WarBlogs

While I was deployed recently I kept a running blog. Here they are in chronological order. Enjoy the WarBlogs

WarBlog 1
6 November 2006

I once heard that war is an ugly thing. I'm sure that is a fair assessment; however I'm not sure that it can apply to the supposedly defining moments of my young life. In just over a week I will turn 25 and I will already be a grizzled veteran of two wars. Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom are the two wars that will allow me to bore every unfortunate volunteer that wanders into a VFW in 40 years, and they are the reason that I'm deployed now. I'm a C-17 pilot in the US Air Force and I'm not sitting in a 120 degree tent in downtown Baghdad. I'm not even in a crappy trailer in Kuwait or Qatar. I'm lounging in an air conditioned hotel room on an air base outside of Adana, Turkey watching my Browns blow another football game. I can look out my window and see palm trees. The Mediterranean is less than an hour's drive from here, and the thing I'm most excited about in this whole 'hellish' experience is that spellcheck didn't correct my spelling ofMediterranean. It did get catch spellcheck, though. Crap. What is it? Spell-check? Spell check? You'd think by now that could be a real word with neither space nor hyphen. I would've guessed that a pompous company like Microsoft would ensure words like 'spellcheck' found their way into the vernacular by allowing their own products to overlook them. Whatevs, back to the war. Turkey is my home away from home as I spend the next four months prosecuting this war with unsurpassed lethality. Well not actually, but that's what they keep telling me after they remind me that I'm a warrior.

Considering I'm deployed with a flying squadron, one would assume we'd take our own jets over here to the front. Well I guess that some bean-counting, abacus-loving, slide rule-toting desk jockey mathematician decided that it would cost the government less if they shipped us out on a commercial carrier. They obviously didn't factor in the major ass-pain that it would cause (I feel it pertinent to point out at this juncture that of only two military quotes that I actually like, Patton's, "An army without profanity can't fight it's way out of a piss-soaked paper bag" now comes to mind. If you're angry about my potty-mouth you can take it up with Patton. Or his ghost I guess…spooky.)

We showed up at McChord AFB around 7 AM on Wednesday in order to hurry up and wait for our 1030 takeoff, except we took off over an hour late. I'm guessing somebody didn't tell the carrier, NAA (North American Airlines), that we were going to have luggage. We had a lot of luggage, tons of it in fact. We had enough uniforms, clothing, body armor, and chemical gear for four months—go figure. Now you may be surprised that an airline would forget something as basic as luggage, but keep in mind that you've never heard of North American Airlines, and for good reason.

Their solution for the extra luggage was to have us put our carry-ons in our laps and put our excess baggage into the overhead compartment. Great, so we start doing that. At this point it occurs to some of the loadmasters that the plane may now be out of balance. They're yelling; they want to see the Form F to make sure that the aircraft's center of gravity will be within limits. Before we're even done loading the remainder of the baggage the pilot comes over the intercom and informs us that the weight and balance were checked and that everything is fine. Right. Most of the loadmasters are pissed but I could care less; the plane would have to have ten thousand pounds sitting directly on the tail for the center of gravity to be so effed up that it would actually matter.

So we take off bound for JFK. Immediately we all get pissed because the free alcohol we've been promised is not being delivered. This is a major disappointment because half of us are going to a place where alcohol is all but unavailable. The flight attendants inform me that since we are in uniform they cannot serve us. I'm angry. These airlines will do anything to cut costs. Anyways, after watching a positively drool-inducing Kate Beckinsale sexy her way through Click, we land in JFK. I'm worked up because I won't see a civilian girl for four months. Maybe I can pick up a Kate Beckinsale of my own in the airport terminal while the plane is fueling up.

I can't. I'm not sure what terminal we parked at, but there weren't any other people or planes for miles.Wasn't this supposed to be one of the busiest airports in America? Well at least this concourse wasn't totally empty; there was a bar and a duty free shop. Since the Nazi flight crew only gave us 30 minutes, we all fought our way to the bar to get as many beers as we could before we had to board the NAA flight. By this point I've realized that NAA should stand for Non-Alcoholic Airways or Novice Asshole Airways instead of whatever it is.

Forty minutes later we're told that there's bad weather in Shannon, Ireland, so we can't take off until that clears up. This brings up another point of contention: if we were to fly our own jets we could have leftSeattle, air refueled before hitting the Atlantic, and landed all the way over here in Turkey in one shot. After that the rest of the squadron, who will be fighting their war from Kyrgyzstan, could have taken one more flight to their destination instead of getting stuck in Azerbaijan between two flights like ended up happening. Good job, Air Force, way to pinch those pennies. At least this bad weather is a blessing in disguise, we get to keep drinking and I get to watch LeBron and the Cavs snuff the Wizards' unrealistic hope for revenge. At some point I have the amazingly brilliant idea to run to the duty free shop and pick up some cheap hard alcohol and some mixers. Everyone follows my example and lauds the fact that the Air Force has finally molded me into a natural born leader. If you missed the joke in that last sentence, you are probably also one of the reasons Arrested Development is no longer on the air. Eff you. So we continued to make the military proud by killing our livers until permitted to board the plane a few hours later.

This next flight is a blur, but I figure I'll recount it anyway. Some dumb movie is on, but I'm still thinking of Kate Beckinsale. I invite the one girl in the squadron I'd sleep with to sit next to me and watch it. Well, one of three actually, but as an officer I'd get kicked out if I slept with the other two (unless it was the other two at the same time, then I'm sure the court martial committee would just high five me, slap me on the ass, and send me on my way). She obviously accepts the invite to come to my row because I'm utterly charming.That and my row has more alcohol than most clubs in Vegas. I wanted to make a move on her, not because she's attractive, but I was drunk and she was there. I'm not saying she's unattractive, far from it. She actually has the perfect nose. This is not a matter of opinion but a matter of fact. It was ruled on by a judge in 2003, and actually found validation through appeal all the way to an 8-1 Supreme Court victory. I believe Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg wrote the dissenting opinion; jealous bitch. Anyways, I never end up making a move on the girl because I never get the opportunity and she probably hates me anyway. We pass around the bottles for awhile and now she's tired. She heads back to her empty row to sleep. I've now decided to branch out.

