Master Gunner

Yesterday I was on QRF and flew 4 hours doing several kinds of missions and for the most part it was a good day. At the end of my day I was told that I would be taking over the Task Force Master Gunners position and that I should get with our current MG and pick his brain for our upcoming Gunnery. So that is what I spent all day doing, exactly that getting familiar with our upcoming gunnery plan. Funny thing is my last gunnery was in Korea in 2005. And seeing how gunnery is an annual thing that puts me a little out of currency if you know what I mean. On a positive note though, this will give me the opportunity to take a Task Force position. Which will give me opportunities to do a great job and earn a better officer evaluation report. This job however comes with much accompanied work, you see our Task Force is made up of four different types of aircraft and as you can imagine the gunneries are very different. All I know is I need to get my arms around this and make it the best product I can. I will have other instructor pilots that I can use to help me turn it in to a great training event so I am sure it will all work out just fine.

I am not on the flight schedule for two more days so I have some time to think about my new job and get a jump on it. One other thing that came with that job is I will be moving to the night shift starting next week. I will work from 22:30 till noon the next day so I will have to see how that affects my schedule as for calling home and getting on here and posting to my blog. I really don’t think it will be a problem it’s just that I will have to figure out all the timing.

Well I read in one of Maries e-mails from home that my wonderful pool cover bit the dust. I was really sad when I heard this news I was really hoping that it would hold out till after the winter and obviously that was not the case. Sorry Marie, I wish I could be there to fix it. I know you have a lot on your plate and it really bummed me out when I found out that it was caved in. Next year I promise you that you will not have to lift a finger to keep the pool covered and taken care of. So much for me trying to get a patent on that wonderful pool cover idea. I guess I will stick with flying Helicopters and taking care of my wonderful wife and kids.

Can anyone guess what I am doing right now? You guessed it I am sitting here listening to my iPod looking at pictures on my other laptop pecking away at my blog. This blog is really cool I think everybody should start one. If I had it all to do over again the only thing I think I would have changed would be to pick a crazy name for it that could never be searched and keep it private to only my closest family and friends which for that most part that is exactly what I have with this one. But I could have made it much harder to look for on the World Wide Web. I could have called it !QASW@#EDFR$ and trust me not to many people would ever find it there.

It’s looking like we are still on the schedule to come out of Afghanistan this coming November. I might even be getting replaced by a good friend coming out of Fort Drum. It’s hard to believe that I have all ready knocked out 25 percent of my tour three months almost down and nine to go. As the Master Gunner I might have to stay an extra week or so but nothing to crazy. Just long enough to do a good hand off to the next unit that is coming over here to replace us. As for where you would want to deploy to if you had to come to Afghanistan? You guessed it, FOB Salerno; this place has all the best things a FOB can offer to include the weather. I have friends in all the other FOBs and all of them would agree, Sal is where it’s at. This winter has been nicer than the weather Marie and the kids have had in Savannah. It’s in the 70s every day some days it’s even hotter which is crazy for 4000 feet above sea level in the mountains.

Well as for what I am doing to pass the time on my off days I am happy to report that I am almost done with all of the HBO and Showtime series that Joe gave me like Weeds and How I met your Mother. Although Bob just gave me a new one called Firefly but there is just one Season, so those won’t take long. Well it’s not too late but I want to try to make some more phone calls tonight so I am going to cut this one off for now, till next time, Night all

Just another quick note

I put this picture up tonight to honor all of my new friends that come from all over our Country and I am so proud to serve with each and every one of them, and I just wanted to add that. Night all

Where to begin? Today was one of two days off in a row, sweet. Tomorrow I will try to get done everything that I need done for the rest of the week paper work wise and then it will be another quick week for me. Time is going by pretty quick these days I am finally adjusting to a normal routine here. I fly pretty often and we have many missions that we perform and support and I do feel like we are making a difference over here.

Last night I talked to Marie for over an hour and it felt like it was ten minutes. So I will try to call her again tonight as soon as I am done on here and after I post one picture of some of my friends to my blog. I have to Photo Shop it first to remove all the names but I wanted you to all see some of the people that I work with. They are great Americans and I am lucky to be serving with them here in Afghanistan. We are all from Savannah some of the other airframes we have here are from other places but as for Gun Pilots and Crew Chiefs we are all from Savannah Georgia and missing it a lot. Cincinnati will always be my home town but my true home will always be wherever Marie and the Kids are. And for hopefully the next 6 years or so home will be Savannah Georgia. Go Sand Knats! I can’t wait to get home and try to take Marie and the kids to a few more games. We have lived there for over a year and we went to my first game shortly before I left and it was a blast. Cost us next to nothing and we all had a great time and needless to say I want to do so much more of that with my family. Life is so short kids grow so fast and people change so quickly I don’t want to miss anything else. I promise all of you this; from this day forward I will try to do all the things that I have said I will never try for whatever reason. That I will never say no to things that do not appeal to me and I will encourage my wife and kids to live each day as if it could be our last. We life in the best Country on the planet and we need to see all of it. I want to see the red wood trees and I want to show them to my family and everything else that is amazing and unique in our Country. And then and only then once we have been to all four corners of the US we will travel abroad and take in all the great things that this world has to offer. When I am old and grey and my life is close to its end I will never say I wish that I could have done that. Now is the time to go and see and do all of the things that I want to do.

