Orphanage and Christian Monastery

We went to a christian monastery up in the north, and it houses a few orphans as well that I got to hang out with. We were supposed to land on one of the mountaintops and we threw a smoke grenade to check the winds and it started a fire......oops. So we landed on the other side of the valley.

More trips to the north and a graduation ceremony for an Iraqi military academy. It was cool to see, and it gives me more hope that we can pull out of here soon as they are progressing. A mortar hit a little too close to one of C company's Hawks in the last one.

Lunch in Erbil

I never thought I would like eating mutton that much :) Last picture: I miss the days when you would have to clear just the cobwebs off the ceiling.

Ruffis

Ruffis is the little monkey that Liam sent me so that I could have something of his with me. He's pretty good on the sticks :). We spent some time hanging out with some of the Iraqi and Kurdish soldiers in Al Kaiser. While we were in Dahuk one of the Kurdish guys drove us around the city. The last picture is of how we get some exercise around here.

Home for leave then back to the fight

Two short weeks of leave with my little family and I'm back to the fight. It does help that I got promoted to Chief Warrant Officer 3 in the second picture. In the last picture we stopped to refuel during our 5 1/2 hour trip to Baghdad and back on a 105 degree day with no A/C. Don't feel sorry for us, though. The refuelers brought us an Otterpop, and it was very refreshing.

Roman ruins

We got to stop and see some Roman ruins about 300bc. Some pretty landscape and sunset pictures from northern Iraq. Then there is the bullet hole we found in the back of the aircraft on preflight one day......don't worry about that little guy, though, it was just a lucky shot :)

Erbil

These are from our trip to Erbil in Kurdistan. In the picture with us by the helo with some Kurdish guys, no joke, the guy to my left was named Muhamad and the guy to my right Alli. They knew the significance of this to us too because when I put up my fists like I was boxing they both laughed because they always get that response from Americans.

Extra misc. stuff

Everyday stuff from around Northern Iraq.

Dust Storm

We got bogged down in a nasty dust storm for two days so we couldn't fly. It gave me plenty of time to finish my ping pong table. Ping Pong, or as the chinese would call it....Ping Pong, is a pretty good way to pass the time. I put on the picture of the truck to show that there is just not enough demand for space exploration these days, so NASA has to earn some money somehow.

Kurdish wedding

One of our stoppovers to Erbil we were hanging out with some Kurdish kids while their parents where in a wedding. We were then invited into the wedding and you can see my reaction when they asked us to dance with them. "You want us to what?!" I see no need to incriminate myself with pictures of said dance.

Mission to Turkey and Christmas

We flew to Turkey to drop off the General to a meeting he had there and I got to hang out with one of the Turkish Blackhawk pilots. The forth is a little Sadoku in Baghdad waiting on our passengers and then our Christmas bash.

Blackhawk pics

More helicopter pictures. The second one is of the nasty fog that rolled in 10 minutes after we landed from a mission. We were lucky to land before it hit. The last two are in Dahuk in the north. It's one of my favorite places to go.