“Country” Calls Iraq Home Since 2004

One stop on the same mission in the last post Camp Echo. When we landed, the crew told me there would be grilled steaks waiting for them after they got their paperwork and loading/unloading completed. I was skeptical, but when I came back from a visit to the Charlie MEDEVAC TOC (Tactical Operations Center) a smiling man with a big black cowboy hat, an enormous belt buckle and, according to the Alpha crew, an even bigger heart, was grilling steaks outside the blast wall.
That man was James “Country” Curtis, 46, of Olden, Texas. Curtis has been the passenger terminal manager in Diwaniya since June of 2008. Curtis controls the airfield and does what he can to help soldiers passing through Camp Echo “enjoy the time they spend here.” The Alpha crew definitely enjoyed Country’s cooking. It’s a skill he has had a long time to perfect. Except for R&R leaves home, Curtis has worked in Iraq since February 2004. “I was a truck driver at the base in Babylon,” he said. “When that closed we took over the former Spanish base here at Diwaniya. I drove trucks till last year when I started working at the airfield.” Curtis plans to return to Texas next year, maybe to work his farm, maybe to drive trucks, maybe both. “That’s next year. I’ll see what happens when I get back home.”

The fuel crew at Diwaniya is very good at their work according to the air crews. They roll out to fuel the birds as soon as they land. And they dress so brightly only one wears a PT Belt.

Who Flies That Blackhawk? The Whole Story

Last Month I wrote part of the story below--about the Blackhawk pilot who was a pilot for Gov. Blagojevich of Illinois in civilian life. Here is the four-man crew and their four very different backgrounds.

Task Force Diablo is based in Pennsylvania but includes units and soldiers from across the nation. Because National Guard soldiers bring a variety of life and work experiences with them on deployment, even the smallest unit can include soldiers with a surprising array of skills and experience. In September Alaska-based, Charlie 1-52nd MEDEVAC needed a crew for the chase bird for a routine flight to two of their remote sites. Alpha 1-106th from Illinois supplied a crew for a Pennsylvania 1-150th Blackhawk helicopter. The four soldiers who comprised the Illinois crew on a Pennsylvania helicopter following an Alaska MEDEVAC show how different the members of a four-man unit can be.

Flying in Iraq and Flying in the Spotlight


In the left pilot seat is Chief Warrant Officer Four Patrick Schroeder, 38, an Instructor Pilot with 21 years of service. The Sherman, Illinois, native joined the Army in 1988 and served as a UH-1 “Huey” mechanic for four years before attending flight school. He has been a pilot “24/7” ever since. In 2003 he took a job as one of the pilots who fly the Governor of Illinois. Because he deployed in January of 2009, Schroeder served as a pilot for Governor Rod Blagojevich from shortly after the time he took office in 2003 until shortly before the notorious governor was removed from office in 2009.
Schroeder would say nothing about flying the governor except to say that he enjoyed the times he was able to fly Lieutenant Governor Patrick Quinn and looks forward to flying for Governor Quinn when he returns from deployment. Schroeder was married just a month before his current deployment and took his R&R (Rest and Recreation) leave as a honeymoon in Australia. Schroeder is on his second deployment. He first deployed in Iraq in 2004-5 with Alpha 1-106th for 15 months.

Pilot Engineers a Successful Dual Career


Next to Schroeder in the right pilot seat was Chief Warrant Officer Two Nathan McKean, 31, of Decatur, Illinois. McKean has served 12 years, beginning with four years in the Navy building bombs on the aircraft carrier USS Stennis and in a combat search and rescue unit based in San Diego. McKean came home in 2001, enrolled in college, and joined the Army National Guard. He trained as a crew chief and later deployed to Iraq for the first time with Bravo Company 1-106th in 2004-5. After leaving active duty, McKean decided he needed a good job that would allow him time off for military duty—lots of time off. In 2002, he took a job as an engineer on the Norfolk Southern Railroad. Within a year he was training to go to Iraq, then left for a deployment of 15 months.
Soon after he returned he went to flight school for a year, then had additional training before his current tour in Iraq which began in January. McKean estimates he has worked on the railroad for 2-1/2 years, but has more than seven year’s seniority.