Well once again I sit down here to talk about my day in Afghanistan and I go off on a tangent about the first thing that pops into my mind. Not that there is anything wrong about planning future events and thinking about what you want to do with the rest of your life after the Army. Because I am pretty sure that after 32 years of keeping a short hair cut serving in the Army I owe it to myself to make some plans. Alright on that note and the fact that I type so damn slow its after 23:00 and I need to get off of here and upload the picture I took of all my new combat buddies that I am spending time with this year in OEF. Night all

Steak and Movie day

Once again I sit here listening to my iPod and typing away at this blog that has really helped me pass the time. Last night we had a lot of excitement here at my FOB, we had some indirect fire and an attempt to get onto the FOB. Needless to say I missed it all because I sometimes sleep like a rock and apparently I slept through the big voice messages and all the sirens. But fortunately no one was hurt and no one was able to breach our FOB so all is good. Although I will have to figure out a way to get someone to wake me up in the event that something really bad happens here on my FOB.

I was not on the flight schedule today and I did absolutely nothing today but eat and watch movies and I don’t feel guilty at all. And besides today is Friday and you all know what that means, it was Steak Night. Dinner was great tonight not to mention they finally got Silk Soy milk in the chow hall and needless to say I have been stocking up. I have about ten cartons and I plan to get more until they run out again which hopefully will not be too soon.

I would like to say that I was glad to receive all the e-mails and Face Book notes from all my friends and family on my birthday it made it a little easier to be in this place and for that, I thank you all. This morning we took a company photo out on the flight line in front of one of the Aircraft needless to say I was glad to have my good camera and so where all of my friends. I have a couple of new friends here that I am sure that I will keep in touch with for the rest of my life. They are amazing people and I am lucky to have them as friends. This place really does something to you, I think it’s a matter of the fact that we are all away from our loved ones and we are all here because we want to be here. Yea I know I am here because the Army said Rob we need you in Afghanistan pack your bags. But that is only half of it I picked this life it did not chose me. The Army has been good to me and my family. I know what some of you are thinking though and you are right, there are a lot of hardships but there are hardships with everything we do and experience in life. Most are based on the decisions that we make and the direction we turn. Life has many ups and downs and as easy as it would be to think that this would be one of my downs it’s not. Yes I miss my wife and my three kids and yes I am 8000 miles from them and home. But in many ways I feel so much closer to them because I know that someday soon they will all look back at this time in their lives when their Dad was over in Afghanistan trying to make a difference that they too will believe in. They might not see that right now but some day I know they will. And as for my wife, she already knows and she has always supported me more than any wife could and for that I am truely blessed. I sometimes felt that I was sitting on the bench since that morning when the twin towers came down when I was at Rucker. I have lost many good friends to this war and a few good students I had when I was at Fort Rucker. I am proud to be here right now and I hope that we can bring this war to a close real soon. I don’t ever want to go and say good bye to anyone else that I have served with in the Army ever again.

Wow this post really took a downer and I need to put some air back into it. Have I mentioned that the weather here all winter has never gotten below 60 or so? I have two boxes of all this arctic super cold weather gear that I really need to pack up and ship home to Marie. When I packed at the house in Savannah I just didn’t know what the weather would be like here. And Supply was dishing out all of this super cold weather gear and we just all figured that we were going to freeze our asses off over here. I am so glad that it’s not the case I really have been getting spoiled living in the south. I was told by my career manager that if I would go to 1-3 Aviation that I would never have to call him again. That I could stay in Savannah until I retire in 2016. It’s hard to believe that I am getting so close, it seems like it was just yesterday that Marie, Robby, Shirley and I were off for Germany for my first duty station. That was May of 1998 and it was one of the best days in my life. I remember working at my dead end city job at the bus company thinking that surely there has to be more in store for me in my life than this. All I remember is that I seemed to live for the days when I could be a National Guard Bum and go flying with all of friends from Shelbyville. And occasionally I even got to car pool from Ohio to Indiana with my brother, the best crew chief I ever had the privilege of flying with. Had no Idea it would take me 18 years to get a proper salute out of him, but I did. I was in Oklahoma training National Guard units for deployments to OIF and OEF his was one of them. During our time there I got my orders for Chief Warrant officer Four and asked my Brother to promote me. So he was able to get a day off from his training for war to come over and Pin his little brother. After they read my promotion orders my brother Pinned my new rank on my uniform and then he gave me my fist salute and then we both got a little choked up and I said a few words and a few weeks after that he was off to Iraq. Ten months later I would be off for Afghanistan, He and I together have almost sixty years of service to the United States Army and within ten months we would both be combat veterans.