I spill my drinks all the way to the front of the cabin to talk to the flight attendant with the almond-shaped eyes. She looks like a mummified cat that the ancient Egyptians would have worshipped. I've been calling her 'Isis the Cat Goddess' to her face and 'The Corpse of a Hot Stewardess' to my friends. Let me take this opportunity to point out that Profiles in Courage this ain't. Well now I'm drunk and she's smiling, so I'm openly hitting on her. I continue until the point that one of my comrades (like how I can call my coworkers comrades? It's a military perk. Jealous?) comes up and catches me in the act. I play off my advances and run to the back of the cabin as quickly as possible.

In the back I run into another friend who is unrelentingly hitting on the Jamaican flight attendant. Despite his long-term girlfriend back home I play his wingman for a bit, after all I'm a pilot, until I decide to steal the flight attendant's skin-tight sweater. This thing is a body suit on her lithe frame, so you can actually see my pulse when I'm wearing it. I run up and down the aisles offering drinks and more profane services to the laughter of my coworkers. Soon enough we descend and the pilot punishes Ireland for letting us land there. I wonder how he felt having such a crappy landing with 60 pilots behind him all inevitably thinking, "I'm better than this clown."

In Ireland we have about an hour to drink. Honestly, we've been doing it for seven hours now and this isIreland, what else were you expecting us to do? Everyone gets a Guinness except me; I take a Smithwyck's. I love the black stuff, but I'm a pro, not an amateur. My judicious choice of beverage and my undeniably Irish looks attract the attention of a few local girls waiting for their plane. There were only four of them talking to me, but let me be clear: I was talking to a ton of girls. I quickly extricated myself from the situation as our plane was about to leave. We got back to our gate only to find that the aircraft was going to need a crew change since it had been so long, so we're going to be stuck in another airport for a few hours.I headed back to the bar and immediately showed up my counterparts again by ordering a hot whiskey.Everyone was perplexed by this drink; they all had to try it. Within minutes everyone around me is downing whiskey faster than Mel Gibson and Nick Nolte combined. On a side note, if those two hung out, who would be DD? Honestly, it's a fair question. Anyways, long story short we all drank until the plane was ready to go again. Let me reiterate the fact that the majority of us will not be drinking for the next four months.

At this point most of us figured it would be a good time to sleep. Upon request, the Air Force had supplied many of us with the sleep aid Ambien. The doctors know that often we fly across multiple time zones and that when we land we'll need to get a good night's sleep before flying again the next day. The sleeping pills help us combat the jet lag. I have seven pills to last me for the deployment. On a bet I took three and tried to stay awake as long as possible. After about a half hour of me being loopier than a post-knockout boxer, the guy in front of me informs me that my eyes are so dilated there's no color left. This upset me, so I stagger up and down the aisle looking for God-knows-what. The plane is taxiing, and I'm the only one walking around.I'm convinced the plane is empty until I stumble over a friend who wakes up and stares at me like I'm there to swallow his soul. Upset further, I ran to my seat with my head easily a yard in front of my feet the whole way.

I tried to sleep but I woke up periodically to a startling truth: alcohol and pills don't mix. I can't believe they don't put that on the bottle or something. I would have checked, but I'm pretty sure Ambien plus rum equals acid, so I was in no shape for reading. At this point, I'm terrified, not of the impending war, but of the horrible things going on around me. It's like Batman's nemesis Scarecrow hit me with a double dose of his crazy fear powder. The guy in the seat beside me brought a green sleeping bag with him and now pulled it up over his head. Every time I opened my eyes the swamp over there shifted and I could only avert my gaze to the seat in front of me. That was alright until that seat's occupant turned around and beamed at me with glowing red eyes and asked about the drool on my chin. I wiped that away as we landed in Turkey on Thursday at 2300. I turned around and looked down the aisle. It corkscrewed and flickered towards some shadows in the back. I snatched the air sickness bag from the pouch in front of me and put it to my mouth. I asked my buddy across the aisle how many ninjas were back there. We decided there were two.

My war started in a very strange way.

