Merry Christmas everyone!!

Ho Ho Ho, what do you know...it's December. Man am I glad for that. I've been trying not to count the days until I go on leave, but I do see time passing rapidly. We are still busy with 24/7 operations. Some of the mission sets have changed, so my company is flying more days than nights. By that, I mean we typically have an 0700 hour or so takeoff time, so we have to show up at our TOC (tactical operation center) at 0400. For me that's an 0245 get-up so I can do my usual push ups and sit ups, chew on a granola bar or a cookie, start drinking the Gatorade, shower, shave, and do a short Bible devotional. Then a quick look at some aircraft stuff, clear my mind, start concentrating on the mission, and I'm out the door to work. We will likely get a shutdown at BIAP (Baghdad Inter airport) for fuel and some lunch, then we're back at it. Many times, we won't get back til after 1800, so we all get to reset our night vision goggle clock (60 day currency). By the time we do all the after action items for the aircraft, log books, mission paperwork, etc., we are released about 2.5 hours after we land. Then, time for a quick meal in the DFAC, swap laundry, shower, and get to bed. Long days, but time goes by fast. Haven't had much activity to talk about...we still see people shooting up in our general direction at night, but nothing to report for all my day flights. I'm very grateful for that. I just completed a stretch of flying 6 out of 7 days. I was pooped to say the least. You'll start to see where you just aren't quite as sharp in some small cockpit tasks as you were back on day 1. Then you make corrections, and suddenly realize it, and start paying closer attention. We talk about complacency at each of our flight briefs before we jump in the seats. Flying over Baghdad as much as we do, its amazing what you can see. Many areas are still battle-damaged, and the majority of it to most pilots here--it's a dump. Most of the time we refer to our missions as doing the 'Baghdad shuffle', or for the Sesame Street fans, 'Shuffleupagus'. We've flown by some bad looking 'hoods' near Sadr city, where I was sure there would be a missile coming up to meet us...but nothing happened.

Still being a DNR guy, I'm appalled at the uncontrolled burning of anything and everything. I guess it's one of the perks of winning an all expense paid vacation to the Middle East (the brochure mentioned the beach?). There's the most unusual smells, too. It would be nice to someday get this 3rd world country to start paying closer attention to its environment. I know right now, we're just praying they can survive this insurgency. By the way, I am a big fan of 'the surge'. I believe the extra ground troops have helped uncover a lot of weapons caches and other items that would have been used as IEDs against troops or fired at aircraft overhead. I see the convoys returning to Balad on the roadway (I always breathe a sigh of relief when we get back safely inside the wire) and I want to tell each one of them thanks when I see soldiers in the DFAC. I'd have to stop everyone on the way in...I don't think they want me to do that. GO Ground Troops!! They are the real heroes around here.

Other items of interest, we've had a lot of VIPs coming in. I've helped plan quite a few of the AMRs (while doing my 2 weeks at brigade each month) to get them moved around... The Holiday season seems to bring out extra visitors. We've flown the Sec of Def, lots of Senators, Iraqi prime ministers and local Shieks, a bunch of wrestlers from WWE came to visit our DFAC, and how about Kelly Pickler from American Idol? She came through with a group of 15 and a bunch of musical instruments. What an entourage. Robin Williams, Kid Rock, Miss America, and some others from Comedy Central were here yesterday. Don't forget, Gen Patraeus has a permanent detachment from our 12th CAB flying him every day, too.

One evening a while back, there was a local Shiek who's wife was going into labor prematurely. The local medivac helicopters were alerted and picked her up and transported her to a hospital at FOB Speicher (Tikrit) or up to Mosul for the proper equipment she would need. Pretty cool to be helping wherever we can...we are always trying to gain trust, and win the hearts and minds of the people. It makes me feel good that we can transport as many people as we can by air, and keep them out of ground convoys...we are saving lives every day. We get to help move all the upper level commanders (and plenty of other soldiers, too) as they continue to work to get this country to be able to stand alone in its own democracy.

On to some DNR notes--still feeling like fall to me. We are seeing lots and lots of birds...huge flocks of crows that number in the thousand's. Lots of pigeons. Over Baghdad, we've had some minor bird strikes (minor for us, very terminal for the pigeon hitting us at 130 mph). I've had a quick look at some waterfowl lately, and am happy to see the ever popular coot is doing well here. I've also seen what looks like mallards, and even some shovellers (neighbor ducks...the kind you shoot and give to your neighbor...they don't taste very good). The shovellers look just like the ones I see across the road from my fisheries office back home every spring. Suppose they followed me here? Nah...