I find it amazing how I can’t seem to keep my thoughts focused long enough to stay on topic for just one paragraph. I am sure that this Blog will be hard to follow ten years from now when I am retired with nothing to do during the day when Marie is at work (just kidding Honey"and the kids are at school. I look forward to looking at this years from now and bringing back all of these memories some wonderful and others not so much. But like I always say the Army is only as good as its people, and we have some great people over here. Well guys its getting late and I need to put this one to bed, night all

Two Pictures

Tonight my post will be short, all I want to do is thank everyone for all the e-mails and Face book wishes for my birthday. And second put up a couple of pictures which might take a little while because I don't want to shrink them to my normal little size. I want to leave them pretty good size so they can be seen. The second picture is yours truly and the first is a picture of a picture that is in our chow hall. This picture breaks my heart every time I look at it, to see so many kids in a line trying to appear happy waving flags yet their faces and their eyes are filled with despair. Like I said it breaks my heart, every time I look at it I think of my own kids, how different their lives could be just based on geography and where they were born. It hits me pretty hard sometimes seeing the looks on their faces knowing what their lives will amount to. And what possible future they might have here in this country, they are just kids. I really miss mine and I can't wait to see them and tell them how much I love them, night all

B-Day

Today was my B-Day and no one here new. When I got on face book I had many well wishers, and again when I got on my e-mail. But here in Salerno Afghanistan no one knew it was my special day and as much as I didn’t think it would bother me, it did. I did get some mail today; I received a package from Deb and Russ. Thanks for the X-Mas DVD it was really nice to see the family enjoying the holidays it made my day a little nicer. Deb you have a nice touch for putting videos together you did a real nice job. It was nice to see everyone on it and really nice to see Uncle Bob he looked good. I am going to try to call Marie and the kids tonight after I finish with this post and talk to the kids and hopefully get to talk to all of them. I am not on the flight schedule tomorrow so I can stay up extra late and try to talk to Elli too. I am going to keep this post short so I can call home, night all

Almost forgot

Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday dear Bob, Happy Birthday to me, night all

Short Flight

Tonight was the shortest flight I have had in a very long time, .8 tenths of an hour. It started out well until my front seater told me that she could not see anything because her Helmet was not fitted correctly. This can be a big problem when you consider that we fly around in the dark with no lights on and only see things with our right eye. So needless to say we returned to parking and called for some help to meet us at our aircraft. They came out and tried to properly fit her helmet to no avail. So I called tower asked for cold gas and terminated our training flight. Cold gas for those of you who don’t know means that refuelers will bring a fuel truck to our aircraft and refuel it after we shut down. Unlike hot gas which means that we will fly to the FARP pad and they will refuel us with engines and rotors turning at 100%. Not as safe as cold gas but sometimes we don’t have the time to shut all the way down. So after we shut down and did our paperwork it was off to chow. And boy was chow good tonight, prime rib and barbecued ribs and all sorts of wonderful deserts. It was a holiday meal for MLK day and I was glad not to miss it. Funny how things worked out, if she would have not had helmet issues we would have flown right through dinner.

Tomorrow I will try the same flight we will launch at the same time and do the same training and probably in the same aircraft. Some things don’t change too much and I like it when things are a little bit predictable. I watched a good movie tonight I can’t remember the name of it and I already let Joe borrow it and he is in his room with his headphones on so he can’t even hear me asking him what it was called. It was about a 14 year old girl who was killed by her neighbor and she spends the entire movie between worlds, not on earth but not yet in heaven it was pretty good. It was another 1.6 hours that I did not have to spend here in Afghanistan. I have been equating everything to this lately, like the more I sleep the less time I have to spend here and the more time I spend watching movies and TV series the less time that I am actually in Afghanistan. I know I know, this makes no sense but you have to look at it from my side and when it’s all about counting down the days it makes it a little easier to deal with when you still have so many days to count. Tonight I sit here not listening to music but typing and watching my favorite slide show and doing a little reminiscing about old times. Marie some of your old pictures are too cute, I am glad that we scanned so many in I just wish that we would have gotten all of them done. We still have so many slides and pictures to scan in to digital I want to get them all done as soon as I get home. We might even have to outsource the project if it gets too big. I have been taking a lot of pictures and video over here and I try to back it up often because of all the dust and dirt in the air. I would be devastated if something were to happen to my pictures and video before I got home. Most of them are irreplaceable, and I would hate to lose any of them.

Marie you were too cute as a little kid, I see that our parents shopped at the same store for our gym shoes when we were little. I wonder what our kids would say if you bought their gym shoes from K-Mart, I think our 13 year old would go to school barefooted. It’s amazing how things like that just did not matter back then, or maybe it did but we just did not care. I am looking at pictures of Robby when he was a baby and all I can remember is how much fun it was to have him in our lives. His first everything’s and how darn cute he was. We also had lots of pictures of him with his Grandpa; I wish we could have had more of Grandpa in the girl’s photo albums. But The Army took us away from Cincy and thus away from Gramps. Thank goodness Dad was retired and liked to travel if it weren’t for him coming to visit all the time the Girls would have not been able to know him at all. I would like to try to get home from here on out and spend more time with both sides no matter how difficult it can be sometimes when we do it. We owe it to our kids to try to keep them in touch with their relatives the best we can. And you know me our house is always open to whoever wants to come down for a visit. And it doesn’t hurt that we live 30 minutes from one of the southeast coast best vacation spots. I also want to throw some serious pool parties next summer too, as much as I fought not to get a pool put in the back yard I can actually say that I really enjoy having a pool in the yard. Wow once again I get on here trying to talk about what is going on in my life here in Afghanistan and I am pulled to a magical place that I like to call home, Savannah Ga. Well to close, the weather here in Salerno Afghanistan once again today was dry and a high of 70+ and I can’t complain. However I am hearing from some of the contractors that have been here for a year or so that this summer will be HOT, did I mention that it will be HOT, HOT HOT HOT. Oh well I will just have to adjust and get use to it, hopefully there will be no sand knats like in Savannah. Alright I need to get off here and get some sleep tomorrow will be another busy day, night all

