To every thing there is a season

Well the last mission has finally come and gone. Sometimes it feels like the last four months have just whizzed by, and yet, looking back, it feels like our deportation back in the beginning of February was years ago!

Yesterday was my last mission for this deployment. Unfortunately I couldn't share it with my crew; due to scheduling issues, a staff Nav didn't feel up to the 1215 a.m. alert/4 am takeoff! While I can't say I blame him, it meant that I had to swap crews for the last flight. My mission was an out and back to Peshawar, up in the northern reaches of western Pakistan, someplace I've never been before, so it was a pretty easy sell.

The crew consisted of Shawn Donahey, Aircraft commander, Charlie Baker, freshly minted co-pilot, Rich Reynolds, Flight Engineer, and Loadmasters Jim Ferrebee and Rich Signorelli. I have flown with all these guys back at the home station, but this was my first ride with them as a hard crew. They've been working hard the past four months, and you could tell they have bonded pretty strongly.

Our flight took us down the Persian Gulf, over the United Arab Emerites, and to the eastern side of Pakistan through Karachi, then up to Lahore, and then back west to Peshawar. I couldn't for the life of me, figure out why we went all the way over to Karachi, but each of these countries have their little idiosyncrasies, so it's not unusual to do things somewhat contrary to common sense. However, half-way up to Lahore, it became apparent the Air Traffic Controllers were having a difficult time understanding why we were flying the route we were on. There were numerous calls for identification and clarification and finally they just directed us to fly BACK across Pakistan to the western side of the country and then up to Peshawar. Luckily we had put on more gas than we normally do, and no problems complying with their every whim.

Peshawar has some mountains surrounding the city, but they are not like up in Afghanistan where your inclination sometimes is to descend in a spiral over the field in order to stay comfortably away from the high terrain. The area around the city is generally flat with lots of farm areas nearby. The city is highly populated and consists of multitudes of densely packed one-story housing units made out of brick and mortar. The thing that struck us most was the green grass and trees! Lots and lots of trees. What a refreshing sight!

Our task was to pick up an Army three-star General, and transport him and four aides back to our base after their tour of Pakistani frontier forces and training. The plan was for him to show up shortly after we landed and refueled, climb aboard, and we would briskly whisk him back to our home station. That was not quite what happened. The guy was out on a tour with a Pakistani General, and according to the Lieutenant assigned to liaison with us, there was no telling when the two of them might show up.

So, we sat and waited, refueled, re-filed our flight plan with the approved diplomatically cleared routing home, watched a couple of civilian airliners come and go, ate from our box lunches and cooler, and speculated whether we would be going home anytime soon. At about the two hour mark, the sound of helicopter blades reached us from behind some trees, and a couple of armed helicopters dropped down beside us, discharging the Generals and their various entourages.

After that, it was just a matter of them clearing customs and immigration and a long 5-hour ride back home, punctuated by a SATCOM message about an hour from landing announcing the successful arrival of most of our replacements! Seemed pretty certain that we would be done after this one.

Our landing field was obscured in blowing dust and thunderstorms upon our arrival, but Shawn flew a flawless approach to minimums, picking up the rabbit lights about a mile and a half from touchdown. With the screech of the tires touching down, the Loads, Flight Engineer and I all started clapping, celebrating the end of a long, but highly successful deployment! We've got four days of flying remaining till we're home with our family and loved ones, but it sure felt good at that moment to know we were done with our part of mission, at least for now.

Next destination: Western Pennsylvania!

Bring Me Men...

“Bring me men to match my mountains: Bring me men to match my plains: Men with empires in their purpose and new eras in their brains.”

~ Sam Walter Foss

My wife received an e-mail from my son's High School Tennis coach. He asked each of the boys' parents to participate in this year's Tennis team end of year banquet:

Parents,

Please be prepared to say a few words to your sons.

