14. Five Tents Burned to the Ground

Written: March 2nd & 3rd, 2003

Sunday, March 2nd
Woke up this morning at 9:30am and relaxed in my bed while playing Real War. At 10:30 one of the Alpha Company crew chiefs came in the tent and said, very matter of factly, the #2 chow tent was on fire. Of course, no one believed him but finally he convinced us that it was, indeed on fire. Everyone scrambled for the door and I grabbed my camera to capture the moment. As I left the tent I could instantly see a huge black cloud of smoke that was billowing across the camp. I climbed on top of a conex and watched as all 5 tents burned to the ground. I captured a lot of this on video and pictures. The fire trucks came to help but there was no way to put it out. It burned to the ground.

I hung up some pictures of Stef and the kids on my wall by my bunk. They are a beautiful site to see before going to bed and after waking up.

After that, I ate lunch and got dressed and prepared to head out to the aircraft with Fred. I finally got issued 2 flight suits today. Now I have to sew my unit patch onto them and I will be able to wear them. I think I will do that tomorrow.

Once at the aircraft, we did our prelight, run up and hit check then did a commo check-it finally went well. While we were listening on the radios, we heard someone (a fighter jet) calling to AWACS (aerial radar station) that he was rolling in hot on Bashra. We listened for a while and heard that same aircraft call cold (cease fire) off the objective. That was pretty cool to hear.

We came back inside and briefed the plan for tonight's mission. It was the same as last night so we briefly covered all contingencies that we were going to practice.

We headed out to the aircraft and lined up for take off at 7:10pm. One of our contingencies is that a Blackhawk goes down en route. So tonight, we practiced that. We simulated having trouble and turned to land into the wind. Shawn and CPT Cushwa were behind us. We were descended for landing and we found that we couldn't see anything at all. We could not see where the ground ended and the sky began. Fred slowed down and started a descent but we found that we were not really descending as we intended to. Instead we lingered at 100 to 120 feet at almost zero forward airspeed. We finally made our descent to the ground and at about 25 feet we had a dust cloud surrounding the aircraft. Remember, this is all under NVG’s with zero illumination from the moon. We basically landed with no visual reference to the ground below us. It was certainly scary but what we have come to expect.

Shawn and CPT C attempted to land with us but could not see anything so they did a go around-they climbed and circled around to land again. This time they attempted to land to the left of us and I could see them come into view as they neared the ground. I saw that they were descending but sliding to the left as they did so. They called another go around and set up to land another time. This time they made it in. We let our passengers off and had them switch to the other bird then took off again.

We continued along our route practicing other contingencies and finally worked our way to the landing zone: LZ Beach. From the LZ, we could clearly see two Iraqi towns just a few miles away from us.

We dropped off some personnel on the ground to practice picking up then headed back out and proceeded inbound again. We conducted our drills but found that we still need work. It is so hard for us to see anything in front of us. As a matter of fact, we are flying formation off of the Apache in front of us and that is really all we can see.

This type of flying goes against all we were taught throughout our flying career—when you can’t see the ground, you are IMC (instrument meteorological conditions), but instead, we fly just as we are VMC (visual meteorological conditions) even though we cannot see the ground or anything in front of us. It is definitely challenging and at the end of every flight, Fred and I look at each other and ask, why are we doing this?

Came back from the flight and conducted a thorough debrief and discussed some things we should change. We will plan another mission for Tuesday.

All day long, I did not realize (even after looking 3 times) that it was Sunday. There is absolutely no meaning to the days of the week. The dates are easier to follow but one day still flows into the next.

CPT Hester told me that a good friend of mine from Honduras came to see me today—Mike Siler! He is going to be at this camp for a while so I am looking forward to seeing him. I will have to get Mark Wyckoff and him together!

Came back at midnight and ate a spaghetti MRE then went to bed.

Monday, March 3rd
Woke up at 9am with Chad and Fred staring at me. I have had a sore throat for a few weeks but it has been particularly worse the past few days (not because they were starring at me but because of all the sand in the air).

I sewed Velcro on my new flight suit so I could put a US flag and 12th Aviation Brigade patch on it. After I was done I put it on and found that my sewing job sucked and the patches were either crooked or in the wrong place. I decided that I will not re-sew it (not until I have more time and patience).

It was pretty hot in the tent today. It was warm outside but windy. The dust was not blowing too badly early in the morning.

At 1pm Fred, CPT Cushwa and I went to the flight line. We worked on the high frequency radios. We got 5 out of 6 aircraft completed but had a few problems with most of them.

Fred and I got a tour of a Longbow Apache from the 1st Cavalry Division. Chris Miles, our LNO, let us sit inside and explained the systems to us then took our picture. The aircraft are painted with the 1st Cav patch and crossed sabers-my dad was a crew chief in the same unit in VietNam so it was cool to get such a picture.

After loading the radios, we walked back to the tents. We had a Battalion formation in which LTC Franks told us that the CSM had been relieved pending an investigation (the rumors are that he was fraternizing with a soldier in the Battalion but I do not know.

After the formation, I was walking back to the tent and saw Dave Draper and Mike Siler. I hugged both of them and we talked for a while. I went to flight school with Dave and was Mike's neighbor in Honduras. It was a nice reunion. I took them over to see Mark Wyckoff (another Honduras buddy).

With the chow tents being burnt down, each unit opened an MKT (mobile kitchen trailer). They served hot dogs, hamburgers, chips and pepsi. It was nice to have a meal besides an MRE. Fred and I were really hungry so we ate in our MKT then walked to the 3rd ID MKT and ate out of there too.

After dinner I borrowed Kamran's hard drive and put some new music on my computer-Metallica, Ozzy Osborne, Pink Floyd and AC/DC to name a few. Chad and I both like that kind of music so it is nice to have it to listen to especially since we both live in the same pen.

I went to the S-2 and talked to CPT Halter about the LRS mission. Not sure if it is happening, but it seems that it is being planned that way.

I also set up a SECRET email account so I can communicate with other PR forces via email and discuss classified SECRET information.

Came back to the tent around 10:50pm and got into bed.