On my mind

My day started off like a normal off day, I sleep late get up go get a shower and then off to chow. After chow I drop by the office to see if there are any changes to the flight schedule before I go back to my room to post to my blog or watch a movie. I walk in and look at the board to see my name in big red letters Rob we need you to fly tonight and put 6 hours on the aircraft so we can do scheduled maintenance on it. I will take off in two hours, not that it is a problem but it’s hard to switch gears sometimes. I woke up thinking I would have a nice day off to do a few records and catch up on some me time, duty calls. So I go and round up my two RL progression flight pilots and off we go to the airfield to do our training. I fly Jen first for three point two hours and except for our first couple of patterns it was a good flight. On our first landing tower calls us to let us know that we have a lot of tracer fire behind us on short final. I called them back and said I would take a better look on our next go around and off we went. I looked at all of the mud huts on short final and I did not see anyone outside so I continued my training with no more distractions I am sure it was just someone taking some random pot shots. It was already dark and we fly completely blacked out so they were just shooting at noise. So anyway Paul was second up and he and I flew out to our gunnery range and did some shooting, we fired about 100 rounds of 30mm and 10 rockets. After this flight he progressed to his next RL level and all said and done I ended up with 5.8 hours for the night. I am on the schedule for 6 days next week and only two of them are training flights so it will be a little more interesting to say the least.

So here I sit once again in my room listening to my iPod and typing to my blog. I think I am really getting into getting on here and talking about whatever comes up in my day. I just wish that I could truly talk about whatever I wanted and didn’t have to think about what I was talking about. Some things are off the table for obvious reasons and as for pictures I have so many that I just can’t post for safety reasons. I spent about twenty minutes the other day on Photoshop labeling a aerial picture that I took of our fob to show everyone the lay out and then it hit me that if this were to fall into the wrong hands it shows the entire layout of where everything is and I can’t post this. So everyone will just have to take my word that things are exactly where I say they are.

After my flight last night I was not feeling too well so I came back to my room and took some Tylenol and lay down and that was it I was out till about 0530. I never wake up this early it was a sign, so I turned on the computer and hooked up my magic jack and called home. I got to talk to Elli and that was nice I have not talked to her for about a week and I really needed a fix from my little one. I talked to all of my girls but I did not talk to Robby I am sure he was busy playing a game or his guitar. I can’t wait till I get home and I can hear him play live from my living room. Marie says he spends a lot of time on it and I am so glad to hear that, we bought it right before I left for OEF. And I was glad to hear that it was a hit Christmas morning for him.

Chow tonight was pretty good they had one of my favorite, chicken corden blue and it was great. When Marie and I were in Germany we use to go to this little Italian restaurant in Bad Windsheim our home town and Franco would make it for me it was awesome. I Loved Germany, the time I spent there with Marie and our kids is time I will never forget. It was our first active duty assignment and it was amazing. I remember all our trips like they were yesterday, Holland, Poland, England, Italy, Czech republic, France, Switzerland and the list goes on. We took so many trips over there many by ourselves and many with family and friends. When I get home from this place I want to take many more I want to see everything this world has to offer. I want to see everything, and I want to take my family with me to see everything. I would really like to take the entire family on a trip to China, although I was only there for a week it was one of my most memorable vacations, the people were so genuine and friendly you would have never thought that you were in a communist country. I hiked the great wall and I walked in Summer Palace it was truly amazing. And the only thing that could have made that trip is if Marie and the kids could have been there. I wish more than anything else in the whole world that I could have shared all my trips and adventures with them. So that many years from now when we reminisce I will never have to say that I was not there for that or you were not with me for that. All right I got pretty far off topic tonight but this is just what popped into my mind tonight so, it is what it is, night all

CH-47 Chase

My first CH-47 escort mission today and it went well. Only flew 3.7 hours which is light on flight time usually they are between 5 and 7 hours. We flew all over the place moving parts and pieces to many of the small outpost that cannot be resupplied by truck or cargo plane. Some of these outposts really made me thankful of my accommodations I will try not to complain anymore. Many of them were other than US military, not to say they were ANA or ANP just that they were not US Army or Marine enough on that.

Well once again I sit here listening to my iPod and watching my slide show on my big laptop. I guess it’s as close to home as I can get right now. It’s looking like I will be home sometime in Aug for my mid tour. Still have no idea what we are going to do when I get home for my mid tour but I know it will be epic, sky’s the limit.