Blackhawk Crew Chief Plans Fixed-Wing Future


Behind McKean on the right side of the Blackhawk was Sgt. Steve Sunzeri, 26, of Naperville, Illinois. Sunzeri has six years in the Illinois Army National Guard. From 2003-7 he served as a scout and infantryman with
Charlie Company 2-106th Cavalry. In 2006 he completed the require-ments for a Bachelor of Arts degree in history. Then in 2007-8 he reclassified to become a flight crew chief, deploying in 2009 with Alpha Company.
After nearly two years of service in helicopters,
Sunzeri will return to college to earn a degree in Aviation Management at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and at the same time train to be a commercial pilot. If everything falls into place, he will start school in the Spring Semester of 2010. “My goal is to fly fixed wing aircraft for a major airline,” Sunzeri said. In the meantime he will be earning the ratings necessary to become a fixed wing pilot while earning a degree that will help him achieve his career goals. He will continue to serve as a crew chief in the Illinois Army National Guard while he attends college and completes flight training.

Door Gunner on Third Deployment at 24


In the left seat behind the pilot is the door gunner, the youngest member of the crew and the one with the most combat deployments. Cpl. Michael Randazzo, 24, of Queens, N.Y., is on his third deployment in six years of Army National Guard service. Randazzo enlisted shortly after graduating high school serving first as an infantryman with the New York based 1-69th Infantry Regiment. In May of 2004 Randazzo deployed with the 1-69th to Baghdad and Taji patrolling and conducting raids. Randazzo also worked route clearance patrolling Route Irish. When he returned from Iraq, Randazzo worked for an executive protection company until June 2008 when he volunteered to return to Iraq as a door gunner with 3-142nd Aviation Regiment. Near the end of that tour, he volunteered for a second consecutive tour as a door gunner with Alpha 1-106th. When this tour is complete Randazzo plans to return to New York City and “squeeze in a semester of college” before going to flight school in the fall of 2010. After flight school he will continue his college education until 2012 when he plans to deploy to Afghanistan as an Army helicopter pilot.

My "Band of Brothers"

My Band of Brothers. The two guys in the middle, Matt and Dale, run
public affairs for the Brigade (the next higher unit, 2000 soldiers) and
the guy on the right, Andy, works for a 700-soldier unit that is part of
the brigade. Matt and Andy are very good writers. Dale is admin
mostly--but really good with paperwork and politics.

Matt and Dale got me the camera that got me back into photography. They were also very encouraging, meeting with me every week in the summer when I was doubting I could do half of what I was assigned and dealing with all the difficulties in the motor pool. Matt and Dale, more than anyone else here, got me through July and August.

Andy is a good writer who is assigned as a truck driver. He has only a little college, but is an avid reader. He is a good guy. We will be keeping in touch when we are back in America. I am hoping he can get work as a writer.

We hold our weapons down in Iraq, but I thought, as the oldest member of the group by about two decades, I should hold the weapon the way we did back in the 70s.

Eight Minutes and Gone--Revised

I rewrote this post from September 16 for the newsletter I write. I was very happy with the result, so for those who didn't see it in the newsletter, I thought I would post it in its new form. Go to Sept 16 for the pictures.

