The Mechanics of Flight

Terry tries to call home pretty frequently. But sometimes in lieu of phone calls he sends mass emails to keep us all updated on what he is doing. He sent this one the other day. Its kind of rambling (sorry Ter) but I think gives a somewhat more accurate description of what he is doing over there. This is more for my family and friends that are not on Terry's mass email lists then anything else.

I was on nights the last couple of weeks, so I would fly at night, get home around 5am and sleep all day. It was a wonderful work day however getting back on the day shift is killing me. I have been sick, tired and cold, and add sleep deprivation on top of that I have just been exhausted. A few days ago I was asleep and in a split second I went from a deep sleep to my heart pounding out of my chest when I was awakened by an explosion that sent this huge shock wave through my hut. I swear you could feel the earth cry it was so loud and violent. Immediately after I calmed down I was going to walk outside and check it out, but I was so dam tired I just went back to sleep. Later I learned that the explosion was just our troops setting of a land mine, but at first I didn’t know. I feel a lot better this morning.

Flying nights was a blast. I felt a little safer because we fly completely blacked out (meaning no lights on the aircraft) and we can’t be seen in the sky. But let me tell you it is insanely dark at night. What I discovered while flying at night is that for the most part the basic flying is pretty easy, but what we really get paid to do is land. I can’t describe it, its like hours of boring activity with brief moments of the most intense, adrenaline pumping, horrifying fear. Every muscle in your body just tenses up and its in those moments the way you react is the difference between a good day and disaster. I was doing a sling load (carrying a large 8,000 pound freight container strapped underneath the aircraft) on the side of a mountain, and I browned out (that’s when the helicopter blows all the sand into the air and you just completely loose site of the ground). The best way to describe this is imagine driving down the highway with two toilet roll strapped on your eyes (night vision goggles for me), which gives you no peripheral vision and its like watching a green television screen, when all the sudden someone just completely covers your eyes and you still have to continue to drive. So in a split second you have to react because of all the obstacles around you but you keep your calm so you don’t cause the situation to become tragic. With that large of load strapped to my aircraft we are limited on power, which means if I pull up to hard and fast on the thrust (the thing that makes the helicopter go up and down) I can cause the blades to cone upward because they can not handle the weight, which will then drop the rotors speed and cause my generators to kick offline losing power to the flight control systems and my hydraulic system that is helping me fly. While this is happening I will do something called settling with power, which means you enter a descent that regardless of anything you do you will fall out of the sky and crash. Long story short, is you can’t overreact. And after a few nights, I was like holy sh@t that was nuts. I know I just gave you all a pretty long description, but like I said its hours of boredom followed by the wildest few moments pure insanity. But of course I’m just loving it, I’m learning a lot and getting better every flight. The whole browning out thing is pretty frequent, you never get use to them, but you just try your best and if its outside your comfort level you simply react slowly and get out of there. I have to send some pictures, you can see us kicking up dust upwards of 500 feet.

Winter fell upon us overnight. About a week ago I was having difficulty sleeping when I heard drops hitting my hut. It was 3am and I went outside to see rain for the fist time in 4 months. I just stood there getting wet, it was great, I missed it, the smell, everything about it. But of course later it was just cold and wet. Two days ago when I started flying during the day, I saw for the first time the snow covered mountains. It is unlike anything I have ever seen in my life, it is what I would imagine heaven to be, it is that beautiful. You would never believe there was a war in this country by just looking around at how beautiful this country is. The Afghans believe that when Allah was finished creating the world he gathered what was left threw it down, and that was Afghanistan. It is a rugged terrain, but just breathtaking.

I have really settled down. I received a nice complement from one of my senior soldiers noticing that I seem relaxed lately. I feel like I’m interacting with soldiers much better lately. It’s nice because that means a lot to me, of course I’m always a little bit of an outsider amongst the other officers, I tend to keep to myself, but we all get along really well. So that’s good. My mother sent me some Christmas decorations. I have my little Charlie brown tree in my room and some lights. She even sent me some gifts. Remember when you were younger and you were so excited to get gifts on Christmas morning, and every once in a while you got like socks or underwear and you had to pretend you were happy even though you were just ready to rip into the next real gift? Well let me tell you people, me Madre got me some socks and underwear and I swear it was like I just struck oil or something, I was so excited. I think I’ll be able to use this story with my son when he complains about getting socks, I can say we’ll when I was in Afghanistan I would have killed for some nice socks, and of course I walked to school in the snow uphill both ways. But honestly my life has been reduced to the excitement of putting new socks on my feet which just felt sooooo good. So ya, I got that going for me.

Kate is doing well. The baby is doing well. She sent some pics, but I have no idea what the hell I'm looking at, so I just assume all the parts and pieces are in the right places. She’s really been amazing, always positive, just an extremely impressive person. I still have my occasional anxiety attacks, and I hyperventilate now and again, but I think I’m coming to realize that there are just moments in life, good and bad, that you can’t really plan for, they happen and how you deal with them is what really defines you. So of course I’m still nervous, but I’m trying really hard to follow in my friends footsteps and keep things positive. To be honest, lately I simply try to focus on the most important lesson I’m learning over here, that there will be hard times ahead, I stress out about having a son, getting the right job, paying the rent or mortgage, but you know what, I’ll be alive. No son of bitch trying to knock you out of the sky. If I can just remember that lesson, everything else just seems I don’t know, not as hard. I think of the soldiers I have watched travel down the street in caskets and just think that these hero’s never got to know life again without war, never will see there wife’s, children, and families again, they gave their lives for their country, but lost whatever their lives may have become. If I have that chance, to come home, to see all of you, to have a son in my life, I will not dishonor those who died here by stressing out, when it comes down to it the things that are not all that important. I feel like I owe it to them to make the best out of my life, I can’t explain it, it’s like whether the rest of my life is a success or a failure it will still be gravy. Probably doesn’t make sense does it?