2 Weeks

You know that saying about time flying when you're having fun? Well, apparently it can get away from you when you're not, too. I realized that it has been close to a month since I last posted. I apologize for that. So why did I name this "2 Weeks" if it's been over 3 since I last wrote anything? That, dear readers, is (actually a little more than) the time I have left before I turn my back on the Tigris and Euphrates - hopefully for the last time - and head back to Guam. It was a short deployment, but even so it's gone by surprisingly fast.

I did have a MEDEVAC earlier this month, but I honestly don't remember what it was for. Nothing overly exciting, except that I had a brand new copilot with me and it was his first time. Made me go back and read up on my first MEDEVAC. That seems like a lifetime ago. They told me when I took this job that the learning curve is pretty steep, but I had no idea.

So I have been asked to tell y'all a little bit about life in COB Basrah. My dear sister even gave me a list of topics that I have apparently neglected and has asked me to elaborate on them. Never one to disappoint, I promised to comply.

The Weather - The weather in Basrah is surprisingly different from Kuwait, even though only about 50 miles separates the two bases. Down in Kuwait I remember going from about March on and never seeing a cloud. Here we actually get no-kidding thunderstorms, some that drop quite a bit of rain. I've been told that it has something to do with our proximity to the river and the mountains of Iran. Don't get me wrong, it still gets hot here. It looks like I'll barely catch the beginning of the true (40+) heat and will be out of here before it gets really bad (50+).

The Locals - Since we don't leave base, my interactions with the locals are extremely minimal. I say hi to the local workers and they are all very nice. When we fly over towns I try to wave at all the people that we see and in a lot of cases they wave at us as we fly overhead. In some cases I've seen people shake their fists or hold their hands up as if they were aiming a pretend rifle at us, but those aren't very common. I even had a shepard render a very passable parade-ground salute to us as we flew by. I returned the gesture, but I'm not sure he saw it.

Spare Time - As you can probably guess from my other posts, I spend most of what spare time does come my way working through the collection of movies and TV series out here. I saw GI Joe the other night and actually really enjoyed it. I watched the entire series (5 seasons) of "The Wire" and also found that to be enjoyable, though there were times when it dragged. Currently I am watching "Dead Like Me" which only has 2 seasons and a follow-up movie, but I like it. I'll probably try to catch up on the last couple of seasons of "House" before I leave and maybe even try to finish "Battlestar Galactica" as well. I also try to spend at least an hour every other day in the gym. The other great time-killer out here are the games. It's kind of funny to see. At any given moment in the squadron there will more than likely be at least one heated game of Cribbage being played somewhere. We just recently acquired Yahtzee and so that has been quite popular, as of late.

Creatures - Thankfully I haven't had any really interesting encounters this time with the local fauna. The most interesting thing I've seen was about an 8" long lizard that was hanging out by our crew lounge the other day. He didn't try to attack me so it wasn't too exciting. Yesterday my friend flicked a spider onto me and I screamed like a little school girl so does that count? Unfortunately, the mos prevalent wildlife out here are the flies. They are everywhere. Thankfully they don't bite, but they are the most aggressive flies I've ever seen. They try constantly to fly into our eyes, noses, mouths and ears (the worst!). I've racked up some impressive kills on them, but they keep coming.

Cuisine - The food here is pretty much the same as we had in Kuwait. It really is quite tasty and they try to give us plenty of variety. The main difference up here is that the servers will give you all you can eat and then some. We have Baskin-Robins ice cream, though I only allow myself to eat desert on Sundays now. Most of the time I eat salads with sliced turkey and Swiss cheese on them. I think that I've lost some weight out here, but since all I wear are baggy flightsuits it's tough to tell for sure.

Bazaars - Since I don't leave the compound there really isn't a chance to enjoy the local shopping.

Danger - Things are actually relatively calm out here. We do carry our 9mm pistols everywhere, though and they're not just for show. The base is secure but there are still a lot of people out there who would love to ruin our day, given the chance. That's just part of the job description.