These fall temps, now ranging from about 33 to 55 every day, still tricks my mind into getting ready for deer season...the sunsets and sunrises make me think about the whole deer stand thing all over again. But thankfully, it's just about Christmas. With that, I wonder if the insurgents are a little busier shopping these days? Our December mortar attacks are down a little from the last months...only 13 (that I've been here to react to). The dust levels have been a bit better as well. I flew one day, when it was absolutely clear for 20 miles...looked like I was flying back at home in October. The next day we quickly returned to dusty visibility...does make nice pics of sunrises and sunsets though.

There have been some personnel changes here and there, trying to keep our mission completion level high. I guess when you bring 450 people together to work long term like this, there's bound to be a few squabbles along the way. You can pray for all our personalities to work well together for the remainder of our time, to stay focused on the mission. Our battalion TOC is decorated for Christmas, along with every office space too. There will be a BN Christmas party for those who can attend (remember, staggered work shifts). I hear some Christmas music playing once in a while, and it really hits me that we are a long way from home. For most of our soldiers it will be easy to keep working right on through the day, get chow, and go on to the next day. This is the ultimate in 'Groundhog Day', if you know what I mean. We just keep doing the same duty, being as safe as we can. Please pray for our soldiers to find a moment in the day to recall, or realize for the first time that Jesus is the reason for the season.

I'm one of the fortunate ones with school age children at home, who were granted their leave somewhere near the Holidays. I start the 2 day or so process to get home tomorrow. I'll be happy to shovel some white stuff, not think about mortars landing on my head, and spend a lot of time reassuring my beautiful 8 year old daughter that God is watching over all of us here, and that I'm okay. Looking forward to celebrating the birth of our Saviour...

May you all have a Blessed and Wonderful Christmas with family and friends. Stay alert at home, and be safe. Thanks.

(Be nice if I could make it home by Christmas eve...)

Moving right along...

Well, here I am again, another month behind us - thank the Lord for that. Everyone is still busy, 24/7 rotating schedules, etc. The weather has certainly changed...these days are like late September, early October at home...about 65 day and 40 at night. It sure feels more comfy to us. Kind of funny to see the way people are dressed. The Hawaiians (our B Co.) - most are wearing long underwear. The Ugandan guards at the DFAC are wearing winter gloves, heavy stocking caps, and tan ski jackets. Then us MN folks show up in line and we are wearing PT shorts and T shirt...go figure? Then there's the Europeans, working for the many different contractors...they are dressed somewhere in the middle. Interesting...

About the contractors, there are a lot of them here. Our DFAC (dining facility) is 1/3 contractors at meal time. When you see how the military moves, how we are all outfitted and equipped, and see all of the special equipment, it's easy to see how the war on terror is so expensive. For those who may not know, here is what the contractors do. Every piece of equipment is built by its manufacturer, but the special equipment that comes with it is built by someone else. In our case the helicopter I fly is built by Sikorsky, but the avionics (radios & flight instruments) are built by someone else. Weapons systems, sighting systems, etc., are all built by private companies. So, we have special people here to fix things as rapidly as possible to get us back in the fight. There are specialists here for our aircraft engines, transmissions, weapons, etc. The Apaches have all of the folks here to keep up with the hi-tech night vision and sighting systems it has. All in all, it works well to keep everyone functioning, but it is expensive. Most of all of the contractors are paying way better than the military. In fact, a few of our folks are interested in returning here to work for them.

Flying is going well, our company is doing very well, especially in maintenance. I believe we are staying at 85% or higher operational rate. The requirement coming into this was that we were told we had to maintain at least a 75% rate...so we're doing well. As I'm typing here, we are getting some real live rain...we had some sprinkles in October, but this has been some thunder and lightning, and enough to make things really wet. Man it sure smells good, like a spring rain at home. When I get near a computer, I pull up MSNBC and check the weather at my zip code...man its really cold at home! That's ice making weather. I checked some of our DNR Enforcement reports, and sure enough, some folks have already gone through the ice, what little ice there is. We all know how important it is to be the first one out there to get the good bite! Ya, uh huh.