Dad’s Assignment

1. Pick a SV Tennis Core Value or a Family Core Value
2. Talk about what that core value has meant to you over the years
3. Give an example of how that core value has led to success in an area of your life.
4. Challenge your son to discover and live a life committed to core values.

Mom’s Assignment

1. Pick a good quality that your son possesses
2. Share how and when you have seen that quality come to life in your son’s life
3. Tell why that quality is so important to his future.
4. Share your love and affirmation with your son.

The talks do not have to be long, but our desire is to make a lasting memory.

Thanks for your participation.

Coach Grove

The Banquet is today, and I am unable to attend, being something in the neighborhood of 6900 miles away. My first reaction was to just say, ''that was nice," and delete the e-mail, knowing it was one more thing in my kids' lives that I was going to miss. But then I thought about it, and it struck me that this Coach was taking an interest in the lives of these boys that went way beyond the locker room or tennis court, which is really all he needed to care about. He is asking us to help mold these boys into the young men who will be the future of our families, communities and even our nation.

My son is a great kid, though not a great tennis player (yet), and he may never be, but I think he is extremely fortunate to have this type of mentoring and leadership in his life, especially coming from outside the family. It shows that our society expects great things of our youth, and not only do we have high expectations, we are committed to helping them be the best that they can be.

So, I sat down, wrote out what I would stand up and read if I was there at the banquet, and sent it to him and my wife. My thoughts may not be included in what goes on today, but I am hopeful that at some point my son will either see these words on paper or get them from me directly (when i get home), and he can think about what it takes to be a man in today's society. We can use all the good ones we can get.

The core values that have stuck with me the most are the ones that I have grown up with in the Air Force. There are three, and they are tied together.

1. Integrity First,
2. Service Before Self,
3. Excellence in All We Do.

Integrity first. Be true to yourself, your family, your team, the people you work with. People have to rely on you to do your part, and if they can’t, you make whatever group you belong to weak and unable to accomplish the goals you have set for yourselves. Be there when you say you will be, do the things that are yours to do. Be responsible and the one people can count on. Treat your friends, teammates, classmates and competitors with respect, and they will respect you.

Service before self. This is where the whole Boy Scout attitude comes into play. Do a good turn daily. Think of others ahead of your own needs. Think of what the team, your family, your neighbor, or your job requires of you, and see if you can’t easily take care of the things that spell success for that person or group, then tend to your own wants and needs.

Excellence in all we do. You don’t have to be the best, you just have to try your best. When you recognize you aren’t the best, do the work that will take you to the next level. That means study, train, practice… repeat. Don’t say you’ll do something unless you are willing to do it to the utmost of your ability. The old saying is, “a thing isn’t worth doing unless it’s worth doing right.” When you are on a team, committed to winning a game, a match or a season, your teammates expect you to show up prepared and to play. To do less is to fail them, and waste everybody’s time. Being successful in school and life is exactly the same.

Team sports are a learning laboratory for life. Enjoy the competition, savor the victories and learn from the defeats, but more than anything else, you need to embrace the experience that working together for a common goal provides. Your lives will be filled with challenges, but if you can set goals, ask for assistance when needed, help those who need your assistance, and do your best at all times, you will be successful men.

Humpin' Yeminis!

Today was something new.

We've been flying pretty much non-stop to either Iraq or Afghanistan for the last three months. We did get the flight down to Djibouti, which was a nice change of pace, but it was a place I'd already been a couple times. Several crews have been flying over to Egypt and Yemen over and over again, and while none of these places are anything special, they are new and different places to say you've been. It's also good training for the young guys to experience flying in different countries, dealing with foreign controllers, and complying with different procedures.

Today's mission came down for yet another trip to Iraq, but at almost the same take off time, another crew was tagged to fly to Yemen for the second or third time in a row. None of us had been to Yemen before, and we had been talking about wanting to go there on a recent flight. When the preliminary schedule came out, I e-mailed the scheduler, suggesting that if no one objected, our crew would really like to go down to Yemen. Surprisingly, no one on the staff or the other crew minded, and when the final schedule came out, we were headed south!

