Packing

I finally feel better with my cold mostly all gone, the weather is below 100 degrees and there hasn't been any dust in a month. I understand that I might have had a bad attitude in my last post but I felt that I needed to let you guys know alittle bit of what I'm going thru here as I wait for my replacement to get here. But I prayed for guidance and wisdom to just let me not worry about things I can't control and to go on with my normal bubbly attitude. I think I have done ok in that respect.

My last few weeks here have been very busy with several congressmen and other VIPs. The entourage of these people are impressed with themselves. I love that I can stand toe to toe with them and let them know that you need to treat people better and you'll get better service for whatever you want. Honey and flies concept I think. But, it has been fun to talk with some high level folks in our government. I think things will continue to be busy up until the time I leave.

I started packing up my room today. I have so much stuff that I probably need another bag or so. I don't mind that I have dusty and dirty bags to put the stuff into as long as it all fits. I will probably be throwing stuff away when I get back because they are so dirty. And the dust will never come out of the stuff anyway. It's too far gone. My socks are clean but they have a brown hue to them, and my t-shirts are fading to purple. But it's nice to be packing stuff. Next project clean my hooch and release all of those dust bunnies.

Life in Iraq could have you living in a mud hut with a satellite dish on top like in the picture today. That is that.

A Mess

My desk is a mess. I am so glad that I don't have to a desk for my normal job because it is messy. I don't know what that means about my personality and such but I can't seem to keep it cleaned off. As soon as I clear it off, another pile is started. In fact, I'm not sure I even clear it off, I think I just move it from one place to another. So let me summarize....my hooch is a mess, my office is a mess and now I've come to realization that my desk is messy. Hmmm. Maybe, just maybe it is me that is a mess. I know many of you would agree that it is me that is a mess and right now I have to agree, I'm a mess. I am going through a tough period here now for me and I can't seem to concentrate or focus on things for too long. I find that when I HAVE to do something I put maximum effort to accomplish the job, but my mind just shuts down. I worry too much about things I can't control. So, I am gonna get up tomorrow and work at just getting thru the day without shutting down too many times. I'm ok but my head and stomach hurts right now. So I'm off to my hooch to take a Nyquil and drift off to na na land. I have been fighting my first cold over here and I feel like someone has hit me in the head with a 2x4. Sorry about the past few posts but you guys wanted to see the life of someone in a combat zone, and I'm ready to turn over this war to other people. It will get better. That is that.

Don's Replacement

The continuing saga of my replacement has taken another turn. He now scheduled to get here around Oct 6th. Not that big of a deal but it would be nice to seem something consistent so that my travel plans can be made. But I'll keep everyone laughing at me being goofy. What else are you gonna do?

I can't believe how fast it gets dark here now. And how cool it has become in the evenings and morning. And I didn't bring anything cool weather clothes, not that we could wear them. We wear only uniforms, exercise uniform or our work uniform. No civilian clothes allowed. That is that.

