Waiting for a helicopter

Washington Army Heliport, Green Zone, Baghdad, Iraq - This was the point where our little journalistic band of brothers separated, with CPT Lappegaard and I going one way, and the Fayetteville reporters and the cartoonist that I have been traveling with since Amsterdam going some others.

Our ride to the heliport was with CPT Kunkel, who showed up half way through lunch, and radiated a strong unspoken sense that we shouldn't keep her waiting. We threw the rest of lunch in the trash and scrambled into our body armor, and loaded our gear in her SUV for a short ride across the Green Zone to the heliport.

Once again we are low priority, space available, passengers. Fighting the war is more important that giving rides to journalists...

There are rarely direct helicopter flights from the Green Zone to Fallujah, and so our plan was to catch a ride to Al Asad Air Base, and then catch another flight from there to Fallujah. As it turns out there is direct flight to Fallujah tonight leaving at 9:30 pm. We're manifested for it, and hopefully we won't get bumped. CPT Lappegaard thinks this flight has a better chance of getting us all the way to Fallujah today than the Al Asad route.

Waiting for this flight means we have 9 hours to kill at this heliport which is really just a couple of hard wooden benches under a camouflage net, with a lot of really loud helicopters coming an going. Fortunately the main PX is just across the street, and so we have a good supply of snacks (aka "pogie bait"), and I bought some souvenirs including some stickers to put on my hard camera cases.

The stickers are smaller versions of the big red and white Arabic and English signs that appear on the back of US military vehicles at the ends of convoys, and at the front gates of military installations here.

The first one says:

"PASSING IS NOT ALLOWED
AMERICAN CONVOY AHEAD"

And the second one says:

"NO CIVILIAN TRAFFIC BEYOND THIS POINT
STOP AND TURN AROUND"

There were other signs with phrases that included things like: "DANGER EXPLOSIVES" and "DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED", but I decided I should avoid stickers that could be misconstrued to be referring to the contents of my Pelican cases.

Sitting here is good people watching, just like any other airport. I've seen well dressed Iraq civilians (Iraqi government officials presumably). There are Peruvian (yes you read that correctly) soldiers pulling security around the heliport, and checking ID's when you enter the area. There was a group of Australian soldiers earlier. And there is a steady flow of civilian contractors, mostly slightly overwieght American men in their 40's with long hair or beards.

The US soldiers have been heavy on colonels and command sergeant majors over the last hour, although all ranks have been represented. Surprisingly, (to me) it has been almost an even 50/50 split between males and females.

With 6 hours to go, there will probably be more to this story before we catch our flight...

The flight has been moved up to 6:30 pm (good), but there are more people trying to get on it (bad). If we don't make this flight it could mean an extra unproductive day. I'm hoping for the best.

We just had a flight of British Puma helicopters come in and drop of a bunch of British troops. I used to ride on British Pumas occasionally when I was on active duty in Europe in the 80's, but I haven't seen one since. Peacetime Puma rides were a lot more fun than peace time American Blackhawk rides. The British forces were strong believers in "train like you fight", and Puma rides were always VERY low and VERY fast.

We just had annother gaggle of American colonels (various branches of service) come through, all catching a helicopter to BIAP, to catch a flight to Qatar on a 4 day pass.

Hangin' at the CPIC

John McChesney, National Public Radio editing audio in the press room at CPIC

Combined Press Information Center, Green Zone, Baghdad, Iraq - We were at the head of the line this morning, and I know have my official CPIC "Press ID", and we are free to head out of Fallujah.

We have a ride to the helicopter LZ at noon to try to hitch a ride to Fallujah. In the meantime we're hanging out in the press lounge chatting with some of the other journalists that are here.

I had a nice chat with John McChesney of National Public Radio. I'm a big fan of NPR News, and John is definitely somebody I admire a lot.



CPT Lappegaard had an extended conversation about the current political situation in Iraq with a Urban Hamid, a Swedish journalist, who comes to Iraq regularly, and because of his nationality is a little more free to travel independently and meet with Iraqi leaders.

