1:11 PM -- Wow --

So let's see...where did I leave off. June 05...ok.

Water Survival was pretty fun, especially after the pain of land survival. Basically 3 days of living it up in Pensacola. Highlights were watching the Blue Angels from our little dinghy's (The popped a little smoke over us to say hi), eating oysters, and destroying my personal raft because I forgot to close my riser covers. Was about to sink like a rock before I blew up my backup. AWESOME.

After survival it was back to Pittsburgh and a few weeks of quick training before it was off the South West Asia! Woohoo! 150 degree cockpits, sand, 18 hour days, sand, communal showers, sand, and 3 beers a day, with sand in them.

Start at the start I guess, we left Pittsburgh and made our way over there, I think I have to say to "an undisclosed forward operating base", since I know some of this stuff is classified, better safe than sorry.

Onec we go to our base we had a few days of in-briefings and bam we were flying missions into Iraq, I think 3 days after I got there. You name it we flew there. Really don't think I can say places or dates though. I was over there a total of 60 days or so, not that bad when you consider active duty nerds stay over there 120. They probably do about the same amount of flying as we do in one of our rotations, since we do a lot more flying when we are over there. Prima-donnas. I guess they need more recovery time after carrying 15 bags of gear each out to the airplane every time they go on an out and back. But I digress...

So long story short I made it back in one piece in September and have been doing the reserve bum thing ever since. I have one of those little fundraising thermometers you see on the side of the road in my house where I raise enough dough for rent and truck payment every month before I can take a deep breath. Getting married and Christmas aren't cheap either!

So I figured I would update some pictures on here, starting with let's see, survival school.

First is on the second last day of field training, hiding out waiting for a pickup we had some free time. I carved the old lady's name in the tree behind me.

Next is me prone on a rock recovering from an 18 mile death march through rugged terrain.

Here is my engineer and Nav on the trip over, in Scotland.

Ok here is my hero shot in front of the Mighty Herk, in Balad, Iraq

Here is me at an unnamed forward airbase that rhymes with Maghdad.

Finally me and my crew on the day we left for the States.

Hope you all enjoyed the pics, keep the e-mails coming I enjoy answering em. And if any guard/reserve dudes need a co-pilot shoot me an email! Will fly for man-days! OUT.