WarBlog 2
13 November, 2006

The day is finally here: I just turned 25, and for my birthday I'm going to hell. Not in a cutesy "I'm such a stinker" way, or even in a "that joke went way too far" way. I'm pretty sure I'm going to hell in the "see you when I get there Jeffrey Dahmer, Adolph Hitler, and John Elway" type way. And be quiet about that last one. The Drive? The Fumble?!? It was the hand of God that put in Maradona's goal, but definitely the hand of Satan that caused Byner to lose the AFC Championship for the Browns. I'm sure Elway's soul was a small price to pay for football glory. If he didn't end up selling it to Beelzebub it would have gone to a chain of automotive dealers anyway.
I'm going to hell for entirely different reasons than the people I just mentioned. I got an e-mail from my mom today. She sends a couple a week asking what I have been up to. Since I've been sitting at a desk doodling for the past few weeks I have nothing to tell her, but it made me think. My mom is like any other mom out there, so I'm sure that Joey Bullet-Catcher in the Army and Johnny Mortar-Magnet in the Marines get letters from their parents concerning their day to day lives. I just have to wonder what they write back. "Dear mom, killed 5 Hadji's today. It was a good day." Or, "Dear dad, we ransacked a village looking for a terrorist. Tons of casualties; they say it's a modern-day Mei-Lai. Look for my name in Time Magazine!" I'm sure that's not how they all go. Most of those kids barely squeaked by in high school, so there would be more grammatical errors, right Sen. Kerry? Despite the fact that I haven't killed anybody myself, I still feel responsible for a certain amount of death.
"Dear mom, I brought 50 Navy SEALs into Afghanistan today to hunt down Al Qaeda members in the mountains." "Dear dad, I brought 100,000 pounds of ammunition into Iraq today. There sure will be some dead insurgents tomorrow!" "Hey everyone, I just flew a $250 million dollar aircraft into combat to deliver 1500 pounds of Girl Scout cookies. I'm a steward of American tax dollars!" I guess these would be my letters. I know I haven't killed anyone, but I sure have facilitated others in their quest to kill. And here's the rub: I couldn't give two shits about it. I really couldn't. I feel like I'm far enough removed from the action that I'm insulated from reprisal. If I cared it might be a different story, but not likely. Here in the Army of Mars we blindly march towards the fires of hell to avoid the pain in our heads controlled by our leaders. We do what we're told but we're not brainwashed; we know exactly what we're doing, we just do it anyway… and we could care less. For me it's the path of least resistance, a form of my laziness, really. Three cheers for unapologetic apathy!
I've finally figured out why everyone is so kind to military members, despite how ridiculous we can be sometimes. It's not because we're willing to lay down our lives for our country, it's because we're willing to lay down our afterlives. So the next time you see a soldier, sailor, airman, or marine pat them on the back and tell them, "thanks for the soul" and run away as fast as you can. If you don't you'll get caught in your own version of hell: a conversation peppered with thousands of 'sir's', 'ma'am's', and 'HUAH's'. Don't worry if you do get caught in that excruciating exchange though, because the person on the other side is soldiering his way to more leg room for you in Heaven. But again, here's me not caring. Mercenary pay is pretty good right now. It allows me to be more materialistic, which I'm sure puts me one step closer to that fire and brimstone.
"Mama, we all go to hell…"




WarBlog 3
25 November 2006

On Thanksgiving it's hard to be thankful for anything when you're thousands of miles from home and bored out of your mind. I guess it's better than being thankful for a bunch of Pilgrims destroying an entire indigenous people. At least they were nice enough to let those Indians in on their little secret: smallpox blankets keep you thirty percent warmer than regular blankets. Wait, warmer? I think I meant to say deader.Smallpox blankets keep you thirty percent deader than regular blankets. The Air Force shot me up with smallpox about a year ago. I'm not thankful for that. When I got smallpox from the government all I wanted to do was itch it, but I knew I couldn't or it would spread. I guess that last sentence could have been a metaphor that taught me a lesson, but the pock mark was gross, so I don't think I would have touched it anyway. It left a scar. At certain points in my life, mostly when I'd been drinking, I thought I could get a tattoo.I figured that the only two things that had been significant in my 25 years were Christianity and being in the military, so I could get a tattoo about one of those. I guess I could have gotten Jesus riding a ballistic missile and throwing sharpened crucifixes at terrorists. Two birds, that. I'm not thankful I considered getting a tattoo, but at least I never pulled that trigger. I figure the smallpox scar is good enough. I just found out that we're going to be getting anthrax shots again. Not carefully measured doses of death metal, but actual doses of anthrax the biological weapon, which might honestly be less painful. I'm not thankful for anthrax or death metal.

Yesterday, for the second time in as many nights, we were circling just north of Baghdad waiting to land at an airfield that was under attack. I'm not thankful that we continue to land at places that are being swept for unexploded ordnance. While we were holding we started running low on gas and my night vision goggles were getting heavy. I could be thankful for strong neck muscles if I had them, but I don't. Despite our immediate insurgent and fuel-related problems, my mind was focused on the approaching Turkey Day and the gratitude I would be required to either think about or verbalize for anyone who would ask (and they did). I'm not thankful for work acquaintances who feel the need to talk to me during an otherwise delightfully miserable holiday dinner. Anyways, while circling the carnage, the only thing I could really come up with was my mustache.

Somewhere there is an unending list of things that the military does wrong, but mustaches aren't on it.However, as expected, they get it right in a half-assed sort of way. I'm not thankful that 'military intelligence' is an oxymoron. You see, you can have a mustache, but it cannot go further than the edge of your lips. That little rule, and the complete absurdity of the mustache in general, has mostly restricted facial hair to the enlisted force. However, many officers—myself included—have started mustaches while we are deployed since back home they are almost universally shunned and over here they are looked upon slightly more affectionately. Mine is a little patchy and misshapen, and it's coming in a little too red for comfort (I don't want GingerKids afterall), but I'm happy to have it nonetheless. My real complaint is that we aren't allowed to have full-on beards. God made me an unequivocal weapon of annihilation, so shouldn't I ride wings of fire into war with my beard flying in the wind? When I look at my tattoo I know that's how Jesus would do it.And I'm thankful for that.

WarBlog 4
19 December 2006

Dashing through the air
In a jet-fueled war machine
O'er the death and despair
Anarchy -- what a scene!
(Ha ha ha)

Generals now appear
Needing photo ops
What fun it is to kick your ass
With work until you drop!
(Oh!)

Jingle bells!
Turkey smells!
The U.S. lost its' way!
It's called Iraq
And it's under attack
The troops are here to stay!
(Hey!)

