Iraq Pics
This past trip to Mesopotamia was a short one, but by far the best one in most ways and the worst in others. All in all, a good deal.
We stayed near a small town in Iraq this time. A crappy little place called Balad. The Army calls it LSA Anaconda. Its nicknamed Mortaritaville. The facility itself is nice. It used to be Saddams Air Force Academy and Olympic Training Center. We didnt drop many bombs there in 2003 and most all the damage from 1991 had been fixed by the time we showed up in 2003.
The best part of this trip was actually being based in Iraq. We didnt have the 2 hour drone on both sides of the mission to deal with like we did when we were based in Qatar. It meant you got to go to work right away and stayed busy until you were done for the day.
The worst part is the locals. Seems as though some of them dont like us. Imagine that... So for kicks, after mid-day and evening prayer they toss rockets and mortars into the camp. We however have ways of dealing with it. We had been catching a few of these dirtbags before I left.
June, July and August are the hottest time of the year. When did I go back? June, July and August. I guess I aint as smartz as I like to thunk. Almost always over 115, over 125 a few times, well over 130 on the flightline everyday. Kinda like putting your head in an oven.
The best memory of the trip was running into a good friend of mine I had not seen in a few years since he graduated from the Air Force Academy. He was one of the best Cadets to come through the Combat Pistol Team in all my years there as a coach and armorer. We were able to get together several times and catch up.
This is a front end shot of our mighty C-130 at Baghdad. Taken about an hour before sunrise.
And a cockpit shot on the way into Bahrain or Kuwait earlier that same night. Both places a pain to fly into. I hope to never go back.
Here is a pic of Baghdad International Airport through NVGs and another of downtown Baghdad. The bright lights in the second pic are oil refinery burnoff towers. Really bad for NVGs. By far the brightest lights out there. Kirkuk has tons of them. Its a tough place to fly at night.
And here is a crappy pic of Baghdad without NVGs. You can easily see where the power grids are down and the Tigris can also be seen.
Speaking of Kirkuk, here is a Hero shot of my crew on an abandoned MiG-21 or SU-22. Lots of them scattered around. All with 50 caliber holes in key places...
And here is a bunch of dead MiG 23 and 27s at Balad. Never did get the time or energy to get over there and take a closer look.
My hooch is about 100 meters from the engine running cargo upload ramp there. Thats always a good way to make sure you can get some quality rack time... This night, we were waking up to go fly and this Buddha (C-17) here was *still* running engines. The dust was bad that night and the scene put me in an Apocalypse Now kinda mood.
Just outside Tallil Air Base near al Nasiryah down south you will find this thing. The Ziggurat of the ancient city of Ur. The birthplace of Abraham. Pretty cool. That was a pin for the map.
Here is a pic you might have seen on Channel 11 news. Its a pic of us at Balad earlier this year during a dry lightning storm. Notice #1 engine is feathered. Bad night. For the record, I did not take it. The PA guy at Balad did. Why channel 11 credited me, I have no idea and they have yet to respond to my email. Cool pic though.
I will get some more posted as I can. Lots of sleep and shooting to catch up on.
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