My entire family is back to school now and it sounds like they are all doing well and I knew that before they did. Marie is trying to maintain here 4.0 GPA and I have no doubt that she will do this with style. I am counting on her to get her degree done and get a nice job so that when I retire I can sit around the house and catch up on some of this time that I am missing with my kids. I am sure I will go back to work eventually but I will take at least a year off just for me, to be selfish with my kids. It never gets any easier hearing stories about what happens with my kids and then figuring out that I was gone at that time and missed yet another significant event in their lives. It sucks, again I am not complaining, for the most part compared to many of my friends here I am lucky. I was there for the births of all three, only missed a few Christmases and thanks to my family I have been lucky enough not to miss too many weddings.

Wow that was a long break, I sat here looking at pictures of Robby when he was about 2 to 3 years old and got sucked right in. Needless to say that boy was too cute and what a sharp little dresser he was. Marie you are such a great Mom and our kids are so lucky to have you. I am lucky to be able to go out on a mission and know that my family, my kids are in such good hands. I see so many people over here dealing with so many problems from home, thinking to myself how hard it must be for them to stay focused on their jobs and what they have to accomplish over here. Thanks for all the help Household 6, thanks for having my back.

I am off tomorrow and then I work seven days straight, so tomorrow I will try to enjoy myself and maybe even take a nap after lunch. I went to the Hajji mart and bought a few movies to watch, Whip-It and Case 39. Two for 3 bucks you really can’t go wrong and most of them are DVD quality. Well it looks like I am running out of things to talk about so I guess I will call it a night, Night all

Thinking of home

Internet was down yesterday and it took me a little while to figure that small fact out. But hey its up and running today so here I sit preparing for tomorrows flights with my two star pupils. Not really that part is done I am actually sitting here listening to my iPod typing away on my new found stress reliever, my blog. I was not on the schedule today however last night I put over 6 hours on my two pilots trying to get them ready to be made RL2. Once they are readiness level 2 I will not be the only one who has to fly them they will be worked into the mission mix and go off and do wonderful things for God and country. Don’t misunderstand I am not feeding them to the wolves they will still have to fly with an IP but there are three of us and no matter how you slice it I will be back on missions. Missions are why we are here, we are here to do a job actually we are here to do many jobs but missions are our most important jobs.

Well while I was out in the traffic pattern last night I noticed that we have many wild animals in our AO “area of operation” one of my friends even saw a lion. Or at least that is what he claims he saw and that’s his story and he is sticking to it. As for me I have seen camels, hyenas, goats, cows, donkeys and too many dogs to count. The wild dogs are all over this country I mean ALL OVER this country. Great song, Clapton, I really like Clapton. So anyway I did a little shooting last night, not much to talk about there all I can say is the gun was a tack driver, point and shoot. Rockets on the other hand were a little off it took me a few shots to get them dialed in. The Apache is such an awesome aircraft most of the time just our presence in a hostile area causes an immediate cease fire and bad guys to scatter into the hills. I just wish that we could be everywhere all the time and keep more of our guys safe. It’s amazing how many letters we get from all the ground units that we support telling us how much safer they feel when they hear us inbound to their position. One of the hardest jobs we have is working with the ground units they are usually pretty pumped up with adrenaline from whatever they just had going on to get us there in the first place and then to try to talk us onto whatever it is that they have observed. For instance “they are 300 meters to the west of our vehicle” OK we are looking at 15 vehicles all over the place in almost every direction can you try to be a little more specific. Although hot spots running from IEDs or VBIEDs are pretty easy to spot with the flir “forward looking infer red”. The longbow has an awesome FLIR system on it we see so well at night, we own the night.

Enough on all of that time to thank my sister Deb, I spent a little time last night watching Dad’s DVD and thinking about him and his life. I know I have not been the best pen pal to most of you and for that I apologize truly I do. I know that I owe many of you an e-mail or two and I will try to get to it I really will. Just not tonight, tonight I am going to try to make a few more phone calls and talk to some of the people that I have not talked to for some time. The other night I called my brother, we had a nice chat I am glad he is home safe and sound with his family. Time to put that Masters Degree to work Bill; you need to enjoy some of the good life. But I want you to know how proud of you I am. You had every reason not to go, you had so many hurtles thrown in front of you and yet you deployed anyway. Your sleeping disorder your hearing problems and who knows what else you got going on that you won’t tell anybody about. But you went, and not even with your buddies. I know you wanted to crew and you would have been awesome, I know how you feel, I don’t think I could be here if I was not flying. Bill you served our Country honorably in this time of need with so many health reasons not to, thanks Brother. Rest assured Bill, I’ve got the fight and I will try to pick up where you left off. I know Dad is proud of both of us, Night Dad