Ah, the holidays are here again. It's that special time of year when families come together in the spirit of passive aggression, office parties make for awkward couples smooching in the copy room, and generals and politicians take time out of their busy schedules to visit the deployed troops so their bosses and constituents can pat them on the back later. Just make sure they're home by Christmas with their families or there'll be hell to pay. So we roll out the red carpet, line up in formation (really), and fake a smile while we shake hands with the people responsible for having us miss our holidays at home. I wonder if any of these important men realize that the steely dedication in our eyes looks a lot like mild aggression. Or that when they shake two hundred hands in twenty minutes no amount of Purell will kill all the germs they'll encounter. Merry Christmas! Enjoy the dysentery! The real problem, though, is that these visits that supposedly raise troop morale really make us angrier than Carmelo Anthony at Madison Square Garden.We all have to scurry around preparing the base and our squadron for a self-serving visit from some old fogey that most of us could care less about. A lot of people are in awe of these guys, but not me, and I think I've figured out why.

The term 'larger than life' has stuck with me ever since I was a little tyke, but no one important or famous that you've ever met is actually larger than life—it's always a letdown. They're all as regular as Metamucil. I guess I'll be impressed if I meet Ryan Reynolds or Naomi Watts and they turn out to be fifty feet tall and only sustained by the nutrition obtained from eating a small car. I'll be so amazed, in fact, that I will donate my Nissan without hesitation. That aside, I'm not impressed by these politicians and generals because I've met or seen hundreds of people with more intelligence, charisma, talent, and common sense than the majority of these leaders. Some of them were even in the Air Force. It's just that those kinds of people don't stay in the military. They get sick of every tool in the shed kissing more ass than a toilet seat and towing the party line through the ranks while their creative thinking and innovative leadership nets them reprimands and lessened responsibility. These people who you would follow into the fires of hell—laughing all the way (ha ha ha!)—end up leaving the military for greener pastures in the business world. Who does that leave?All the uptight geeks who will eventually become the generals sporting high-and-tights causing you an ass-pain during the holiday season, that's who. They'll come over for a few hours to see the base, get all the military nerds worked into a frenzy, and have you all line up in formation while they tell you to fight hard and come back safe for everyone that cares about you back home. That's not what I do; I fight hard and come back safe for chocolate pudding.

You see, when we fly into Iraq or wherever, most—if not all—of our day is spent on the jet so we bring flight meals with us. I always order the same thing, chicken sup 2. That's two chicken sandwiches with a supplement of fruit, pasta salad, juice, water, and a pudding cup. I normally eat the pasta salad on the flight over to Iraq, the chicken sandwiches when on the ground over there, and I save the pudding for the flight back to Turkey. Call it my 'Mission Accomplished Pudding." Some are motivated by the thought that we're doing the right thing over here. Some are motivated by rank. Some are motivated by the love of their life waiting for them to come home safely. I'm motivated by Snack Packs. I know if I don't deliver that cargo, get that jet off the ground safely and pointed back towards friendly skies I won't get my pudding. And if I don't get my pudding, then the terrorists win. I can't think of a better reward in the world. In fact, I think that I would be able to stomach more speeches from my leaders if there was a chocolate pudding cup waiting for me at the end. So to everyone out there facing unenviable tasks this holiday season (and I'm sure you are), happy holidays, do it for the pudding!

WarBlog 5
7 January 2007

Before I left for this deployment my girlfriend, current Miss USA Tara Conner, was quite upset with my impending absence. She kept saying things like, "Do you have to go?" and, "When you leave, who will I hang out with? Miss Teen USA? What are we going to do? Drink like crazy and partake in sexy hi-jinks? I can't do that without you." I guess we know how that turned out, but what really upset me is when she would constantly say how she was worried for me and how she was going to miss me. It made me feel like I was terminal. The looming deployment was more like a quickly declining white cell count as the cancer of war metastasized into my life. OK, probably a little melodramatic, but I there are times when I feel like the war has become some sort of ailment that is doing its' best to shorten my life.

We all get pretty worn out over here, so in our free time we play poker, drink, or play sports. We've been playing a lot of basketball which is hilarious on quite a few levels for me. First, despite the fairly racially-enlightened atmosphere of the military, the one black guy always gets picked first. He's a decent athlete so he's alright, but the kid wrestled his whole life so you know he didn't play on the basketball team (both being winter season sports). He's also the guy that everyone assumes would make a good running back when we play football despite the fact that there are at least five people faster than him. What's that book about? Oh, it's just a scathing attack on stereotypes, but you probably didn't notice since you were too busy judging it by its' cover. Whatevs, I'm probably just jealous. I'm sure I'll get picked ahead of him if we have a hockey game or a swim meet. The second thing that makes me giggle about basketball is that no one has a jump shot. Not a single one of us. Because of this the lane is a jungle of sweaty, out-of-shape, middle-aged men and home to more hacks than a… (okay, right here I was going to make a joke about either the writers of some crappy sitcom or the staff of an awful magazine like Stuff or Maxim, but then I glanced up at my previous couple of lines and decided to leave well enough alone). One time Mike was attempting to power through the paint when he stepped on the foot of one of the defenders. I watched as he rolled his ankle pretty good, and the resulting sprain took him out of commission for almost a month. I guess I could consider my military career a sprained ankle: it hurt a lot at first and lasts longer than expected.

