The crew from Walls' last flight (L-R) me, Walls, Bagley, Jackson, and Serio. It was a pretty standard flight but we had a lot of fun. So often you never know when the last time you are going to do something you love so it was a treat to be able to savor it.

These are two of our standard loads that we move daily. In the foreground are tri-walls that are basically collapsible cardboard boxes with plastic tops and bottoms. The Marines use them a lot since they fit in all their aircraft and they slide easily across the floors. We can carry 12 at a time but the problems arise when they load them up. We have had some over 2000lbs and they fall apart when we try to move them (not to mention the strain on the crewmembers). In the background is a 463L pallet (with 4 tri-walls on it). They work really slick with our rollers installed and we used them all the time on our last rotation. These are the same ones the Air Force use so they can take the cargo directly from the airplane to the helicopter. The problem is none of the Marine helicopters are wide enough so they don't use them at all. It has been a slow process but we are getting the Marines to use them more and more when our unit gets the mission. They are by far the best way to move heavy loads. We can load up to 7000lbs per pallet and even with that much weight they slide easily on the rollers.

Three pretty cool guys - Chastain, Walls, Rieck

The set up for musical chairs. They divided the rounds based on rank so there wouldn't be any hurt feelings (things are always a little different in the military). People really got into it which made it a lot of fun.

Christl hanging out with the two main grill masters - Moore and Flournoy. They did a great job making up mean BBQ sauce with limited ingredients. Moore is drinking one of his Christmas presents (non-alcoholic of course). In the background is the outside of the hanger.

We had our party inside our hanger which is basically plastic over a steel frame. The Marines added front and back just a few weeks ago, good thing because it was right around freezing outside. On each table were games and candies - the whole thing was much more elaborate than I was expecting.

This was Christmas day - working on 176 just like the day before :) Weather-wise it was a beautiful day and a real pleasure to fly. Walls is up on the engine, Ford (our engine mechanic) is right below him and Crow (my pilot) is watching them both.

29 Dec

I haven’t been very motivated lately (at least when it comes to journal writing). It always feels like work to me which is too bad because this is a good way to keep in touch with people, not to mention as a way for me to remember what happens. I am amazed at how much I forget just from week to week. In light of that I am sure I have already forgotten things since my last writing but here is the rest. Christmas day itself was pretty much like Thanksgiving – I did a couple of test flight and ate way too much. We had missions both day and night so it really wasn’t much of a break. At the dinning facility they did a good job with the food and the decorations were once again over the top. I must say that the last couple of weeks have not been good for me health-wise. People have been getting boxes of stuff from family, friends, and strangers and they end up setting it out in the common areas at work. Most of it is really good so I find myself snacking on it all day. I am a little surprised my teeth haven’t started falling out. I made the decision to start cutting back then realized it was Christmas eve. That didn’t work out too well but now I am working on it. We get a maintenance day (no missions) once a month and this month ours was the 27^th so we decided to have our Christmas party that day. It actually felt more like a holiday since only a few people went to work (I had a test flight I needed to finish). The party was mandatory so there was some grumbling about that but it turned out to be a lot of fun. Three women planned it all (those of you who have seen the TV show The Office will appreciate the humor in that) and they did a really good job. We had all kinds of food donated (they even had smoked salmon dip) and then we BBQd more ribs, hamburgers, and hotdogs than we could ever hope to eat. The evening culminated in some wild rounds of musical chairs – fortunately the chairs were the only causalities. I have no idea if people are really bothered about not being home at this time of the year. As I have said before – missing home is almost never a topic of conversation. One thing this experience has shown me is just how manufactured the whole holiday season is. Once we remove the reason for the holiday we end up celebrating an experience (being with family, gifts, food, ect) rather than an event (Christ’s birth). Often the experience doesn’t live up to expectations so it all feels rather empty. Over here all the experiences are different so you are left with the decision that either the event is worth celebrating or it’s not and with most people it’s not so it’s just another day at work. Yesterday I flew with Terry Walls on his last flight (he’s going to flight school). It has been quite an honor to work with him and we are really going to miss him around here. He is going to make a great pilot.