Couple of nights after finishing at the AMR cell, I would go out the flight line and sit as close to the taxiway as I could and watch aircraft for a couple hours, hoping to have the F-16s take off the runway closest to me so I can get a picture. You wouldn't believe the 30' white flame coming out of the tail as they race down to runway in full after-burner, then pull up quickly at the end to get up high as fast as they can to avoid possible ground fire. Absolutely breathtaking, and wonderfully, groundshakingly noisy. I have always enjoyed being close to airplanes, while they are landing and taking off. I've sat at the end of the runway of a few airports in my day. I really like watching when the jets get up high enough, the turn off the after-burner, they disappear into the night. All of the aircraft here fly with night vision devices, so no one has any external lights on that you can see with the naked eye. It's cool to listen and watch as huge jets are making their approach to the runway, and you can't see them until they turn on a landing light at about 100 ft. They suddenly drop out of the inky black night and touch down. It's great to see how the night operations continue as we keep taking the fight to the enemy. While sitting along the taxiway, I did see what looked like a rabbit running around in the ditches. Do you suppose it was a "waskowy iwaki wabbit"? Sorry...we were warned by those before us that we would start to get complacent in our duties after about 90 days. Well, we are talking about that, and trying to be aware of it. It's easy to fall into that - missions are going well, and not a lot of damage to report. They also said we would go through that cycle again about 100 days before we leave. So, we will keep being careful and paying attention, and watching out for the bad guys.

Mortar attacks were down a bit for November, at least the ones I was here to witness. I counted 17 times. One recently was really a blessing from God -- a mortar landed in one of the trailers in the pod next to mine, about 300' away, but did not explode. Two soldiers were there but weren't hurt. It ripped through a wall locker and down through the floor. I'm glad they(insurgents) have old and outdated ammo that sometimes fails to detonate.

Shifting gears a bit, we have flown a lot of VIP's lately...a number of senators and congressman, John McCain came through here, and the Sec of Defense. More importantly, before Thanksgiving, we had two visits from famous cheerleaders - The Washington Redskins and New England Patriots ladies were here and did a show at the east side MWR center. After that we had Carlos Mencia and some guys from comedy central (I don't know of any of our folks who got to got to a show). My Thanksgiving day stared out kind if lonely, it's the first real time at home when we slow down a bit to remember our blessings. It's always a special church service and time with relatives, then it ramps up for Christmas. I was flying all day and was down in Baghdad. We dropped off some folks at a FOB, then shutdown and had time to go seek out the DFAC to get something to eat. After a lengthy wait, it was a Holiday after all, we got inside the small building. Much to my surprise, behind the counter serving all the soldiers was a 2 star General, a number of Colonels, British and Australian Colonels, and a Navy Admiral! How cool I thought... I recognized some of the names as customers we flew a number of times. It was then I realized that this was truly unique, a once in a lifetime for me, a chance to have a turkey dinner in Baghdad in the green zone, celebrating our US Holiday. We ate rapidly, took our customers to the next few sites, then had to return to that same FOB. We were delayed a bit from landing, hearing the need for an "urgent medivac" landing there. There had been a rocket attack in downtown somewhere shortly after we had been there to eat. Never heard the extent of injuries, though it brought us back to reality quickly, to our duties at hand.

I'm finishing this up at 1:30 am our time...got to hit the shower, wash the dust out of my ears, and try to get to bed. That's one of the worst things about this place, the lack of indoor plumbing. I try not to drink anything after 7 pm, so I don't have to get up and do the 140 yard dash to the nearest ACP (air conditioned porcelain). That really messes up my sleep cycle. There are lots of porta-potties around (within 75 yards of my trailer), but those are getting to be like a cold October camping trip at home. Ah the blessings of indoor plumbing...someday... Okay, TMI, TMI...

Must be time to go, I seem to have drifted off into meaningless dribble. I'm praying for my upcoming leave, I hope to be home by Christmas. My little princess really misses her dad. I plan on spending as much time as possible with her while she is out of school. Should be lots of fun. I ask for Gods Blessings for all of you this Holiday season. Take some extra time to be with loved ones. Thanks again for all the prayers and support you've shown us here. We will continue to be safe here, you be alert and safe at home... Thanks again.

