8. “Hanging” in the Wind

Written: February 15 - 18, 2003

Saturday, February 15th
Received the Small Pox vaccination today. Sam, Fred and I walked over to the Combat Area Support Hospital (CASH) to get the vaccination. The CASH is created out of a bunch of tents and is interconnected via hallways and corridors. It is a pretty impressive complex made completely out of material. It’s even equipped with environmental controls—heat and air conditioning.

Sunday, February 16th
Spent the day trying to fix some communications problems with our aircraft. Mike Polk, CPT Smith and Javier all helped to get the aircraft up and running. Mission accomplished except for one stubborn radio that just would not accept the fills.

I heard that there were Long Range Surveillance Detachment personnel in the area looking to talk to us about Personnel Recovery. I found the two guys and gave them an over view of how we conduct our mission. They have some questions, but it was great to actually get some ground people here to do the mission instead of hoping that they show up prior to us having to perform.

Received two packages today: Brownies and cookies! They were sent on the 11th so it took just under a week to get here.

Went to bed around 11pm and enjoyed a good night’s sleep.

Monday, February 17th
Woke up around 8pm with Sam urging me to go to breakfast. I eventually woke up, got dressed and walked to the chow hall with him. Had French toast, eggs, bacon and cereal.

Today was a scheduled day to fly. I was to qualify 3 to 4 pilots in dust landings. CPT’s Hester, Cushwa, Smith and I departed at 1315 to LZ X-Ray just south of Udairi. In the back, we had SGT Hester, SPC Baucom and SPC Somkovic. Everyone needs to participate in this training in order to be ready for battle. Landing in the desert is much more intense than landing on a grass strip. As you come in for the approach, dust begins to swirl. It starts at the tail, moves up the aircraft then eventually engulfs the cockpit until you can’t see anything but the ground directly beneath you as viewed through the chin bubble.

As we flew back from LZ X-Ray, we saw two F-15’s appear out of nowhere. They dropped down to low level and were flying at or below our altitude. They were traveling at an extremely high rate of speed and heading to the west across Camp New York. Just as they passed us, SPC Baucom saw an explosion and black smoke plume rising to the west. The two events were probably unrelated, but it was pretty cool to see and makes you feel pretty helpless as these fast movers approach and overtake you at an astonishing speed. As they passed over the camp, they climbed abruptly and circled the camp. They were most likely putting on a show for CNN or FOX news.

Attempted to fly NVG dust qualifications but after a string of small problems, we did not get off the ground before we had to be on the ground. So, we did not take off at all.

By the end of the night, my small pox site was beginning to itch a bit; not all the time, but it is gaining consistency and intensity. I took the band-aid off that night and saw that it was just a small bump not unlike a mosquito bite that has been irritated.

I went to the S-2 (Intelligence) officer-CPT Scott Halter to see what information we could get. We were able to look at some evasion charts and some blood chits—those items are used to help a downed aviator (or other persons) in getting back to friendly territory. The blood chit is interesting because it actually offers the “reader” a monetary reward for helping any American who presents them with this. It has four serial numbered corners on it and each one of them can be cut off and given to the person who aids an evader and then later given to the US Government for the aforementioned monetary reward.

Even in this deployment where we sit on the edge of war, there are problems in the system that will not get fixed. All the problems we experienced in garrison are only magnified here and the frustrations grow because now the consequences of failing could mean the death of one of our soldiers or one of us. In my opinion (and many others as well) we are not provided with the support that we need to effectively do our jobs. We are left “hanging” in the wind supporting ourselves and trying to make all coordinations happen because it seems apparent that our staff and other support personnel are not willing or capable of doing the job they are here to do—support the mission. We support the people we are flying missions for and the people below us should support us. It just doesn’t seem to be happening that way.

I am supposed to be flying both day and NVG dust qualifications tomorrow. I hope it is a better day and that we actually get something accomplished. Every day we get closer to War and every day we still seem to have so much training left to accomplish.

Tuesday, February 18th
Woke up around 7am with a lot of people moving around in the tent. I got dressed and went to breakfast with Fred. Had ham, eggs and toast.

I prepared for my flights today and went to the flight line at noon. I flew with Kamran and Benny during the day to get them dust qualifications. They both did well. When we were done training, we flew back to Udairi and picked up the firemen and gave them a ride out in the desert. They enjoyed themselves and I got some hoots and hollers.

On the way back in we heard the Airforce AWACS announce over the Guard frequency: “Iraqi aircraft at (coordinates), traveling 500 knots and heading 130, you are now entering a UN Sanctioned no fly area. Enter at your own risk.” That was pretty cool! Not sure if anything happened to that aircraft, but was cool to see that Big Brother is always watching.

Got back from flying and went to eat with Vazquez. After dinner we headed back to the flight line to qualify more people, this time with the NVG’s. I flew with CPT’s Hester, Smith and Cushwa and also flew Benny. They all did well and now they realize how hard it is to fly and land in the desert. There is absolutely no contrast or any references to use when flying around so it is imperitive that crews talk to each other and maintain awareness of their altitudes and airspeeds because it would be very easy to fly into the ground out here.

We returned from our flight and when we were inbound, the tower told us that a UAV was landing. There is a UAV that flies out of this airfield and it takes off and lands to our parking ramp so it makes for an interesting evening when it is conducting operations. The tower told us we could land and also cleared the UAV to land…we continued in but when we saw that the UAV was going to be landing at the same time we were, we changed our flight path to land after it. The UAV is piloted by a person on the ground so ultimately doesn’t savor life the way that those of us up in the air do.

We shut down in a wind storm coupled with blowing light rain. Not fun.

We walked back to our tent and closed out the flight. CPT Hester and I received an Intel update from CPT Halter. Just information on enemy units and their locations and some locations of suspected missions that we may conduct.