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This is Streva (one of our Marine medics that fly with us) trying to catch the hydraulic fluid that is being pushed out as we bleed the system. The goal is to purge all the lines of air so the pump doesn't cavitate when it starts. We made somewhat of a mess but then helicopters usually do.

This is Rigdon and Joice installing the new pump. Once we received the pump it was only about 1 1/2 hours before we were ready to head home - they did good work.

Our Marine friends coming to the rescue. It was a nice sight.

081 is patiently waiting for our aircraft to get fixed. That is unusual in itself because in the recent past 081 is usually the one getting fixed. God was watching out for us because if something was going to break it wasn't a bad time or place. There isn't much to look at but at least we weren't out in the desert somewhere and we were home by dark.

This is all of us hanging out inside the broke aircraft waiting on a new pump to arrive with the old pump sitting on the floor with all its gears shredded.

Moore rearranged the battle scene to honor the movie "A Bridge Too Far". The snake in the river and the truck are a liberal use of his artistic license but after all this is Iraq. Moore was so moved by work that he promptly went inside and watched the movie.

Another project by Tomlinson. He renamed the PC/QC building to Moosehead Lodge and stacked a small pile of white rocks to signify the mountains of Alaska. He is now adding grizzly and moose tracks across the barriers - he says anything to keep him busy.

19 Dec

It has been an interesting couple of days. I flew another day mission yesterday that started out pretty smooth. We hauled several good sling loads of water and food out to a FOB in beautiful weather (the food was for their Christmas dinner which always makes us feel pretty good about what we do). Everything was going good and we were actually going to get home early until on approach to our last stop our No 1 flight hydraulic pump started making some bad grinding noises. We shut down hoping the pump would decide to behave after taking a break. But it was not to be, after starting up it sounded even worse and chewed its insides to pieces before we could get it shut down. It actually worked out pretty well because two CH-46s were just getting back from a mission so they stopped by TQ, picked up a new pump and brought it out to us. We replaced the pump but there was still concern about all the pump fragments floating in the hydraulic system. The last time this happened we had to replace the entire system but we couldn’t do the maintenance where we were so the decision was made to fly it home. It was the first time I have ever flown on just one system – I was glad to be back. Later that night we had another aircraft lose a hydraulic pump but this time the shaft sheared (as it is designed to) before the pump came apart. Once again two CH-46s came to our rescue. We’re not going to hear the end of this for awhile. That night we also had the holiday tour come through with Lance Armstrong, Robin Williams, Chris Black, Kid Rock, and Ms. America. It was an entertaining show. I wasn’t going to go but I decided this was probably my only chance to see these people in person. I am always struck by how small celebrities are in person. I always expect them to be bigger than life. It just reinforced for me the thought that the only power people have is what others choose to give them. Yesterday our guys flew the group over to the next base for a show and flew them back. They were able to talk with them quite a bit and get some good pictures. If I can get my hands on some I will post them. We had another dust storm kick up tonight but besides that it has been clear and cool. I can tell it is getting colder because for the first time I had no hot water in the showers tonight.

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14 Dec

In my last entry I was talking about time passing and what do you know, it has been over a week since I last wrote. I am still focusing on the days way too much – I feel like I did as a kid on Christmas Eve. I would lie in bed trying so hard to go to sleep and the hours would drag slowly by. It wasn’t until I would focus on something else besides time that I could go to sleep. The first people are coming back from leave – they have all appeared pretty upbeat but so far no one has said they are happy to be back. I guess it would be sad if they did. On the flying side I did my last night flight on Sunday. I slept most of Monday and felt pretty good Tuesday but then crashed on Wednesday and I had to take a two hour nap in the afternoon. I feel sorry for the Marine CH-46 pilots – they switch between days and nights every two weeks. My first day mission back was yesterday, it was long but so nice to be back in the sunlight. It was another sling-load mission out to a FOB by the Euphrates. Pierce got some really good video footage of the other acft picking up a HMMWV but the file is too big to post online. I knew I was going to be tired by the end so I got one of those Monster drinks from Brian. Several of the guys live on those things here – they can’t be good for you but they sure do the trick. I drank mine after about the 7^th flight hour and by the time we landed I was ready to go for another 7 hours.

