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