Mike isn't the only casualty of this trip. There's this guy in the squadron who is almost universally despised, but despite my penchant for hating people, I had no opinion on him prior to getting out here. After speaking with him at length I discovered that no one had given him a fair shake. He isn't a jerk like everyone says; he's actually just the worst human being alive. He's conceited, lazy, boring, irritating, and his workout shirts are all sleeveless. It's amazing how he (along with many others in the military) has the uncanny ability to look you in the eye while he's screwing you in the ass. I guess the Air Force employs a lot of contortionists.He once tried to pull out the hairs from my mustache instead of saying hello. I would have punched him but I really don't feel like becoming a hero to everyone I work with. A hero to the hordes of Victoria Secret models who were never before able to know the meaning of the word love? That's another story. Anyways, he had been showing up to work looking worse than Britney's hoo-ha (Did you see that thing? Was there a C-section scar in that picture somewhere? Gross!) for a couple of weeks and finally decided to see the doctor. It turns out that he has dysentery. Dysentery! I thought you only got that shit playing Oregon Trail on the Commodore 64. Bury me by Chimney Rock, paw. He must have contracted it after his attempt to ford the river resulted in his Conestoga wagon being washed away. Just pay the damn Indian guide next time, jeez. So everyone was abuzz with the talk of this strange disease striking this poor asshole. When I found out about it I promptly asked, "So you can catch dysentery from karma?" Anyways, since he's been burning the candle at both ends they sent him to a hospital in Germany where I'm assuming they have better plumbing to handle all his, ahem, needs. On the plus side, he's a thousand miles away. High Five! Some would probably say that this deployment is dysentery: it's so much crap that it makes you nauseous. (And the award for Most Disgusting Metaphor of the Year goes to…)

I used to fly with this pilot whose wife was also out here flying with our squadron. I liked him because for the most part he was a super-laid back aircraft commander (AC) and easy to get along with. He didn't make us wear our helmets into the combat zone and hardly ever checked to see if I put my seat armor in. That armor stuff is about as comfortable as a prostate exam from Edward Scissorhands, so you can understand why I'd want to forgo using it. I figure that if some Hadji gets a bullet from his AK-47 to track all the way up to hit my plane as it scoots along at 350 mph and then that round magically finds its way through 12 layers of metal to make it to my ass, then it's just not my day. I've always wanted a Purple Heart. I hear they can get you free drinks, and chicks dig scars. Problem is that one day this guy's wife was flying north of Baghdad and somebody decided to shoot a missile and a buttload gunfire her way. I didn't think anything of it the next day during combat entry as we discussed the seat armor. The third pilot on the crew, a 6 foot 9 giant, tells me and the AC that since the armor would put him so high in his seat that he wouldn't be in a safe position to fly and that he wouldn't use it due to his height. I said I wouldn't be using the armor due to my length. I chuckled at my dick joke, but the AC turned around and raged on me about how unsafe flying into combat is and how we all needed to be more serious because people were down there actively thinking of ways to kill us, his wife included. I never thought how war probably affects those sending loved ones into combat more than it affects us—you can't protect someone forever. I would say something about how war can be a lot like heartache, but I doubt that I'll ever actually know or care what that is like.

That situation taught me that no matter how detached and lackadaisical I am about this whole situation, tensions can run high for others. I found this especially true in the days leading up to Christmas when two pilots in my squadron were pre-flighting a jet before a day of flying. One of the pilots had a radio navigation aid tuned to a local station that was playing Christmas music. The other pilot, a humorless twatwaffle working behind him on the flight deck, told him to turn the shit off or he would cut his throat. The first guy countered with, "You don't have the stones." A 'whose dick is bigger?' contest ensued with the twatwaffle bitching how he would cut the other, and the other repeating how the he didn't have the stones. I don't think the first pilot even flinched when the angry guy had the knife to his throat. He still repeated, "You don't have the stones." We're only two months in and guys are trying to kill each other, I don't know how those army guys survive a year and a half in the desert. I guess when you compare our short stint to their near life-sentences in the sandbox you could liken this deployment to a slit throat: it's painful and draining, but at least it's pretty quick.

It's not all getting shot at or having your life threatened out here. Being in Turkey we have the ability to wander into the little village outside the gate to buy whatever shitty wares the Turks are peddling. "You want hookah? I sell you hookah. You need watch? Real Mr. Rolex, bling bling. You need rug? You need new suit? Come see my cousin. Come on, ahbee. My kid, he need the money. My wife, she need the money. My girlfriend, she need the money. Joke, joke. You like?" A couple of the guys I work with have developed a friendship of sorts with some of the locals and have agreed on multiple occasions to field a team against them in soccer. I finally got a chance to go see one of these matches on a cold Tuesday night at their village soccer field. At about one third regulation length and width, quarters get tight. Add to that the 30 foot high (in play) chain link fence and netted top and you can see why we call it the Thunderdome. The field has a few lights but is mostly lit by the headlights of cars ringing the exterior of the fence. On your left kids climb the fence to shake it as a distraction to the American players; on your right a guy jumps around and bangs on a 50-gallon drum. This surreal shit seems more like the setting for an underground fight to the death than a soccer match. I swear to God I think I saw Blanca fight Zangief here before (What the hell was Blanca anyway? A Brazilian green gorilla with a shock of bright red hair that could zap you with an electric field? Come on.). The problem was that our team was short one player; we needed a keeper.Despite my spectator status I was corralled into service. Remind me to burn that draft card. I had on jeans, a snowboarding jacket, my devastatingly good looks, and my 6 year old blue skate shoes with no grip that Lisa hates. This wouldn't have been a problem except the playing surface was cement with an ultra-thin layer of Astroturf that in their great Turkish wisdom they covered with a light dusting of sand—no wonder these guys can't figure out how to industrialize their country. Or how to cook something that doesn't look like's already been digested. Or showers. Between the slipping and my overall non-athleticism I had less game than a 30 year old computer programmer who lives with his mom. By the match's end I had bruises, scrapes, and an 11-9 loss at the hands of the Turks. As we were walking out one of the Turkish spectators yelled out, "My grandma play better than you!" I yelled back, "I can't believe she had time to play any soccer in between all the dick-sucking she taught you." "You are the one who sucks!" "Yeah, well at least my house has electricity!" The Turks looked down in a sullen silence. What started out as a light-hearted exchange mutated into a nasty insult that left the locals angry and speechless. Sometimes this war is like xenophobia: it's just plain ugly.