CXL which means canceled

Ok it starts like this; I get up and prepare myself for another long day. I walk to the shower room which is about a 100 yard walk no big deal except its closed for cleaning, so I walk to the standby shower and luckily its open. After a nice hot shower, brush the chops and a shave I head back to my room to get dressed for work. After I get dressed I head to the chow hall for lunch which happens to be my breakfast since I never get up before 10:00 and our real breakfast is over at 08:00. So I scarf down some quick chow and head to the office to meet up with my two pilots that I will be flying today. We go over some paperwork and do a quick brief and talk about what we will accomplish today. I tell them that I will meet them out at the aircraft for a preflight as soon as I gather my flight gear from my office. We meet up at the aircraft and start with the preflight which is like looking over your car really closely you know check the oil, tire pressure, hydraulic pressure’s, rotor blades, push pull tubes, all fluid levels, all flight surfaces you get the picture. After we finish our preflight and start setting up our crew stations, our head maintainer comes out to let me know that the aircraft has too many hours on it and my training flight has been canceled. So we grab our stuff which takes a while, because you have to get all your stuff out of your crew station, like my M4 rifle and my Go Bag which has extra clips and some first aid items like super clot bandages and tourniquets, and the rest of my flight gear, helmet, knee board, etc. etc. So after all this time it’s back to my office for some table talk and classes with the two pilots. I have had to adjust my table talk quite a bit over here; there are so many things that just don’t apply in this situation and this environment. Needless to say no more talk of national airspace and more talk of how to shoot move and communicate when times are more than stressful responding to a TIC “troops in contact”. We fly differently over here too, approaches are faster and steeper and we fly around loaded all the time. Back in the states when the aircraft is armed you are at gunnery and there are so many extra precautions when working near, around and with the aircraft. And for the most part none of that applies over here, don’t get me wrong it’s not like we are getting complacent because we are definitely not it’s just that you get so use to the aircraft being loaded at all times you are more in tune with what needs to be done. You see back in the states we are lucky if we shoot twice a year during our gunneries and over here we shoot almost every time we go out. OK where was I in my story of what my typical day is like, al yea after we were done talking we were told that the SOF team was here to give us a brief. Sorry SOF “special operations forces” their brief was Secret no foreign closed door you know the deal, pretty typical. We work with them all the time over here; remember my job when I am not training new people is to fly missions in support of ground forces over here. And their missions are comprised of such a broad spectrum of operations that I can’t even go into that I will leave that right there. So back to the office to get some more paper work done because you just can’t document things well enough for some people if you know what I mean. Well after a couple of hours doing exactly that a couple of friends came by to let me know they were going to the chow hall for dinner, so off we went. Saturday night chow is not steak night but it was ok, they had some of my favorites so I was not complaining at all. On the way to chow I stopped by my room to get my grocery store fleece jacket. My fleece jacket has some big pockets so I can raid the cooler and grab some drinks for my fridge and gather some snacks for my room.

Back to the office, I stayed till about 21:00 and called it a night. Everything I did not get done I will do tomorrow before I go fly. I was told that tomorrow I will have priority on aircraft and we will be able to fly our 6 hours. I am trying to get one pilot done so he can be shipped out to another FOB, The Boss wants him progressed here and then sent to the other FOB. So he is my priority I am trying to get him done as soon as I can I know how I would feel if I was in a place that I knew that I would not be staying at. I hope to stay right here so I have made my room as nice as I can with make shift furniture and carpets and a fridge and what not where Paul on the other hand is still living out of his bags. Well that is how a typical non flying day goes, as for days that I am flying it all depends on what I am doing, whether or not I am on a deliberate mission in support of a ground asset, QRF or if I am doing training flights.

Well I kind of ran off at the mouth on this one, it’s amazing what listening to music can do to the creative side of your brain I just get all gabby. Now it’s after 23:00 and I need to do a few more things before I go to bed so I need to finish this post and get it online. I type most of my post in word and then add them to my Blog. I do this because the Blog site is not to user friendly sometimes. I spent over a half hour one night typing a post and when I tried to hit publish I lost the whole thing and I will not let that happen again. I hope all of you are doing well, night all

Another long day

Six hours in the pattern and I am exhausted. I was in the aircraft for a total of about 7.5 Hours counting run up and crew change, and I am exhausted. However this day is over and it went pretty quick actually. I flew two people 3 hours a piece and although it gets a little boring in the traffic pattern I know that its important work and it has to be done to make them better pilots and prepare them for future combat missions. While I was flying my second Pilot we increased our FOB security with a giant voice message. The Giant voice messages are to alert us of all sorts of changes to both FOB security and conditions on the FOB. Not that I could hear the message in the aircraft but they announced it over the control tower frequency too. Don’t get me wrong though when the Giant voice messages are announced you can hear them all over the FOB they are extremely loud I can even hear them inside my room and we have concrete walls 18 inches thick. So back to the message, basically they were looking for an Afghani man in civilian clothing on the FOB so my training flight was diverted for a bit to look for the man wandering around the FOB. He was rounded up pretty quickly but not before everyone on the FOB had to go to a defensive posture and put on their flak jackets and search the FOB with loaded weapons. Great song, once again I sit here listening to my iPod trying to forget where I am if but only for a minute. I would never have thought that I would become so addicted to music and TV, but it is a great release to a stressful day and it helps me find my balance. The other night when I was flying once again we had medevac aircraft inbound with casualties, I feel sickened again just thinking about it. That night there were no US causalities but many ANA “Afghanistan National Army” any loss of life is too great even ANA. I still have a hard time trusting any soldiers other than US troops, the others are just too easily swayed to the dark side. The Taliban and the al-Qaida have ways of turning the best of the best Afghani’s. It’s all about threatening their families and friends and this is something that I can understand I have those same feelings about my family so it’s easy to understand how this can happen even to some of the most hardened Soldiers. So back to my new list of do’s and don’ts trust no one that is not dressed like me and even give them a second look. Always keep your head on a swivel and always know your surroundings at all times.