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This is a real tree that Wendi sent me. Very cool and a nice touch in the desert. The smell is what I miss the most so this was quite a surprise and a real treat.

This is our office Christmas tree. McKean has put a lot of work into it - she made the paper chain, star, and brought in most of the ornaments. It's plastic of course but we even added air fresheners to make it smell like a tree :)

My newest piece of wall art. Ken sent me this as a present so I wouldn't forget what he looks like during my long absence . It is much too priceless to keep to myself so here it is (you really have to click on this to enlarge it and get the full effect). I must admit it was a little disconcerting when I opened the door after getting back from work and there he was. But it does give me someone to watch TV with so thanks Ken.

This is the yellow men fighting the green men (and a snake). You can't really see it but some of the green men are a little worse for wear with legs and arms missing. They have been fighting the snake and rat (which someone snatched recently) for several months and it is taking a toll on them. But in this scenario the snake is giving them a hand against the new invaders (kind of reminds me of something - oh how life imitates art).

This is a sandstorm that hit us a couple of days ago. It was clear when I went to bed and when I woke I could hear the wind hitting the trailer and smell the dust - there is no keeping it out. Earlier two of our acft launched on a mission after being told the visibility wouldn't be lower than 4 miles. Fortunately they had just made it to the other side of the runway when it hit and it was bad enough they ended up having to be towed back across the airfield. Fun stuff.

A close up of the ornaments, both painted and not. We are going to have an impressive tree.

This is Ennis and Daniels (two of the people that get all our aircraft parts for us) painting Christmas ornaments that Mckean got sent to her to hang on our tree.

This is Steve arranging his new shipment of Army guys. Every few days people rearrange the rocks into battlefields that include plastic Army men (which I didn't even know they made anymore), trucks, a giant rat and a snake. I will have to post some battlefield pictures. It's something else to pass the time with.

5 Dec

Weather is starting to affect our missions more and more. Up until now it has just been the occasional dust storm kicked up by wind but the last two missions I have flown were cut short by thunderstorms. The first one was impressive – it’s amazing to see a desert lightning storm through NVGs. It stayed just north of us for most of our mission but once it turned south we shut down for an hour as it passed over us then started back up and finished the last leg of our route. It was a perfect dry thunderstorm for starting fires but there is nothing to burn here so I guess that isn’t an issue. The next night it was more just dust kicked up as the front moved through but we actually had clouds lower than the usual 12,000 feet. I’m still working late on the aircraft (by that I mean sitting there while other people work – the only tool I get is a screwdriver) as we are now having some strange rigging issues. I am wondering if we aren’t going to be forced to undo some of the adjustments we have made over here before we head back to Alaska. It’s hard to believe we are approaching Christmas – everything is so out of context over here. I try not to think about it but I keep remembering that two years ago today I was flying the last acft south to Kuwait and heading home for Christmas. But just like that time passed so will this so I had better get the most out of it. On a sad note one of our pilots (Eric Minter) is going home on emergency leave. His son who is five started having seizures a couple of days ago that knock him out and cause him to stop breathing so they have to keep him in the hospital. Up until now he had every appearance of being a healthy boy. The family could sure use your prayers and I will pass along the son’s name as soon as I remember it.

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29 Nov

Back on the night cycle again – it’s supposed to be the test pilot’s chance for a break but so far that hasn’t happened. My first night back I flew a mission and was reminded for the 20^th time why I don’t like flying nights. It was a beautiful night – cold but the moon was almost full and there was no haze at all. Still, having all the extra weight strapped on my head for over five hours makes for a long night. For the past two nights I have been at work for over 12 hours trying to get acft up. That lull in maintenance is over. I had my first engine try to seize up. It was just out of overhaul from the states but something got knocked around inside because when I started it up it made an angry grinding noise and shook the whole acft. It is a little frustrating because of all the man-hours involved just to have to do it all over again on a component that was supposedly just repaired. The internet has been down the last couple of days – not good timing since I just started pushing people for the next quarter’s payment. It does make me realize how much I rely on having it. I watched some of the Republican debate last night on TV – I could only handle small does. I understand the concept behind having average (whatever that means) people ask the questions but after watching the YouTube format I couldn’t help but be saddened by the loss of dignity in the whole process. We have reduced serious debate to a reality game show. Not to mention the fact there is a reason exports should ask the questions – they actually understand the details. Sometimes a little elitism is a good thing.

