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.