Crazyhawkdriver

Homecoming from Iraq

2010-06-08T21:28:00.000-07:00

It was a long year away from my wife and two little boys. We knew that being in the Army came with risks and sacrifices. We took the risks and dealt with the sacrifices knowing that our cause was just and that our Father in Heaven would bring us together again in the end. And he did...

Orphanage and Christian Monastery

2009-08-14T05:03:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-07-23T07:19:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-23T06:28:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-23T05:22:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-02T10:09:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-05T23:51:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-02T10:03:00.000-07:00

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

2009-02-27T03:08:00.000-08:00

Everyday stuff from around Northern Iraq.

Dust Storm

2009-02-10T22:21:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-25T01:11:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-25T00:45:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-25T00:24:00.000-08:00

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.

Kurdish country and first mission over Baghdad

2009-01-24T23:47:00.000-08:00

The first three are of a mission we commonly do to Kurdish country up north. They love us up there because Saddam was horrible to them. On the flight up there we passed over a Kurdish village that was in ruins, the people decimated by Saddam using chemical weapons. Don't bother asking me if he had any weapons of mass destruction, just ask the Kurds. The last two are of our first mission over Baghdad.

Fall and winter in Iraq

2009-01-24T09:51:00.000-08:00

These are from my first couple of months in Iraq, and it's been pretty interesing. First: the Baji oil refinery north of Kirkuk. Highly desputed oil reserves between the Iraqis and the Kurds. Second: I tried to find a box big enough for me to fit in so that DHL could send me home. Third: Talifar air base. Forth and fifth: Our push north from Kuwait.

Princess Anna

2006-11-22T13:26:00.000-08:00

We got to give Princess Anna a ride while she was visiting (I'm the one in the left seat) I don't know much about her but apparently she is second in line to the throne of England. It was a pretty fun mission.

Stuck in Asadabad

2006-11-08T19:53:00.000-08:00

We got stuck in Asadabad for about 3 hours waiting on General Eikenberry (pretty much the guy in charge around these parts) so we checked out one of the enemy tanks secured earlier on in the war, and then gooffed off the rest of the time.

Stopover in Jalalabad

2006-10-28T23:53:00.000-07:00

We did a mission over to Jalalabad and had some time on the ground. We hung out with our apache buddies and messed around with some of thier rockets, and then we had a few hours to wait until takeoff so we pulled out the hamocks. Another month and I'm coming home to be with Marla and hopefully get to be there when the baby is born. I should be on a plane on the 9th of December which will put me on the ground on the 11th or 12th. I will come back here on th 25th or 26th just in time to start packing things up and head home (yes I brought it up that I would make the sacrifice to just stay in the States but I was rejected ")

Nice view

2006-10-14T11:04:00.000-07:00

After a mission we took a route up a really cool valley,(don't mind the bug splatters) and landed on a small LZ on top of a mountain. We had a little time so we got out and stretched our legs a little bit. Not a bad day's work ")

Halfway through

2006-09-23T16:40:00.000-07:00

I'm about halfway through this rotation, and three weeks of that I get to spend coming home on leave. I got to go to a firing range put on buy the Germans were you can qualify in thier weapons. I made expert all the way around (of course, Dad taught me well). Dust landings and tak-offs are one of the dangers around here that we train for and deal with on a day to day basis, we brown out often and have to react quickly.

Another day

2006-08-09T20:47:00.000-07:00

Just another day, going on four months now. I got to play with a SAW (a very cool gun) We flew to the northwest up a pretty tight valley to a place called Bamian. The red ruins are a remnant of when Gangis Khan was there. And that evening was a nice sunset.

Old towers

2006-07-10T08:13:00.000-07:00

Every mission starts off with a preflight to make sure everything is in proper order (too many aircraft have had to emergency land because a tool was left some where and broke something important). These two towers where built by Alexander the great around 300bc when he invaded Afghanistan.

More helicopter shots

2006-06-17T05:15:00.000-07:00

More helicopter and landscape shots. Some of the areas around here remind me of home. I was bored one day, so I made a chair. It's amazing what we can do around here with a lot of time a couple of hand tools and scrap wood.

Another day in paradise

2006-06-10T05:55:00.000-07:00

This was one of our typical missions up in the Pech valley, that's me in the front....I love flying doors off, it makes it a little easier to keep cool with the 40 lbs of body armor and survival equipment. (You would think that for $7,000,000 the helicopter would come with air conditioning.)

Cool stuff

2006-06-02T18:46:00.000-07:00

B-1 Bomber......pretty cool. And that's a $100,000 piece of plywood, cause that's how much it cost the Army when it flew up into the rotor system when one of my buddies landed at a small base out in the middle of nowhere. It busted the tips of three blades and ruined the last, so they painted it and put the tail number of the aircraft it damaged on it and hung it up on the wall. We think it was a new weapon designed by Al-Queda........It's a Taliboard.

Sunset on the flightline

2006-05-23T08:47:00.000-07:00

Not as good as New Mexico sunsets, but it'll do.

First mission

2006-05-16T05:18:00.000-07:00

The Army has finally recieved something back for all the money it has spent on my training. I finally got to fly a real mission........It felt like I was back in the Nam.

Local area flight

2006-05-16T03:26:00.000-07:00

For my local area flight we flew up to an 8500 ft. mountain top. It was a nice view from up there.

Behind him is a 2000 ft drop.

Home sweet home

2006-05-16T02:23:00.000-07:00

These are before and after pictures of my cubicle, my "Crib" if you will. I had to scavange for wood and screws to build all of my furniture.

Long trip

2006-05-15T05:48:00.000-07:00

It was about a ten hour flight in a C-17 with a layover in Mildenhal England. There wasn't much space between us and a 7 ton helicopter.