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A view looking into Syria. Right at the border everything gets a lot greener and just looks more prosperous. It's a stark reminder of how much the basic infrastructure of Iraq has suffered.

This is Walls up in Al Asad hauling a passenger's gear out to the aircraft. We have a great reputation for hauling whatever they give us and it is all due to the hard work of the guys in the back. As pilots all we do is coordinate it but they get to do all the heavy lifting. It is amazing the stuff that gets brought out to us but somehow they fit it all in.

This is me sitting on the roof, listening to music and reading my paper. I was actually waiting for the day flights to get home. They ran into delays and didn't get back until well after dark.

The last couple of days have been beautiful. This is sunset over the base as seen from on top one of the buildings on the flight line.

25 Nov

Thanksgiving felt pretty much like any other day – I flew (pre-phase test flight) and ate. The only thing that really distinguished it was the crowds and decorations at the chow hall. Actually the last few days have been pretty packed – for the first time since we have been here I have had to wait to get inside. The increase isn’t military (no units are switching out at the moment) it is all civilians. All the security and checkpoints inside the base are manned by Ugandans (yet another duty we have managed to contract out). The rumor has it that we are having a changing of the guard so to speak. One company is taking over from another or at least their uniforms are all different. So until the swap is complete we will have crowded meal times. This new group is rather interesting – all the women have really short hair (crew cut short) and there are some guys that don’t look a day over 14. I would like to find out more about them but their English is pretty much limited to greetings and “Thank you Sir”. I flew my last day flight yesterday – I switch to nights tomorrow. It was a long one (7.9 hours) but one of my most enjoyable. I was flying with my favorite crew and I actually got to see some new country. We landed at a base right on the Syrian border – you could throw a water bottle out of the acft and it would land in Syria. I was a little surprised at what a marked difference there was between the countries. We were able to do some other interesting things but those pictures and stories will have to wait for a different time and format.

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19 Nov

The last week has been pretty slow – we actually started and finished a phase since the last time I wrote. It was five days from the time it went in until the test flight was complete and it was back doing missions. We haven’t even had any big breaks – acft have come back broken but it has all been quick fixes and they are back up before the next mission. I don’t know if our acft are adapting to the environment and getting all the bugs worked out of if it is just the calm before the storm. Speaking of storms – it still hasn’t rained here. We are seeing more clouds but so far it hasn’t amounted to more than a few drops. It is going to be an ugly mess when it happens – there is a two inch layer of powder that turns to goop when water is added. I keep forgetting Thanksgiving is this week. The only way we keep track of the holidays around here is by the changing decorations in the chow hall. They go all out with stuff hanging from the ceilings, different table cloths and these big 3-D Styrofoam cutouts to mark the occasion – Statue of Liberty (4^th of July), witch (Halloween), ship and tank (Marine Corp birthday), turkey (Thanksgiving) ect. The company that runs the place is out of Kuwait and I can only imagine how strange this must appear to the workers. However, as anther example of how much our culture has spread, most of the workers I talked to know about our holidays (at least the ones who speak some English do). I would like to wish a Happy Birthday to the parents, Alice, and Steve. I am always reluctant to mention names since that means I am sure to leave someone out but those are the ones I remember – love you guys.

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This is a little oasis out in the western desert that I think used to be a military base. It always amazes me to see how many resources in this country were focused towards war. As I fly over I can see miles of defensive positions dug into the sand. They are all across the country and pretty much useless without air power. It reminds me a lot of Albania - another country ruled by a paranoid dictator. It's not hard to believe this country has been fighting someone since the early 80's.

