anti coalition campaign through video. The ironic thing about this morning’s attack is that the only building that was hit was the mosque on our FOB. It is holy ground and could not be moved, some of the locals that work on the FOB use it each and every day but no Americans are allowed to step foot in it. Needless to say I am sure that this attack will not make it to the local news here in Khost province, no one wants to hear that the Taliban have destroyed a mosque. Fortunately no one was hurt; although I am sure it will disrupt the normal day to day lives of many Muslims friends that work here on our FOB. I am on for the next few days and I am really counting down the days till I get to go home the first week in July will not get here soon enough. I posted a video of me out flying around Afghanistan in the front seat for a change that I took early this morning as we were coming home. I will write more soon I just wanted to get on and talk about my rocket attack and how much I am thinking about my mid-tour till next time, night all

As you can tell business in Afghanistan has picked up considerably, we are seeing a lot more bad guys out in our area of operation. Not to mention that we have people going home on leave and that leaves us a little short handed to cover down on all the shifts. Then there is the occasional accident like my buddy Joe had when he accidently poked himself in the eye and was rushed to BAF then Germany and finally the states for at least one month for eye surgery. Joe is doing well and his eye will be 100% so no worries there it just doesn’t help us with our man power shortage.

As for me I am doing well flying a lot and keeping up with all the gunnery is keeping me pretty busy. I am not watching as much TV and trying to stay focused on some other things and the time is passing pretty quickly. Night flying is a little bit easier than the missions that we have during the day. Mostly we are a dedicated asset for deliberate operations and we do not respond to 911 calls nearly as often as I did during the day. Don’t get me wrong the 911 calls are pretty exciting sometimes but you just never know what to expect. The deliberate operations are well planed and thought out and we go after defined targets and it’s always nice when we get our target. The Intel that we receive from some of these targets helps us to disrupt so many more operations and makes it worth the risk.

Less than six weeks and I will be home for some needed rest and relaxation and I can’t wait. Marie and the kids will pick me up in Atlanta and we will be off to Cincy. Not sure how much time we will spend up there but it will be nice to see everyone and then it’s off to who knows where. We do not have definite plans yet but we are looking forward to the time together and I am sure whatever we do it will be great.

The weather over here is starting to get pretty hot I am glad that I am on nights it’s a lot cooler and almost tolerable. I fly all night and into the sun rise almost every time I go out I just started to take my camera with me again and I will try to capture so sunrises. I hope to get on here more often even if it’s just for short up dates but time and internet connection just don’t allow sometimes. Till next time, night all

Mothers Day

Long night, and what a bad night it was. We did an infill a couple of days back and the troops that we put in this certain area lost a soldier yesterday from enemy fire and few more were injured. So last night right after we did our mission brief we went to the aircraft and launched. Twelve hours later we landed after engaging six enemy soldiers and flying security for four CH-47 aircraft that exfilled all the remaining troops that we had in this certain area. After our flight we had a mountain of paperwork to complete for everything that happened last night. All I knew is that all I wanted to do last night was call home and wish my wife a happy Mother’s Day. I sit here at my computer in my room ready to collapse and its 04:00 AM in Savannah and I want to call home to talk to Marie but it will have to wait till tomorrow night when I am at the office. All I can do is hope that she had a nice day with the kids and hope to make it up to her next year. For now I need to get to bed it’s been a long day, night all

Shout Out

Wing Man

New Pics

Well let’s just say that it is getting pretty busy over here. Last night I flew 8 hours supporting 4 different missions. I have not been on here for over a week and I will try to get back to posting every couple of days or so. I took some video the other night after our missions were complete and I will try to put it up tonight. I shot it on the lowest resolution to try to keep the video size small so I hope it will upload for me without too much grief.

As for me I am doing well, finally adjusted totally to my shift and back to flying 5 days or so a week. Not much has changed over here pretty much you get up go to work fly come back to your room and go to sleep and sometime during the day you are lucky to be able to grab a few meals and take a shower and get some laundry done. Then the next day arrives and you do it all over again.

