50. Fly to Baghdad Single Ship

Written: June 4-5, 2003

Wednesday, June 4th
Woke up at 9am and laid in bed working on a new video for the Company. This one is built around the old song by Madness called, “Our House.” This video lasts a little over 3 minutes and is my 6th creation. This one only took 2 to 3 hours to make and although it is pretty simplistic, it is witty at the same time.

The air conditioner was struggling but not as bad as yesterday when it wouldn’t work because too much power was being drawn from other sources. Today it only turned off 2 times and luckily it came back on fairly fast so it never got too hot in here.

After finishing the video I got dressed and went to Brigade with Kamran and Dave. Brigade is on the other side of the airfield and is where it is rumored that we will move to soon so we can give this side to the Air Force now that the runway is repaired.

I spent an hour talking to Matt Brewster. He is the Brigade S-1 and I last saw him in Tallil in April when I was on the mission taking the Escorts to link up with the American POW’s. He is doing well. I enjoyed talking and laughing with him. Scott Halter was there also (he is our Intelligence Officer) and we all know each other from Ft. Bragg - all these reunions are great but wish we could have them somewhere else.

No new rumors about going home. No one seems to know. I guess the talk with COL Polumbo didn’t do anything more than get everyone a bit more revved up. He told them nothing about when we would be coming home and instead said, “They will come home when the mission is complete…and I expect to change command there.” His change of command would not be until June, 2004. I don’t personally believe that one, but I do believe that we may be here for a while still. I think the only place we are moving is across the airfield.

After talking to Matt, we drove over to Big Windy—the Chinook company and popped in on Glenn Siegrist. We hung out in his a/c tent and played around with his computer and talked for a while.

We left at 4pm and returned to our side of the airfield. I walked in the tent, expecting LT Camp and Phil to be preparing to fly tonight, but we have no aircraft so we cancelled. SGT Almeda came in to talk to Fred and I about a problem with one of our new pilots—WO1 Benny Belgrave. From his perspective, Benny is doing some things that are out of line for his position. I listened for a while then got Sam. SGT Almeda told Sam the same story and Sam was very angry about the situation. After that, he talked to the Platoon Leaders then the Commander…not sure what else happened, but I do not envy Benny at this point.

At 5 pm we all got our PT clothes on and stretched before running. A large group of us ran to the stadium—Chad, CPT Hester, LT Camp and Karkalik, Phil and I. When we got to the stadium we ran a circuit up and down the steps than completed the run back to our area. As it turned out, CPT Hester and I were the last 2 left running together. Everyone else fell back at various times throughout the run. It is very hot running and your mouth gets very dry and you feel like the sun is burning a hole right through you.

Finished the run in 31 minutes then wet ourselves down with a water buffalo (large water cooler mounted on a trailer). We were near 3-158th’s chow tent and I ran into some of their pilots to include Thad Larson—a great guy and the one who showed us a lot about PR! I also saw Tim Gilroy for the first time since being here. He was my original sponsor and has come over the house on a few occasions. I told him that Glenn was pretty pissed because he hasn’t gone to visit him. I talked to Thad for a while then was able to get some turkey and stuffing from their chow hall. I walked home, ate it then took a shower over in the HHC area. Their shower is actually pressurized and the best thing is that you do not have to fill a water bag or go through any manual labor other than walking over there.

Came back to start movie night, “Planet of the Apes.” Jeremy Bennett was already over and this time he was staying for the movie! The past few nights he had to go back to finish up some paperwork.

Finished the movie then went to bed amidst the sound of a few Chinooks flying around the traffic pattern.

Thursday, June 5th
Woke up at 9am and went outside to finishing washing my clothes. I put them in the bucket yesterday and did an initial rinse on them but let them sit overnight to get them even cleaner. I wrung them out and hung them on the line outside my tent. Spent most of the day in the tent working on a new video for Anabelle which is set to Don Henley’s song by the same name. It will be pretty cool! I am also going to work on one for Stef and I!

Received a mission to fly as a chase aircraft for the CFLCC Commander tomorrow. The only problem is that they want us to fly to Baghdad single ship. My argument was this: do you send any vehicle out of the gate by itself? (answer is NO) So why would you do that to a helicopter? Besides which, the Brigade has a policy that no one will fly single ship. I was very pissed that they would even suggest this as a course of action and fought it for many hours. I don't know what the final answer will be, but I am not going out alone. How silly.

I talked to Javier (who is now in 3rd Bn) and he got shot at by an RPG the other day and it missed by 50 yards. Close call. Anyhow, our mission is to fly behind the aircraft that is actually flying the Commander. We will land on the lawn of a nice palace in Baghdad tomorrow, get briefed on the mission then depart for Kirkuk. We will be on the ground in Kirkuk for ½ hour then return. They will drop us off in Balad and that will be the end of the mission. It sounds easy. I haven’t flown in a week so I am ready to get out of here. I am flying with LT Camp, Kenny Somkovic and Kenneth Martin.

Watched, “Starship Troopers” tonight. Jeremy came over to pick up his laptop. He is trying hard to get into our Company. I would like to have him here. It would be cool!

Got my stuff ready for tomorrows flight then went to bed at 11:35pm.