CPT Lappegaard has been in-country for almost a year, Urban has made numerous trips here, and so I pretty much kept my mouth shut and paid attention. No sound bites, but definitely an interesting international exchange of political ideas.

Kuwait to Baghdad

Boarding the bus for our flight to Baghdad. Photo by CPT Mark Lappegaard

Green Zone, Baghdad, Iraq - The bus for our flight from Kuwait to Baghdad really did leave at 5:20 pm as advertised, and the trip proceeded at military speed (hurry up and wait).

The trip from the "terminal" (a BIG tent on a concrete slab), took us on a scenic tour of the air base. As far as I could tell we circled the entire perimeter of the base, nearly back to our starting point, to get to our C130.

A highlight of this tour was looking at battle damage from the first Gulf War. There were dozens of huge concrete aircraft hangers scattered around the base that were originally each designed to protect a single fighter aircraft from bombing. In can now tell you from first hand personal observation that a big box made out of 10+ foot thick concrete is the last place to you want to hide an aircraft that you would like to protect from bombing. Every single hangar had one and only one big jagged hole punched in the top or side by a precision guided US bomb.

We boarded the aircraft in the dark, and then proceeded to wait. If you've ever ridden in a C130, you know that it's not the most comfortable aircraft to sit around in. There are 4 red fabric benches facing each other down the length of the aircraft, and they are so close together that your knees touch the bench facing you. You end up alternating legs with the people across from you like a zipper, and you literally have no room to move. If somebody needs to get up to use the facilities they have to walk on the people in the seats next to them, because there is no place else to step.

First we waited for the pallets with our luggage to be loaded on the tail ramp of the aircraft by a forklift, and then we were informed that we were going to have to wait for some additional passengers... a general officer and his entourage apparently. An hour later the general and friends finally boarded from the front of the aircraft (because the pallets were blocking the tail ramp now) and we took off for Baghdad.

I've heard stories about steep zero g dives and evasive maneuvers on the landing at BIAP (Baghdad International Airport), and I can now tell you that they are greatly exaggerated. We made a relatively steep descent, and some hard banking turns, but I've had commercial airline landings in bad weather that were equally exciting. The load-masters watched for ground fire with night vision goggles through the windows in the rear troop doors, but other than that it seemed pretty routine.

As soon as we landed the general and his party exited through the front door, but we had to wait for the pallets to be (quickly) unloaded so that we could use the tail ramp. By the time we were walking down the ramp the general's flight of black hawk helicopters was taking off to whisk him to the green zone presumably.

We hiked over to the "terminal" (another temporary structure), collected our baggage, and found the bus to Camp Stryker, which is another area on the grounds of the airport. At Camp Stryker we signed up for a Rhino ride to the green zone.



We waited around until 10:00 pm to get in line to manifest for the bus ride, departure time TBD, and then come back for a briefing at 11:00 pm. It turns out that the earliest possible departure was 1:00 am, and it could be as late as 3:00 am. Good news, the DFAC opens at 11:30 pm for midnight chow.

Hike a half a mile to the DEFAC in the dark, and find it after a couple of missed turns. French toast and Frosted Flakes makes the fact that none of us have had more than a couple of hours of sleep in the past few days seem much more tolerable. Hike back to the bus stop.

The Rhino convoy finally arrives with a load of people from the Green Zone around 2:00 am and we form a human chain to load all of our baggage onto a semi-trailer. We are expressly forbidden from taking any pictures of the Rhinos or the trip, and so I should not describe them in detail either, but suffice it to say they are big bomb proof buses designed specifically for this run back and forth from the airport to the Green Zone.

The Baghdad Airport road has the reputation as the most dangerous stretch of road on the planet (see Wikipedia), but tonight the ride was uneventful. Actually, I slept through almost the entire ride, and so I can only report second hand that nothing happened. And apparently that has been the norm for the past year or so. I am also sorry to report that I have no idea what Baghdad looks like, having slept through my tour (I promise to pay more attention in Fallujah).

After another human chain to unload all our luggage from the semi-trailer, and a lift in an SUV from some friendly Green Zone PAO (Public Affairs) soldiers we finally arrived at CPIC (the Combined Press Information Center) at 4:00 am. A good 6 hours after the general on his black hawk probably arrived in the Green Zone.