In spite of the busy schedule out here, I still find a way to get about an hour of TV watching in per day (10% of Daily Recommended Allowance). All we have is AFN, the American Forces Network, an excruciatingly painful 'morale raiser'. There are eight channels, and at any given time two of them are showing The View, Doctor Phil, or Oprah. It's so much estrogen I'm starting to grow bitch tits. I shit you not, I once saw Stargate playing on three different channels simultaneously. Ridiculous. Unfortunately their unique programming schedule is not the worst part of this debacle; that honor goes to the AFN commercials. You see, AFN gets some sort of discount on the shows it buys as long as it doesn't air the commercials that come with it. Not even for the Super Bowl. So you might get lucky and catch a football game that helps you forget you're stuck overseas for about 5 minutes before you're snapped back to reality when a commercial reminding you to wear your reflective vest comes on. Seriously, they actually let the military pump its' propaganda into our rooms in commercial-form. There's the X-files rip-off that informs you how to look for a military clause in your lease. There's the Terry Tate: Office Linebacker rip-off who tells you to work harder on Operational Security (OPSEC) or the pain train's coming. There is the Minority Report rip-off. There are the pigeons who talk about change of address cards for your move. The driving tips with Squeakers the Hamster. The OPSEC Cat. The list goes on. Worse than ripping off ideas real advertisers and movie-makers had in the nineties is the fact that they use whatever songs they please. I actually wrote an e-mail to the program director and pointed out that plagiarism and copyright infringement aren't cool in a hope to get regular commercials on the air, but was told that they get permission from everyone they borrow from. Right, I'm sure Green Day, Nirvana, and Rage Against the Machine signed off on having their songs broadcast on the mouthpiece of the Evil Empire. Whatevs. Anyways, a bunch of us were watching television together when something miraculous happened. AFN forgot to switch to its own commercials during a break. We got a full minute and a half of pure, unadulterated capitalistic commercialism. It was glorious. By the time the Guinness guys came on screen to yell "Brilliant!" our stunned silence had turned to outright cheers. We had all seen the advertisement countless times before but we laughed our asses off just the same. When it was over we looked around and realized how pathetic we really were. This was actually the highlight of our day. Just then I couldn't figure out when I had last had a good time. I missed real life more than I ever expected. That's when I realized that for me this deployment, above all else, is actually a lot like a broken rib: it only hurts when you laugh.

WarBlog 6
1 February 2007

Hatred. Dark. Cold. Breath hits the air and freezes, falling and swirling as it dissipates. Sleep until hungry; begrudgingly trudge through unyielding mounds of snow to the chow hall for what passes as food. Eat until tired; slip on the ice back to your tiny, frigid room without windows that you hate. Days turn imperceptibly to nights, nights to days. Seconds turn into minutes, minutes to hours, hours to days and nights again. Sleep until hungry, eat until tired. Seconds, minutes, hours. It's impossible to tell how long I've been a prisoner in communist Russia—a year? Two? Oh, 30 hours? It felt longer.

Well, it's not exactly communist Russia, but it used to be. I've been shipped to Manas, Kyrgyzstan for the remainder of the deployment, destined to fight that other war, the one in Afghanistan just a few hours away.The bleak horizon to the north points to barren Kazakhstan and the enormous rugged mountains to the south lead to hundreds of miles of impassable terrain. There is no escape from the cold tents, the dirty latrines, or the solitary hours spent huddled in bed praying for an end to the cold. Manas is a wonderful cure for the will to live.

Nearest I can tell the purpose of a military is to make you hate anything and everything in your life and then focus that hate onto the enemy. They're doing a bang up job at the first part, but I can't for the life of me figure out who my enemy is supposed to be. I'm not sitting in a foxhole aiming rounds at Al Qaeda members, I'm not battling insurgents in Iraq, I'm battling my own mind's inability to understand what I'm still doing in the Air Force, I'm fighting my urge to go crazy. I hate everything. I hate Manas as I hated Turkey, probably more so. I hate the cold and I hate the useless mountains without ski lifts. I hate the food I eat and the books I read. I hate that I'm not a better man. I hate that the Cavs are becoming a terrible basketball team. I hate existentialism. I hate Jessica Biel for not knowing that I exist. I hate my worthless space heater.I hate that I flirt with this girl I work with (the one with the perfect nose) despite having no more than a passing interest in her. I hate that she reciprocates because it means I'll have to tell her at some point that I don't really like her. I hate that she told me that she once tried to take me home with her but I was too oblivious or drunk to notice. I hate missed opportunities. I hate my prison cell of a room. I hate waiting for my plane to be de-iced. I hate that I can only get two beers a day and that neither of them are free. I hate the BX and everybody on this base. I hate that I can't remember enough Russian to thank the guy who mops the floors. I hate the Air Force and I hate the C-17. I hate not being in Seattle and I hate not having a TV. I hate that I haven't had a decent conversation in three months. I hate all the things I'm flying into and out of Iraq and Afghanistan. I hate the ammunition, I hate the soldiers, I hate the diplomats, congressmen, and generals, I hate the fuel trucks and the helicopters. Most of all I hate the fucking Red Bull and Starbucks Espresso Double Shots and Girl Scout cookies.

The only bit of cargo I can't find it in my heart to hate are the emergency patients we routinely bring out of the combat zone. I don't hate the marine with burns over every part of his body except what his body armor covered. I don't hate the special operator with the hastily stitched and stapled gash that started from the right side of his face and continued down to the left side of his beltline. I definitely don't hate the grunt with the head wound whose two best friends died when the Humvee he was driving hit an IED. I do hate that he asked me—and whoever else would listen—where his buddies were. Were they okay? You can't expect yourself to answer those questions, but you also can't help hating yourself for knowing the truth and withholding it. I don't hate these pieces of damaged cargo, but I do hate that it's been so long since I could remember what they're dying for.