You may be sick of the Euphrates river but here is another shot of it winding across the desert.

This was taken yesterday as we were debriefing our mission. It was a good day :)

12 Nov

I have managed to weasel my way onto a couple of missions over the last few days. More guys are starting to give up their flights. It’s a lot more work flying but it sure makes the time go by faster. There are a couple of guys who promise their wives they won’t volunteer for flights – I know Wendi doesn’t like it when I do but she knows how much I enjoy it. My first flight was a pretty typical one out west but the one yesterday was a lot of fun. It was hauling sling loads out of Al Asad. The weather started out marginal but by the time we had landed and organized the loads the dust had blown through and it stayed clear the rest of the day. We ended up moving close to 70,000lbs of cargo both internally and by sling load. We actually hauled more than they expected and did it in less than 5 hours. It’s always a good feeling to be able to work at your full capability and know you are making a difference. The Marine Corp celebrated its birthday on the 10^th by giving everyone two beers. As you can imagine it was very tightly controlled and you had to drink them in the chow hall right after they gave them to you. I don’t even like beer but I decided to take one and it was actually pretty good. The first guys started going on leave over the past week. It’s good to see them go – one more milestone. No one really wanted to leave this early but they had to be spaced out because we can’t have more than a certain percentage gone at any given time. We now fall under the Germany unit out of Balad for administrative things like awards and other paperwork which includes assignments of leave dates. We figured they would take care of their own but they didn’t have to be so blatant about it. They gave our five guys the first five days of December and kept all the Christmas dates for themselves. They could at least pretend to be nice.

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This is on the landing pad on another base. We just finished dropping off sling loads and had landed to unload some mail containers.

During our mission yesterday the loading ramp at Al Asad was packed. There were five civilian planes, a C-130 and a C-17. We had to park out on the taxiway to get our cargo loaded. I couldn't get a good shot that showed the whole scene this one captures the atmosphere.

This is a mosque that sits just outside one of the little bases we land in.

I took this yesterday on our way to Al Asad. That white line was really distinct across the horizon. It took us awhile to realize it was sunlight reflecting off the wave of dust heading our direction.

This is a small lake we fly by on our way out to the bases out west. It always fascinates me - just the contrast between the blue water and the nothing surrounding it.

We are loading 155MM rounds. We learned pretty quick that those wooden pallets are just about worthless with that much weight on them. Each round weighs 90lbs and a pallet of them is over 2300lbs. As soon as they set the pallet on the rollers it collapsed. Now we put them all on metal Air Force pallets but that was a painful learning experience.

7 Nov

I haven’t been doing much of anything except a few maintenance flights the last couple of days. I did the pre-phase test flight on 168 on 1 Nov and started the post-phase flights on 5 Nov. Our maintenance guys are getting really good – our goal is to do a phase in 7 days and these guys are pushing them out in 4-5 days. I was really hoping to get the entire post-phase completed in one flight but one of the engines failed its checks and the autorotation was out of limits. I finished the test flight today and now we are just waiting for the next one. The day missions are starting back up but now that we moved more pilots to days I am only on the schedule about once a week. Some of the other PCs are getting tired of flying so I may be able to take some of their flights. Things have been a little less mundane on the night side. A few days ago we had a big mission to pick up troops after they had completed a raid. Right as the first acft was touching down there was an explosion off the front side that damaged some of the cockpit windows and pushed out all of the side windows. It turns out explosives one of the soldiers was carrying detonated in his backpack. They put all the injured on the acft and flew them to the hospital in Baghdad. The next night we sent parts and maintainers over to fix the damaged acft. Everyone is back now but it shook the crew up pretty good. I really feel for the infantry unit – they are only a few weeks away from going home.