Well I am going to close this one for now, I want to try to put some pictures and video up that I took the other day. I will try to get back on later though and talk about what has been going on with our missions a little bit or as much as I can talk about, till then night all

Busy Busy

Nights are going well. I have been flying pretty much and that as you all know helps the time pass more quickly. The night missions are usually a little more deliberate and that leads to us capturing or disposing of, a lot of bad guys. I spend most of my free time watching all of the TV shows that I have never watched and that in itself helps the time pass quickly too. It’s starting to get pretty hot over here, I am glad that I am on the night shift I am usually getting ready for bed around 09:00 to 10:00 and its all ready getting hot.

I am really looking forward to going home this July for some me time and I can’t wait till July first gets here. I think we are planning on Marie and the kids picking me up in Atlanta and driving to Cincy the same day. We will spend a few days up home and then we don’t know what we will do. But whatever it is I am sure it will be nice.

I got onto face book today and I had a friend request from Elli so of course I accepted it and now we are friends. I am sure that she will enjoy keeping up with all of her friends and family on there just like the rest of the world. It really is amazing how easy it is to communicate these days, with computers and internet and all the other advancements that we have in technology. I can’t even imagine how hard it must have been in past wars for Soldiers to wait for snail mail to find out how their loved ones are and not be able to ever talk to them till they got home. I am lucky to have the internet and telephone in my room not that they work 100% of the time but at least I have them. I was able to catch up with Marie and the kids a few days back and they all sounded great. I am not on schedule tonight so I think I am going to go into work and make some calls home later too. I have to get a little paper work done but for the most part I will just relax tonight and have a bit of me time.

As for Afghanistan, not to many changes, the people are still trying to make this place a better place to live and there are still some bad guys out there that want nothing to do with any of that. I notice as I fly around that many of the town centers have more and more new construction like schools and municipal buildings. I am sure there is a lot of work over here in the construction fields. It really is amazing how many contractor workers are over here. I have a good friend who is over here flying old Russian Helicopters the money is really good but there is always that risk factor. I don’t know if I would ever be interested in contract flying once I retire or not but I am sure a half million dollar contract really makes you think. My Buddy retired a couple of years back as a CW4 and he bought a cattle ranch out in Texas his home state. I think his plan was just to do this for a couple of years to pay everything off, I wish him the best. Well like I said in earlier post this country is really going green with crops and its starting to look less like a third world country. It’s still not much to look at but I like it a little bit more than a month or so ago. Well I think I will close for now and try to get to that paperwork but I will try to get on later and see what new pictures I have to up load, night all

Spring is in the Air

It’s just about half way over, give or take a week or so. Things have been pretty normal around here for the past few weeks. We have been busy with missions all over the place and we have been doing really well in the sense that we are continuing to round up bad guys and taking out some trash. I have been staying pretty busy with flying and doing some additional work as our master gunner but mostly flying. I think this country will continue to surprise me this summer as it continues to heat up temperature wise. I was told to expect 120s or so and I am really not looking forward to that at all. I think I am totally adjusted to my new shift and it’s actually nice to fly nights it’s a little cooler and I have always enjoyed flying system. Afghanistan is starting to green up a little and it reminds me of Korea a little in that when I first got to Korea it was late fall and once I started to fly around Korea all I saw were dirt fields and filth everywhere and then spring was just around the corner and all the fields turned green and the country became really pretty. Accept for all the bad guys out there Afghanistan is starting to remind me of exactly that, the same thing I remember from Korea. I would much rather be in Korea, I had a good tour there that year. That year started with me and Dad going to Hawaii and a few months later I had a good friend there with me so all in all it was a pretty good year.