It's November...

And it feels good to see that on the calendar. It's still difficult to find a place to get to my blog site, now all our mil computers we were able to use are all blocking blog sites. And, I still don't have Internet in my trailer yet...I was thinking of getting by for the year with an alternate site, but it looks like I'll have to try to get on board with a group in my pod of trailers. It's expensive and slow - a real bargain - but also about the only game in town. I'm in one of the Internet trailers right now, it's early afternoon. We are allowed 20 minutes at a time, but if it is not busy, like now, I may get to stay to finish this out. Unlike the great writers of the past, it takes me a while to think about what I want to say, organize it into a somewhat readable format, and then type. I'm not too speedy in that dept. so all in all, it takes me about an hour to an hour and a half to get my thoughts, notes, etc. on paper for you to read. Thank heavens I don't have writers block... I think they have medication for that these days...

Well, we are staying pretty busy, 24/7 operations continue. I just recently switched from days back to nights, back at the AMR plans cell, building our future missions. I'll be here for 2 weeks, then back to flying with my company for 2 weeks. It was great to do a bunch of flying, did another six or seven missions, two at night. Had some more excitement though, more tracers fired between our two aircraft. US weapons have one tracer in five rounds; I have no idea what Hadji uses in their mix...it could be one tracer in twenty-five rounds or they only fired two rounds, and one was a tracer... In any event, all the rounds missed us...tracer fire sure is pretty at night though... Don't know if you heard, about three weeks ago, there was a rocket attack in Baghdad, on Camp Victory. It was a 107 mm (4.25"dia.) rocket, about 6-7' long...killed two and wounded thirty-eight. Bad day for us. Thankfully they don't have a lot of these to shoot...they are rather expensive, so they use them on highly populated areas like our compounds in Baghdad. I'm told the rockets come from Iran(?). I'm hoping that they don't decide to use them on our base. We have enough to do with our mortar attacks... I counted fifteen in September, and nineteen in October. Those were the ones I was here to experience. One of the attacks was close to our trailers, and one of our pilots had some dirt and stuff land on his roof.

Our flights get to be pretty long...usually 6-8 hrs, most times without a break. Never get out of the seat. Once in a while we get to shut down somewhere for fuel, and get a break to eat; otherwise, it's go go go - granola bars and Gatorade while we fly. I'm glad I had a lot of long flying days on surveys for DNR Enforcement at home, kind of got me ready for this schedule. We normally get refueled while the engines are running, rotors turning...nicknamed 'hotgas'. Takes about twelve minutes to top off our two aircraft, and then we get back on the route. I planned a mission to a new FOB for me to see called Justice...on the banks of the Tigris river, a short hop north of Washington pad in the green zone. Interesting place - it's where they do all their public hangings...including Saddams. Ironic name, huh?

You know, maybe its a guess, but I think we are experiencing a lot of positive things from the surge...every time our ground troops find another weapons cache, that's a lot of ammo that's no longer available to shoot at our soldiers or us in the air. There are ground ops going on all the time, we hear about them in our intel brief before we go fly. Between here and in Baghdad, troops are busy fighting and collecting arms. I for one am grateful that the extra folks on the ground are paying big dividends in terms of keeping more of us safe as we do our jobs. Our battalion has had some hits in our aircraft - small arms, rpg's that missed, and that's good news for us. We are still concerned about the other missiles that are out there, and grateful for the special systems on our aircraft to help us avoid the big one. We keep on going, getting all our missions done...haven't dropped a single mission yet, either for maintenance or weather. We've been late a couple of times due to poor visibility in Baghdad, but that's about it. We are the only Nat. Guard aviation battalion in town, so we naturally want to be sure to do our part, and have no whining about 'us part timers'. We have already flown more hours than the folks we replaced...they told us to expect that to happen. Might be difficult to maintain this pace for the year, but we'll see. I'm sure our replacements next summer will be told to raise the bar again...must be a limit somewhere.

When I do get a day off (two days a month), I usually have to do extra cleaning in my room, more than the every other day dusting and mop the floor stuff. It's pathetic, I can wipe down the floor when I get up so I can slide across the floor doing my sit-ups and not get dirty...then later the same day, I'll wipe it again and it looks like I never did a thing. This dust is like flour, very powdery. There's a place at BIAP (Baghdad Int Airport) where we get fuel and lunch, I'll try to get a pic of the dirt. It's like nothing at home.