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2 Nov

Staying up for 36 hours to reverse out worked out about as well as I could expect. My sleep schedule was whacked and I kept waking up at 2 AM for the first couple of mornings. I would be good until about 3 PM at which point my body said enough. I was scheduled to fly my first day back on days but Christl took my flight which was probably a good idea even though I wanted to do the mission. The 31^st was my next mission and that morning it went from beautiful to less than ½ miles visibility as the dust rolled in. It finally cleared up enough for us to fly around 1PM. It was scheduled to be a long mission so we knew we were going to have to drop some legs even before we took off but things got worse when we landed at Al Asad. Our mission was to haul ammo out to a FOB. None of the Marine helicopters can fit 463L pallets (metal Air Force pallets that lock into a roller system we use) so they haul stuff on wooden pallets which are really hard to slide across our floors. Communications got mixed up and the ammo guys were told we didn’t want 463Ls so they showed up with 16 wooden pallets that weighed over 2200lbs apiece ( by the way, I found out 155mm rounds weigh 90lbs apiece). We knew it was going to be ugly when the forklift placed the first pallet on the rollers and the pallet broke in three places. We worked out a better system but by that time we were rapidly running out of daylight. We were only able to load 4 pallets before we had to call it quits if we were going to get anything out to the FOB. As it was we didn’t get back to Al Asad until after sunset, so we had to put goggles on to fly back to TQ. It was a good learning experience but frustrating. I hate being the weal link in the chain and even though we had a lot of factors against us it’s embarrassing not to be able to complete our mission. We are never able to just finish it the next day because they always have something else for us. So the supported unit has to figure out another way to get what they needed or get back in line to request us again. We had a rough night last night and all 4 of the aircraft that flew came back broke but it gave me an interesting day. It was a beautiful morning – clear with a light breeze and 58 degrees! It was such a nice day that I was wishing the test flights would last a little longer – one of those days when there is not much I would rather be doing than flying. It’s not often that I think I am overpaid (at least not over here) but the thought did cross my mind this morning :).

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A picture of the crew I flew with on the raid. L-R Fox, Palmer, Martin, Myself, Weber. It was a very good crew that made the mission almost routine. Yes Dave, your flag is on its way (at least as soon as I find a box to ship it in :).

This is Mark - just about the hardest working pilot we have. In his previous life he was an Army Ranger so he has no idea of the concept of time off. The biggest problem we have with him is getting him to stay away from work long enough to reset his duty day so he can fly. He is a lot of fun to be around and he constantly keeps us entertained with stories from his Ranger days.

This is after the main briefing and now it is just the pilots as we go through the whole mission and cover what the individual aircraft are going to do at each stage. L-R Dwayne, Ken, Dimon, Roston, Mark, and Tony's hand.

This was taken during the planning and kneeboard packet preparation for the air assault we did last week. L-R Wayne, Melissa, Roston, Eric, and Dwyane.

28 Oct

I flew my last night mission last night (at least for a month). Most of my flights have been under high illumination conditions (which means close to full moon). I enjoy that more because I get to see the country better and of course it makes flying easier. The downside is other people can see us but the way we are flying on this rotation has eliminated a lot of the ground fire threat. It has also been enjoyable just being up and around at night – the desert under a full moon is beautiful. We did our first raid a couple of nights ago – it’s amazing how many troops we can put on the ground with four Chinooks. Two days later we went back in and picked them up. They even managed to get some of the guys they were looking for (a lot of times they come up empty). The unit we supported was another Army unit that is stationed out here – they said it was nice to get to work with Army again (we speak the same language). There was a lot of planning and work that went into it but it sure was a nice change. All in all I actually had quite a but of variety on nights – in addition to the raid I flew to Al Asad once, Balad twice, and a couple of new areas that none of us had ever been to yet. Today I am trying a different technique for reversing back to days. I have stayed up since my mission last night and I hope to make it through the day and go to bed at a regular time tonight. I have just about run out of things to do and I found watching baseball doesn’t help :).