I will be flying over 18 hours in the next few days continuing the training on the only two RL3 aviators in our Brigade and this I job I will not take lightly. As soon as I get them from Readiness level 3 to RL2 they will start flying missions with one of the other IP’s in our TF “Task Force”. As soon as I get the last one to RL2 I will fly that Pilot on missions to get them ready for RL1 at which time they will be able to fly with any PIC “Pilot in Command”. Time will tell who will be the last Pilot to progress but when they are done I know they will be ready for whatever this country has to throw at them and it’s my job to make sure they can handle it. Not a job I take too lightly considering the circumstances.

Another great song reminds me of Marie and I when we were in our teens hanging out at LaRossa’s. I would say that life was a lot simpler then and I guess for the most part it was but I would not change anything in my life at this point, I am truly blessed. I am blessed with a wife who loves me for who I am and supports me in the things that I do whether they are right or if they’re wrong. And don’t even get me started on my kids, they say that apples don’t fall far from the tree and to be honest with you this one stumps me every time I think about it. I look back at my childhood and think about all the mistakes that I made in my early years, and I mean early years. And then I look at Robby and the girls and I just can’t figure them out sometimes, how can they be so into life and so into everything that is going on around them. I can say without a doubt that my three children are the most well adjusted kids that I have ever known. They are sensitive to other people’s needs and feelings, and genuinely concerned about the well being of family members and their friends. They think about things that I would have never thought about at their ages. And like I said, I am so blessed, and I can only take credit for a little of this. Marie take your right hand and pat yourself on the back for that one, you’re a great Mom and I am lucky to have you as my wife!

So it’s January and I am still just wearing a fleece jacket in the evening I will not complain. I was thinking that when I got to Afghanistan last fall, I would be freezing my but off and I am so glad that is not the case. For the most part it gets up to mid to low 70s every day and I like it. Wow another great song, I miss all of you so much and I do wish that I could be home with my wife and kids or perhaps up in Cincinnati playing cards with my family or spending time with friends. But I truly believe that you all know how I feel about this place, as much as it truly sucks and as much as I am not a fan of being in harm’s way, this is where I need to be and I am proud to be here trying to make a difference in the lives of these people. When I am old and gray sitting on my porch looking out into my yard holding Marie’s hand watching our grand children play in our front yard I will think back to this moment and know that I made a difference, night all

Friday, Steak night

Steak night, it was not too good tonight but the shrimp was pretty good. Tomorrow I fly two of our RL progressions it should be a good day in the pattern. Tonight I will try to call home and talk to the kids and Marie. I was off today so I spent most of it watching movies on my computer in my room.

The laundry facility is closed for a while and unlucky for me half of my laundry is in their building, so it looks like I may actually be doing laundry myself for a while. I really can’t complain though for the most part I drop of my laundry one day and its ready the next, pretty good deal really.

Joe got me hooked on a Showtime series called Weeds it’s about a widow who starts to sell pot to try to make ends meet its pretty funny and I am totally hooked on it. I would have never thought that I would get caught up in a TV show. You know me I am just a news kind of guy but when in Rome does as the Romans. Oh well I need to get off of here hope all are well, night all

06 in the AO

Today was great I had an unexpected day off the flight schedule and I enjoyed not having much to do. I have three RL progressions going on right now and that is over and beyond the APARTs that I am taking care of not to mention flying missions two to three days a week. So all that being said when a day off comes your way you embrace it and enjoy the time off, just like I did today.

Tomorrow I am on QRF for 14 hours and I hope that we get some deliberate operations it makes the day go bye so much faster. I dropped off my laundry today and it will be ready tomorrow they have a pretty quick turn around as long as they let the local Afghani’s on post to do the work. KBR is the big contractor over here that takes care of most of the life support stuff like meals and laundry and what not. I have no idea what KBR stands for but they are all over the FOB doing all sorts of jobs. It is really amazing how many contract workers there are on each and every FOB in this theater. I guess most are here for the same reasons the super pay check, a good friend of mine is over here flying MI-17s for the DEA he will be here for two years and take home a half Mil. Not bad money for the work but none the less he is still putting his life in harm’s way. He retired last year as a CW4 and they fly him home for two weeks every 4 months which is not a bad deal really when you think about it. He received about a week of training from a Russian instructor Pilot on how to fly the MI-17 and now he is the head pilot in charge. Most helicopters fly pretty much the same way it’s just learning the systems and emergency procedures. I hope this war is over long before I retire but I can’t say that I would pass up the opportunity to come over as a contractor and make some quick bank to really set up my retirement but that is still 6 years away. It’s hard to believe that I only have 6 left. When Marie and I left for Germany We had 18 years in front of us and now we only have 6 or so, time flies. Hopefully by the time I am ready to retire Marie will be in good with a clinic doing physical therapy and Robby will be done with his bachelor’s degree Shirley will just be getting started and Elli will be the big high schooler, damn where does the time go. I tease Marie telling her that once I retire I will live off here for a while; she thinks I am kidding, Not. Although I am just kidding, I am so proud of her. It’s great to see her so fired up about something that doesn’t involve the kids or me. This is all her and I wish here the very best all right time to change the subject she get so mad at me when I talk to much about how proud of here I am.

