A Long Overdue Post

No, I've not disposed of my cell phone, thrown away all material items, and cut ties with all people who know me to go and live in a bus in the Alaskan wilderness like Christopher McCandless did in 1992. By the way, that's a good book and movie called "Into The Wild".

Seriously though, this blog is an awesome tool and I've shortchanged all of you by not posting on here in quite some time. As my wonderful wife has alluded to in her post, I've been very busy up here in the Arctic with project officer duties. It has subsided a bit though now that the ball is rolling. My next big tasking is getting 12 A-10's, 200 people, and a couple 747 cargo planes loaded with equipment back over the Pacific Ocean into Korea. That should be fun.....

So what exactly am I doing you may wonder? Well, we have went TDY (temporary duty) here for two reasons: 1. To expend all our fiscal year 2009 munitions allocations and end the FHP (flying hour program) and 2. Fly in a Red Flag Alaska International training exercise. The constant thrash of scheduling changes has made life up here not ideal with us having to come in on weekends to fly and fly 3 separate periods during weekdays. Pilots are coming in a 0500 if they are on the day train and pilots on the night train (had been me till tonight) would not get outta work until 0100ish the next morning. As I said, I'm transitioning tonight from a night guy to a day guy, a transition heavily assisted by Ambien sleeping pills, commonly called "No-Go's" vs. our other pills called "Go Pills". Don't worry, it's all very regulated and only pilots with constantly changing schedules get them. Funny thing is, our schedules are always changing so we always have them. Anyhow, there is the historical knowledge that typically, TDY's are a break from your normal grind at home station. Well, this certainly has not been the case here and dudes are worn out and not wanting to do anything since they are so tired at the end of the day and the end of the week. It's really hurt our opportunities to enjoy the Alaskan state. September 30 is the last day of the fiscal year, so October 1 is a whole new can of worms. No more precision flying hour monitoring and weapon's tracking as it will be a new year and everything magically starts over. Red Flag will start on 1 October and I must say, I'm looking forward to it. I'm probably one of the most senior fighter pilots in the Air Force to have never done a Red Flag exercise so I'm excited to do it. What I'm not excited about is the fact that they (squadron leadership) want to have me do my Mission Commander upgrade here during Red Flag. This is a big deal and typically only the most senior and experienced dudes get to do this. Imagine being handed a high threat scenario (massive surface to air missiles, opposing enemy fighter jets, extensive amounts of anti-aircraft artillery, and of course small arms) and being told "here's 100 no kidding military jets with unlimited tanker (refueling aircraft) support for you to design a plan from start to finish on how you are going to execute and defeat the opposing enemy." I'll have 2 entire days devoted entirely to mission planning and about 100 people working for me to help come up with the plan. Remember, this is all real, not simulated. All these fighters, bombers, and special operations aircraft have real weapons and of course there will be real opposing threats to us as well. The only thing Red Flag can't do is the no kidding shooting at us which that is simulated with amazing computers and awesome technology anyhow. It's pretty much the opening days of a major war only we don't really get shot down. Long story short, it's amazing training in some of the best airspace in the world. It's the standing up in front of a 100-200 people and briefing them on MY plan and how and why we are going to do it. Remember, this room is full of fellow fighter/attack pilots, bomber pilots, foreign pilots, etc, so you gotta know your stuff before you get up there and sound like a clown!

Even though the above paragraph would led you to believe that we don't have any time, we are able to do some fun things. For instance, the very first weekend I was here (and before 95% of the personnel got here) a few of us were able to drive down to Denali National Park. This was an amazing trip! The driving through the Alaskan scenery is simply awesome. The landscape here is gorgeous. We saw several Moose and other assorted wildlife, but no bears yet! I won't lie, I want to see a bear........preferably from the comfort of a vehicle or indoors looking out though. I have come face to face with 2 Moose. I usually do an immediate 180 and go back the other way. You don't want to get between a Momma Moose and her babies! She'll end you real quick. The next weekend, I was able to sneak out on a fly-in fishing trip. Myself and 4 other pilots paid 200 dollars to fly 1 hour out into the middle of nowhere, land a plane on a lake, fish all day, eat our caught fish, and sleep out in the Alaskan wilderness. Talk about an amazing trip! After a rough start, I was quite the fisherman as I reeled in 9 beautiful Rainbow Trout ranging from 15 inches up to about 23. Really, really nice fish. You'll pay about 20-40 dollars at a restaurant for good Alaska Rainbow Trout and we had more than we could eat! Amazing! Talk about keeping your gear and food secure though. Bears are no joke up here. Those dudes will put a hurting on you in a heartbeat so our fish guts and stuff, we trucked all the way to the other side of the lake so we wouldn't get any unwanted visitors in the middle of the night. Remember, there's no power, no cell phone coverage, no nothing, so you have to be prepared to take care of yourself. We'd taken a couple weapons just in case something went down..........and nothing did. It was a pleasant night (a bit cold in the lower 30's), but we had a nice fire going and we did have a little cabin with a fire heater in it so we were good to go. The Northern Lights were amazing. They are hard to describe other than you really just have to see them to fully appreciate them.

Other than that, we have had some time to do what all pilots tend to do and that's tour the local drinking establishments on Friday and Saturday nights for those fortunate enough to not have to fly on Saturday. We've found a couple really awesome hole-in-the-wall bars that have welcomed us with open arms. Alaskan people are a little unusual, but they are very respectful and supportive of the military so we've had nothing but good experiences up here unlike other parts of the mainland states. This one bar in particular had a 80's cover band playing. The mixture of random Alaska backwoods looking people and of course a lead singer Tundra Wookie made it all the more enjoyable. They did play some Journey and Bon Jovi, so I was happy and thinking of Rachel the entire time. They also had Pabst Blue Ribbon in cans so you really could not go wrong at this place!

Another place we found and really loved is Silver Gulch Brewing Company. It's North America's Northernmost Brewery. It's a nice facility with awesome beer and even better food. It's about a 1 hour drive from Eielson Air Force Base, but well worth it. I know several of us have said we'll be making the trip up there again.

Well, that's about it for now. I know I've left some things out, but you've gotten most of the trip so far. Overall, I love it up here. I'm really sad that they moved the A-10's out of this base a couple years back. I would of loved to been assigned up here. After being here, I think Rachel would have loved it as well. The winters are tough as I experienced in January of this year, but overall this place is great. A wonderful place for a family and outdoor activities year round. ATV's and snowmachines are standard here. We don't have snow on the ground yet, but it has snowed 3 of the last 4 days, but it's not quite staying around down here yet. About 500 feet up the mountains though, the snow is staying. It's just a matter of time before it sticks here in the valleys as well. The only thing missing on this trip is Rachel. Right when we had really gotten adjusted to living together and always being around each other, BAM, we both go off and won't see each other for nearly 8 weeks. I miss her (and all of you for that matter) terribly, but this is and always will be part of the deal with our chosen military life. Rachel and I both feel it is a sacrifice worth making as the opportunities the military has given us far outweigh these times of separation.

With that, I bid you all a good evening!

Love Rick

PS - Rachel and I should be finding out about our next assignment soon!!!!!! We are both excited and anxious to find out where the next chapter in the book of life will be taking us............Stay Tuned!