A letter from Afghanistan

[MIKE JG]

Here's a post that a friend of mine from work shared on another website.

"This was written by my brother who is currently deployed to Afghanistan. I thought some might find it interesting. Pay particular attention to the last part.

My brother is a pilot for NetJets and also a Navigator on the C130 for the KYANG. He has been in for over 23 years. He and I are both in the same unit and in 2003, deployed together to the desert for OIF. At one point, we were six feet from each other. It was the first time sharing the same sleeping quarters since we were kids. It is absolutely KILLING me not to be there with him and the rest of my unit right now. KILLING ME! KILLING ME!
Here is what it is like over there. Sounds ok if you are not flying..but they are flying their asses off. There is not too much info about the missions due to the classified nature of them. I can tell you that these crews are working harder than they ever have. I am extremely proud of them and cannot wait to see them all home.

Here is his letter:

Our base is situated in a large valley surrounded by 16000 foot mountains. The elevation here alone is 4900 feet. It’s hot (100 degrees) but dry. It does make a difference. The days are clear but sometimes very windy. The nights are clear and it cools down to the lower 70s. Pretty pleasant. The surrounding villages are mostly farms. Green farms. The folks around here are very poor. Kabul is not far away. It’s a big city with probably 95% mud huts. Every one has a tall wall around their home made from mud. They look pretty durable.

The base is huge. Its home to 12000 soldiers, sailors (yep, navy folks, too), airmen and Marines. There are countless civilian contractors. They clean the bathrooms (cleanest I’ve ever seen on a deployment), serve meals, handle billeting, transport water and who knows what else. Some have been here for six years making tax free cash. They are from all over the world. Many are from the old Soviet Union. Some fly missions under contract from the DOD. Google Blackwater. Interesting company and story. Scary precedence. Much of the heavy airlift into here is by companies in the former Russian states. Talked to a crew of an IL76. Airplane from Armenia, crew of two Russians, two Uzbeks and two Ukraines. DHL and Fedex has offices on the base.

Everyone here carries a weapon. Unless you are going to workout at the gym it has to be with you so that pretty much means mine is with me all the time. Not a big fan of guns after I almost blew my foot off (with Dad’s P38 that I snuck out) when something crawled over my foot at Aunt Peg and Uncle Kenny’s pond one summer plinkin’ turtles heads poking up. Like I could hit a turtle head pokin out of the water. The 9mm hasn’t left the holster since I got it and I haven’t even chambered a round. Matter of fact, one of the clip holsters has a flashlight in it. The 9mm is heavy enough for me…..can’t imagine lugging around a SAW or shotgun like some of the Army folks do.

The food here is outstanding. It’s contracted out to KBR, subsidiary of Halliburton (so, somehow, someway, Dick Cheney is cashing in bigtime). There are more food selections than the best Vegas buffet. Lots of fresh food. Ice Cream. Salads. I heard KBR gets $22 a meal served and they feed the contractors too. The four dining facilities (chow hall, they hate when you call it that) serve four meals a day.

There are a couple Base Exchanges to buy necessities, a Burger King, DQ, coffee shop, Pizza Hut, Popeyes, Subway and an Orange Julius. I figure I’m getting $3.50 a day for incidentals so I eat for free at the chow hall. You can buy a Chrysler, Ford or Harley for stateside delivery. They are actually pretty good deals. The locals have some shops that sell mostly crap and on Fridays they have a big bazaar at the front gate so you have a wider selection of crap to choose from. Rugs might be the only thing worthwhile investigating. But the last time I sent a rug (a silk Persian) home from a war the dog chewed it up before I got back. $500 down the drain.

This country is about 75% mountains. The Hindu Kush to the northwest towards Tajikstan rises to 22450 feet. A small portion of Afghanistan borders China.

