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