The trip down was a bit eventful at the start, as we encountered icing just as we crossed into Saudi Arabia. The anti-icing was working overtime and you could actually watch the ice build on the windshield wipers and propeller blades. It took a decent of a couple thousand feet to catch up with the icing, and we were able to fly out of it after fifty or sixty miles.

The capital of Yemen is Sana'a, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. At an altitude of 7,500 feet, it is also one of the highest capital cities in the world. It sits on a high arid plain surrounded by mountains on three sides, and presents some performance challenges with the altitude and high temperatures. It has a population of over 1.7 million, making it the largest city in the country.

Our mission was to drop off pallets of ammunition to aid in the training of the Yemeni police force. Each pallet probably weighed 2,500 -3,000 lbs, so there was a lot of weight back there. When we taxied in, we were met by the US Station Agent, the airport operations personnel, some US Army guys in mufti, and a bunch of Yemeni officers and troops. Lots of smiles, greetings and handshakes all around.

Everything went pretty smooth until it was discovered that no one had paid for a forklift to unload the pallets. The Army (the user) wouldn't spring for it, and the Embassy wasn't going to pay for it. What they really wanted was for us, the Air Force to pick up the tab. Unfortunately we had a set of orders with what the planners had authorized payment for, and a forklift was NOT on the list. I don't think it was all that much, but if we had signed for it unauthorized, it is just like our finance folks to say it was the crew's bill. Not something we were willing to kick in for, not on $3.50 a day.

So, we went back and forth on this for awhile, even considering using all the extra bodies to manually unload the cargo. In fact it began to look like a PENDOT project with all the folks standing around trying to figure out how this was going to work. The last thing we wanted to do was haul the cargo back to Qatar.

Finally, our loadmasters, old hands that they are, figured it out and the mission proceeded. The first pallet was artfully offloaded, and situated at the base of the tail ramp. The Yemenis quickly hooked it up to a little Toyota pick-up by some chains, and attempted to drag it across the tarmac. The Toyota spun it's wheels, got some traction, moved it a few dozen feet then stalled, gathered itself and moved farther again... Finally the driver got the idea of not losing the momentum and he was able to move it, struggling and straining off the active ramp, wisps of smoke wafting from beneath the hood.

After that, the system got better; the pallet came off, chains were attached (the Toyota was replaced by a stake-bed truck), and the pallet drug off. In no time all six pallets were downloaded and hauled away.

The only thing left was to pay our fees. This was a bit of concern. None of us were really up on conversion factors and what really cost what. The Co-pilot (in possession of a LOT of money) had the fun task of fiscal negotiations (including paying for the airport fees and the fuel), and went off with the airport folks and the US station agent. They were gone for quite some time, and we were beginning to wonder if he got mugged or something, but by the time we were done refueling, he returned and even had a few Yemeni Rials left in his satchel. Only a cash count by the finance folks back home would truly tell if he had got it right....

As a final show of friendship, we posed for a picture with our new found friends, the Yemeni troops who had helped in the unloading. We gathered on the ramp, smiled for several cameras and exchanged farewells. It had been a good afternoon in a new and interesting location. Hopefully there will be many more like this in the future.

Trash Haulers Have Fun Too (Written by a pilot, of course)

 ****This was pretty much every approach into an airfield in Iraq and Afghanistan***

There I was at six thousand feet over central Iraq, two hundred eighty knots and we're dropping faster than Paris Hilton's panties. It's a typical September evening in the Persian Gulf; hotter than a rectal thermometer and I'm sweating like a priest at a Cub Scout meeting.