With all the nearby mountains it’s a challenge to climb the C130 to a safe altitude given the high temps and the heavy loads we have been carrying. A lot of the runways are unimproved landing zones (LZs) made of gravel, compacted dirt or steel planking. Some didn’t even exist until a few years ago and others have never seen the use they are getting now. Some LZs have homes right across the “street” from the end of the runway, literally 75 feet away. We wave to the kids at one each time we taxi out. The LZs are short and are a challenge to get into and out of. They frequently sit in valleys surrounded by high mountains.

The airlift is efficient. More efficient than the Gulf War in ‘91 and Op Iraqi Freedom back in ’03 and ’04. Not much room for additional passengers or extra cargo. We do engine running on and offloads at many locations. There aren’t any places you’d want to stay if you broke so we figure it best to not shut down the engines. It’s hotter than hell in the back of the airplane and the loadmasters work their *** off. Sometimes they have to reconfigure the cargo compartment to accommodate more pallets instead of passengers, or vice versa.

XXXX and XXXX are the loadmasters, both about 25 years old. I flew with XXXX when this all started in ’03. He was new then and has matured much. XXXX deployed to Germany and Puerto Rico but nothing like this. She eats nothing but chicken strips, peanut butter sandwiches and dry, plain cereal. Her hips wouldn’t hold up the 9mm thigh holster belt. She is so skinny if she turned sideways and stuck out her tongue she’d look like a zipper. XXXXXX the Aircraft Commander, 31 years old. I taught him to fly airplanes 10 years ago when I was instructing. He’s a new AC but doing a great job. He’s thoughtful, levelheaded and sharp. XXXXXX, 30ish, is the copilot. I actually gave him his first flight lesson 10 years ago too but he bolted for a cheaper flight school. He was a Captain at Comair but started at JetBlue just before this deployment. XXXXX is the flight engineer. He’s 52. He flew C130s for many years and got out 17 years ago. Former Delta mechanic. He came back into the Air National Guard not too long ago to get his 20 yrs. He’s busy figuring take off and landing data for all the LZs we hit in a day. I can’t figure out if he’s from Minnesota or Maryland.

When we’re flying we wear body armor and our helmets. The body armor is Type 4 with a back plate and breast plate. Since the cockpit is surrounded in armor (removable) we take out the back plate because sitting back against it wreaks havoc on the back. The body armor stays on the plane so each crew wears the same armor. Imagine how that smells after countless crews sweating in it. The helmet and oxygen mask is bearable if you took the time back home to have it re-fitted. I’ve gone years not wearing it stateside and either my helmet shrunk or my face got bigger. We wear the oxygen mask when we are airdropping supplies to some of the ground forces otherwise inaccessible to conventional means of resupply. Given the high mountains we find ourselves dropping from altitudes that require the mask. The drop zones are small, smaller than the minimum required in peacetime, they are in deep valleys, rarely on flat terrain. We have recent equipment that gives us greater accuracy but I think it’s nothing short of miraculous that we are hitting some of these DZs here given the altitude we are dropping from. The pressure is great enough knowing you are dropping supplies to folks that are in dire need of it but the command centers back at the base and in the Persian Gulf area are watching you too. We have a means to transmit our location so everyone can watch. The same means allows us to “chat” with any number of “users”, even the ground party at the DZ. If they wanted to they could call us on the satellite phone too.

There are frequent “Fallen Comrade” ceremonies here as a casket, flag draped, is carried in a flat bed HUMMVEE to a waiting C17 for transport home. An announcement is made over the base PA notifying the time. Every available member is expected to attend, in uniform, by lining Disney Rd (named for a soldier killed early in the conflict) and the flight line. There have been three ceremonies that I know of in the 14 days I’ve been here. The first occurred as we were returning to the base from a mission. We held high overhead since the base imposes a quiet hour’s period during the ceremony. We were short on fuel after a long day of flying. Many bases are unable to refuel transient aircraft so we carry enough to get us through our planned day.

