47. Roland Surface to Air Missile

Written: May 27 - 30, 2003

Tuesday, May 27th
Mission to Kirkuk and Tikrit. Finally slept in the a/c! The routing that we did yesterday paid off because it was actually cold in the tent last night! I slept much better and did not toss and turn all night like I have done over the past few nights.

Good flight. Flew for 5.8 hours. We saw Tikrit and Kirkuk. Kirkuk was out in the middle of no where and was pretty desolate. Tikrit was beautiful with lots of palaces and is Saddam’s birthplace.

Got home at 5:30pm then worked on planning a new mission for tomorrow. We put together a basic plan then ate dinner and relaxed for a while. Fred and I played Desert Storm then watched, “Band of Brothers.”

Went to bed at 11:30pm. Waking up at 5:30am.

Wednesday, May 28th
Woke up at 6am to finish planning today’s flight to Mosul to recon a Roland surface to air missile site and to also recon a suspected SCUD missile site.

Flew to the area and circled overhead while Fred landed. Lots of kids gathered from the village just over the hill from our landing site.

We went to Mosul for fuel then returned. Both aircraft landed and provided cover while 4 military intelligence soldiers checked the system for identity plates to determine when this system was manufactured and who it came from. As they worked on the ground, about 100 villagers gathered (mostly children). The soldiers were getting nervous and came back rather quickly. We left and then flew to a suspected SCUD site but only found another Roland. We headed back to Balad.

Worked on making another Raptor video, watched the rest of, “Band of Brothers” and then went to bed.

We are not scheduled to fly tomorrow so when I wake up I will go running and find something to do for the day.

Having air conditioning in the tent is great. It helps us sleep and keeps us cool!

I think they finally finished the runway because we can now hear aircraft landing and taking off from right outside our tent.

Thursday, May 29th
Ran for 35 minutes today. This is the first time I ran since sometime in February when I ran in Udairi. Finished my run then went into the hangar to do the EWO—readers of my Honduras journal will remember the EWO as the Eric Work Out which was suggested by my brother Eric. I did 3 sets of push ups and sit ups followed by some pull ups. Good workout.
Spent the day hanging out. Watched the rest of the Band of Brothers collection.

Friday, May 30th
Today is our 12th wedding Anniversary! I am supposed to get a call from Stefanie today.

Hung out for most of the day and did what I wanted to. I slept in until almost 11am (I thought it was 9am).

It was an overcast day so the sun isn’t beating on our tents like it usually does and therefore our a/c is, for the moment, able to cool us during the day!

Someone got a bootleg copy of, “The Matrix II” and they are showing it on the wall of one of the hangars tonight and tomorrow night.

I went running with CPT Cushwa today. We ran about 3 miles and it was a nice run.

Stef said that she would be calling around 9pm (our time) because she would be the last call for the night. I went to the TOC at 9pm and there were still people on the phone. I waited around with Jim Hester and CPT Hopingardner but the phones all went dead. We gave up after 30 minutes and went to our tents. At 10pm Kenny came in and said I had a call from my wife so I ran back to the TOC only to find that the call was interrupted by someone else who was supposed to receive a call at 10pm. Jim and CPT Hopingardner showed up too and together we all waited for the phone call. The phone lines were bad this evening and any time it connected, it disconnected within a few minutes. The call finally came through and Jim got to talk to his wife for a few minutes before handing the phone off to me. I talked to Stef for about 15 minutes before I got disconnected. We had a great call and I can’t wait to get home. I miss them all.

She told me that COL Polumbo is supposed to tell them something good this Sunday. We shall see what it is but if it is anything to do with the current rumor about leaving here around August 23rd then that is cool with me.

She is supposed to call on Tuesday and 7pm my time (I think). They are supposed to have a roster, but I have not seen the one for Tuesday.

Went to bed at 11:30pm. I have to get up at 4:45am to prepare to fly to Tikrit and Kirkuk again.