The Daily Grind

To put your life in danger from time to time... breeds a saneness in dealing with day-to-day trivialities.

- Nevil Shute, 'Slide Rule: The Autobiography of an Engineer'.

Someone asked me what I do on a daily basis. Good question. Why am I here? (hopefully I can justify that in the next couple paragraphs, after all, you the taxpayer are bearing the expense! And I thank you!)

On a TYPICAL day, I get up about 2 pm, hit the shower and grab my stuff heading out for work about 3. The guy on the night shift leaves me the keys to a small white pick-up in a basket in our common room. I throw on the shades, open the front door and am immediately assaulted by a stifling heat and the brightest sun I’ve every experienced! I drive over to OPS town (named cleverly after the flight operations that take place there… I’ll bet you wouldn’t be surprised to find it is located next to the base’s runway!)

I’ll spend the next 10 hours or so as the Assistant Operations Officer for a squadron of C-130s that operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year moving cargo and people all over the middle east. You name it, we haul it, anywhere a medium sized airplane can land and take off. I’m an assistant because we are only here 30-something days of flying, and some poor Active Duty guy got stuck with being the full-time Ops Officer on a 4 month tour, which will look great on his progress report and get him promoted faster (The guy who is the squadron commander is here for a year, I think, though I am too polite to ask, for fear of rubbing in my touch and go).

The Ops Officer’s job is to be in charge of flying operations, up close and personal. You monitor the crews, discuss issues which could cause problems, check on the weather, and give them a final blessing as they step out to the door to the jet. You monitor their progress over the radios as they load their cargo, taxi and take-off, responding if there are problems, especially maintenance issues. Once they are airborne, you can see their progress via computer as they take off and land at various locations and the stations log their times in an Air Force Command & Control computer program we access.

If they break somewhere, we figure out how to “rescue” them. If they get sick we find replacements. We also act as the go-between for the Operations Group Commander, keeping him/her informed of how things are going; getting waivers (permission) for flying more than normally allowed if the crews get delayed somewhere for maintenance issues or airfield attacks (it happens). The ultimate goal is to get the mission accomplished and get the planes back here if at all possible so they can go out again as soon as they are refueled and reloaded. It’s a never ending cycle, and every day brings a completely different set of circumstances to deal with. Add inspections, regulations and normal office politics (yes, even the military has it!), you get a very fast-paced, intense and dynamic job that never EVER gets boring.

On occasion I’ll get to fly either as a replacement for another Navigator (if he gets sick or wants a break); or just go along for an over-the-shoulder or orientation ride to keep current. Last night I flew up to Baghdad, Mosul and Kirkuk. It was a great night; clear skies most of the way, a full moon and calm winds. We moved people all around Iraq, eventually returning with 50+ people, all on their way home.

At the end of my daily shift I’ll get off around 1 am, and ride the shuttle bus back to the residence compound where a couple thousand US and coalition personnel make their home. Most nights I’ll change into the required PT gear (the only thing you are allowed to wear if you are not in the work uniform) and either go to the activity center for a beer (we’re allowed 3 a day here!) or go straight out onto the perimeter road that circumnavigates the living area. It’s a 1.7 mile road that I typically walk 4 times.

By the time I’m done with that, it’s 3:30 or 4 am, so I head back to the barracks, watch an hour or so of “The West Wing” (Kara got me the complete 7 seasons on her stop in Thailand..) grab a shower and hit the sack. Then it’s Ground Hog’s day all over again…