The second ceremony took place just a few nights ago. I was in our quarters when I heard the announcement. Folks not on duty stop what they are doing, change into their uniform, and fall out on Disney. I noticed the International Space Station flying over during this ceremony.

Last night was the third. We knew before leaving in the morning on a mission we knew scheduled time and kept updated throughout the day so as to not have a fuel issue if we ran late on our return and faced quiet hours. This time we attended on the flightline as it started just a half hour after we returned. An Army Honor Guard and a multi-service Color Guard lined up behind the C17. Anyone who flies will tell you a quiet flight full of combat aircraft is an eerie place. It is a rare occurrence. There are always some engines running or at least power carts as maintenance works on aircraft. Not last night. Dead quiet. The sun had just set behind the mountains and the temperature dropped 10 degrees. It was 7pm. A lone HUMMVEE made its way from the mortuary, down Disney Rd then onto the flightline stopping before the Honor Guard at the C17. Eight Honor Guard members removed the casket from the HUMMVEE and start a slow march to the ramp of the C17. The C17 is a cavernous airlifter. Its crew has prepared it cargo compartment. It’s empty. The casket is placed in pallet position 1, the place of honor. The cargo compartment is lit by fluorescent lights so the flag draped over casket displays brilliantly.

Alone in your thoughts you’d swear you are the only one witnessing this. Look around you and you are reminded that thousands witnessed it. Each in their own way.

This ceremony is repeated many times as Fallen Comrades makes his/her stops until finally home. Family’s meet the Fallen Comrade at a hometown airport. Usually a local military base’s Honor Guard conducts the ceremony along with VFW vets.

It’s an experience you don’t soon forget and one repeated too many times since October 2001. It’s one that is not easily conveyed to someone who hasn’t witnessed it for themselves. A very personal experience.

The press, with its ratings grabbing sound bites, can’t come close. You may recall a few years ago the pictures that somehow were released of a C17 cargo compartment full of flag draped caskets. Many in the military, and the American public, were outraged by the disrespect shown to these fallen Americans in an effort to grab headlines. Left on their own merits those photos are a stark testament to the ultimate sacrifice paid by these Americans in the service of this country.

Last night I was immensely humbled to stand on that flightline, in his company, and pay him the honor and respect deserved by myself, my crew and the thousands of service members who stood the line as he began his journey home."

God bless all the men and women serving around the world. Afghanistan seems to get forgotten with everthing that is going on in Iraq.

[a10c130]

My hats off to you and your brother for serving in Afghanistan. I was with the initial push to take Bagram with the A-10's in 2002. The fallen comrade ceremonies are hard to deal with. I was there for the Chinook crash that took 13 of our brothers. We stood in the sweltering heat for nearly 2 hours as 13 flag drapped caskets filtered by. No one complained. It was the hardest moment of my career. Two nights later we were rocket attacked and a thankfully dud 4 inch russian rocket landed 6 feet from me as I played basketball.

I've had the fortune of flying with the C-130's out of OAIX on more than 100 occasions, and let me tell you, those flights aren't your average milk runs. I've landed on dirt strips that took mortar fire as soon as we touched down. The C-130 is an awesome machine, and the professionals that fly them are heroes without a doubt.

Thanks for sharing your brothers letter.

Jason

[MIKE JG]

Actually it's not my brother, it's a buddies bro. The two of them fly with the KY ANG. They've both done multilple tours already, amazing. Their sacrifice and those of their fellow military brothers and sisters, including yourself, do not go un-noticed. Thank you.

[aerogator]

All of these guys are true heroes. I'm right here near Benning so I 've gotten to know a lot of the guys who are or have been in Iraq and Afghanistan. For the most part, our military is the cream of the crop, whether they are reservists or regulars and we owe them more than we can ever pay back. I thank God every day for the sacrifice they make to protect mine and all the other families in our great country and throughout the world. We should all be grateful for the brave men and women who keep us safe. I'm also very proud that my two boys have gotten to know some of these men and I hope that special something that they have will rub off on them.