Today the countdown begins. I've spent several hundred hours in the air since we arrived in Afghanistan. But in 30 days, God willing, for the first time in almost a year, I will get on an aircraft that is NOT going to land at Kandahar Airfield. To prepare you all for my inevitable return, and to make Emily's life easier for the next 30 days, please review the following list of comments, assembled by the wife of a deployed husband, which you should probably avoid saying to any woman who fits that description. Please forgive the hostile tone - Emily didn't write it.
1. “Aren’t you afraid that he’ll be killed?”
This one ranks in at number one on the “duh” list. Of course we’re afraid. We’re terrified. The thought always lingers at the backs of our minds — but thanks brilliant, you just brought it back to the front. Maybe next you can go ask someone with cancer if they’re scared of dying.
2. “I don’t know how you manage. I don’t think I could do it.”
This is intended to be a compliment. Though, its just a little annoying. Here’s why: it’s not like all of us military wives have been dreaming since childhood of the day we’d get to be anxious single moms [of dogs] who carry cell phones with us to the bathroom and in the shower. We’re not made of some mysterious matter that makes us more capable, we just got asked to take on a challenging job. So we rose to the challenge and found the strength to make sacrifices.
3. “At least he’s not in Iraq.”
This is the number one most annoying comment for those whose husbands are in Afghanistan. What do you think is happening in Afghanistan, an international game of golf? Guys are fighting and dying over there.
4. “Do you think he’ll get to come home for Christmas/anniversary/birthday/birth of a child [gross]/wedding/family reunion, etc?”
Don’t you watch the news? No! They don’t get to come home for any of these things unless you can squeeze Christmas into his 14 days at home in August. Please don’t ask again.
5. “What are you going to do to keep yourself busy while he’s gone?”
Short answer: Try to keep my sanity. Maybe there’s a military wife out there who gets bored when her husband leaves, but I have yet to meet her. For the rest of us, those with and without children, we find ourselves having to be two people. That keeps us plenty busy. We do get lonely, but we don’t get bored.
6. “How much longer does he have until he can get out?”
This one is annoying to many of us whether our husbands are deployed or not. Many of our husbands aren’t counting down the days until they “can” get out. Many of them keep signing back up again and again because they actually love what they do or they VOLUNTEER AGAIN and AGAIN to go back to Iraq or Afghanistan b/c there is work that needs to be done.
[Though I personally am counting the days until I can get out of the Army, I do love what I do, and I have been in much longer than my initial obligation to military since I enlisted more than 10 years ago, so the principle here still applies. - Jeff]
7. “This deployment shouldn’t be so bad, now that you’re used to it.”
Sure, we do learn coping skills and its true the more deployments you’ve gone through, the easier dealing with it becomes. And we figure out ways to make life go smoother while the guys are gone. But it never gets “easy” and the bullets and bombs don’t skip over our guys just because they’ve been there before. The worry never goes away.
8. “My husband had to go to Europe for business once for three weeks. I totally know what you’re going through.”
This one is similar to number two. Do not equate your husband’s three week trip to London/Omaha/Tokyo/etc. with a 12-18 month deployment to a war zone. Aside from the obvious time difference, nobody shot at your husband or tried to blow him up with an I.E.D., your husband could call home pretty much any time he wanted to, he flew comfortably on a commercial plane, slept between crisp white sheets and ate well, paying for everything with an expense account. There is no comparison. We do not feel bonded to you in the slightest because of this comment and, if anything, we probably resent you a bit for it. Comparing a 12 month combat deployment to a few weeks business trip is like comparing a crappy ford taurus with mercedes convertible.
9. “Wow you must miss him?”
This one also gets antoher big “duh”. Of course we miss our men. There are some wives who don't and they’re now divorced.
10. “Where is he exactly? Where is that?”
I don’t expect non-military folks to be able to find Anbar Province on a map, but they should know by now that it’s in Iraq. Likewise, know that Kabul and Kandahar are in Afghanistan. Know that Iran is a major threat to our country and that it is located between Afghanistan and Iraq. Our country has been at war in Afghanistan for nine years and at war in Iraq for seven years. These basic facts are not secrets, they’re on the news every night and in the papers every day — and on maps everywhere.
11. “Well, he signed up for it, so it’s his own fault whatever happens over there.
Yes, ignorant, he did sign up. Each and every day he protects your right to make stupid comments like that. He didn’t sign up and ask to be hit by anything, he signed up to protect his country. Oh, and by the way, he asked me to tell you that “You’re welcome.” He’s still fighting for your freedom.
12. “Don’t you miss sex! I couldn’t do it!”
Hmmm, no i don’t miss sex. i’m a robot. Seriously… military spouses learn quickly that our relationships must be founded on something greater than sex. We learn to appreciate the important things, like simply hearing their voices, seeing their faces, being able to have dinner together every night. And the hard truth is, most relationships probably couldn’t withstand 12 months of sex deprivation.