The weather -- it's cooling now, up to 92 day, and about 60 at night. You should see the people already wearing a jacket at night...what will they do when it does get chilly later?? We actually had a couple of days of cloudy weather in early October. We had a brief thunderstorm and enough rain to wet the ground and hold down the dust for about an hour. Ever since, more blue skies and layers of dust from surface to 200'. OOPS! There's the giant voice...got to run, be back in a minute. Well there was our first mortar attack for November...no damage. Thankfully.

Did you see that last tape from Osama? He said we should all change to his system...it has no taxes.. Well duh, it also offers no indoor plumbing or a roof over one's head???? I'll be glad when we are sure he is in a hole in the ground, permanently...

DNR notes -- seeing some pretty birds, one looks like a King bird. It even flies like one, too. Ive' seen a small to mid-size falcon...looked kind of like a Kestral. We almost had a mid-air mess with a large buteo type, Redtail or larger. he didn't try to get out of the way like most birds of prey. We had to make an 'evasive maneuver' to avoid him...would have made a great picture. Lots of large bats flying around our light poles every night, eating lots of bugs. Got a pic of a lizard the other day, and of a green praying mantis. When I walk back to my trailer late at night when there is no moon (very dark, about 0230 hours) there is a curious little bird that roosts in the rounded out depressions in the gravel from our footprints. He stays where the gravel is the deepest. I've almost stepped on him a few times, but he stays put until the last minute, then runs only a short distance away. He stays in an area about fifty feet square. Other folks asked me about him, they've almost stepped on him, too. I'll try to get a pic of 'rockbird' sometime.

I'm doing well in the snack department in case you're wondering...my crazy daughter Lisa is keeping me well supplied and so are Rhonda and Stef, with some home-baked goodies. I pick up a copy of Stars and Stripes, our newspaper, to read when I leave the DFAC (dining facility), it's about the only way to keep up with some of the news. You can't hear the TV in the DFAC...too noisy, too many people. If I'm lucky, one of the TVs is on a news channel, and I can read the ticker at the bottom of the screen. Boy was I glad to see the Yankees lost. Yahoo! They represent the total wrong image for baseball...way too overpaid, too big of ego's, etc. What is it, three of the Yankees salaries is enough to cover all of the Twins salaries? And the Yanks still couldn't buy a playoff win...

Want to buy a Harley?? There's a dealer rep here on the base taking orders for new bikes for '08. What an advantage...captive, longing for home crowd, huh?

One last thing before I close another rambling update/editorial...I asked one of commanders if it was okay if I volunteer for about three days of guard duty up in one of the towers. Since I have to miss deer season this year, I figured a couple of days up in the tower with a machine gun watching for '2 legged deer in a bongo truck' would suffice. He laughed and said "I don't think so...".

I'm still hoping my mid-term leave plans will come true. I hope to be home around the 20th of December. I want to spend the most amount of time I can with Stef while she is out of school for Christmas break. More later. I know we've only been doing this for a couple of months, but we all get pretty tired. I'm really glad that I'm in the Guard, and not active duty. For most of those folks, this is their third tour in anywhere from six to nine years of service. Many of them are making other plans for when their enlistment is up. The Army is offering some pretty incredible re-up bonuses, and has for a while. I did get to make one Sunday evening church service in October...great to sing again. I miss the whole church family, choir deal at home. I know God is helping me through all of this, I'm so grateful for all the prayers...some days are pretty tough, most are okay. We're getting it done, and the clock is moving fairly quick these days. God Bless all of you, and be safe at home. We can't ever let our guard down at home. Thanks for the support...
CW4 Brad Maas
A Co 2/147 AHB
APO AE 09391

Just another day at the beach...

