365 Rewind

As I had done for my last deployment, I have thrown together a list of things I would and would not miss from this deployment. It's a simple list that includes a few highlights;


15 days in Australia
11 C-130 rides
7 C-17 rides
1 DHC-8-200
7 months in Kuwait
4 months in Iraq
1 month in Afghanistan

Things I will miss (I actually have some this time!):

Working with Air Force
Serving as the Commander of the Steel Scorpions and the 191 Airmen and Soldiers I went on convoys with
Seeing F-16s taking off in the dark at full afterburner. Awesome sound, amazing sight
Sunrises over Diamondback

Things I won't miss (slightly longer list):


Watching people waste water while shaving and brushing their teeth by leaving the faucet running for no reason
Small shower and bathroom stalls in Al Asad when I visited Kyle there
Male/female voice announcing an incoming rocket attack at any base I've been to in Iraq and Afghanistan
Cess pool behind of office. No joke, the sewage system ended out back of my office in Iraq and the tank was constantly overflowing into the ground. Lovely smell and fun to walk through.
Chicken Fajitas MRE and Blueberry Pop Tarts. I ate too many of these in the final month in Iraq.
Windows with sandbags
Constant hum of generators
Picking bathroom which stall to use based on the following criteria:
             1) Working 
             2) Not stuffed with crap n paper 
             3) Has toilet paper
             4) Does not overflow after 'test' flush to ensure pipes aren't clogged
             5) Has water in the tank as well as the bowl
Drinking orange juice juice boxes under the amber glow of whoopie lights (orange flashing cop lights) at 3am watching cargo being off loaded after driving for 18 hours
Multiple 20 hour work days back to back to back to back
Dusty/dirty water bottles
Dust filled air in staging lanes waiting to roll out
Crammed in a M915 for 16 hours bouncing around like a rag doll banging my knees against the steel kick plate the Army calls a dashboard.
Mango juice at Marez dfac
littered living area in marez
'Short halts' that turn into long halts on the road exposing us to an increased chance at taking hostile fire
Iraqi Police checkpoints, what's the point?
Dead dogs on the road
Traffic in Tikrit
Burning fields/tires
UXO (unexploded ordinance) blocking traffic
Heading to the showers only to walk in on a guy nude, facing the door, toweling off in the Captain Morgan pose. Thanks guy.
Wearing my lightweight desert combat boots in Bagram, Afghanistan after a snowfall and subsequent melting and refreezing of slush resulting in freezing my boots being soaked and my feet frozen for 3 days straight
AFN (Armed Forces Network) Commercials on TV....GIVE ME REAL COMMERCIALS!

Lastly, I wanted to share with you all my final speech to the Steel Scorpion Family:

"There are going to be a lot of speeches, a lot of praise to be given, a lot of 'job well done', mission accomplished and news coverage of what we've done over the next few months to a year. Some of you when you go home will be asked what it was life and they'll try to sympathize about your eating habits here at JBB. They'll try and understand what it's like to willingly leave the safety of a base to drive along the most dangerous roads in the world where people are intentionally looking to bring harm to you. But they can't and will never know what that's like. You are a privileged few to have deployed and faced the enemy daily. No one can truly comprehend what that's like, except your brothers and sisters to your right and left. Never forget what you've done here, I know I won't."

Afghanistan Bound #2

48 hours. That's how much time I had after I was notified. Having been back in Arifjan for nearly a month and having only a little over a month left on my deployment, I figured my travels would be done. No such luck. I say this not because I didn't want to go to Afghanistan, I say this because the week before I was told I was going back, I had packed all my cold weather gear and shipped it home. Perfect. So I spent a day scrounging up a sleeping bag, fleece jacket, gloves and anything else I could in an attempt to prepare for the mountains of Afghanistan.

This trip was different than the last though. I was asked by my battalion commander to go with him to visit the unit I had deployed to BAF to see how they were doing and to go on a convoy. Yes, go on a convoy. My second trip to Afghanistan I chose not to inform my family back home about this event simply because I didn't want them to worry. Flying is always safer, a convoy that took us on the outskirts of Kabul a few days after the Quran 'burning' started riots probably wasn't something my family would want to hear. They also probably wouldn't have wanted to hear that the night before I left on this convoy there was an operation conducted by an air weapons team that had spotted insurgents setting up an ambush site. The Apaches and fast movers (F16s) in the area engaged them with 4 hell fire missiles and a 500lb bomb killing all 21 insurgents, and ultimately saving anyone traveling along that route. The convoy took roughly eight hours, entirely at night, through the mountains between BAF and Jalallabad Airfield (JAF) also known as FOB Fenty. The roads here are completely different that the roads of Iraq, especially through the mountains. With sheer cliffs on one side of the road, we hugged the inside lane as best we could. Plenty of times we would pass civilian trucks within inches of each other with hairpin turns pushing on coming traffic closer than you'd want it to be. One of the more intense moments was when we came up to the switchbacks. The vehicles we were driving couldn't make the turn without having to back up a few times....but when you pull as far forward as you can before the road ends and you know that if you go another inch you'll end up tumbling down a mountainside, you learn to trust your driver! We got to FOB Fenty with no issues and the following night we left Fenty to head back to BAF. However, about 3 hours into our drive we were told to turn around and head back because the mountain passes were too icy and the risk wasn't worth a life. One of the cool things about Fenty was the location of the transient tents in relation to the DFAC. Every day I got to cross the flight line to go eat or do anything at the MWR so I got to see all the aircraft up close and see them take off and land. I kept thinking to myself that I missed my calling, that I should have been a pilot like my grandfather and uncle.

We got back to Fenty around 3am and made it into our tent by 330am. I woke up around 615am to the loudest explosion I had ever heard. The alarm went off and everyone scrambled for their gear. As I made my way outside, I saw a plume of black smoke billowing from where one of the gates to the base was located. Eventually I learned that there was two suicide bombers driving two cars toward the gate. The first was to detonate to blast a hole in the gate and the second was to drive as far into the base as it could and detonate. This same thing happened at another base not too long ago. Depending on how you look at it, we were fortunate that these terrorists were not too bright and the second car followed too closely behind the first so when the fist detonated his car, that explosion caused the second to go off as well. Sadly there were a few Afghani Soldiers who were killed in the blast.

Because of the protests outside of BAF and the bomb that hit the gate at JAF, we were put on water rations, to include not being allowed to shower. This was done because not 100% of all water treatment can occur on base since there isn't enough room. So instead there is a facility not far off base that takes care of the water. Because of the protests and bombing, the hired individuals (Afghani) were not allowed on base for a few days causing a backup of blackwater. What did this mean to me? I didn't have a lot of clothes so add that to not being able to shower for 4 days.....I smelled like fresh roses.....