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thedrifter
05-10-06, 07:36 PM
5/10/06
Freedom's Warriors: Flying High, Semper Fi

With all the military in our area, there's a pretty good chance you know someone who serves, and all too often these days that means months away from home in far away places. Our Mike Manhatton spent some time in one of those places, al Asad, Iraq, where National Guard troops from Georgia and Beaufort Marines serve in Operation Iraqi Freedom. All those quoted here are Marines with VMFA 533.

Most of us can only imagine what life is like over there. And what you imagine is pretty much on the money if you've seen the desert on TV.

The pictures we often get from Iraq are bombs on the street in Baghdad, or that vast wasteland-looking sandbox. What you don't always see is what happens when our military personnel spend long months looking at the same landscape, and longing for a taste of home.

"It's hotter," said Lance Cpl. Travis Barker of the reality of Iraq. "I didn't think it was so flat out here. It's pretty flat. It's just a bunch of nothing."

"I mean, something you come to expect seeing brown skies everywhere," Lance Cpl. Joseph Bless. "We're waiting for the scorpions and other critters to come, I'm not going to enjoy too much."

You know it's hot and dirty and dusty. But they have air conditioning in most places, and shade in others. Plenty of water, all bottled. But one of the biggest challenges for Marines at al Asad might surprise you.

"Boredom is a major issue here, especially with me being away from my family and kids and everything," said Sgt. Adrian Lynch.

"It's kind of like Christmas when you come out here," said Cpl. Clay Duplantis. "You see a present under the tree, and you don't know what it is, and when you finally open it, it's a thrill, and about three weeks later, you kind of get used to it and you become a little bored with it.

"But it takes discipline to actually overcome that mental fog, is what we would call it."

Gunnery Sgt. Shawn Dunn explained the challenge as, "Fighting off boredom for the Marines. Keeping them busy so that they don't lose focus of their efforts of what they're here for. Time. Making sure that we help pass the time as quick as possible. Keep them busy."

"We'll continue with the professional military education for the young Marines to build their minds and build them to become better leaders," said Sgt. Maj. Scott Mykoo. "That, again and the corporal course, the college courses."

College courses, and other, maybe more what you'd expect from Marines, such as martial arts instruction, in which they "focus on combat conditioning, along with physical, moral and character disciplines to make a well rounded warrior in each and every Marine."

Cpl. Anthony Impastato works in an airframe shop. "Pretty much go to the gym after work, eat something and rack out," he said. "Go to sleep, come back, do it all over again."

"I throw myself either into my work, and when I'm home, I spend most of my time reading, until I go to sleep," said Sgt. Adrian Lynch.

"A little less to do out here," noted Cpl. Jeffrey Steinke. "Not a whole lot of night life here in Iraq."

Never mind the nightlife, the life back home is what they miss most. Capt. Shane Bursae read to us from a letter. "It says, 'I wish I could do more, but the very least I can say thank you. Thank you for sacrificing so much to protect the rest of us. We all owe our freedom to brave people like you. From the bottom of my heart, I hope you all know how appreciated you are.'"

It's not just the warm fuzzy feeling. There're goodies in that mail.

"I would say definitely the support we have from home, all the packages, we log on to anysoldier.com and we get packages from home, the businesses from Beaufort, support us all the time, that makes us feel really good," said Staff Sgt. Dhanmattie Singh.

They all miss the folks back home, but one young Marine found a surprise when he arrived at al Asad.

"Lance Cpl. Snell," said Staff Sgt. Scott Kargol. "He was actually at one of my high schools when I was a recruiter. I had actually left a month prior to him actually joining."

"When I checked in, he was my staff NCO," said Lance Cpl. Otto Snell. "Little shocking, but it's also kind of nice, to see him out here, somebody I recognize."

"His recruiter was actually a very good friend of mine, and I do know exactly where he lives, have some very good friends of mine that live just down the street from there," said Staff Sgt. Kargol. "So it's kind of interesting, running into the young men that I've had enlist through me, so it's kind of a shock when you run into them."

Something else that might shock, or at least surprise you. "I come from Palestinian descent," said Cpl. Fadi Abdelhalim. "I lived in Palestine eight years of my life. And to come here is just a godsend. I'm looking forward to one day when I get older and have a wife and kids and have grandkids and have my little grandchildren on my lap and say, 'Hey granddaddy, were you in Iraq?' And I can say, 'Yes, and I made a better place for better people, and feel good about that.'"