I keep looking for the water, and can't seem to find any yet. Well, I'm still ticked about not having our Internet connected yet...parts are still held up somewhere. It's difficult to sneak time on a borrowed computer... I have lots of things to say, but limited time. Basically, I'm doing fine. I'm on a rotating schedule--2 weeks flying and 2 weeks in the mission planning cell. I think I mentioned before, I help to build some of the formal mission requests that become the actual flights we perform. It's very interesting learning how it all comes together on the battlefield. I get to plan a few of our company missions, mostly at night. The challenge is to keep the routes within our safety guidelines for flight time, while wearing nvg's. It's a very tiring condition to work under, but helps us do our jobs a lot better. Besides that, if they (insurgents) can't see us in the dark, we are harder to shoot down. I saw some tracer fire near us late one night...they were just spraying the air shooting at sounds. No biggie... What I wonder about is everyone knows that some arms and nasty missiles have been coming in from Iran. Not good news to us. These past 2 weeks I flew in the daytime. Some interesting things to see. I love looking at the countryside, all of the birds, and lots of sheep and shepherds in the field. It's quite a contrast to think of the technological gap between us flying overhead in a 9 million dollar hi-tech aircraft, and just below us, many areas still look like pictures from the Bible--shepherds tending flocks, homes made from clay block, working fields by hand, cutting grain by hand. All the while I'm seeing this, I'm still watching for the individuals who suddenly turn around and pull out a weapon of some type to employ against us. We get an Intel report before we go on every mission, and I'm amazed at the number of aircraft being fired at, mostly at night...every time I come back from a mission,I thank God that nothing happened during our flight. You'd think they would try to shoot at us in the day when they can see us so easily? Maybe they know we can also see them and would shoot back until we were happy again...

We do a lot of different missions...VIP, we move generals and civilians, Iraqi's, pretty much anyone who has a meeting to get to...we also haul equipment, whatever can fit inside, and we have carried detainees as well. The most moving mission has to be the Hero mission...we will carry the bodies of fallen soldiers wherever they need to be according to graves registration. There is a specific protocol that we must follow, it's very formal, proper, and dignified as the individuals are loaded into the aircraft. Thankfully, we haven't had to perform this mission yet. I cringe inside when I see the medevac helicopters heading for the CaSH pad (Combat Surgical Hosp) on the base here. I pray we haven't lost another soldier. Balad has the 2nd largest hosp in theater.

Life is pretty busy around here, combat ops on the battlefield are pretty much 24/7. When we fly over Baghdad, some areas will be closed to us because of "operations" going on , so we stay clear of it. Speaking of Baghdad, you should see they smoke and haze over the city. Early morning you can hardly see a mile. Seems everyone burns whatever, whenever they want. Third world countries are so far behind the U.S. environmentally speaking. We joke, "Ah there's nothing like the smell of Baghdad in the morning".

I haven't mentioned much about the food in the DFAC...there's lots to eat, it's hard to limit yourself. It's pretty good, for the most part. There's always a couple kinds of meats, salads, tacos, sub like sandwiches, and lots of fruit. The dessert section is actually a large display case like at Perkin's, with pies and cakes, muffins, etc. Next to it is the supply of Baskin Robbins ice cream...yeah, you have to feed the hungry soldiers, or else... Didn't take me long to realize I couldn't visit that section too often... I'm pretty careful about what I eat. They give you large portions, even if you say no... I only eat about half, and throw the rest...I can't eat that much! I keep my belt tight and use a lot of self discipline. I haven't ran now for a couple of weeks. Our schedule when flying, is about a 12 hr duty day or more, and I'm so tired after a long day of flight planning, or flying, I have no energy left to run...or it's too hot. While I'm here planning missions, I have a little more time, so I'll try running a couple times this week. Speaking of running, one day as I ran along the road, the water truck came by...he sprays down certain sections of the tar and gravel to keep the dust down. After he past by, for a few minutes, it was 'Africa hot', with the sudden jump in humidity...but the smell of the moistened ground brought me instantly back home in the early spring when you smell the first spring rain...man was that great!!

The weather here is nothing short of incredible. You've all heard about the heat, and do you know I've been here for about 6 weeks and have never seen a cloud in the sky? Talk about Groundhog Day (film)...clear blue, hot, and dusty...wind from the NW about 5-30 mph. Depending what direction the wind blows, even a few degrees makes a difference between a little dust, or a 200' thick layer with about a mile visibility. I'm told we'll have rain, and a lot of it, in Dec. until Feb. I fact,as I came to work tonight, I took a pic of a pretty sunset with some cirrus clouds...