I did tell my buddy Joe that I would help him make IATF “training folders” for all of his crew chiefs so that they can run the APU “ auxiliary power unit “ on the aircraft to help perform certain maintenance functions to lessen his work load. So I will sit here talking about my day until Joe shows up. Today we had a visit from our Brigade Commander and our Brigade SP. It went pretty well and they will fly out tomorrow after they do a day mission with our first up QRF team. Once they are gone I will assume QRF for the rest of the day. Well me and three other pilots our QRF consist of Two AH-64s for a 12 hour period with an hour in the front and an hour after hence 14 hours. Ok Joe just showed up so I will cut this short and give him a hand. I hope that you are all doing well, night all

Starting to think they are all BAD

Its late, it’s after 1 am, I flew 5.8 hours tonight and I am beat. But I told myself that even if it’s just one line I want to start trying to get on here every night and post something even if it’s small. I spent most of my night looking at a truck on the side of the road trying to determine if they were really trying to fix a tire or if they were placing an IED in the road. I really hate this war you are never totally sure who the enemy is and if you make a bad call an innocent Father or perhaps a Brother or some ones Son could be harmed. None of them wear uniforms they have no affiliation to anything they are all a bunch of tribal gangsters and we never can tell what we are dealing with half the time. Their biggest threat to us is they dig holes in the road and place explosives under the dirt, then they set off the explosives when US forces are traveling down these dirt roads they are called IEDs and they are responsible for most of our casualties over here. So needless to say it is so important for us to catch these guys in the act so we can take care of them before they hurt any of our forces. So as you can imagine we are trying to do our best to determine if they are good or bad. The rest of my night I spent taking my APART which is like taking your driver’s test only it’s for flying my aircraft. It went well and I will not have to take another one till next year around my Birthday. Well I only wanted to get on here for a minute and I know it doesn't look like this small paragraph should have taken me much longer than that but remember I can only type with two or three fingers. So that’s it for now guys, night all

More Oldies

Oldies but Goodies

Hello to all, today was a good day for me I only flew 3 hours. Tomorrow however I am sure I will fly much more and I am ok with that. I sit here in my room listening to my iPod, to some of my favorite music. It’s amazing how music can be so motivating and yet so depressing at the same time. I guess the problem is that it reminds me of so many other times and so many different places all of which are not here in Afghanistan. Another thing I love to do is start a slideshow while I am trying to write a post to my blog. I have many favorite pictures mostly of the kids and Marie and some of family. I know that I have not written on here for some time and tonight I wanted to get on here and do exactly that, write to my blog.

The last few days have been pretty good weather has been great low 70s high 60s mid day gets a little cooler at night but for the most part I am not complaining at all. When I left Savannah I was expecting Cincinnati Ohio weather over here and it just isn’t so it’s more like Savannah, Thank you baby Jesus! Marie and I have lived in the south so long I just don’t think I could have made it through a hard winter and lucky for me it’s not looking like I will have to.

I wanted to put some pictures up tonight too; however I think I just changed my mind as to what I will post. I want to put up some oldies but goodies they nothing to do with my deployment but tonight they have me pretty sentimental and I want to share them with all of you. I hope it doesn’t take me to long to post them there are many that I want to put up. As I sit here listening to my music watching my slide show thinking of home I just feel that I need to share some of these with all of you.

Starting next month we will be starting our leave dates, my buddy Joe will be going home to see his family the first week in February and I am happy for him but at the same time I will miss him when he is gone. I am still not sure when I will be going home to see Marie and the Kids but I am trying to get home during their summer break let’s hope it works out.

As for FOB life the last couple of weeks we have had a few scares here on FOB Salerno. I am sure you all heard about the 8 CIA agents that were killed by a suicide bomber. That happened at the FOB closest to us and all the wounded were rushed over here to our hospital. That night I was in the traffic pattern doing training with one of our new pilots and all hell broke loose over the radios. I felt so helpless that night, there was nothing that I could do and I know that now but there I sat in a fully loaded aircraft with no bad guys to go after. The radio calls for medevac aircraft inbound with wounded and KIAs this was the first time that I really had to deal with injured and killed Americans. I was so angry that night and it finally hit me that there are no friendly people over here. I realized that night that I will never let my guard down I must stay vigilant and keep my head on a swivel at all times. If something doesn’t look right it’s because it’s not right and it needs to be addressed. Several days later on a lighter note we completely locked down our FOB and put on our protective gear because a local Afghani was late for work. You see once he got through the security checkpoints to get onto the FOB and then he started to run and he ran all the way across the FOB to where he works in the Laundry facility. He was so lucky he was not shot for being thought of as a suicide bomber with an explosive vest under his man dress. I am glad it all worked out for him, my biggest concern over here is that I will be put in a situation where I have to make a judgment call and I hurt someone innocent. I pray that this never happens to me and I can get out of here with no regrets.

Alright I need to get off here so I can spend some time shrinking some pictures to post on here tonight. Happy New Year everyone, night all