James Mackler

First Mission

October 21, 2005

I havnt had much luck flying missions recently. Prior to today I was scheduled to fly two missions and they were both cancelled due to weather. The irony is that the only weather days we've had have been days that I was scheduled to fly. All of the other days have been nearly perfect flying conditions. I finally flew today, albeit briefly. I flew about one hour. We flew a staff person to a nearby base and then returned. That was it. Still, at least I got a little bit of flight time. If everything I hear is true I will eventually be complaining about having TOO MUCH flight time. That is yet to be seen.

I have been working the day shift but will be transitioning to nights over the next few days. Goggle flying is certainly more challenging. Plus there is the added challenge of getting my body adjusted to a new schedule. These challenges will be worthwhile, howver, if I actually get some more stick time. Other than flying, I dont have much productive to do here. I am working out a lot and generally killing time between trips to the chow hall. I am also surfing the web, reading, and chatting with friends online. I've received a lot of books and a couple of letters but would always appreciate more mail. Magazines and healthy snacks are the thing that come to mind.

Sandy Internet Superhighway

October 15, 2005

Today was a banner day for me here in Iraq. I just got an internet connection installed in my CHU and I got a mattress to sleep on. I had been waiting hours for 20 minutes on a public connection and had been sleeping on plywood covered with a thin "therma-rest" type camping mattress. Let's here it for progress!

Now that I have a connection in my room I highly recommend that those of you who do not have Yahoo or AOL instant messenger go ahead and get that service. Its free and will be the best way for me to chat with you. My screen name is rotoravi8r on AOL and on Yahoo. I am 7-8 hours ahead of most of you.

The past few days have been relative quiet here for me. I hitched a ride on a recent flight as a passenger just to see what the flying environment is like. We flew all over northern Iraq without incident. Bagdad is really cool looking from the air with night vision goggles. The goggles keep you from really seeing the destruction so the city appears to be quite beautiful. I hope to be in the pilot seat soon. The guys who have started flying are flying a lot and I expect to get a lot of hours as well.

I am getting used to the routine and to my accomodations. I will send pictures in the next few days.

Night Qualification

October 8, 2005

I flew last night from about 2300 - 0030. It was my first flight in the desert with night vision goggles. It was simply an introduction to this type of flying. It was a great flght. I have only had a handful of flights since I started this craazy endeavor where I walked away feeling like I was really on top of everything. This was one of them. Everything clicked. The crew worked together seamlessly. The desert was beautiful in the green glow of the goggles and I enjoyed moving along 100 feet above the sand. As expected, I had to watch the instruments very closely to be sure I was not climbing or descending because there are no visual references to let you know altitude, especially under goggles. Whenever I saw a vehicle driving across the desert I would, for practice, treat it as potentially hostile. We would avoid a direct overflight. The door gunners, also for practice, would announce "hostile fire from the vehicle, suppressing!" and then make machine gun sounds over the intercom. We got into a contest to see who could make the best impression of the door gun. It was a fun flight but with a very serious purpose. The more I work were these guys the more confident I am in the team that is going to Iraq. Other than the occassional flight life has been uneventful. The Kuwaiti evenings are cool enough to go running so Ive been getting 3 to 6 miles in each night. Ive also been going to the gym most days. The rest of the time is still spent mostly waiting for meals and sitting around the tent. I think we are all ready to move on to our more permanant homes.

Photos

October 7, 2005

Here are some promised photos. They are from the trip over here and from some of the time we have spent in kuwait. The one behind the fence is from out stop-over in germany when we were waiting for the plane to be serviced. The one of me in the dark is in Kuwait waiting for the bus after we got off the plane. I think the others are self-explanatory.

Range

October 4, 2005

We spent about 6 hours at the shooting range yesterday. It was basically an empty spot in the desert with targets and sandbags. Very different from the highly controlled and cooridated shooting ranges back home. The idea was for everyone to get familiar with their weapons. We had 9 mm handgun, M-4 rifles and the 7.622 M-240 (this is the door gunner's machine gun. the rounds are the same as those in a .208 hunting rifle for those of you who care).

My rifle had some mechanical issues at first. Needless to say there was sand everywhere. After some tinkering, however, it worked pretty well considering the circumstances. From what I understand the 204s worked great. We all had a pretty good time shooting but got really hot and dehydrated standing out in the midafternoon desert sun. Everyone was ready to get back to the tent when the range time ended. We then spent a few more hours cleaning weapons before everyone passed out in the refrigerated comfort of the tent.

First Flight

October 3, 2005

I had my first desert flight yesterday. It is challenging flying over such a barren landscape. There are very few references to indicated how high or fast I am flying. The instruments, therefore, become almost as important as they are when flying in the clouds. It is barren but beautiful over the desert. The sand takes all kinds of interesting shapes that change with the shadows. We also see the occassional lizard and camels as we fly along less than a hundred feet from the sand.

I really appreciate all of the encouragement I get from those of you who read this. I apologize for not replying to everyone personally. I simply dont have much time to use the public internet terminals here. I will do my best to write back to everyone eventually. It is great to know that so many people care.

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