Capt. Peter Huggins, executive officer of Charlie 1-52nd MEDEVAC, was
very careful to say that the Army response time standard for a MEDEVAC
call is fifteen minutes. That is fifteen minutes from the time the
9-line MEDEVAC request is received until the mission is in the air.
But in the day room, the hangar, the ready rooms and at the picnic
tables, flight medics, pilots, crew chiefs and chase-crew door gunners
all know the real goal is eight minutes. One day recently, I was at
Charlie MEDEVAC waiting to talk to a medic when the 9-line came in. The
sky was clear and temperature was just over 120 degrees. When I heard
the call on radios all around the area, I looked at my watch, marked the
time, and went straight out to where the Blackhawks sit enclosed by
blast walls waiting to take off. The crew chiefs and right-seat pilots
of both aircraft were already getting their Blackhawks ready for flight.
The flight medic and both left-seat pilots were in the TOC (Tactical
Operations Center) getting a mission brief.
Within three minutes the twin turbine engines were screaming and the
huge rotor blades were starting to turn. I walked along the blast walls
to the front of the aircraft so I could watch the takeoff from directly
under their flight path.
The main rotors turned faster and faster. I moved to a dead air spot
between the shuddering Blackhawks where I was not being buffeted by the
wind from the main rotors. The pilots and the flight medic jumped into
their seats. The tail rotors were spinning crazy fast looking like they
might pick the whole aircraft up from the back. The roaring sound from
the rotors suddenly dropped to a lower pitch.
In that moment of quiet, the medic bird took off. At first slowly
upward, then twisting to the right it banked up into the air,
straightened out and shot into the distance.
The chase bird was seconds behind following the same counterclockwise
curve into the sky. Eighteen seconds short of eight minutes--and gone.

Fright Night

At the end of the day today, I was thinking very hard about how much we are the sum of our habits. How what we do again and again becomes what we are, because what we do by habit eats into the 168 hours we have every week to sleep seven nights, eat 21 meals, brush our teeth at least 14 times, take seven showers, dress and undress at least 28 times, maybe triple that if you ride a bike in the middle of the day.

I used to smoke. Most of my life from 13 to 33 I smoked. I estimated something on the order of 100,000 cigarettes. I am well past any current desire to smoke, but I still consider myself a smoker--at least in the sense that a long stretch of my life was limited by that bad habit.

And now I carry a gun. I have been carrying a gun for a year. I ride my bike with a gun. I wonder about using the gun. As my last day on the range showed, I am only accurate with the gun if it is supported by something. Without resting the gun on a sandbag or a wall, I can't fire very well. So I left work tonight in a light rain thinking about the gun on my back. I was distracted. I rode south into the darkest part of the base where the road is smooth as glass, but there are no buildings and no lights. Almost as soon as I turned on this usually lonely road I was between two walls of trucks. Just off both sides of the road were 50 huge flatbed trucks parked end to end with armored vehicles on nearly every one of them. Some of the flatbeds were the huge 4-axle armored tractors towing 5-axle trailers designed to carry armored vehicles. These long trailers have 40 tires.

With MRAPS and ASV Armored Gun Platforms, the twin lines of tall trucks strapped to flatbeds made the ride seem to be in a tunnel. The sky was black with clouds and made a roof. The ride pulled me back to the scariest ride I ever had in Hong Kong. I was flying down the mountain above this unbelievably crowded city and entered the middle lane of a three-lane wide one-way street. I was passing a double decker bus to my right. It was a flat steel wall on the left, they drive on the right. So I was riding next to a 15-foot high steel wall when the double-decker bus in the left lane started to move right. I jumped on the pedals and hoped I could pass the right bus before I became a smear between them.

I made it.

So I snapped myself out of that memory when I passed the long line of trucks. Then I was alone in the desert. Usually a bus or a maintenance truck will go past. Nothing. No one. I rode all the way to the east end of the base and north to main post before I saw another human being or vehicle. That started to get spooky after two miles and it was four miles that I was alone.

I am going to my book group now to talk about book 11 of Aeneid when Camilla gets killed.

More Range Photos

Chew Ready, Spc. Timothy Huss

Load Chew!!!!!

Ammo

Sgt. Jeremy Houck, my squad leader

Connecticut Boyz--Sgt. August, Spc. Benites, Sgt. Adams and my roommate Sgt. Nickey Smith

A Day on the Range

I qualified with the M16 today. Barely. I hit 20 of the first 20 shots then three of the 2nd 20 shots. The first 20 shots are prone with the rifle supported on a sandbag. The 2nd 20 are unsupported prone and kneeling. I also fired with the battle optic. At Fort Sill I had trouble with the battle optic and they let me fire with the old iron sights. Here I decided I would just see what I could do with the optic. I passed. I need more practice when we get back.
Here are some photos from today.

Spc. Aaron Trimmer, the armorer, fixes weapons at the range

Prone firing position

Staff Sgt. Hummel ran the range from the tower