Tomorrow night, we'll hear from the people on the front lines in the sky, the pilots, about their unusual view of the world from high above the battle, and what they think of the work they're doing.

Reported by: Mike Manhatton, mmanhatton@wtoc.com

Ellie

thedrifter
05-11-06, 08:08 AM
05/09/06
Freedom's Warriors: Flying High, Semper Fi--Part I

Beaufort Marines are the eyes, ears and so much more of the American military, flying day and night over Iraq. In his latest trip to the Middle East, our Mike Manhatton paid Marines with VMFA 533 a visit in western Iraq. He says that, with all the convoy runs and patrols in Iraq he's been on, he'v very glad the fliers are up there.

Cpl. Fadi Abdelhalim told us the "F-18 is very unique. With its size and its speed and its maneuverability, it's a very unique aircraft."

They already rule the skies over Iraq, and can see the enemy on the ground, from miles away.

"The big thing around here is air to ground," said Cpl. Abdelhalim. "Supporting the ground troops. It has the capability of holding a lot of bombs. Lot of ordinance."

And a wide variety.

Cpl. Clay Duplantis showed us an F-18 Delta, with a AGM-65 Maverick, a forward firing, air-to-ground missile. "The Maverick is very precise," he said. "It can be used with this seeker on the front, and it detects laser from a wing aircraft or the ground troops can actually tag the target, and the seeker head will actually pick up where that laser's pointing and direct this weapon directly to it.

"We can go ahead and fire it on a building, put it wherever," Cpl. Duplantis said. "It's so accurate we can actually guide it into the window if we wanted to. It's a very impressive weapon."

Bombs with brains, a laser guides the guided missiles. "What it does is it shoots a laser around 17 miles, and it positions the laser and puts the laser-guided bombs within two to three feet, in accuracy, with is pretty much on target," said Cpl. Abdelhalim. "This is our bread and butter out here."

One of the biggest concerns is that the bombs blow up when and where they're supposed to. "That's a bad thing, you don't want that, insurgents or enemies getting a hold of our type of weapon," said Cpl. Duplantis. "They blow this up, that is a lot damage, and probably would cause a lot of deaths that we definitely do not want. I don't want insurgents to get a hold of this. I want this to go off so that I know my fellow Marines are safe on the ground."

It's not easy to keep it all flying, either.

"When it's hotter, things tend to break a lot easier," noted Lance Cpl. Travis Barker. "And stress is up a little bit high when everyone's working in a hot environment."

"The biggest challenge out here is sandstorms, out here, dirt getting into systems out here, keeping things clean," noted Cpl. Jeffrey Steinke.

"We run into a lot of leading-edge flap problems, the front end of the wings," Cpl. Anthony Impastato, who works in the airframe shop, told us. "Those are lots of fun. Really nothing too serious that we can't handle."

Part of the problem: they're in the air, day and night. "The jets are flying constantly out here, and parts are breaking, and we're out here fixing these parts," said Cpl. Abdelhalim. "And that's the biggest thing, is how much these jets are flying and how much they're going to use and they're breaking, but we're fixing them."

It's not just the planes, it's the people.

"Every time we get dressed, we basically got three pieces of gear we put on," said Capt. Benjamin Ausbrooks, showing us how they work on a fellow Marine. "One of them is this G-suit, and as you can see, Capt. Brousay is wearing that G-suit, and as it goes around the abdomen and legs, and what it's going to do is hook into the aircraft and as the aircraft pulls more G's, it's going to fill up with air, and press on the abdomen and press on the legs, and it's just going to keep the blood forced up into the upper part of the torso and brain. So as your blood drains from your brain, you're going to lose consciousness and vision.

"He has basically a horse collar here that's going to provide a life preserver around his neck there. It's got some canisters that will auto inflate that in the event of salt water. Also got some beaded handles that he can pull. And as that comes together, there's a regulator here for his oxygen, going to his mask, and that's going to be on his face during flight. The other equipment in here, we got a survival radio, light, and the other first aid gear all around the vest."

"If the aircrew ejects from the aircraft, this is all he's going to have," noted Lance Cpl. Little. "This is what he's left with. This, along with his parachute, and that's going to safe his life. The aircraft's gone, this is what he's got left. This is his last resort."

"It's kind of amazing, all the parts working together to get this thing off the ground," said Lance Cpl. Barker. "I just think that they're going to go out there and get somebody that might be trying to attack America. That hits you pretty deep."

Tomorrow night, we'll show you the personal side of life at al Asad. The little things that make a big difference. Plus a Marine with roots in the region who knows what they're doing is making history.

