Tomorrow will be the one year mark since leaving Alaska. I spent the last ½ hour reading through the first few months of this journal. It was interesting – it seems so long ago and my mindset is so different at the end of the deployment than it was at the start that it is almost as if it was someone else writing. One thing I did notice was how much busier I was. I did test flights almost every day and often multiple flights. Our aircraft are doing much better plus the dust has kept us from breaking much. We had another nice Mar’s day yesterday – not being able to see 50’ plus the nice orange glow. It cleared up a little this morning but not enough for them to fly until late this afternoon so they only did a couple of legs of the mission. Brian got back last week – it’s good to have him back. Not that we are swamped but it’s nice having him to talk to at work. On that note – a lot of the pilots switched from days to nights and vice versa. Some of them have been on nights for three months and since they don’t come in until 6:00PM I rarely see them, so it’s nice to see different faces and get caught up. Aside from people starting to pack up the only interesting thing going on is keeping track of where our aircraft are getting shipped to. The whole Chinook fleet is in flux with the new F models being fielded and trying to keep the D model units up to strength. We were just told that we will be leaving two aircraft in country to replace one the Germany unit crashed here and one the 101st crashed in Afghanistan. So now when we get back we will be getting five other aircraft from around the country to build the unit back up. We already gave up two of the ones we left in Alaska to replace aircraft destroyed in Afghanistan earlier this year.
Dust H 111 L 82
7 comments:
Congratulations on making it past the one year point!! It is pretty crazy to look back and see where you were a year ago. Time changes everything. I´m not sure I would want to be the one in charge of trying to figure out the "reallotment"...if that is a word...of Chinooks. A few poor decisions and a lot of people would be mad at you. Take care and thanks for keeping us updated. - Andrew
Drat! I made comments on several of the previous photos a couple of days ago and somehow did not get them published. Will try again if I can remember what my comments were (~:{
Did I understand that the Army tries not to mix the "D" & "F" models within a unit? Is that for maintance purposes? ART
My mistake, my comments were there & you answered them - thanks. ART
I am always interested in the specifics of a "mindset" (: Granted you had more flights in the beginning...would you be able to explain what is different about the way you were looking at.... what? life? you? your work? not being in Alaska? Whatever! (: I am definitely interested. (Maybe more interested in your answer than you are in answering (:
Dad,
The maintenance aspect is one reason they don't mix them but overall they are just too different and it would be complicated to keep pilots trained on both types.
Mom,
After I posted this entry Wendi asked me the same question which happens to be the question I was trying to avoid. Not because I didn't want to answer it but because the question is the result of my weak vocabulary. I knew mindset gave the wrong impression but I couldn't think of another word. Wendi suggested one that is much better - focus. That is what has really changed from then until now. Before I was focused on the year to come, getting into the missions, and making things work. Now my focus is on going home and leaving Alaska. I don't think my mindset has really changed. Of course any experience we go through affects the way we view subsequent events and I have learned a lot over here but most of that is from just being a year older and reading more :)
This question is unrelated to a picture but about a news article. If the defense of Anbar is turned over to Iraqi forces as scheduled, will that affect day-to-day activities on the base? Will any marines be left there? I understand that in some cases the turn-over is a formality but I have also read that Iraqi soldiers have planned operations and done well. Maybe you have no idea about this and maybe if you knew, you couldn't answer, but I am still asking (:
The hand over won't affect us much at all. The big impact will be for the guys on the ground actually providing security and conducting counter insurgency missions. Even that will be a gradual process. I imagine this base will be here for quite some time since it is one of the main logistic hubs for all the forces out west. What we might see is less Marines in remote outposts but they will still be on the big bases. In the year we have been here we have already had some the smaller bases taken over by Iraqis and the only change for us is that we no longer land at those bases.
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