Al Udied...and finally into Afghanistan

Al Udied Air Base. It's a Lovely place.....for a Camel! It's hot, it's sandy, it's not the ideal place in the world one might say. I have to say though, people have lived there for thousands of years so evidently, they see something there that I do not. Anyhow, we landed in Al Udied, Qatar after a rather uneventful flight over. The highlight of this flight was that we flew over the Mediterranean Sea, right along the coast of Libya, which you may have heard about recently in the news, over the country of Egypt and Saudi Arabia and finally into Qatar. The landscape was nothing too exotic; sand, sand, and more sand. The Nile River in Egypt was about the only green area we saw during the 8 hour flight. Landing in Qatar was quit an experience itself. The visibility over here in the Middle East is typically much less than what we are used to in the United States. When we landed, the visibility was a little under 2 miles and the winds were howling at around 35mph. Like previously at Lajes, a more exciting landing than normal but whatever; it's part of the deal over here. After getting out of the jet, the heat and dust hit me like a wall. Blowing sand and dust is not cool. It's everywhere. Hair, shoes, socks, pockets, ears, finger nails, you name it, it's in there. Once getting all our bags unpacked, we were greeted by 2 A-10 pilots that were there working at Al Udied as the Air Liaison Officers for the 75EFS that was working at Kandahar at the time. The LNO as it's called in Pilot speak, is a conduit of information between the war planner's up at the Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC) there at Al Udied Air Base, Qatar, and the fighter squadrons based in the hostile countries executing the mission. I served as an LNO for 3 weeks during my previous deployment in 2006. It's kind of a nice break because at Al Udied, you can drink 3 beers a day, plus they have a pool and several other nice amenities that we do not have downrange in Afghanistan or Iraq. Back to this trip, so we got our stuff out of the jets and headed towards customs to immigrate into Qatar. The process was relatively simple and painless which was a surprise to us. The majority of people who come in there do not fly themselves into the country so they usually harass pilots for not having the "normal" documentation, etc. But, we had a senior enlisted guy to help us out which made life easier. After going through customs, it was time to grab some grub and head to the tent to get some sleep...but our last beer for 7 months also had to have a place on the priority list. The chow hall at Al Udied was amazing. Please know that your tax dollars are being spent on some top notch food! After dinner, it was time to hit the sack in our tent. Surprisingly, it was pretty comfortable even though I was sleeping in the same area as 12 other dudes. The next day, I had a down day as my cell of 6 A-10's had to wait an additional day to be able to move into theatre, so we spent it just walking around the the base and checking it out. After an early night, it was up again at 230AM to make our takeoff time to bring the jets into Afghanistan. Waking up early and trudging over to the community bathroom, I was quickly jolted by the sight of a grown man trying to shave his own back. I know gross, but imagine my thought being freshly removed from the luxuries of America and walking in a community bathroom in the Middle East at 230AM and seeing this. I actually laughed to myself and realized that this is my life for the next 7 months. Get used to it. After a quick bite to eat, it was back through customs and then out to the jets. This time, unlike previous legs of the trip over, we had to arm with our 9mm handguns and carry all our classified info and gear since we'd be going into bad guy land. It was a good feeling to be approaching the end of the journey over. After taking off and after 10 minutes of trying to understand what the air traffic controller was saying to us, we got our initial vector towards Afghanistan. We flew directly over the UAE (United Arab Emirates) and got to see the Palm Island, World Islands, and worlds tallest building. The UAE is a desert much like the rest of the countries over here, but it is actually developed. Right down there in the middle of the desert is this HUGE metropolis of buildings and development. Once I get home in the fall, I'll have to share some pictures with you to give you a better perspective. After only 1 air to air refueling, it was time to go into Pakistan, then up into Afghanistan. We armed up the countermeasures system on our jets just in case some little bad guy wanted to take a pop shot at us. Flying north into Afghanistan our tactical air display started to have all sorts of traffic on it. It was the many UAV's and other air assets patrolling the skies over Afghanistan. As we approached Kandahar, the 6 A-10's we were replacing we're climbing out to start their own journey, only there's would take them home to South Georgia. We saw them on our displays. The flight lead of those 6 A-10's sent me a message (yes we can send text messages in our jet...no, not to your cell phone though). His message was plan and clear; "See ya in the fall men. Happy Hunting and Godspeed"