Baghdad Fun

I had a very long day yesterday. I made my weekly trip to Baghdad for my usual meeting at one of the Palaces and so as the day went on and on, I began to wonder if I should have gotten up from bed. The early morning flight went smoothly until we had a fire in one of the engines on the helicopter. First off, I’m a fixed wing pilot and I didn’t know that helicopters had engines must less two of them. I guess I just thought that the rotor blades turned by something other than an engine. We were cruising along at 30 feet and 165 mph with the sun just coming up over the horizon. The air is cool, finally, and the windows are open, so you really feel the breeze. The helicopter was full of passengers, 10 of us in this UH-60 Blackhawk, and 10 in the other Blackhawk that was flying with us. By the way, Billy Blanks was in the other helicopter, you know him from TaeBow...neither did I. But the calm of the morning was interrupted by a bright FIRE light followed by lots of activity from the door gunners and pilots. The door gunners would hang out the window to look up at the rotor blades. The pilots were trying to figure out if it was a real fire or not. Me personally would have started a climb and then go heads down to read checklists. But here we are a 30 feet with a possible fire. Not to mention we are over bad guy territory in the Sunni Triangle. I know these guys are doing a great job but I feel for my gun to make sure I have ammo already loaded...I do!! The other helicopter falls back to look us over and I guess we look good because we don’t land immediately, but we keep flying towards Baghdad. After we land, I look at the helicopter as I walk away and see that there is no damage on the helicopter. The mechanics are standing by to fix the problem. By the time I walk to the palace entrance to go to my meeting the helicopter is cranked up and flies away. The meeting was the best part of the day, it was short. I then meet up with some US Army guys that show me a system I need to evaluate to see if it would work at Balad. I spend the next 5 hours in different locations all around the Baghdad Airport. As I go from place to place, snipers are shooting. So we duck into buildings, wait until it is clear, wait a bit more, then we go about our business. Then another sniper pops up and he starts shooting again in our direction. We are near the place we were going so we speed up and go into the building. Now we do what we need to do in this building and let’s just say that the sniper stops. I finish my evaluation and head back to the helicopter pad. I have to wait 2 hours for the next flight back to Balad. ZZZZZZZ, nope...people are slamming doors. Then the news comes that our helicopter has crashed and we need to just wait and they will try to get us another helicopter to fly us to Balad. Now the 2 hours has turned into 5, then 6…it’s dark now...very dark. But finally another helicopter arrives, we load up in the dark and off we go. Hmmm I wonder, night flight, over Baghdad at night.. I just hope the pilots have the helicopter’s lights off. They do and the pilots are flying on night vision goggles. As we fly over Baghdad, it looks like any other city in the world. But if you focus on the streets you see people everywhere. They are in their cars in gridlock at street intersections. There must be 100,000 people all in the streets. So I’m thinking are they nice or are they ticked off at something. I see people shooting rifles in the air, so I’m thinking they are ticked off at something. Then as we work our way out of the city lights and into the dark desert, I see more things flying around than I like. But I finally see Balad from the air and I notice something, it has way too many lights, bright lights. I think in a combat zone, you don’t want to use very bright lights because it makes for a good target. As we cross over the fence of the base, the door gunner’s gun is lowered into the safety position and our wheels finally touch down at Balad and we unbuckle ourselves and leave the helicopter, I start to laugh at the whole day. The guy I went with has his glasses on crooked and his helmet is on backward and he lost his ear plugs, all on this last flight. He told me that as we boarded the helicopter in Baghdad, he was having trouble getting strapped in and in fact probably wasn’t strapped in as the helicopter lifted off. We get into the truck to drive back to our HQ we finally get to take our bullet proof vest and helmet off, and we notice we stink. I mean we stink bad!! But what are you gonna do when you carry around an extra 45 pounds that is strapped close to your body. All in all not a fun day in Iraq, exciting but not fun. I have just another 10-12 days and I’ll be heading away from this vacation garden spot. Thanks for the prayers, and keep em coming. The picture today is from our base, it shows mileage to spots all around the country. That is that.

High School Friends

Today, I got an email from a dear ole friend...Dawn. Notice I didn't say old because we aren't old and in fact when I wrote back to her I was mentally in high school again. It's nice to have long term friends like that. She gets to work with another HS friend Brenda and I think that it's rare. Rare to go thru life with people you grew up with. Sandy is also one of those rare people that can hang out with her childhood friend. It is nice to see them stay in touch with each other. I wish more people did that. Melody has a dear friend, Beth, from 2nd grade that has been with her ever since then and it has been great for me to watch them grow up and turn into beautiful ladies, ladies with class and taste. I have the occasional Christmas card from childhood friends but I don't really have any close friends from the childhood days, except my brothers, and well, they have to like me. A few of my friends from the early days have passed away and that is tough sometimes for me to look back and wonder what it would have been like to go thru life with these guys. I have found that being in the USAF for all these years, and flying fighters etc...you try not to get too close to each other because of the inherent danger of flying fighters and any airplane for that matter. But we all have fun with people we've met along the way. I have developed some great friends since I left the active duty USAF and have some long term friends now from my reserve duty at Tinker AFB, Vance AFB, Williams Airfield and even SWA. But that is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the childhood friends that stay friends forever, that are special and worth anything you can do to keep that friendship alive and going strong. That is what life is all about, friends and family. Everybody changes either good or bad and it is how you change and the manner in which you change that makes people want to stay in touch. I have developed some friends here in Iraq that I know we'll stay in contact because of what we've done here. We've experienced some highs and lows and we've even had the look in our eyes that's either terror or incredible exhilaration when our plan worked...well. So those kinds of moments are rare and times like that make a common bond that will have people making the effort to stay in contact. It's worth the good memories, thanks Dawn. So everyone go call someone from High School and say hey!! That is that!

My Bad

I can't believe I haven't written in such a long time. It seems to me that I wrote something just the other day, but I can't really remember what I wrote about. So my bad. My fault for not taking the time to relax and write about things here in the middle of the Sunni Triangle.