Typical Day - If I'm on the MEDEVAC alert, then my alarm goes off at 0520 and I get dressed and head to breakfast (oatmeal, fruit, juice). We preflight our aircraft and spin them up in the morning to make sure that they are good to go for later, if needed. After that I have free time until lunch. I used to spend most of this time in my ground job - "Operations Officer" - but have since passed that on to someone else. Around noon our other crew gets here to relieve us for about 30 minutes so that we can go get some lunch (the previously mentioned salad, chocolate soy-milk (if available) and juice). After lunch we're back to our ground jobs until dinner time. Dinner is a to-go box from the cafeteria. If lunch had something particularly appetizing to offer, I will often bring some of that back for dinner. Otherwise it's just a game of roulette to see what's in your box. Sometimes you win, sometimes not. After dinner I watch a movie or two and go to bed around 9 or 10 to read until about 11 and then I go to sleep. I wake up the next morning around 8 and head back to my room for a workout and a shower before lunch when it's back to work. That is pretty much how I spend every day. Fun, no?

Speaking of days, it's time for me to get on with mine. I will try to write at least once more before I leave. Thank you to everyone for all of your support while I've been out here. It really does mean a lot to me and everyone else out here.

Recharge

Well, it's been a little more than a week since my last post, but it certainly has not been uneventful. I was reminded last week why I volunteered to come out here again.

As you know from my (few) previous posts, this trip has not been as busy as the last for me. In my first 1 1/2 months out here I flew a grand total of 2 medevacs, neither of which were tremendously exciting. It was causing the time to drag by excruciatingly slowly and making me wonder what the great appeal of this mission was for me two years ago. That all changed in one night.

I was just finishing up for the day and about to go to bed when we got the call: An Iraqi Policeman had been critically injured and needed to be taken to a higher-level of care urgently. My co-pilot grabbed his gear and ran out to get the aircraft started while I waited for the rest of the information on the patient. I finished checking my NVGs (night-vision goggles - see this outstanding video explaining their functionality: http://www.hulu.com/watch/10361/saturday-night-live-george-bush-cold-open-2) and ran out to the aircraft. We flew over to the hospital pad, loaded the patient and an attendant and headed out into the open desert. This was the rush I've been missing for two years! I wish I could describe it. I've felt it before on Guam, when we rescued a guy one night that had had a bit too much liquid encouragement and decided to go for a little swim, but my chances are so much better out here. It makes me a little sad to be leaving Guam and the squadron that has given me the opportunities I've had. Don't get me wrong, I'm very excited to go back to Florida and teach new guys which way is up in a helo, but I'm going to miss the SAR/Medevac missions. As far as I'm concerned, there is nothing on this planet that compares. It's why I chose to fly helicopters. Hopefully I'll find myself back in a SAR bird at some point.

Besides the medevac I've done quite a bit of flying this week, mostly passenger transfers from point A to point B. I would be lying if I said that it wasn't fun. I find myself up there constantly looking around and saying "Is this real? Do they actually pay me to do this?" Not that there isn't a downside. While I've had some of the best experiences of my life in the MH-60S, it's a fair statement to make that I've also had some experiences that I don't ever want to repeat. The kind that, even years later, make me occasionally wake up in the middle of the night just to stop the replay in my head. Opposition in all things, right? I'll also sometimes start feeling picked on because of the other less glamorous (read: "fun") portions of my job, like when I get stuck for weeks trying to finalize one report or another, but then something like that medevac pops up and suddenly the other stuff is a lot more tolerable.

Another Month Gone

As has been pointed out to me several times over the past few days, I have been rather neglectful in my Blog-keeping duties. I would love to say that It's because I've just been so busy, but the truth is it's actually quite the opposite. I haven't flown any medevacs since the beginning of March. Good for the guys not getting medevac'd I guess, but kind of a bummer for us.

I should be heading back to Guam around the first part of June and then Tricia and I will be (sadly) leaving the island at the end of June to begin a new chapter of our lives back in Pensacola. Fortunately, this time I will at flight school as an instructor and not as a student. We're sad to leave our island paradise and it's going to be tough to find anyplace we'll enjoy quite so much, but we're excited to see what other adventures lay ahead.

I'm hoping to swing through Cairo for a few days on my way to Guam and get a chance to see the pyramids and visit the Egyptian museum. That will be an adventure that I will be sure to blog about. Before we leave Guam, we're planning to take Michenna to Tokyo so that we can go to Tokyo Disneyland. She's already been to Disneyland California, Disneyworld Florida, and Disneyland Hong Kong, so all that's left is Japan and France. Tricia insists that I can take Michenna to Euro-Disney while she stays safely on the German side of the border.