We are being told that 1-3 AVN is not on the books at all for future deployments. What this means to me? Well I am in 1-3 AVN and this would mean that I might not be going anywhere for a few years or so. I left for Korea in 2005 and since that time I have been gone so much from home that I will really look forward to a chance to spend some great time with Marie and the Kids. I was in Korea for a year and then it was off to 351 TSBN “training support Battalion” in Savannah which I thought would be great except for the fact that I spent so much time TDY “temporary duty” I mean I lived in an apartment by myself in Atlanta for almost 10 months. Needless to say over the last 6 years I have been gone way way to much and when I heard that we will be in Savannah for at least two years or more it put a big smile on my face. I like Savannah, we have a nice house and the kids are in a great school doing really well what more could I ask for. A boat you say? Well that might be nice, but not really necessary. I do however want to become one with Savannah once I get home I mean there is so much to do down town and you all know how much I like to eat out. I was told by a friend that down on river street there are over two hundred restaurants within two miles and I want to eat at all of them. I am really looking forward to getting my life back and enjoying the simple things and cherishing the things that matter most to me. Life is short, I say this all the time and I truly believe it. I will be forty five next year and there are some things on my list that I want to do. I do not want to try anything crazy but a few of the things I want to try will not be so easy once I am a little older so why wait right. I have about five and a half years till I can retire and that means that I will need to start preparing for that too. I was told that I would be able to retire in Savannah if that is what I wanted and I am ok with this but I sometimes wonder if we might just have one more PCS “permanent change of station” in us. Of course this would have to be something the entire family would have to agree on and I think I would get voted off the island if I tried to suggest this. And part of me totally understands, I mean this place has been home for three and a half years now and I think my girls are getting pretty tight with their friends and I know that Robby is too. I sometimes think about their child hoods as compared to mine and I am at odds with the pros and cons. I mean on one hand they have seen the world, but on the other none of them have any child hood school friends. And to see them all enjoying their friends now I just don’t think I could ever do it again.

But as for me I am sure I will have another one year tour somewhere. I mean I have five and a half years to go I am sure I will be going somewhere. I will try to go to a place that I want to go to. We have assignments in Egypt, Germany, Korea, Netherlands and a few other places that aren’t at war so I will have to see what I can do. Well I need to get off here so I can get to bed I try to go to bed around 09:00 to 10:00 so I can get up at 17:00 or so for diner chow. Till next time try to enjoy the simple things in life, night all

Busy on Nights

Well for starters I have been extremely busy these last few weeks. We now have people going home on mid tour leave and that has taken a toll on our pilot strength. We are running three shifts now and we just don’t have enough pilots so we are all working a bit harder but it gives us some flexibility to adjust fire when we have to. On average I am flying six days a week and that is working out pretty well except for all the other stuff I have to cover down on. But I am sure that I will survive and I am sure everything will work out fine.

We have been doing pretty well these last few weeks as far as missions are concerned. We have rounded up pretty many HVTs and we are starting to see a shift in trouble makers in our AO. A few nights ago we did an infill thirty miles from Salerno or so and the spec ops reported a couple of squirters that we needed to hunt down for them. A squirter is a possible enemy combatant exiting an objective area that we are allowed to use non lethal containment fires on. On this night I was the AMC and I directed my wing man to follow the squirter that went north east and I took the one that went south west. We followed them for a good ways and talked the spec ops guys on to their location. Our ground assets fired some warning shots on the first guy and he stopped so they could detain him. My guy was a little harder to stop, for one thing he ran pretty quick and got some pretty good separation from our ground assets. So we elected to fire some warning shots, at which time he threw his hands up and was ready to surrender. Only one problem though the good guys were still 600 meters or so from his position and after standing there with his hands up for a while he decided to start running again. But buy now our guys were within 150 meters or so and they turned the K-9 loose the dog did a B line straight to the bad guy and took him to the ground. And as it turned out this was our guy, this was the HVT that we were out here to capture, and we got him. It’s nice to be able to do a deliberate mission and actually get your guy.

As for me I am doing well trying to keep a positive attitude and be part of the solution and not be part of the problem. We have a lot of people that need to be reminded that we are here to do a difficult job and now that we are almost half way through our deployment some are getting a little complacent and we need to keep a close eye on each other and do what’s right. I find myself giving little pep talks almost every day and I am ok with doing that but sometimes I just wish that people would just man up and do what they know is right.