Other notes, a lot of folks here have bought bicycles at the px (it's at least a half mi to go anywhere, so I walk about 4-5 mi each day)...about $100, use it, and then sell it cheap to the next guy. Same thing with TVs, DVD players, and satellite dishes as well. They tell us boredom is a problem. I haven't had much time to be bored, I'm too tired keeping up with laundry, meals, work, sleep, etc. My schedule allowed me to make it to the contemporary church service on Sun night at 7. Very uplifting...great singing praise songs, and a good sermon, too. The neat part was, while I was worshipping here, my fam was in church at home at the same time! Cool! That brought tears to my eyes... The sermons have been about Daniel--did you know that the area he lived in, in Babylon, is about 20 mi south of Baghdad? I landed at one our FOB's at Al Hillah (next to the Euphrates river) not far from the ruins of that time... Okay folks, dig out your Bible maps and look at early Mesopotamia...you'll see most of it overlays Iraq. Pretty cool to see this from the air...too bad there aren't any bus tours I guy could jump on...nah, maybe later. From another FOB we landed at way east of Baghdad, we could see in the distance (15mi) the mountains of Iran.

DNR notes- I mentioned I've seen a lot birds...of course the first ones I saw on the base were pigeons and English sparrows (yeah). I have seen a kestrel, and some kind of buteo (red tailed hawk type). While flying, we passed over some flocks of large white wading birds, like an Ibis or something? Also, there are great blue heron's here...looks like ours at home. Oh yeah, there are also what looks like mourning doves, too. Sadly I don't have good access to surf the net for bird books to i.d. these guys... I'm probably birdwatching too much, when I should be watching for bad guys. Oh well. Someone saw a coyote on the edge of Baghdad, and there are apparently no deer like animals here at all...no one's ever seen anything like that.

Before I forget, here is my address:

CW4 Brad Maas
A Co 2/147 AHB
APO AE 09391

I would always enjoy hearing from everyone...don't need much from home, there's so much the previous unit left for us - small toiletries candies, etc. My fam is keeping me well supplied with the special things I can't get here. I'm just grateful that time is passing fairly quickly...we just set our clocks back here for the winter, so now it's 8 hours ahead of home...at least until you guys set your clocks back Nov 5.

Well, I need to wrap this up for now, but I don't know any good ones' (hee hee). Thanks for the love and prayers...I know God is watching over me, and my fam. I'm amazed at what a person can do when they set their mind to it. There are a lot of people here working hard and surviving just fine in a strange land. Take care of yourselves, be alert and vigilant. God Bless you and stay safe -- I will too.

Life in a combat zone...

I had planned on being able to type on my own laptop by now, but it's been difficult to get the Internet set up in our cluster of trailers, so I'm on a borrowed one. My arrival here was nerve wracking and exciting at the same time. I was a little concerned about what to expect in a real combat zone. During our 'in-brief' they gave the instructions on what to do when the "giant voice" says we are having an indirect attack -- listen for the siren, and take cover as necessary. O.K. We spent the first night in transient housing (small really crowded bunk house for 20), then we were able to move into our trailers. I was fortunate that indeed, the CW4's and above got their own rooms...yippee!! Finally some privacy, and space to myself...it's about 12'x13' floorspace, a table and chair and a wall locker and a decent bed.

So, I'm in my room unpacking at about 2:30 in the afternoon, and the giant voice says we're having an attack. I started to laugh, but went through the motions of laying down on the floor next to my bed, cover my head and ears and lay still, wait for the all clear...a couple seconds later there was an explosion about 800' away. Sounded like the artillery up at Camp Ripley, only closer...congratulations, I just survived my first mortar attack at Balad. I thought oh my, this is going to be a long year. Found out later that a civilian contractor was killed and 2 others injured. In our in-brief they nicknamed this place "mortar-ritaville" for all the attacks we get. They seem very sporadic, randomly aimed, and usually don't do much damage. So far I've been here for 3 attacks.

Upon my arrival, I realized how huge this base is. Air Force on the east side and Army on the west. 2 PX's to shop at, lots of dining facility's (DFAC), laundry sites, and we have a theater, an outdoor pool, and a couple gyms to work out in. So far our schedule is very busy, long days. 12-16 hr shifts, day or night. You can tell there is a war going on, it's busy here all the time. Lots of aircraft to watch, Army Air Force, Marines and British, etc. Pretty cool seeing all the different aircraft. It's comforting to hear the F-16 fighters take off on their missions every couple of hours...around the clock. They are very loud, using afterburner on takeoff to get them up hi quickly to be less exposed to the bad guys. I'm hoping to get a pic of them on takeoff at night, the flame out the back end is about 30' long...

