Arrival (written Feb. 20, ‘08)

It was sobering to land in Kuwait and board the buses to be told immediately that our route was red and we'd have to sit in place for what turned out to be more than 12 hours. When we finally received the go ahead and arrived at our camp site, we received our in-brief, which started something like "Welcome to Kuwait. You are now in a combat zone." It then proceeded to review the current combat status and recent attacks etc. I may never forget those opening words.

'This is it' I thought to myself. The place where all the years of training and simulations gets real. Where the effectiveness of my leadership over my squad over the last six months and the skill level and battle readiness of the squad will be tested and any deficiency could be tragic. Sobering and chilling at the same time.

The flight to Iraq from Kuwait is certainly one that won't be forgotten by anyone on that plane. All was normal until we began our combat descent. I’ve experienced that before so I expected the extra turbulence and harsh craft maneuvers. We were literally crammed in the C-130 as tightly as we could get. The phrase “like a can of sardines” immediately comes to mind. So tightly we sat in fact, that we had to place all of our gear (weapons, fully-loaded assault packs, etc.) in our laps and most of us could not get our seatbelts on. I was so squished that with my hands in fornt of me, I couldn’t reach in my lap to grab my camera. On descent, the plane for one brief moment dropped suddenly and steeply enough that I felt my tummy go up into my chest. You know that feeling just ast you top the highest point on a roller coaster ride and start the drop. That’s the feeling. Most everyone else was asleep at this point. I gathered myself and tried to keep my cool, reminding myself ‘You’ve done this before. You know to expect it. It’s all controlled and there is no disaster. Relax. Breathe. Control yourself.’ But no one was prepared for what happened next. The plane suddenly dropped again as if all lift and engine controls had just vanished all at once. Again I felt my stomach shoot up into my sternum. But this time, it kept going and I watched the assault pack (essentially a backpack by the way) in my lap along with other nearby loose items rise up right off of my lap into the air. Then it dawned on me that I could no longer feel the seat beneath me. I hadn’t quite noticed it at first because we were all still relatively at each others’ eye level, but we were all suspended in air! Everyone suddenly awoke to find themselves free-falling in mid-air inside the hull of this huge plane! I started grasping for something to hold myself down when I saw that we were all steadily drifting upward toward the sieling. Just then everything came crashing downward. But as we hit the seats, the G-force felt as if it would push us right down through our seats and out the belly of the plane smashing us downward. By this time my brain was in high gear trying to decipher what was happening. The prevailing thought was that we were in evasive  maneuver dodging enemy fire. I noticed something lying on top of my sassault pack on my lap that I hadn’t noticed before. During the shifting , an army green oxygen mask pouch had fallen from the plane wall where they haung and landed right under my nose. I stared at it a moment puzzled, wondering if that was just a spooky coincidence or if that was by design and I was supposed to be catching the hint. Then I quickly snatched it and tucked it close to my body realizing that either way didn’t really matter at this point. I spotted the others still hanging on the wall and started mentally preparing for disaster and how I mighth render aid. Those masks were my primary objective. The plane banked a hard and sharp left and then finally settled in for a swift landing. I braced for a head-rattling impact but it was remarkably smooth and controlled for what we’d just experienced. It turned out that the whole experience was just another planned combat landing.