I just started to watch the new HBO miniseries called the Pacific and I think it will be just as good as Band of Brothers. I can totally relate to how those guys must have felt back then and I look at my tour here in Afghanistan and I think to myself wow how lucky I am to have what I have. This is nothing like what it would have been like during WW2 or Vietnam I have internet in my private room and three hot meals a day if I want them. I am living pretty well all things considered, I mean we have a PX where I can buy just about everything I need not necessarily everything I want but what I need is usually there. I guess about the only thing that any of us would have in common with the guys from WW2 is what we deal with emotionally. I mean some things don't change it can troubling at times and quite difficult to deal with. Between getting shelled every few nights and what you are asked to do for your Country not to mention the family separation and just the fact that you will be missing out on an entire year of your life not to mention a year of your families lives. It’s a lot to deal with some times and you need to try to keep a level head and think things through. I try to think about it from a child’s perspective, I think to myself what would life be like for the kids over here if we were not here trying to help them. I see all the good we are doing, I see the new schools, I see the new business centers in the small villages and I know that we are making a difference. They want change, they want to be able to live in freedom and go about their own lives without the fear of being killed for no reason what so ever. I talk to my friends at the market and they tell me stories all the time of what changes they are seeing in their towns. They want our help and they no longer want to live in fear, they want to work and they want to have families and be able to raise their children to be new free Afghan's. It is so sad to think about what opportunities their kids will be lucky to have that our kids take for granted, we are so lucky.

I will be flying for the next three nights and I hope that we have good weather for all of our missions. I am waiting for the rainy season to hit and I just keep waiting, it’s only rained about four times since I have been here. I was expecting Monsoons from what I heard from some of my friends that we replaced when I got here. Well for now I must cut this post off I need to go to the office and try to make some calls, night all

Simple Mission, Not

Well I have been on nights now for a week or so and I am finally getting use to the schedule. I try to go to bed as soon as I get off shift and get up for diner chow around 18:00 or so. Tonight we had steak so I guess its Friday and I fly tonight and I am off tomorrow so I am in a pretty good mood. I am sure we will have a deliberate operation tonight like all the other nights I have flown on this shift. Last night’s mission was pretty funny we launched at 03:00 in the morning to go and exfill two HVTs from an area that we in filled the other night. It should have been an easy exfill, escort two UH-60s with two detainee teams one on each 60 into an HLZ that we went into the other night and grab the HVTs and head back to Salerno. Well not so much, it was a red alum night so I had to climb a bit to shoot a couple of IR rockets to help the UH-60 drivers see where they were going. We shot IR rockets about 3000 feet above the HLZ “helicopter landing zone” and they deploy IR flares from the rockets with a parachute and slow fall for about 2 minutes or so giving off illumination so the UH-60 pilots can see better with their night vision goggles. I don’t need this illumination in my aircraft because all I need is heat and we always have heat. So back to my story, I shoot the rockets, light up the HLZ and when the UH-60s are on short final to the HLZ for landing a call comes over the radio that the two detainees’ have escaped. So our easy escort mission turns into a search and recovery mission for the next four hours. I broke station after a refuel stop and additional time of about four hours to RTB “return to base” to Salerno, I never did find out if they eventually found their HVT but while I was there they did uncover some buried weapons and hand grenades. So overall we at least accomplished something.

I got a couple of packages in the mail this week and just wanted to say thanks to all that sent them. It was really nice of all of you to go out of your way and do that for me, Thanks. I am looking forward to my mid tour and it can’t get here quick enough. It’s hard to believe that in a few short weeks I will have been here six months already. Time is going by pretty quick and even quicker when I am flying every day. I will be home in less than 90 days for my mid tour and Marie and I are still trying to figure out what to do with the time. I think we may go to Cincinnati first for a bit and then end up in Savannah for the rest of it and just to spend time together her and I and the Kids. Whatever we decide to do I just hope the time does not go by too quickly. Well unfortunately it is time for me to get off here and go fly so until next time, night all