13. “Well in my opinion…..” [I love this one]
Stop right there. Yo, I didn’t ask for you your personal political opinions. Hey, I love a heated political debate, but not in the grocery store, not in Jamba Juice, not at Nordstrom, not in a restaurant when I’m out with my girls trying to forget the war, and CERTAINLY NOT AT WORK. We tell co-workers about deployments so when we have to spend lunch hours running our asses off doing errands and taking care of the house, dog, and kids, they have an understanding. We do not tell co-workers and colleagues because we are giving an invitation to ramble about politics or because we so eagerly want to hear how much they hate the President, esp. while we’re trying to heat up our lean cuisines in the crappy office microwaves.
Last, but not least...
14. “I’m so sorry!”
He’s doing his job and he’s tough. Don’t be sorry. Be appreciative and please take a moment out of your comfortable American lives to realize that our soldiers fight the wars abroad so those wars stay abroad. If you want to say anything, just say Thank You. After all, we are sexually deprived for your freedom.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Friday, January 1, 2010
Holidays and Emergency Landings
Lots of excitement since the last edition (it's been about two months). We've made it through the holidays, which is always interesting when you're deployed. People send some wild stuff to make the troops feel closer to home. Did you know they make turkey spam? Don't worry, the chow halls do a wonderful job preparing meals with lots of things to choose from. Some celebs even came to visit around Thanksgiving. Gary Sinise served me lunch. Apparently he has a band now, aptly named The Lt. Dan Band, though I didn’t get to see their show. Then we got to eat with Chris Farley’s brother (I guess his relation makes him a celebrity, nice of him to visit either way) and Kristy Swanson. Ten points if you can you connect Kristy Swanson and PeeWee Herman without using Kevin Bacon (or Google). Also, thanks to everyone who sent food and snacks and presents and Green Beans Coffee gift cards. Thanksgiving and Christmas was about as good as it gets without being at home thanks to your generosity.
And now for something completely different… Mom, you should stop reading now. So, there I was, flying along, happy as a clam because of what I get paid to do. Ten more points if you know when clams are the most happy. Again, no Google. My copilot, CW2 Robbie Hammond was on the controls as we were making our final approach into Kandahar Airfield (KAF). The whole crew was wearing night vision goggles, and with zero illumination provided by the nearly nonexistent moon, the green world in our 40 degree field of view was almost overpowered by all the lights on the airfield. As Robbie pulled back on the cyclic to slow the aircraft, he lowered the collective, the stick that makes you go up and down, to begin a descent from about 500 feet above ground level (AGL). After being cleared to land, Robbie lined us up on the long taxiway just to the right of the runway, and our rate of descent reached about 500 feet per minute. Now, if you start at 500 ft AGL, and descend at 500 fpm, do I need to do the math for you? Put a minute on the clock:
As we got closer to the ground, Robbie tried to bring in some power by raising the collective in order to slow our rate of descent. Imagine my surprise when he said, “Jeff, the collective won’t move.” I immediately remembered how the friction assembly, the clamp that holds the collective in place when we don’t want it to move, hadn’t felt very smooth earlier in the flight, almost ratchety. We had even discussed swapping the aircraft for a new one at the end of our mission. Given our current situation, we most definitely wanted the collective to move. I’ll throw out some numbers for helicopter pilots in the audience; we were approaching the taxiway at about 80 knots IAS, with about 30% power applied, not nearly enough power to bring the aircraft to a hover if we slowed all the way down to zero. “Let me see what it’s doing, I have the controls”. I pulled up on the collective, certain he just hadn’t tried hard enough to overcome the problematic friction assembly. He had; it wasn’t moving. We quickly checked to make sure a checklist or some other cockpit-essential item hadn’t gotten wedged in the flight controls. How’s that one minute looking now?
“Robbie, put me up tower.” Immediately, he moved my radio selector knob around to position three and I keyed the mike, “Tower, this is Daddy 54, I am declaring an emergency and I need the runway”. The taxiway to which we’d already been cleared had vehicle traffic and other aircraft further up the field, and since I knew we couldn’t bring our aircraft to a hover, I wasn’t sure how much asphalt I was going to need to stop. “Daddy 54, cleared to land, runway zero five. State the nature of your emergency”. Only 20 seconds left before we were going to touchdown whether we wanted to or not; I told the controller my collective was stuck. “Daddy 54, tower, unfamiliar, please describe the emergency if able.” Seriously?! “The thing that makes me go up and down is stuck and I need to land on the runway”. “Roger Daddy, cleared to land”
Ten seconds. I entered a shallow left turn toward the runway and it became clear that our current angle of approach wasn’t going to take us all the way to the pavement. Without getting too deep into helicopter aerodynamics, increasing my airspeed would have gotten me all the way to the runway surface, but at the cost of increasing my rate of descent and we were already coming down fast. So, I decided to rely on the sturdy landing gear Igor Sikorsky put on my Blackhawk, and continue to a touchdown point somewhere in the dirt just short of the runway. Since it’s difficult to see ground detail through night vision goggles that are being washed out by airfield lights, I just had to hope the terrain was somewhat even and that some ditch wasn’t waiting to roll us upside down, though I was reasonably certain that wasn’t the case.