Sigonella and Al Udied

Wine, pizza, brushetta , cheese, beer, whiskey, blood, and vomit. Gross huh? I know it is, but that sums up our Friday night we spent at Sigonella Naval Air Station. Wine: We were in Sicily (Italy technically, but Sicilians don't like main land Italians and Italians view Sicilians as a lower class....we have an Italian pilot in the 74 FS so I know). Anyhow, we were in Italy and what do you do in Italy, you have some Italian wine. What else? Pizza of course, appetizers, and tiramisu. So, we landed there at Sigonella and it was a Zoo. Airplanes everywhere (you know Libya is not very far from Sicily.......you connect the dots). I literally parked with less than 5 feet of wing spacing between my A-10 and the one next to me. Not comfortable, but whatever. The Squadron Commander was there to take our pictures. I've not scene it, but evidently Rachel has a shot of me right after I landed there. As I'm taking my helmet off, I notice my left earplug goes flying down by my leg. Whatever I think; I'll grab it once I get out. So as I get out, I notice I can't find my earplug. Not good. Most people just fly with the yellow foamy earplugs. No big deal; just grab another one. Technically, when I pilot "FOD's" (Foreign Object Debris), the jet isn't supposed to fly until the object is found. I'm here to tell you, when you have to get your airplanes to the war zone, the last thing you're going to do is ground your own airplane due to a damn foamy ear plug! Too bad mine wasn't foamy; mine was a custom made earplug to help me keep my hearing. This equaled a quick "well shit" from me. The crappy part of all this is that even though I dropped it, it's not really my responsibility to get it. That's where the crew chief comes in. I feel like it's my job to find it, but he won't let me. Seriously. Making it even worse was the fact that the guy who was upside down in an A-10 cockpit with his feet dangling in the air was my neighbor in Valdosta. Holy shit. For the next 3 hours, Aaron had to bend his body at weird angles, struggle with screw drivers and other tools, and work in a cramped space in now darkness to find my earplug and keep this jet going downrange. He found it......and he told me he drinks Miller Light! Rachel, please take Aaron a 24 pack of Miller Light once he gets home. So, the earplug was found by the crew chief, but while he was busy picking up after my buffoonery, I was at a little Italian place with 12 fighter pilots eating and drinking the above items. Many of said pilots had taken a "Go Pill" in order to stay awake since we were trying to adjust our sleeping patterns as well. With the above items and Go Pills, a drunken and bit obnoxious night usually follows. It did. Compounding the issue is the mental knowledge that you're about to spend 7 months or so with no alcohol whatsoever. Another thing that "pushes" pilots towards partying. By the end of the night, I was cleaning up a guys bloody nose (he got it from miscalculating the distance from his hand to his face with his glass of Guinness...no kidding, there was a perfect nose indentation in the glass from where it broke through) and another guy was vomiting the brushetta out he had ordered 2 hours earlier. I personally choose to indulge, but not nearly to this level. I'm getting to old in life, plus I have a kid on the way so I can't be doing that stuff anymore! So, the next day, we walked around Sigonella. We had 2 down days here due to tanker planning, so we went bowling and watched a movie on the seconds day. We had to get up at 0245 (you notice lots of weird hours here) in order to make our flight to Al Udied Air Base, Qatar the next morning. Ciao!

