Good To Sea: Desert December

December started about as frantically as November, but with the busy schedule came a month that really "flew" by in more than one sense of the word. Even out here, the Christmas season takes on a whole different feel, and while it's not the anticipation of seeing family and getting time off work, everyone still looks forward to the holidays about as much as I'm used to. By the time Christmas hit, though, Justin and I barely had time to sleep off the huge holiday meal before we were packing our bags to move up to Basrah. A hectic month to be sure, but a great end to a fantastic 2009... On to the stories.

The first 3 days of the month gave me 2 of the most fun flights I've had out here yet. On the 2nd, I flew a familiarization flight with one of the copilots who had gone over a month without a MEDEVAC (bad luck or good? you decide!) We just flew a nice relaxed flight to and from our most common destination, and on the way back, we took the more scenic route along the water. On a clear day with a good view of Kuwait City, it's actually a pretty gorgeous flight. The next day, I was put on the schedule to requalify some of the pilots at the boat. We were heading to the same boat as I flew to last time, so it was somewhat familiar territory already, but this time was even more fun than the last. I didn't have to ride in the back for the transit, and since I was the HAC for the mission, it meant that for all 5 hours of flight time, I was in the helicopter rackin' up the hours! What made it even more memorable was that the mission changed about a dozen times within a couple hours of takeoff, and finally included a dual ship flight up to Basrah to drop off some people/cargo to the guys up north, and then on the way back down, we split off to head out to the ship. Requalifying Adam (one of the new HAC's out here) was a piece of cake since he had done a ship cruise already and had the skills down. The other pilot was one of the more experienced Copilots out here, and a really fun guy to fly with. He was doing well, but it was really fun, especially being in the desert, talking him through some of the experience and knowledge I had gained on the boat a year ago. Once we finished what we went out there for, it was a nice calm 1 hour trip back to Udairi.

I didn't fly for a couple of days after the boat hop, but on one of my days off the schedule, I got paired up with one of our maintainers to take our Wing Commodore to the Kuwait airport for his trip back to San Diego. He had been out for a visit to see how things were running out here, and fortunately for us, he seemed impressed. It was the first time I'd been off the base without being on a mission. We don't get much freedom to do what we want once we're out (pretty much a straight there and straight back kind of thing) but it was fun to head outside the fence for a couple of hours anyway.

Me with the Boss.

no WAY!

the answer is yes. It is as good as it looks.

Heading back, but not to the city.

We stopped to check out the awesome soccer stadium just outside of town.

On the way back from the trip, the night got a bit interesting. Fog had been rolling in overnight for a couple of weeks, so we were hoping to get back before it got too thick. About 15 minutes (on a normal day) from arrival, it hit fast and hard. We could see about 50ft. in front of the car, so we slowed way down... unfortunately the crazy Kuwaiti drivers didn't see that as a great idea, so cars were still whipping past us at highway speeds. We were close enough to base that we thankfully didn't have to deal with that very long. The 15 minute drive took us about an hour, so by the time we got home, we were definitely ready to for some sleep.

The next big event of the month (and yes, some of you have already heard about it) was the Army/Navy game. Being on an Army base made it all the more exciting, and I wasn't going to let an opportunity to be obnoxious go to waste. Of about 7 or 8 USNA Grads, I seemed to be the only one who was really set on pulling some sort of prank, but luckily I had Justin there to join in the fun. . . well, I'll let the pictures tell the rest.

biggest tarp I could find, 5 rolls of medical tape, and almost 4 cans of spray paint.

The finished project

the night before the game. The guys in the control tower didn't need much convincing, especially since one of them was ex-Navy

Looked even better than I expected

The morning of, still flying proudly.

Taking my life in my hands by walking around like this all day.

Army's "creative" additions to our banner - over 13 hours after we put it up - it stayed like this for about 10 minutes. Hey, nobody said they're good at acting quickly.

The game-night crowd. Standing room only
Navy-17 Army-3

The rest of the month until Christmas went pretty quick, but not a whole lot of great stories. I was on a bit of a hot streak for a while with flight hours, got a few cross-border hours, and even got another day training flight to use as we saw fit. On to the pictures...

A quick stop at EMF-K, but enough time for a picture of our ride. Night flights are more fun, and in some ways easier, than daytime. The air is cooler and smoother, and the scenery looks a little less... well... brown.

Getting up early has never been my strength, but we got rewarded in Kuwait with sunrise views every morning when we'd walk out to set the alert.

On a MEDEVAC with Justin from Bucca. Hazy but eerily beautiful view of Kuwait City on the way south.

There it is... the patch makes another appearance over the sands of Kuwait.

Holy crap, who's flyin' this thing?!?!
just kidding... we're on deck. We actually managed to snag some BBQ while we were on deck at Arifjan - Ribs in the aircraft was not a good idea though. Who knew they'd be so messy?

Christmas eve started the same way Thanksgiving and my birthday did: a 6am 5k run. I must be crazy... who wakes up early on those 3 days to run??? Must be in my blood. It was a bigger ordeal than any of the runs I'd seen yet, so I was going to have to run hard if I was going to compete with the crowd. It was Christmas eve though, so I couldn't limit myself to normal running attire... I'll let you decide if that was a good idea.

Pre-race pose. I forget, was Santa supposed to be a jolly fat guy with a white beard, or a skinny white dude with a red moustache?

After the run with Jill Lopez: the other Medal Winner from the 2515th. I took 3rd overall, and she took 2nd in her age group. If you can tell, the sun is just now coming up - AFTER the race.