About 88 days...

Most of us here are counting the days until we start the big move out to Kuwait. Of course, we're staying focused on our jobs, but in the back of all our minds, we're pretty excited to be looking at summer time in MN. It's already summer-like here, and has been warm for a while. Temps up to about 100 so far...we know the hotter it gets here, means we're closer to going home. Boy, have we had the dust storms...seems like we lose 2 days a week of flying because of them. Visibility of only about 200-300', but it's not real windy on the ground level. Can't figure out how these things build up and move in here. They develop with fairly short notice, too. Some of our crews have left here in nice weather, and been forced to RON (remain overnight) somewhere else. Amazes me how such fine dust creeps in and covers my room, and piles on the doorstep like fine snow. I'm guessing we're pretty much done with rain, to wash anything away, so we're stuck with all this loose flour like stuff being moved around. Some folks are even wearing those paper respirators, like for painting, or sanding.

As far as our flights are doing, we're still hanging in there. Pretty busy all of the time. I still spend half of the month in the Brigade AMR cell, and half with my company trying to catch up on my flight time. I'm way behind everyone else, but I like what I'm doing. You've probably heard of all the new activity over here in Baghdad, and down at Basra, in southeastern Iraq. It's been difficult to get our passengers into the green zone, Washington pad, with all of the mortars and rockets coming from Sadr City. There's been quite a few injuries, and a couple of deaths of workers there. Blackwater had some aircraft damaged, and there were some injuries over at the medevac CSH Pad. Needless to say, we make our visits to Washington as brief as possible and hope our timing is right.

With the activity in Basra, we've got some of our folks working down there for a while. There having some successes with the Iraqi troops taking the lead role there. We are continuing our support role for the effort, as well as the Brits who are still there helping. I'm not quite sure how we're going to resolve some of these events - no one is real happy about these flair-ups. I'm still hanging on to my plans for the Sadr Lake Recreation Area: can you imagine how nice it would be to be able to share a beautiful large lake(due to the size of the hole) with the local Iraqis, for picnicking, swimming, all sorts of wonderful outdoor activities, all in the name of peace? I've seen in my travels flying over Baghdad a million times a day (doing the Baghdad shuffle back and forth) that the University of Baghdad (not sure of the proper name) has re-opened, and is bustling with students. There is a lot of activity by the locals all over, just trying to live their lives, raise families, etc. I hear from some ground soldiers that by in large, the people are grateful we are helping, and they know we don't want to be here any longer than we need to. We are still working to win the hearts and minds of the people every day.

Well ,the weather just changed again, looks like it might get real dusty...do ya think? Last time we were grounded for weather, we had a sharp increase in mortar/rocket attacks on the base. They must know if we can't see to fly, we can't go find them either. I'm tired of being rolled out of my bed to head for the bunker. Thankfully, no serious damage, but they've been close. A mortar landed about 700' from us in the AMR cell one evening. My monthly total of mortar attacks in march was at least 20 that I was here to react to. I think it's starting to get old...

DNR NOTES - Time for some more pleasant stuff...sort of. There was a large cobra snake found cruising around one of the housing pods the other day. No injuries thankfully. I'm pretty sure he was looking for some rodents there, and not our smaller, perhaps tastier soldiers. Most of the colorful songbirds we saw last year when we arrived, are back. I saw the Iraqi version of a killdeer - it's a little larger, more colorful, and very determined to guard its nest. We were sitting in the aircraft, ready to takeoff. Once the crew chiefs got back in the aircraft with our passengers, she made her way back to her nest and sat down on it, only 40' in front of our noses. Do you have any idea how windy and noisy it is right in front of the aircraft? She was doing well until we lifted off. She went rolling off the nest, we literally blew her away. No harm though; the crew chiefs said she got right back up and headed back to the nest. Amazing how adaptable wildlife can be sometimes that close to human activity. No more large flocks of waterfowl around, I only see a few ducks, and some beautiful large wading birds, look sort of like a spoonbill (?). I've seen some egrets, and cranes as well.

I need to go now, I have to finish packing my bags. It's my turn to head down to Basra for a while. It will be a little different type of mission support than I've been doing here. Hoping all goes well and we can all get back to Balad soon.

Thanks for the prayers and support, it means a lot to us. This has been a long journey to this point... I think I've got a few more gray hairs these days (not that I had many in the first place). We'll all be glad when its done.

Stay safe at home, enjoy the greening of your lawns (yes it will eventually stop snowing on you, it always does), and enjoy that sweet smell of spring, and the thawing of the lakes that we're so famous for. Incidentally, I'm selling a lot of soldiers the idea to come to vacation in our state...we could have some extra visitors on leave sometime. Reminds me how much I miss the ramp up for all the spring work at my office...

God Bless you all, and thank you.