Getting out of Lajes Field

Well I'm here! It was a long trip, but relatively good with not too many problems. The biggest hurdle getting over here was getting out of Lajes. More on that in a bit, but here's some info on Lajes. Lajes is an old WWII base out in the middle of the Atlantic. It was used as a stopover point for airplanes going to support the war effort in Europe. Since 9/11, this base has seen a lot of activity again as so many airplanes for so many years now have been transiting the Atlantic Ocean. The island itself is not all that large. We did venture out both nights here to have some sea food and believe it or not, beef. One of the island specialties is beef. No kidding. It was really good I'll add. The base, which is where we spent the majority of our time, was pretty nice. Like most overseas Base's, they are nice. They have to be since, especially in this case, you're all alone out in the middle of nowhere with nowhere to go. We planned on a down day here, then we were going to takeoff for Sigonella on 10 March. So we got up about 430AM Portugal time in order to make our flight over to Sigonella Naval Air Station on the island of Sicily. We went to the jets after eating some breakfast and everything was going ok. The first cell of 6 taxied out no problem. We were scheduled 30 minutes apart since the tanker plan only allow for 6 airplanes at a time. As we are waiting though, I get the always horrible radio call, "1, 5, I've got a hydraulic leak. I'm shutting down now". Shit......now what. You see you can't leave a single airplane by itself as it's against Air Force regulation to fly a single fighter plane across the Ocean. A minimum of 2-ships is required. Who was I going to screw over. Well, the 3rd cell had 6 airplanes just sitting over on the ramp waiting for me to "take one" for my 6 ship. They were not scheduled to depart until the following day so this was great! I was imagining the poor pilot who showed up the next morning only to discover that his plane was gone and he was sticking around on an isolated island in the Ocean! So, #5 hurries up and goes over to another A-10 and starts to get it up and running. While he's doing this, a civilian 737 lands on the runway. My crew chief goes "Sir, look at all that water coming up over that plane!" I look up and sure enough, this plane is engulfed in water. I've landed in heavy rain and I know water comes up over jets, but this was abnormal. But, whatever, we're getting ready to taxi out to move on. However, about 4 minutes later, I notice a bunch of firetrucks, base police cars, and other random, official vehicles rushing out towards this 737. About this time, #5 is up and on the radio and he's ready to go in his new aircraft. I call for taxi, "Lajes Ground, Trend 21 flight of 6 Alpha-10's, ready to taxi with Xray". "Trend 21, hold position"....in a Portuguese accent is the reply I get. 1 hour and 25 minutes later, I finally shut down. I'm not happy, but I also can't help but laugh at what has happened. For once, it was not maintenance (although it almost was), weather, tanker fallout, or pilot not able to fly. We were aborted for a civilian airliner landing on the closed side of the runway (see my below post on landing at Lajes). He damaged the jet badly evidently. 9 airplanes were diverted and Lajes was closed for 8 hours that day. What did we do? We went to Subway on base, walked around, went to the gym, and made many phone calls to people with much more rank than I on what to do now. Remember, we still had a broken airplane to deal with. Getting parts, personnel, etc to an island is not easy nor fast. In the end, we were able to launch 11 airplanes out the next morning. I led a cell of 6; another Captain led a cell of 5. That airplane, tail number 600, is still sitting at Lajes Air Base, Portugal. Eventually, that ole bird will make it's way home!

PS: This site has many details on our movement to Afghanistan. Any pictures you see with aircraft 228 is me. http://www.warthognews.blogspot.com/

8 March....the Journey Begins

My physical trip to Afghanistan began at 0240 local time on the early morning hours of 8 March, 2011. Actually, it started earlier than that with packing the jet, getting ready, etc, but the tires of my A-10 aircraft left the surface of Moody AFB's runway at the above early hour. A little background on my last days prior to leaving.

The weekend prior to Tuesday morning was spent with Rachel and Peanut. What did we do you might ask? Well, we did a variety of things. We ate, slept, watched a couple movies (all 3 of us), did some house work, packed, sold a wagon on Craigslist, talked to the neighbors, and washed the cars. It was a great weekend spent with 2 of the things in the world I love most; Rachel and Peanut. As you may imagine, there were some moments of sadness with the inevitable departure, but we made the most of the time we had and simply enjoyed being around eachother.

Sunday, we went to our Church in Valdosta, Park Avenue Methodist Church. It's a charming church that makes Rachel and I always feel welcome. After Church, we had lunch at Red Lobster with our close friends, Don and Jean Wosky. They are two wonderful American's who care for Rachel, Peanut, and I deeply. We are blessed to have them in our life. After some time with them, it was Pizza time Sunday night! Even though Rachel and I have a fundamental difference of opinion on who has the best pizza in Valdosta, she recanted and let me order from Sister's Pizza that night. It was glorious....except I over ate.