I figured I could sum up all this hate with a single counterpoint of something that I love—or even like—and this would turn out to be a pretty endearing passage in an otherwise tirelessly vain exercise in self-pity.Except I can't. My mind is numb and my blood is running cold from the useless nature of my work. Here in my government issue room, in my government issue running suit, under the government issue watch cap that hasn't left my head in days, my government issue brain is crapping out. While I'm stuck here, isolated from anything or anyone I used to care about, I can no longer think of anything that means shit to me.

Sign me up for war, I guess that means I'm ready to die. And I hate it.

WarBlog 7
5 March 2007

Growing up is tough. When you're a teenager you think you know everything and try to convince everyone who believes otherwise. In reality, you know a lot less than you think. You start to figure that part out in your twenties, but you look around and realize that it's the same for everyone else. Grown-ups are no longer infallible deities who get to make the rules, they're actually people. You can see that all the traits you attributed to other people as teenagers still hold true as adults. Adults can be unintelligent, assiduous, duplicitous, humorous, slovenly, sharp, dull or any other variation or combination possible. I guess this realization is why we start calling adults by their first names. The first time a drinking buddy becomes a doctor or a lawyer or a teacher you start to lose respect for the establishment as a whole. It's like the first time you notice that you're older than a Playboy centerfold, just less creepy. You start to see people in positions of respect and admiration more for their foibles rather than their great talents. I guess after enough of this people in their thirties think they could do a better job and start to run for office. Who knows, we'll see. One day I'm sure I'll start to think I really do know what's best and I'll start to vote, too. One day.Until then I'm more concentrated on getting my own shit so together that I'll have ten pounds of it in a three pound sack.

Part of the problem of growing up, for me, though is that I've had the opportunity to meet some extraordinary people who will go on to do some great things. Some of these people I can even count among my friends. They are the hard-workers, free-thinkers, and just pure geniuses of our time. They may have incredible insight into an academic endeavor, or just the ability to explain it to an average Joe like me. These are the people who will get rich or lead the country or both. So why is this a problem? The problem is that having met a few such people (and I stress few), I know that I'm not one. I don't have the drive to succeed where others have failed, the eloquence to move the masses, or even the intelligence to make breakthroughs in any field. Jack of all, but Ace of none. I do know, however, that some other people make it to the top. Through hard work, innovation, or fortuitous connections some people just find the knack to succeed. I wouldn't mind being one of those lucky SOBs that makes that jump. I just think that the Air Force isn't really giving me a leg up on the situation. I'm killing time spinning my wheels while I could be out achieving more. I'm not too enticed by the possibilities of those I'm serving with, either. Most of them are good people, but I don't think we're going to come home and become the next Greatest Generation. The call we answered was too abstract a form of evil to ever beat completely. The problem that we have to solve will be mental, the Generation of the Disenchanted maybe. Some of us will have the opportunity to go forward and make the best out of things; it's just that I'm just ready now, and I don't want this war to set the schedule for me. Don't mistake my delusions of grandeur: I don't want to change the world, just be very comfortably wealthy within it. And maybe have a hot wife. No one ever said I wasn't shallow.

I have had a few chances to meet some leaders, both in the military and civilian world, and for the most part I have to concede that each person got there through more hard work and competence than I am capable of. However I'm always interested to see whether or not a lazy goof off like me can slip through the cracks.Like someone just woke up one day and said, "How the fuck did I become a US Senator?" Here's me crossing my fingers.

On the morning Saddam was hanged I was on the ground in Iraq. Our engines ran in reverse idle over the sands of Fallujah while we waited for a Distinguished Visitor to arrive for a free ride to Germany. I hate waiting. We talked about who it might be and why they were holding us up. After about an hour we noticed two blue helicopters come in from the southeast, set down near us, and taxi our way. Their rotors kicked up dust towards our engine intakes as they moved behind our jet. They stopped about a hundred feet behind our tail; the passengers were loaded into black Tahoes and shuttled to our ramp. A few colonels got out and huffed designer luggage into our cargo hold. I figured if full birds were being personal bellhops, then this DV must be pretty important. Out hobbled an older Iraqi gentleman and his wife. One of the colonels walked up to me and asked who was in charge. I looked around and told him that I was and he introduced me to the Iraqi National Security Advisor and his wife. I shook their hands and asked the loadmaster to show them to their seats.

During the flight, as passengers are wont to do, the National Security Advisor and his wife requested to come up to the cockpit. In this case we accepted and hurriedly cleaned up our food wrappers and magazines. They stayed up there for awhile and asked all manner of questions. At one point they asked me where in America I was from. I told them I was born in Ohio but now lived in Seattle. I asked them where they were from. I don't know why I asked; mostly it was just the thing that you said to people after they asked you where you were from. I figured they might answer something like Mosul and I could say I had been there. They answered that they'd lived in London for the last 25 years, but were originally fromBaghdad. I asked how that was (yes, I hate myself for asking). The NSA's wife told me that "Baghdad is a wonderful city. Well, it was." Awkward. I fiddled with radio knobs and pretended that the flight plan needed attending to while I thought of a recovery from that. A few minutes later I asked why they were headed toGermany. They told me they were on their way to London to visit with family for the New Year. They were scheduled to go a few days earlier but with Saddam's impending execution, there was much work to do.Thank God for our greatest export—capital punishment. Just then I wanted to know if they had been there, if they had seen him hang, but it was not a question that could be asked. The question was answered two days later though when I read a story on CNN.com that had a quote from the National Security Advisor who recounted Saddam's last words to him before he was led out to the noose. I thought that being separated from such a major world event by only one person and a few hours would be weird, but it wasn't.Underwhelming to say the least.