Three seconds. I pulled back gently on the cyclic to bring the nose up slightly, just prior to reaching the ground. This slowed our rate of descent and decreased our airspeed just a bit, and what could have been a very hard landing, can now really only be described as “firm”. You’ve probably felt harder landings in a commercial jet. We probably touched down around 300 to 400 fpm, and somewhere between 50 and 60 knots. I jumped on the brakes as we rolled onto the pavement and over a blue taxiway light, which, thankfully, missed all three of our wheels and wasn’t tall enough to scrape the belly. We came to a stop just short of the runway. Thanks tower, didn’t need it after all. We shut down right there next to the approach end and got towed back to parking with fire trucks as our escorts.
So, that was it. I made it through the holidays without my family, I’ve been shot at a few times, and I made it safely though an emergency that’s not even taught in flight school. I’m ready to come home.
Happy New Year!
And now for something completely different… Mom, you should stop reading now. So, there I was, flying along, happy as a clam because of what I get paid to do. Ten more points if you know when clams are the most happy. Again, no Google. My copilot, CW2 Robbie Hammond was on the controls as we were making our final approach into Kandahar Airfield (KAF). The whole crew was wearing night vision goggles, and with zero illumination provided by the nearly nonexistent moon, the green world in our 40 degree field of view was almost overpowered by all the lights on the airfield. As Robbie pulled back on the cyclic to slow the aircraft, he lowered the collective, the stick that makes you go up and down, to begin a descent from about 500 feet above ground level (AGL). After being cleared to land, Robbie lined us up on the long taxiway just to the right of the runway, and our rate of descent reached about 500 feet per minute. Now, if you start at 500 ft AGL, and descend at 500 fpm, do I need to do the math for you? Put a minute on the clock:
As we got closer to the ground, Robbie tried to bring in some power by raising the collective in order to slow our rate of descent. Imagine my surprise when he said, “Jeff, the collective won’t move.” I immediately remembered how the friction assembly, the clamp that holds the collective in place when we don’t want it to move, hadn’t felt very smooth earlier in the flight, almost ratchety. We had even discussed swapping the aircraft for a new one at the end of our mission. Given our current situation, we most definitely wanted the collective to move. I’ll throw out some numbers for helicopter pilots in the audience; we were approaching the taxiway at about 80 knots IAS, with about 30% power applied, not nearly enough power to bring the aircraft to a hover if we slowed all the way down to zero. “Let me see what it’s doing, I have the controls”. I pulled up on the collective, certain he just hadn’t tried hard enough to overcome the problematic friction assembly. He had; it wasn’t moving. We quickly checked to make sure a checklist or some other cockpit-essential item hadn’t gotten wedged in the flight controls. How’s that one minute looking now?
“Robbie, put me up tower.” Immediately, he moved my radio selector knob around to position three and I keyed the mike, “Tower, this is Daddy 54, I am declaring an emergency and I need the runway”. The taxiway to which we’d already been cleared had vehicle traffic and other aircraft further up the field, and since I knew we couldn’t bring our aircraft to a hover, I wasn’t sure how much asphalt I was going to need to stop. “Daddy 54, cleared to land, runway zero five. State the nature of your emergency”. Only 20 seconds left before we were going to touchdown whether we wanted to or not; I told the controller my collective was stuck. “Daddy 54, tower, unfamiliar, please describe the emergency if able.” Seriously?! “The thing that makes me go up and down is stuck and I need to land on the runway”. “Roger Daddy, cleared to land”
Ten seconds. I entered a shallow left turn toward the runway and it became clear that our current angle of approach wasn’t going to take us all the way to the pavement. Without getting too deep into helicopter aerodynamics, increasing my airspeed would have gotten me all the way to the runway surface, but at the cost of increasing my rate of descent and we were already coming down fast. So, I decided to rely on the sturdy landing gear Igor Sikorsky put on my Blackhawk, and continue to a touchdown point somewhere in the dirt just short of the runway. Since it’s difficult to see ground detail through night vision goggles that are being washed out by airfield lights, I just had to hope the terrain was somewhat even and that some ditch wasn’t waiting to roll us upside down, though I was reasonably certain that wasn’t the case.
Three seconds. I pulled back gently on the cyclic to bring the nose up slightly, just prior to reaching the ground. This slowed our rate of descent and decreased our airspeed just a bit, and what could have been a very hard landing, can now really only be described as “firm”. You’ve probably felt harder landings in a commercial jet. We probably touched down around 300 to 400 fpm, and somewhere between 50 and 60 knots. I jumped on the brakes as we rolled onto the pavement and over a blue taxiway light, which, thankfully, missed all three of our wheels and wasn’t tall enough to scrape the belly. We came to a stop just short of the runway. Thanks tower, didn’t need it after all. We shut down right there next to the approach end and got towed back to parking with fire trucks as our escorts.
So, that was it. I made it through the holidays without my family, I’ve been shot at a few times, and I made it safely though an emergency that’s not even taught in flight school. I’m ready to come home.
Happy New Year!
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