Reported by: Mike Manhatton, mmanhatton@wtoc.com

Ellie

thedrifter
05-11-06, 07:06 PM
05/11/06
Freedom's Warriors: Flying High, Semper Fi--Part III

What's it like to fly fast and high over Iraq? Most of us will never know, but some of our neighbors do it every day. It's just another day on the job that some say is the coolest in the world. Our Mike Manhatton's followed the troops on the ground for about a dozen deployments all over the world, but this time he visited Beaufort Marine aviators with VMFA 533 in al Asad, Iraq just west of Baghdad.

Mike's more accustomed to being with the grunts on the ground, jumping in a Humvee and rolling out through Baghdad or the desert around Tikrit. But there's no room for him and a camera in the cockpit of an F-18 Hornet. So we decided to let the Marines tell their story in the sky, in their own words.

Here's the transcript:

Cpl. Clay Duplantis: "There's not many people in this world who can say, 'I traveled to Iraq.'"

1st Lt. Erik Dickerson: "It is pretty cool. And you'd be surprised to see how much sand there actually is out there. If you're not around the water, there's not much out there."

Capt. Shane Bursae: "It's actually pretty neat, because Iraq is pretty unique. It has both desert and it has a river type of environment as well. It's got mountains to the north also. So you get to see a little bit of everything from the air, and their cities are very grouped together along the Euphrates, so that's pretty interesting to see also."

1st Lt. Kevin Crockett: "Some of the things we do, we'll fly out, we'll go out over a ground operation that's going on, maybe they're doing a raid somewhere. We'll provide over watch for them, be on call in case they need close air support. We'll go out, one of the things we do a lot around here is convoy escort. It's a huge logistical train that has to get things back and forth through this country, and we go out there and provide over watch for them, look on the road ahead and see if there's anything dangerous out there that we need to let 'em know about, and again, be on call if they need us."

Capt. John Bussard: "Two in the morning, what are we looking at? The big thing we're doing, no kidding, it's almost like being a traffic cop. We're out there just looking to make sure there's nobody out there. Obviously there's a lot of curfews, so if we see people, we're kind of concerned with who they are. There are a lot of friendly units out there operating at night, so we don't just assume that somebody's the wrong person, we always try to verify what's going on. So the big challenge there is who's on the ground, and who we're looking at."

1st Lt. Kevin Crockett: "One of the thing about Marine aviation especially, we're focused on the guys on the ground. And just like all other aviation assets, we're really there just to provide the support for the guys on the ground who are doing the fighting during the war."

Cpl Clay Duplantis: "The way our aircraft and air crew can guide our infantrymen on the ground and tell them locations where they're going, and it's just an unbelievable thing."

Capt. John Bussard: "They can hear us, and actually, that's a big deterrent for us a lot of times at night. And that's one of the reasons we fly as much as we do. It's kind of a presence mission, they can hear us flying overhead, and that can keep people from doing the wrong thing sometimes. They can hear that and they know that we're able to see and they really can't tell where we are up there.

"Normal night missions, one of the big ones is escorting convoys."

1st Lt. Kevin Crockett: "You see lights all around, you can see other aircraft, especially with the night vision, you see aircraft maybe a hundred miles away."

Capt. John Bussard: "To make sure that the convoys can travel safely from point to point, since they're frequently targeted."

1st Lt. Kevin Crockett: "We go we get our airspace, keep a good lookout, make sure nothing's going to hurt us while staying focused on the ground."

Capt. John Bussard: "We go out and we make sure that nobody gets in trouble."

1st Lt. Kevin Crockett: "It's a lot of fun."

1st Lt. Erik Dickerson: "I tell you what, I think I have the best job out here so far. We get to come out here, we get to fly the Hornet, and support the young Marines on the ground."

Cpl. Clay Duplantis: "I'll tell this much, a lot of people wonder if we should be out here. We definitely need to be out here. There's people out here that want to kill Americans and hate our way of life."

1st Lt. Kevin Crockett: "I just think if they know we're here, doing what we can to help this country move forward and move past the problems that they're going through right now, and the problems of the past, just trying to do our best, and come home as soon as we can, safely."

Cpl. William Lloyd: "I do it so others do not have to. I think that's good enough."

One more thing to remember. The Marines are rotating through al Asad. So the Hawks replaced another Beaufort squadron. And when their six months are up, there could well be another group of Marines headed right back to the sandbox.

Ellie