On Monday, I had to be at work for our "Official" departure briefing. An AOS guy (don't know what AOS stands for) came and gave us our flight plan, diplomatic clearances, weather, and airborne tanking plan to get us over to Lajes Air Base, Azore Islands, Portugal. It was a pretty quick brief, but very informative. After that, Lt Col Clark, 74 FS Commander, gave his mission commander brief as he was leading the 18 jets out of Moody. After covering the expected tasks, flight duties, etc, we had a final briefing from our Wing and Group leadership. Our Operations Group Commander, Col Ellwod Hinman IV, gave a very motivational quote to us. Picture is posted below of plaque with the quote on it. After all this formal stuff, it was time to "pack the jets" for the trip. We all grabbed our stuff (quite a bit for over 6 months of being gone) and used ATV's and van's to take it out to the jets. When traveling in a single-seat airplane, we still have to have a place to put our stuff. We carry these cannister's called travel pods. These travel pods have a door that allows us to "stuff" things in them. Pretty genious if you ask me. So I stuffed my pod and headed home!

At home on Monday, I let the bug guy in our home to give his quarterly spray for bugs. This was vital since I will not be around to kill all the pests that Rachel will be encountering during my absence. Sorry babe. After that, I washed my truck, did a few other small tasks, then played with Peanut a final time. At this point, it was 3PM in the afternoon, and I had a showtime of Midnight back at work for my scheduled 0230 departure.

At this point, I had been up for over 40 hours and was beat, but to just make sure I could get some sleep in the middle of the afternoon, I took an Ambien to ensure I was out cold so I could be coherent for our early show and takeoff. Well, it worked! Next thing I know, Rachel was waking me up saying it's 1030 at night! I took a final shower in our wonderful bathroom, played with Peanut a bit more, then ate my final meal before the deployment.......Rachel's Tater-Tot Casserole! I basked in the gloriousness of this casserole and didn't want the moment to end. It was with about 5 minutes to go that I finally lost it all; Rachel was there to hold me and we had a very private and precious moment.

I drove us together out to the Base. We had small-talk and discussed a few items, but most of the car ride to me was simply a husband and wife, facing a tough obstacle, with pride and honor of it's cause, but with heartfelt longing for the time when we'd be together again. Arriving at the Squadron, we had our final embrace, a quick joke, and then I walked off; she drove off. It was a lonely walk for the 100 yards from the parking lot into the Fighter Squadron. However, I now knew that every second that was passing was a second closer to when we'd be together again. As I entered the Squadron, my personal desires had to be compartmentalized; something that we fighter pilots have grown so accustomed to doing. As I looked into the eye of the 5 men I would be leading off to a small island in the middle of the Atlantic, I had a moment of Pride of what we were doing, where we were going, and why we were doing it. So as I led 6 A-10's to the runway on that moonless and dark night, I was proud to be doing it. As we took off at 0240 local, it was black and there was poor weather off Norfolk, Virginia's coast. We pressed on into the black abyss, hoping our jets would perform as expected. They did. We found our refueling tanker at the expected point, were able to get gas, and everyting was going smoothly. 6 Air to Air refuelings later, 3 "piddle-packs".....the bag that holds our Pee, and 9 hours and 47 minutes later, I touched down on a runway that had half of it closed with over 30 knots of direct crosswind pushing me into the closed half. After such a long and demanding flight, it was not what we wanted, but what we got. You know what, you just deal with it and press on and we did it. So that's where I'll stop for now. I should be sleeping right now, but can't. I've taken 2 Ambien, but they are not working. I have to get up in 5 hours to do it all over again only this time from Sigonella Naval Air Station in Sicily to our next stop. I'll write about the Lajes to Sigonella leg at a later time. One last thing, since I'm logging into this from Italy, my spell check is done in Italian so every word is spelled wrong according to the spell check. Don't make fun of me too bad please!

Rick

Rick's OEF Deployment 2011 with the 74FS WFFT's

This blog will be for all our family and friends to have a view into the world that will keep me occupied for the next several months. Many posts will be funny (to me anyway), some will be rant sessions where I vent my anger's, other's will be serious in nature, other's may be downright sad or contain some amazing things that American's are doing "over here"; all will be personal. With that, all I ask is for those of you who will be reading these post to honor my request that these post remain located only on this website (no cut and paste into an email), no sharing with people outside your immediate family, and lastly to honor that these will be my personal feelings; not a representation of me being an Officer in the US Air Force. I won't lie and say I'll post on here daily, but I will make an effort to keep all of you in the loop as much as I'm allowed. With that, let the posts begin!

Rick