Things are getting interesting as the Iraqis approach the vote for their constitution. The insurgents have increased their attacks on our military as well as the civilian population. I find that the people of Iraq are eventually gonna get fed up with the insurgents killing innocent people and fight back themselves more. We have been training the Iraqi Police and Military at a fast pace, in fact there are approximately 300,000 Iraqi trained to protect and fight for their country. This number is getting bigger by the day, but they still need our help to help them stabilize their country. We are definitely doing that but it's a tough and difficult task. It took our country a long time to approve our constitution but people are expecting them to approve their constitution within a year. The fight for their country and how we help is accurately recorded in The Stars and Stripes. This newspaper is available overseas including here for free. In the US you can subscribe to it at www.stripes.com. I have read it more than a few times and can tell you it is accurate and non-biased.

I've heard from my replacement and he says that he'll be leaving his home in St Louis on 26 Sep. So a few days later and he'll be here. I'll give him 2 or 3 days spin-up and then I'll head on the Freedom Bird. So somewhere in the first week of Oct I'll leave Iraq for good. I have had the opportunity to see old friends since I've been here. I just surprised my buddy from 10 years ago who is flying in the Homestead Reserve unit. They just arrived here a few days ago. Boy has he gotten grey headed. haha... Not me. I look like I'm 28 years old. And that is really that.

New Recruits

This war is going badly. Not really of course but when the new people arrived and if they have to start asking me questions about things then the war is in big trouble. It is strange to me that I am the old guy here. Even the General has two months less time than me. I get a kick out of how guys are trying to figure out their ritual in the showers and that aren't quite getting it right just yet. The way they mess up the ritual and kind of look around to see if anybody noticed their foulup. Like watching someone try and figure out how to do the feet ritual. Like how to go from taking off your shoes and socks without touching the wet and icky floor to putting on your shower shoes and taking a shower without the icky shower curtain hitting you....well anywhere. Then to watch them try to brush their teeth without using sink water is funny because how else do you get rid of the foam from the toothpaste. Ahh the new beans..seems like yesterday when I was going thru those hurdles. But being the old pro now, I'm in and out of the showers and walking back to my hooch in less than 8 minutes. The best part of the new guys and gals is that .... you aren't gonna believe this..... they are asking me how to do Powerpoint. That is a crack up. I was presented with a patch yesterday by one of my buddies that left, it was a patch I can wear on my uniform that has "1000 hours Powerpoint" on it. I got a little bit teary. Ha. I can make a briefing in less than 14 hours now.

Not much activity from the bad guys lately...guess we did some good work last week. The new guy haven't seen an attack yet. That is that.

Football and Laptop

This is weird to be over here and watching football. It's 11pm and football is on. Weird. It's just hard to believe that it's already football season. But that's ok by me. I like football, either college or pro, it's all good. But I don't know how much longer I can stay up and watch football. I have to be back to work early tomorrow morning so I think as soon as I finish this blog I'll be heading back to my hooch. The folks on tv are saying that AZ Cardinals are gonna be the surprise team of the year. I hope so!

They have pushed my return date back further now, to early Oct. Of course the frustrating part is that the AF has not officially told me anything. I'm hearing all of this second hand and I need to tell the folks here so that travel arrangement can be cancelled and made for a different day. At least I get to watch my friends leave.:( My hooch needs a cleaning before my replacement gets here. I definitely have a bachelor's pad. With no roommate I just leave stuff everywhere. Stuff is everywhere. I take out trash routinely but there is no method to where I put my clothes. The only place I keep uncluttered is the spare bed. I have to iron my flight suit daily because Haji-wash cleans my clothes but they also just wringle the heck of them. My nitestand is crowded with Orange Crush, and 7Up full or empty, sunflower seeds, almonds, and chip ahoys. Wow as I write this I'm thinking that I'm a true pig; but it's making me hungry. The other night I knocked one of my Orange Crush cans off the nightstand and it made a big noise. I heard my new neighbor next door hollar out and hit the floor. Speaking of noise, I guess I'm getting used to attacks. I slept right through them last night. I woke up to the "All Clear" signal.

My laptop is failing me. It seems to have gotten too much dust inside the guts of it. Even though I used "dust off" every week, it seems to be just quitting on me. I need it to work 3 more weeks till I leave so I can have something to do in my hooch. If that quits completely on me, I'll go crazy. That is that.