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22 Oct

Being on nights is everything I had hoped for. First off it is a nice break from maintenance. The nights I’m not flying I’m still there at departure and when they return to coordinate any work that needs to get done but it’s not that constant bombardment we get during the day. Also, nights are a little more laid back, there aren’t as many people there and you get that working late at the office feeling – that you don’t really have to be there but by doing so you show how hard working and dedicated you are :). As a result almost no one works a full 12 hour shift. I also love the fact that I never have to set my alarm. It’s just a trade-off - the longer I sleep the less stuff I can do during the day. Our missions are getting shorter – both day and night. Most of the unit rotations are complete and we won’t start the next cycle until around January. We have also seen a big increase in the number of Ospreys flying around. They replaced the CH-53s which rarely flew around her so I think they are taking some of our missions. Our flights lately have only been about half full. It looks like we may start doing some different types of missions – we have our first one scheduled for tomorrow night so we will see how that goes. On a good note 174 and 169 are back up so we are healthy again. Now it is 168 that is giving us fits but if everything worked then what would I have to do?

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This is me shooting the M240. The guys linked together 300 rounds and let me blast away at some old cars. It is amazingly accurate even out to 800 yards. I found it is a lot easier to shoot from the air - just easier to see the target and you don't get all the hot casings building up around your arms but all in all it was a lot of fun.

This is Kidd with all his radios. It was pretty humorous watching him work when multiple people called him at the same time. He had to keep in touch with range control, the airfield tower, and our guard posts all at the same time.

Ortiz is firing the M240 with Friend feeding the links and Kidd supervising (even in a combat zone the ranges all have to have safety supervisors).

The M16 firers shooting in the prone position.

Friend is watching Ortiz (one of our new gunners) put together a M240 (our new door mounted machine gun that replaced our Vietnam era M60s - the 240s actually fire more than 2 rounds at a time). Ortiz has to get ground qualified before he can go through aerial gunnery.

The guys are unloading all the ammo. The range is on the other side of the post, over by the lake so it took us about 20 minutes to get there. We ended up getting pushed off the range early because a convoy was due to come through. Before each convoy rolls out all the escort vehicles run through the range to test fire their weapons.

Penley(a crew chief), Costello(our resident weapons guy), and Friend(the head instructor for the enlisted crew members) in the back of the HMMWV on the way to the range.

18 Oct

I switched to nights two days ago. It was actually quite easy to reverse out. I was at work at 7AM on Monday, stayed up until midnight then went to Green Bean for coffee, went to bed at 3AM, went to work at 4PM, flew a mission and got back to the room at 4AM. It took me over a week to get comfortable on the day schedule. In theory I like getting up early but in reality I am much more suited to a night routine. My missions the last couple of nights have gone very smooth. I’m certainly a little rusty on goggle flying. Last night I came in too high and fast on two different approaches. Those are the hardest thing to judge at night – speed and distance. Another advantage of flying at night – it’s cooler. Last night was the first night I got back not drenched in sweat. At one point we were up in Al Asad and I had to close my window (it was 68 degrees). Tuesday night our mission took us up to Balad – it was fun to see the place again but I’m glad I’m not stationed there. It was as busy as always and we had two Apaches fly right over the top of us in the traffic pattern. Monday afternoon a group of us went out to the firing range. Most of the group was there to qualify (promotion board or new weapon) but I just wanted to shoot. I shot 90 rounds with my 9MM pistol – it was a lot of fun and first time I have been able to shoot without trying to qualify. It also gave me a lot more confidence in the weapon and my ability to use it.

Cloudy H 98 L 70

The Marine's newest toy - the V22 Osprey. It is a strange looking thing - I hope it works for them because if nothing else it will help us get out us get out of here sooner. I still haven't seen one flying - just taxiing around.

This is the road we landed on to drop off some passengers. It is about as close to the Iraqi population as we ever get. We were a big hit with the kids you can see in the center of the picture. They just stared at us from the moment we landed until we took off.

It is mostly sheet metal damage but it did tear off a major bracket that we have to get from the states. It has really killed our maintenance flow since this aircraft was right in the middle and now we are having to skip other aircraft past it. With only eight it is a delicate balance.

The group assessing 169 - Rich (our safety officer) on the left and the big three in maintenance (not counting the test pilots of course :) Steve, Barry (he runs the maintenance platoon) and Williams (our civilian LAR -coordinates repairs with the engineers among other things).