After that the couple gave us some homemade candies and asked us about flying. First the NSA wanted to know how far our radar went on the jet. We explained that we only had weather radar and that it only went so far. He seemed unsatisfied, but even if we had some sort of offensive radar, I wouldn't have told him.We're friends with those Iraqis, but not that good of friends. He then started asking about the countries we overflew. He wanted to know how we got clearance to fly over them. I explained that you got diplomatic clearances with each flight plan and that you also radioed for permission prior to entering their border. He wanted to know who arranged such clearances and why they would be granted. I told him that most clearances, as far as I knew, were hammered out in treaties between countries. I figured that most NATO countries would probably let us fly in their airspace, but I wasn't sure. He asked who made those arrangements, ambassadors, diplomats, or members of the military. Finally I told him that such information was far more into his realm of work than mine. He should be the one that could tell me about such things, more than I him. He looked a little bit sullen and soon returned downstairs with his wife for the remainder of the flight.

When we pulled into parking in Germany, five generals and five BMWs were waiting. The NSA and his wife left with their military aide. The other pilot and I couldn't help but wonder aloud how Iraq was going to succeed when their leaders weren't really leading. The man was nice enough and intelligent enough, but you could tell that he wasn't one of the great ones. Growing up is never easy, and it looks like it will be no different for Iraq.

WarBlog 8

9 May 2007

Perspective. It kills me. I know I don’t have the right perspective on this war because I never seem to grasp anything about it other than what’s right in front of my face. You can run numbers about it all day, but as good as they are about expressing value, you just can’t count on numbers to express the magnitude of war.My $250,000,000 jet. $70,000 in jet fuel. $1,000,000 in training each for us 3 pilots. An $8,500,000 Chinook in the back. All heading to Iraq at the same time as countless other aircraft from countless other locations. It’s like me telling you that the Grand Canyon is 277 miles long, can be as wide as 15 miles, and as deep as 1.6 miles. So fucking what? It sounds huge, but you never get the idea of just how big that is until you actually stand on the edge of that enormous hole in the ground and realize, “Shit! This is a huge effing canyon!” The problem with war is that no one will ever get the chance to have that perspective—to stand at the edge of the canyon.

Since we can’t wrap our heads around it, we don’t even try. Our flights to and from combat are comprised of the type of detached, inane chatter reserved for most frat houses. A recent flight to combat started with all of us comparing the various currencies we had in our wallets in order to prevent the constant white noise in our headsets from dissolving into our brains and making us fall asleep. As aircrew we fly to all sorts of countries (mostly shitty ones, thanks Uncle Sam!) with all sorts of different types of money. It’s a waste of time to remember that Turkey has Lira, most of Europe has Euro—except Great Britain—and that Kyrgyzstan has… umm… Dinar? Rubles? Fuck if I know, but that’s the point. To make things simple we call all foreign money doobers. That way when you’re stuck in BFE and scrambling into a taxi following a fight at a night club all you have to ask each other is, “Do you have enough doobers to get us back to the hotel?”On this flight I had 3 different types of doobers. Someone else had some Turkish doobers and we noticed that the guy on their money looked like some sort of creepy Houdini substitute whose only trick was making his sausage disappear in a windowless van parked near local playgrounds. Our discussion continued like this until the changing pressure in the cabin made someone fart. No one claimed the Howdy, so I finally asked, “who the hell farted?” Rebb finally owned up, to which Sharp responded, “I thought it smelled like semen.” After that we started putting on our body armor and running our combat entry checklist, chuckling to ourselves the whole damned time. We’re not running away from the realities of combat, but we’re not exactly embracing them either.

I’ve been shot at a few times in my short Air Force career. You’d think it’d be either one of those things that I’d block out and never want to talk about again, or it’d be one of those things that I’d brag about at the bar to get free drinks. Knowing my extreme hatred for my liver, you’d think it’d be the latter, but it’s actually neither. I nothing it. I couldn’t care less about being shot at. I guess it’s both a by-product of the fact that I know it’s not an extremely exclusive group to be a part of and also that I’ve never really felt threatened by it.What’s most disappointing about being a target of opportunity is the lack of feelings it has generated in me.I thought that if I was being shot at that I would discover all these reasons that I wanted to live. Fuck you,Hollywood, that’s not the case. All I could think of the first time I got shot at was, “I hope that doesn’t hit us. I don’t want to have to spend the night here in Iraq until our plane gets fixed. It’ll probably only hit the engine anyway. We can fly out of here on 3 engines, right? I wonder how much each of our engines cost. They’ve gotta be expensive. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck, I do not want to have to spend the night here in Iraq. Oh good, we’re landing.” Seriously, these were my life-affirming, character-defining thoughts in the heat of battle. There were no thoughts of getting back home to see some wife or kids or parents or anything.Granted, I don’t even have two of those aforementioned things (fingers crossed on that second one), but it would have been nice to at least have the thought of something cross my mind. My friends, my family, Guitar Hero 2, that hot girl I saw in the gym the other day--even the NBA. I would have realized that I really wanted to live to see LeBron bring a title to Cleveland. It’s pathetic, but at least it would have been something. Instead, all I’ve realized is that I’m dead inside. How’s that for perspective?

I’ll take this opportunity to remind myself that I could have it much, much worse. My whiny, self-centered, and self-loathing ego is once again slapped across the face with the fact that my life is much safer than that of the guys on the ground. They face real life-threatening dangers on a daily basis and it probably causes them to gain some real perspective on their lives and lets them know what’s important, be it God, their families, or their buddies right there in the shit with them. Maybe that’s the only real way to stand on the edge of the canyon. I feel like a fraud. However to those on the outside looking in, I’m a hero. Perspective makes all the difference in the world.