The War Machine (Part 1)

Or,

The best way to travel 100 miles in Iraq:

I recently changed jobs and, consequently, locations here and starting anew I want to try to write more. I left my old company on a Friday, saying goodbyes to friends and coworkers that had become close after a year and a half of Army. Hugs and other inappropriate comments and physical contact you wouldn’t expect among soldiers were many. We drove down to the flightline to begin this journey. Ten minutes later I was back. My flight was pushed to 0330 and hell if I was going to sit there for five hours. So much for poetic goodbyes. I should have recognized this as a bad sign, but strangely enough, didn’t.

Helicopter flights are short and the first leg of the journey was over by shortly after four AM. To ensure my reservation took me all the way to my final destination, the flightline guy told me to check in at 0800, so I found some time-killing opportunities that kept me up until then, completing the first of three full sleepless nights. At 0800 I found our unit’s liason who assured me that my reservation did include flights all the way to Falcon, one of many FOBs in the Baghdad area, and there was no reason to wait around. All I needed to do was be in Tent A at 1900 to wait for the flight manifest for the 2130 flight. Too easy. I went back to the billeting tent and crashed most of the day. I got up for dinner, packed up and headed to tent A. Around 2130 I went from the tent to the flight desk to make sure things were still in order. I gave my reservation number and was informed I had missed my flight because I hadn’t checked in. I insisted that I had spoken with the L/O as instructed at 0800. I was told the Liason doesn’t count. Great. My options were to sit there another day and hope to roll my reservation back or try to get to another FOB in Baghdad. I took option B as it at least moved me in the right direction, at least. There was no telling what option A might get me.

There was plenty of space on the flight. Two short hops to Liberty and the lovely Baghdad International Airport. (All duty-free, all the time.) The flight crew kept trying to check my hand for reservation and destination numbers which, of course, I didn’t have. I’d try to yell ‘Liberty’ but with their crew helmets and the giant rotors spinning outside the cabin, I’m sure it just looked like I was mouthing “I’m an idiot!” That was their reaction, anyway.

At Liberty I checked in at about 0100 (this is Saturday morning, now) and told them where I was trying to go. He made a phone call and just like that I had another flight in an hour that would (eventually) take me to Falcon. The guy over the phone asked if I was aware of a warrant for my arrest, which I assumed could only be for missing movement at the last location. It turns out he was kidding, but funny stops at about 2300 and it seems I ruined the joke for everybody.
The next flight, as far as I could tell, was stopping at every LZ within 20 miles of Baghdad. We had to stop for gas at the FOB before my stop at Falcon. While standing there watching the crew refuel, we started seeing lightning in the distance. I thought that was the end of the trip, but they soon ushered us back on to the Blackhawk. I eagerly took a window seat. Stupid Ranger.

All the flights prior to this one had been on cargo helicopters with spacious cabins. Not so much with the Blackhawk. For the first part of this flight I had been protected by the mounds of gear piled on top of all the passengers. By now, though, most had gotten out leaving no resistance whatsoever for the wind, which, as I consider it now, was powerful enough to be keeping the school bus-sized craft in the air in the first place. Sitting next to the door on the inside of the bird, then, was more or less like it might be to ride shotgun at Talladega, but with your head out the window. I had to face the wind directly to keep it from tearing my ballistic glasses off my face, and it felt like my helmet would at any minute go flying off my head and out the other side of the craft. I was even concerned about my 60 pound ruck getting picked up and tossed out.

Staring out the bird, the lightning (toward which we seemed to be flying, generally) would occasionally light up the mostly open country below. Cool. Then came the rain. Not cool. My mind was at this time torn between concern for the mechanics of flying a helicopter in the rain, which I didn’t suspect to be a particularly good idea, and the needle-like stinging of the mist now buffeting my face. A more vain part of me was still calculating how many years my face was losing with each passing minute of the wind stretching my cheeks to where my ears typically are. A couple more flashes of lightning and the Blackhawk went into a long 180 degree turn that I didn’t imagine to be a landing approach.

A few minutes later we did land and in the dark followed the glowing green chemlite held by the flight-ops personnel. It was soon apparent that our U-turn had been just that and we were back where we had just refueled.

That was the first 24 hours of the trip.