Of course I have maintained a strong movie-watching presence out here. Those of you on Facebook know that I watched all three seasons of "Arrested Development". I have rarely laughed so hard in my life. It was a great escape. I'm really sad that it got taken off the air so soon. Lately I've been watching "The Wire". For those of you who haven't heard of it, it's an HBO cop drama set in Baltimore. So far I've liked it, but I'm really excited by the prospect of having 5 seasons, each with 12-13 one-hour long episodes. That should pass quite a bit of time between now and leaving.

I read "The Art of Racing in the Rain" by Garth Stein. It certainly was not the type of book I would typically find myself reading, but desperate times call for desperate measures so I gave it a go. I loved it. I practically couldn't put it down. Very well-written and engrossing. I would advise anyone who wants to read it that there are a couple of instances of harsh language, but overall it's a fantastic read.

Currently I'm reading "Yes Man" by Danny Wallace. Yes, this is the novel that inspired the Jim Carrey movie. I haven't seen the movie so I can't compare the two, but the book so far is quite enjoyable if not a bit disjointed and tough to follow.

I have found myself being a lot more conscientious of what I eat out here. I've determined to lose my love-handles (Snuck Your Way Right Into My Heart) before I go home. That being the case there are a lot more salads on my menu and a lot less fried food. I've even started drinking Chocolate Soy-Milk. I know that that's a bit of an oxymoron. I'm not really sure how one goes about milking soy. Do the beans even have nipples? Anyway, it's not half bad. I wouldn't call it milk since it tastes more like YooHoo, but it's palatable. I have not yet convinced myself to try the white (brown but not chocolate flavored) soy milk. I don't think I ever will.

There really isn't a lot of other news out here at the moment. The Iraqi elections have come and gone and I guess caused some violence up North, but around here has been relatively quiet. I pray that it stays that way.

I am glad to know that I have a following on here and I promise (as I have before) to do better with keeping you all informed.

So Far, and yet So Close

So about a week ago I found myself starting to contemplate the ways that technology has really changed life for those of us who leave home to fight our country's wars. It was actually around the time that I got off the phone after calling my dad to wish him a happy birthday that it struck me. Here I am on a forward base in the middle of a combat zone and yet I had just called my dad from an air-conditioned trailer for no greater reason than to say "Happy Birthday". After that conversation I logged on to my email, which allows me to write to my family and friends nearly instantaneously without regard to time zones or geographic location. Then I spent a little bit of time surfing the internet to look at real estate listings, including photos and video, for houses I may consider buying when we get back to the states in a few months. Finally, I watched a couple episodes of my favorite TV show (Dexter, by the way. I'm addicted.) And then went to sleep with the A/C blowing on high. The next day I flew on a mission in the helicopter while listening to songs from my crewchief's iPod playing through the aircraft's intercom system. It pains me to try to think of what life will be like when Michenna (who doesn't know what a VHS tape is, by the way) is my age.

Medevac. Taste it again...for the first time...again.

Well, it didn't take long before I got right back in the swing of things out here. On only my second time on the alert here I got to do my first Medevac out of Basrah. Before you get too excited, you should probably understand that we didn't carry the patient (the other aircraft did) and it wasn't exactly a case of life or death. Basically it boils down to someone that had lost their voice. I'm not sure if they thought that it was perhaps in the helicopter or what, but we ended up taking him down to Kuwait to look for it.

So it wasn't a terribly exciting evac, but it's a start, right? Now I just have to keep waiting for the next.

In another bit of interesting news, I think someone tried to hack into my blog and leave me a nasty little message. Nothing threatening mind you, just somewhat insulting. At least, I assume that was the intention. Maybe he was just giving me advice. Here's the exact wording of the comment he made about my last post:

i think my 12 year old has somthing like this too. ow ya, stop leaving your e-mail address in the PC or you might get alot of junk mail one day.

It's not that I'm not grateful for the advice, because I truly am and normally I would have gladly published this to my post, but I felt it would apply better here. Yes, the joys of having to use a public terminal, even a military-use-only public terminal. Also proves that the Army will take just about anyone. Though I do have to give bonus points for the proper use of "your".

Well, the van is now leaving to take me back to my tent for the night. Hope you are having a great day and I'll keep you posted, at least as well as a 12 year old.

Long Time No Fly

Well, I've been out here for about a week now. Unfortunately the weather is not particularly cooperating to get me up flying. It's been pretty dusty outside the last couple of days. That's actually pretty common this time of year out here. I've pretty much passed my time sleeping, working out, and watching movies.