But that's neither here nor there. The night is moonless over Baghdad tonight, and blacker than a Steven King novel. But it's 2004, folks, and I'm sporting the latest in night-combat technology. Namely, hand-me-down night vision goggles (NVGs) thrown out by the fighter boys. Additionally, my 1962 Lockheed C-130E Hercules is equipped with an obsolete, yet, semi-effective missile warning system (MWS). The MWS conveniently makes a nice soothing tone in your headset just before the missile explodes into your airplane.

Who says you can't polish a turd? At any rate, the NVGs are illuminating Baghdad International Airport like the Las Vegas Strip during a Mike Tyson fight. These NVGs are the cat's ass. But I've digressed.  The preferred method of approach tonight is the random shallow. This tactical maneuver allows the pilot to ingress the landing zone in an unpredictable manner, thus exploiting the supposedly secured perimeter of the airfield in an attempt to avoid enemy surface-to-air-missiles and small arms fire. Personally, I wouldn't bet my pink ass on that theory but the approach is fun as hell and that's the real reason we fly it.

We get a visual on the runway at three miles out, drop down to one thousand feet above the ground, still maintaining two hundred eighty knots. Now the fun starts. It's pilot appreciation time as I descend the mighty Herk to six hundred feet and smoothly, yet very deliberately, yank into a sixty degree left bank, turning the aircraft ninety degrees offset from runway heading.  As soon as we roll out of the turn, I reverse turn to the right a full two hundred seventy degrees in order to roll out aligned with the runway. 

Some aeronautical genius coined this maneuver the "Ninety/Two-Seventy." Chopping the power during the turn, I pull back on the yoke just to the point my nether regions start to sag, bleeding off energy in order to configure the pig for landing. 

"Flaps Fifty!, Landing Gear Down!, Before Landing Checklist!" I look over at the copilot and he's shaking like a cat shitting on a sheet of ice. Looking further back at the navigator, and even through the NVGs, I can clearly see the wet spot spreading around his crotch. Finally, I glance at my steely-eyed flight engineer. His eyebrows rise in unison as a grin forms on his face. I can tell he's thinking the same thing I am. "Where do we find such fine young men?" "Flaps One Hundred!" I bark at the shaking cat. Now it's all aim point and airspeed. Aviation 101, with the exception there's no lights, I'm on NVGs, it's Baghdad, and now tracers are starting to crisscross the black sky.

Naturally, and not at all surprisingly, I grease the Goodyear's on brick-one of runway 33 left, bring the throttles to ground idle and then force the props to full reverse pitch. Tonight, the sound of freedom is my four Hamilton Standard propellers chewing through the thick, putrid, Baghdad air.  The huge, one hundred thirty thousand pound, lumbering whisper pig comes to a lurching stop in less than two thousand feet. Let's see a Viper do that! 

We exit the runway to a welcoming committee of government issued Army grunts. It's time to download their beans and bullets and letters from their sweethearts, look for war booty, and of course, urinate on Saddam's home.

Walking down the crew entry steps with my lowest-bidder, Beretta 92F, 9 millimeter strapped smartly to my side, I look around and thank God, not Allah, I'm an American and I'm on the winning team. 

Then I thank God I'm not in the Army.

Knowing once again I've cheated death, I ask myself, "What in the hell am I doing in this mess?" Is it Duty, Honor, and Country? You bet your ass. Or could it possibly be for the glory, the swag, and not to mention, chicks dig the Air Medal. There's probably some truth there too. But now is not the time to derive the complexities of the superior, cerebral properties of the human portion of the aviator-man-machine model. It is however, time to get out of this shit-hole. "Hey copilot, clean yourself up! And how's 'bout the 'Before Starting Engines Checklist.'"  

God, I love this job.

- - - - -

To be fair, this leaves out a few key parts… FROM THE NAV POINT OF VIEW:

"Hey Nav, what's the SCNS counting down to?"

"The airport."

"Holy f*#*! Why didn't you say so? We're past our descent point!"

"No sh##. I said it five times, but you were too busy talking about your ALPA contract.

5 miles...”