My first day mission was a VIP support, a.k.a. the Baghdad shuffle...lots of trips back and forth all around the city, and suburbs. I had a hard time concentrating, while mesmerized looking out the windows at the city of Baghdad. Lots of things to see. Out in the 'burbs, there were lots of dwellings that looked just like Guatemala...made from adobe type blocks, kids running around poorly dressed, a mangy dog, and someone carrying grain from the fields. I had to pull myself back to reality and keep looking for these little bongo trucks with guys in the back carrying RPG's, and watching for heavy machine guns set up along the way... It was neat to land at Washington helipad, downtown Baghdad, in the heart of the green zone. While waiting for our VIP, to show up, we saw the small convoy, and large suburbans belonging to Gen Patraeus...he got in the Blackhawk in front of us. We had shutdown to refuel, and I had time to go in one of Saddam's former palaces, now converted to U.S Embassy offices. There was an Internet area there, and I sent a quick email home from the palace telling my family where I was. It's still pretty hot here, about 110-115 every day. I keep wondering when it will be cooling down some...at home, I'd be counting my water ski trips to my local lake on one hand before it gets too cold. I'm wondering if I'll be shivering like some say when it gets down to 55 degrees?

My room is working out okay -- enough room to hide some of our bags under the bed. The bad news is, it's about 130 yds to the toilets, and showers. It's about a half mile walk to the DFAC, and a little farther to our flight ops. It's about a mile to the PX and other food choices, sewing and alterations, and a barber. Lots of walking, and lots of dust. Strange place this is...I have yet to see a cloud in the sky...wind from the nw every day about 5-15mph. Then it picks up speed, and it blows dust around so bad, that we can't hardly see. We've already had a couple of missions cancelled, due to poor visibility. Completely clear above, but can't see 500' in front of me. The dust is everywhere...I have to mop and dust my room every few days, and shake out the a/c filter at least twice a week. My this is going to be a long year...

I've flown 2 other missions at night under NVG's...pretty scary, hard to see with all the dust. But much easier to see people shooting at you...we had some tracer fire the other night...not really too close to us; they seem to shoot at sounds, so they were spraying the sky, kind of in our general direction...no harm done. Glad these guys didn't have NVG's.

This is a little unorganized, it's 2:30 a.m., (I'm on nights now), my thoughts are rambling...did I tell you that this base has lots of civilians, from all over the world? We have Ugandan security guards, Pakistanis and Filipino's in the DFAC and laundry, other Europeans working other jobs. I'm surprised that many people would leave home to come here with out much protection(body armor, weapons, special training, etc), just because of good pay. Kind of dangerous (i.e. my first mortar attack).

Back to night flight, you should see all the aircraft over Baghdad in the middle of the night...lots to see and avoid. Fun watching some Apache gunships working over a 'hood near Sadr city (a no-fly zone)...pretty cool. We also have to avoid our own UAV's (unmanned aerial vehicles) doing recon stuff...photos, and the occasional armed attack on some sandal wearin' dudes in their man-dresses trying to plant more IED's. Well, it's even later now, and I need to head to the shower and bed. I need to wash the dust out of my ears...literally. Some of these summer days in the desert, trying to adapt, your body reacts differently than home (duh), have you ever been so hot you sweat between your fingers? One if the perks of desert life. I will say this, now whenever I read certain verses in the my Bible about going through the desert, it brings tears to my eyes...I can't imagine life here in Biblical times. It will never be the same reading those chapters again.

It gets lonely, as you might think; I miss everyone badly, especially my little Stef...she started school earlier today...I'm sure she did well. The first 90 days are really going to suck, getting used to the job, our 24/7 schedule, and all the other demands. I'm just trying to keep up with the laundry, and try to get 2 meals a day. I did get a new Our Daily Bread from our Bn Chaplain. He's from an Evangelical Church in Brooklyn Center back home...great guy. Take care back home and stay safe...there are people here and abroad that want to hurt us just because we're Westerners. I love my family, and am proud of what they are doing at home. God Bless you all. I'll try to send some pics for my son to post some time soon. Thanks for the prayers and support... My it's going to be a long year...