22 July

I flew a couple of nights ago with Rieck and Pariona – they both did really well. There wasn’t a lot I could teach them but they did get more comfortable with the HUD. We had to cancel our flights again tonight – our first good dust storm. The wind picked up in the morning and blew hard all day out of the north. It’s not as bad as some of the ones we got in Balad but it’s enough that after several trips down to the flight line I am covered in dirt. We are trying to convince the command not to do extra flight after we finish our mandatory training (it’s not worth the risk of damaging an aircraft) but a few more days of this and we will have just enough time to finish what we have planned. The guys who have been sitting around the last couple of weeks really want to fly more but the conditions here are worse than they will be up north so I don’t think it is worth the risk of damaging an aircraft just to build their confidence. What happened to 172 last time has definitely made an impact. For the last hour I have been sitting in the coffee shop reading a book Wendi gave me called Stiff (The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers). I just finished the chapter detailing the stages of decomposition – a little hard to take even when just drinking coffee but very entertaining (the author is a great writer). I ran into Testin a couple of days ago. He was my squad leader the one year I was enlisted up in Alaska in ’95. He is now a flight platoon sergeant with the Germany Chinooks. One more reminder that I have been doing this for awhile.
Dust H 111 L 84