Speaking of movies, I watched that Quentin Tarantino movie based on a poster he once saw about WWII. I'm sure that you know the name of the film. I've seen all the hype about it, and frankly I'm a little puzzled. Like most of Tarantino's other works, I walked away from this one thinking "Well, that was OK, I guess." while everyone else seems to praise it as a reinventing of American Cinema. Call me a purist, but I kind of figured that a WWII film would have some small smidgeon of a basis in, you know, WWII. Here are little known facts about the War that I learned from watching this movie:

1. The Nazi occupation of France apparently lasted something like 15 years.
2. If you happened to be a Jew living in France at the time, as long as you escaped the initial Nazi attempt to kill your family it was quite easy for you to re-enter normal society. Even to the point where you could somehow inherit property from your relatives without anyone questioning it.
3. Killing or disfiguring unarmed prisoners in horrific ways is completely acceptable, as long as you're an American.
4. All Germans were evil Nazis. No exceptions.

Don't get me wrong, the movie was not without it's enjoyable moments. Christoph Waltz did an outstanding job and is more than deserving of his Oscar nomination, but overall I'd have to give this film 2.5 stars. I'm not really sure where the "Best Picture" nomination came from.

The other movie I watched was "The Happening". I'm not even going to really justify this one with a review. I'll suffice it to say that I'm pretty sure that M. Night Shyamalan wrote this film on a toilet paper roll during a particularly bad bout of food poisoning. I've seen better dialogue and more compelling drama in toothpaste commercials. I think that it's safe to say that he peaked with his first film and has been going downhill at an increasing pace ever since. Too bad.

Anyway, that's about it for now, sorry there's not more to write on the goings on in Iraq. Hopefully I'll get flying more soon and have more to tell y'all about.

We're Not in Kuwait Anymore, Toto.

All right. Here it is! My very first blog entry from Iraq. I'll give you a moment to get over the excitement...

OK, that should be plenty of time.

In order to get to Basra, my flight took me via Continental to Manila, then Gulf Air to Bahrain and on to Kuwait City. We then got the joy of riding an Air Force cargo plane into Iraq. Fun times, to be sure. The biggest highlight of my flight was that I got bumped up to First Class by Continental for my 4-hour trip to the Phillipines. No, they didn't do that out of the goodness of their hearts for a deploying serviceman (if they did that in Guam, the entire plane would be in First (or Japanese)). I got the bump because I flew around enough last year to earn Elite status in their frequent flyer program. I'm not going to complain though. Unfortunately, there was nothing that could get me bumped up on the 10-hour flight to Bahrain. I think the Gulf Air agents took pity on my pathetic begging, however, because I did end up sitting by myself in the center 4 seats of the jumbo. As soon as the Seat Belt sign went off, the armrests went vertical and I went horizontal. Of course it took all four of those little airplane pillows to support my head, but I made it work.

So I arrived here last Wednesday. The first thing that I realized is that Basra is a lot different from Kuwait. There are only about 40 miles from here to there as the crow flies, but the bases are worlds apart. Camp Beuhring was a much more established base. Most of the buildings were still temporary trailers, but they were trailers. Here is pretty much all tents. There are some hard structures, but they're relatively sparse. The floors in our tents are made from plastic tiles laid out over packed dirt. This definitely feels more like a combat zone than it did down south, and I guess it is. We are required to carry our 9mm pistols everywhere we go on base. I mean everywhere. If I'm not in my tent, I'm armed.

That's certainly not to say that this place doesn't have it's advantages. Sure, there's no Taco Bell or Burger King like on Beuhring, but there really isn't a need for it. Everywhere on the base has refrigerators full of Water, Gatorade and soda that's free for the taking. There are also candy, jerky, chips and other snack foods in case I get hungry in between meals. The meals are an event in themselves. Good food and large portions. It will take a lot of self-discipline to not weigh 400 pounds when I leave here. Thankfully there are also about 30 gyms to aid in that goal.

I got to fly for the first time out here yesterday. The flying is still just as enjoyable as I remember. We have to be a bit more vigilant when we fly here because there are still people nearby who would love to cause us to have a bad day, but that's what we train for.

Tricia says that a lot of people have been asking what we need out here and the truth is that I can't really think of anything. I know that doesn't help, but like I said, there are snacks everywhere. Movies are all over for the watching. There are even quite a few books. I also can't really accept things for the Iraqi kids because I will most likely not be leaving the base. Just your prayers and thoughts will be plenty for me.

Well, there you have it. My tour of Iraq has begun. I'll be sure to keep you updated.