The Replacements

I awoke this morning, literally about 15 minutes ago, to blaring sirens and someone giving instructions over loudspeakers. "Attention on FOB, attention on FOB. All QRF (quick reactionary force) teams report to assigned areas. All non essential personnel remain in bunkers or brick and mortar buildings." Then dead silence everywhere because everyone is already in their spots. Usually when someone spots where the rocket came from the area is peppered with artillery; it might get the bad guy or it might not, because usually they just set off the rockets and run for their lives. They don't even aim.

The rocket must have hit somewhere on the other side of the FOB or outside of the wire, because the explosion did not wake me. Our living quarters serve as bunkers; the walls and ceilings are very very thick, so I will stay here until the all clear. I hear rockets can go right through the bunkers anyways, so I'm better off. The only thing I'm worried about is the other fellas in our company working out on the flight line.

All clear.

An interesting start to a hopefully uneventful day. What I wanted to write about was the arrival of the replacements, that being 8 of 10 of our beloved Apache helicopters. I wanted it to be a warm welcome, but 7 of the 8 arrived with maintenance issues, and the other 2 couldn't even make the trip and were stuck God knows where for the same reasons. I went out to the flight line and gave the only aircraft that came in without problems a little "pat on the back." Thank you. I probably just broke it.

SO, my first real night of hard work was last night. I spent 12 hours working on one bird that had a lovely array of problems, with the most serious one being the EGI system, which tracks satellites and utilizes a global positioning system for navigation. It's not much fun working in the cold, pitch black night with a flashlight. One guy from B Co came over and let me use his night vision goggles for a while because some pilot said my beloved Infrared strobe light in the tail that I spent hours installing in the states was not working. He was wrong, and I know he was wrong because I started the aircraft, flipped the switch, and blinded myself by staring directly at the thing with the goggles. I assure you, it works.

One thing that sort of freaks me out around here is prayer time for the locals. To me, they all are enemy, but that's another story. I was out on the flight line, pitch black, with just the quiet sounds of work around me. All of the sudden, somewhere in the distance a Muslim starts blaring creepy chants over a loudspeaker. I must note, that even though these people live in mud huts, they somehow have a fine capability to erect high tech loudspeaker systems for prayer time. Regardless, it's a scary time because you can't tell what they are saying. For all I know, they could be directing a rocket attack onto my little red beam coming from my flashlight. I just kept working. If I were to get hit it would be a rather large explosion, because here the aircraft are always loaded with different kinds of rockets and 300 30mm high explosive rounds in the gun, sitting on alert. Eventually we will bust out the big boy hellfire missiles, and I intend to write a strongly worded message on one with a paint marker, just like they used to write on bombs going to Germany in WWII. I've seen several messages on the other unit's missiles, and they are creative. Here's mine:

"To the Al Quaida and the Taliban, with love. F$!&* you. This one's a cave wrecker."

I've learned a few quirky little things about Afghanistan and my area in the short time I've been here. If you run one of the run paths that goes around the FOB, there is an area near the wire where terrorists (I mean locals, excuse me) will lob rocks at you. On the other side of the FOB on the run path, there is a local who is NOT a terrorist, whom, if you give delicious muffins from the chow hall, will give you a wrist rocket (sling shot) in return. Therefore, when you go for that run, those folks that try to stone you get a taste of their own medicine. What a hoot!

I've also learned that wherever I go, even to the most remote part of Afghanistan, there is someone trying to sell me pirated copies of DVD movies. Some of these copies are flawless, while on others you can tell it's just a guy with a video camera in a movie theatre. The coughing and seeing someone walk in front of the screen is a dead giveaway, I think.

So anyways, the aircraft are here. It's funny to say, but these birds have a mind of their own, and once they "adjust" to their surroundings and get used to being in Afghanistan, they will calm down and the maintenance will not be so intense. One aircraft had such a mind of it's own, that on this unit's last tour in Iraq it would literally turn itself on and arm all of its weapon systems. Not a soul was around. This bird was mad at somebody, and it is rumored that an exorcist was called in to alleviate the problem. After that, the aircraft returned to peace. I don't know if we have that one here or not, but if we do I'll make sure to steer clear of those weapons.

And so the saga continues.

Cheers,

-J