Vince Vaughn

I believe the computer problems are fixed. The internet here is running very well now and everything looks to be back to normal. It has been 4 days since I wrote on this blog but it seems like yesterday. Time is flying by and things are getting done over here. We've had some great successes with using our awesome military power over the past few days and if you saw Fox News sometime on weds you might have seen some video of an attack that we did with our Predator. It clearly shows some guys carrying mortar tubes and setting up and shooting at our base. They got some shots off before we took care of them. They got exactly what they deserved.

The actor Vince Vaughn is here for a day or so. The picture today is the setup staged photograph session he would allow. I thought it was kind of odd that he dictated how the meet and greet would go. I was like he was afraid of things around here. Nice guy though. We talked alot before and after the photo thing but he is here for the premiere of his latest movie "The Wedding Crashers". But I don't know why he would not let people take photos when he was just standing around. Before the show, the General and I were up on our roof top talking and having a cigar when Vince pops up and sits down and just shoots the bull with us. Nice enough guy though, very tall. He’s just weird on the photos. Oh well.

My replacement saga continues. First off, the last word I got was that he was gonna be here on the 10th of Sept. Then on Fri, 2 Sep, he emails me and says that he can't make the 10th but that he was trying to push his report back to the 26th to take care of things. I immediately sent an email to the people in the know about replacements, and I asked them if they knew anything about the extension of my replacement. So with the 4 day weekend back in the US, I thought when everyone returned to work on Tues the 6th, someone should have replied back to me by now, but nope. So my flight that is scheduled to leave on the 12th probably will not happen. In fact, it was funny...kinda, yesterday, the 7th, I show up at work and there is a travel itinerary on my desk to leave with all of my buddies that night. I can't leave without doing a face to face in brief with my replacement with all of the things going on here. So I told them to push it back while I try and figure out what is going on with the swap out. But it was tough to see all of my buddies leave. It was a big tease. I kept the piece of paper just in case I just wanted to stow away later in the night. It was odd seeing most of the people I've worked here leave. To see them just go into the night is strangely uncomfortable. It's like you've become great friends with everyone because all we do is work and then you wake up the next morning and they are gone. We've spent all this time together, thru the good results of our hard work and thru the bad results of insurgent successes. We laughed at all hours of the day and night, and even saw complete terror in these faces; they probably even saw it in mine. But I am very happy to see them go away from this war zone. They all did tremendous work and I know that they will never forget their time at Balad AB. I'm sure I'll stay in touch with some of them for a long time. And as I was talking with the General last night, he said that it was tough to see his friends leave. He will watch 3 of these rotations before he gets to leave. He's here for a year. The new people bring that new energy and enthusiasm we all had when we arrived. They are already running with the ball here. There is no let up and I can tell my energy is not what these guys have right now, I'm tired and need a break, but I have 3 more weeks, tops. That is that.

Sandy's Birthday

Well, the computer problems continue here in Iraq. It is the computer like pipeline for this area that is causing the problems. It makes it terribly difficult to do our jobs. The computer is a great thing but when we don't have it we feel like we are really handicapped but actually we aren't we just have to things differently and more efficiently. I am getting pretty good a powerpoint presentations. I like the way you can kind of freak people out with the flying, zooming or twirling photos or words. But it takes tons of time to make it look good. I would rather not be so impressive and use the extra time elsewhere but where am I gonna go here?

I've also gotten word that I may be staying alittle bit longer than what I told you. The USAF is telling me now my replacement will be getting here around the 26th of Sep and that I'll get to leave a few days after that...So standby for more changes. It's unusual these days to get so many changes to a troop movement but I am the exception. I'll just keep going and going till someone says go away.

Sandy's birthday is today and I hope she is having a great birthday weekend. I think she probably will be having fun with her family, which I think has gotten closer over the years. I like that. But I don't know how she got way older than me haha. She's been volunteering to help out with an animal rescue group that specializes in dogs. She takes them in for a day so that they get the exercise they need. She then will take them back to the rescue ...place? after she watches them for the day. Most of the time she'll get a new dog every time she volunteers. That way she doesn't get attached to a particular dog. Although she's getting attached to a dog named Patti. That is good, it keeps her busy. Melody I think is taking her out to lunch also sometime this week as well, I think that's what she said, sorry Melody if you didn't.

Well, I leaving work to go watch a movie..Herbie Fully Loaded rated G. Should be so much fun!! :( That is that.

Katrina

Due to the hurricane, the USAF computers are jammed so I'll limit the blog for the next few days. Thanks and that is that.