This is a picture after I just landed. The camp/fortress is located a few miles from a city. Supposedly these are the good guys that look over the camp. We help resupply them from time to time and hope that they help the city close by but you never really know who are the good guys around here. The rule of thumb is, "Trust Knowone and always watch your back" Today we had a few Apaches (AH64D's) up above watching over us! Thanks guys...
Basically we don't stick around that long. The one man on the right next to the helicopter seems to be the man in charge directing everyone all the time. Most of everything was in what we call tri walls (which are boxes 4 feet by 5 feet with bottoms and tops) We picked them up for transport and the FOB didn't tie them down so when we arrived to drop them off they were all falling apart. When we stop at places like this in the middle of knowwhere we try to get in and out as fast as we can. I was chalk two on this mission flying and made the mistake of trying to land with my sister ship and ended up loosing her in the dust and had to do a go-around; rookie mistake my first go around in 18 days. Glad none of my pilots were on board with me to see it! :-) The big brown bags (about 5 feet long and 2.5 feet radius)we thought were loaded with potatoes but come to find out that it was fire wood. Man, places like this make you appriceate what you have in life. Most and I mean by most i would say 90% of the homes are made of clay and have no electricty. During my inprocessing we were given a few facts about this glorious place. Afghanistan is approximately the size of Texas, 11% is known (key word) to have live mortars still left over from the russians last stand. I believe they said 90% are personnel minds and 10% are tanks minds. The FOB I'm staying at has minds still in the fob but since the dirt is so packed down from travel of vehicles and such it's deamed livable but we are told over and over not to go hitting stakes into the ground; fun fun fun... I'm not making this stuff up, its kinda of funny as I think and type this. The weather here as of lately hasn't been that bad. I'm on days right now, I wake up at 0500, get to breakfast by 0530, and am at the flight line by 0600. I usually get home/hootch/place where I sleep by 1930 (do the math, I have to) and to make the time even more difficult we go by Zulu time so you have to subtract 4.5 hours to everything. It's the armys was of staying Hooah, It annoys me to death, I wish we went in local time. I know I'm going on a tangent but hear me out. I wake up at 0500 which is actually like 0130Z then to add even more suck I have to subtract another 8.5 hours to get the local time for East Coast. fun fun fun... What else, ummm. So far I've logged a little over 40 hours since I've been here which is a lot since I've only been flying now for a few weeks. The most I've ever flown in a month was about 65 hours, the guy I'm replacing has flown over 130's this month and it's not even over with. We are replacing a campbell, ky group that has taken us under their wing and really given all that they can. Okay, whelp, better be going to bed, it's 1930 Zulu, hehe... I may conform yet, but i'm taking a few people with me... lol Oh, I know I can't spell, I also know my grammer sucks!
This is the picture of the town by the FOB we dropped stuff off at.
This is a picture after I just landed. The camp/fortress is located a few miles from a city. Supposedly these are the good guys that look over the camp. We help resupply them from time to time and hope that they help the city close by but you never really know who are the good guys around here. The rule of thumb is, "Trust Knowone and always watch your back" Today we had a few Apaches (AH64D's) up above watching over us! Thanks guys...
Basically we don't stick around that long. The one man on the right next to the helicopter seems to be the man in charge directing everyone all the time. Most of everything was in what we call tri walls (which are boxes 4 feet by 5 feet with bottoms and tops) We picked them up for transport and the FOB didn't tie them down so when we arrived to drop them off they were all falling apart. When we stop at places like this in the middle of knowwhere we try to get in and out as fast as we can. I was chalk two on this mission flying and made the mistake of trying to land with my sister ship and ended up loosing her in the dust and had to do a go-around; rookie mistake my first go around in 18 days. Glad none of my pilots were on board with me to see it! :-) The big brown bags (about 5 feet long and 2.5 feet radius)we thought were loaded with potatoes but come to find out that it was fire wood. Man, places like this make you appriceate what you have in life. Most and I mean by most i would say 90% of the homes are made of clay and have no electricty. During my inprocessing we were given a few facts about this glorious place. Afghanistan is approximately the size of Texas, 11% is known (key word) to have live mortars still left over from the russians last stand. I believe they said 90% are personnel minds and 10% are tanks minds. The FOB I'm staying at has minds still in the fob but since the dirt is so packed down from travel of vehicles and such it's deamed livable but we are told over and over not to go hitting stakes into the ground; fun fun fun... I'm not making this stuff up, its kinda of funny as I think and type this. The weather here as of lately hasn't been that bad. I'm on days right now, I wake up at 0500, get to breakfast by 0530, and am at the flight line by 0600. I usually get home/hootch/place where I sleep by 1930 (do the math, I have to) and to make the time even more difficult we go by Zulu time so you have to subtract 4.5 hours to everything. It's the armys was of staying Hooah, It annoys me to death, I wish we went in local time. I know I'm going on a tangent but hear me out. I wake up at 0500 which is actually like 0130Z then to add even more suck I have to subtract another 8.5 hours to get the local time for East Coast. fun fun fun... What else, ummm. So far I've logged a little over 40 hours since I've been here which is a lot since I've only been flying now for a few weeks. The most I've ever flown in a month was about 65 hours, the guy I'm replacing has flown over 130's this month and it's not even over with. We are replacing a campbell, ky group that has taken us under their wing and really given all that they can. Okay, whelp, better be going to bed, it's 1930 Zulu, hehe... I may conform yet, but i'm taking a few people with me... lol Oh, I know I can't spell, I also know my grammer sucks!
This is the picture of the town by the FOB we dropped stuff off at.