Rank has it's privileges...

First article in the Crookston Paper

http://www.crookstontimes.com/articles/2007/02/06/news/23news1.txt

UPDATE: And a second article (reposted from my blog): http://www.crookstontimes.com/articles/2007/02/07/news/22news3.txt

Thanks for your support Mike!

Minnesota Nice

Unnamed Airbase, Kuwait - I've been waiting for a flight to Baghdad with two reporters for the Fayetteville Observer, and CPT Mark Lappegaard, my personal escort from the 34th Brigade Combat Team Public Affairs Office. Mark is Minneapolis native who currently lives in Duluth with his wife Edel, a native of Norway.

Flying standby is a game of wishful thinking followed by dashed hopes with any airline, and the US Air Force is no different. We were originally hoping to manifest on a flight at 10:30 am, but our names weren't called (hopes dashed). At 3:00 pm we gathered again with guarded optimism that this time it would be our turn. As they went down the list they called out one of the Fayetteville reporters names and then my name, but CPT Laapegaard and the other Fayetteville reporter were not called (confusion). They had managed to break up both of our parties, which didn't do any of us any good.

We discussed the situation, and I volunteered to give up my seat to the second Fayetteville reporter so they could stay together, and CPT Lappegaard and I would standby for the next flight at 7:00 pm. The Fayetteville guys were surprised and very grateful that I would do this. I explained "Minnesota Nice", and started getting my gear together to go to the internet cafe for a few hours. Fortunately, before I could leave they announced that there were more open seats on the 3:00 pm flight. CPT Lappegaard and I both made to revised list, and all four of us were on the plane.

Ah, the power of good kharma!

(Still waiting for the "3:00 pm" flight that apparently really leaves at 5:20 pm...)

Breakfast of champions

Unnamed Airbase, Kuwait - I'm killing time waiting for a flight to Baghdad. I'm 9 hours off my normal timezone, and I should be catching some sleep (I'll need it later). But between the timezone and the excitement I had a hard time sleeping, and so I headed to the DFAC (chow hall) for breakfast as soon as it opened at 5:30 am.

As it turns out the DFAC here doesn't allow backpacks, and so I detoured next door to Mcdonalds which was more accomidating of my baggage. McDonalds here is a 24 walkup window, unfortunately they don't do a breakfast menu. I ordered my McBurger and fries (the burger had some vaguely Middle Eastern name, but it was really a "Big and Tasty"). When my order was ready, I found a place to sit at a picnic table with SPC Nanni of the Oregon National Guard.

Unnamed Airbase is transient hub for all troops in Iraq and Afganistan going on leave and returning from leave. SPC Nanni was heading back to Afganistan after emergency leave back home. He's in an infantry unit and has another 5 months left in his tour. Luckily for him troops in Afganistan aren't having their tours extended like the Minnesota National Guard in Iraq.

UPDATE: 5:00 pm - I just found SPC Nanni sitting on his duffle bag reading a copy of Stars & Stripes. We're not the only ones playing the waiting game.

Should I drink the blue latte or the red latte?

Kuwait City Airport, Kuwait - Starbucks Coffee and Caribou Coffee sit right next to each other in arrivals area of the Kuwait City Airport, seperated by a neutral Cinnabon. In one of these familiar establishments lurks the white rabbit ready to offer me the red pill (this as reference to the movie, The Matrix, for anyone that is throughly confused). Take the red pill and start a strange trip into another world.

Every night he sits there, a blond man with short hair in civilian clothes, who seems to know everybody that works in the airport. SSG Kevin Buckley picks up arriving journalists everyday, 24 hours a day, and expertly sheperds them out of the airport, through the desert, and into another world at an Unnamed airbase in the Kuwaiti desert.

The transition from the polished chrome of the airport to dirt roads and a tent city in the desert is dramatic. The Kuwait City Airport shows no sign that a war is being fought just a few miles to the north, but out in the desert our passports are triple checked, and a serious and heavily armed security team searches our vehicle for explosives. We spend the night in a brown tent that flaps in the wind, and the air is thick with dust.