thedrifter
04-21-07, 10:48 AM
Local native: Pace 'extremely difficult'
By Capt. Wes Deaver
Guest columnist
Just wanted to send out an update of the latest happenings over here in lovely Al Asad, Iraq. It has been a long six months, but our four months here in Iraq have been extremely rewarding as well as important to the future of Iraq.
Still not sure what is going to happen over here in the long run, but it is my job and the job of all the Marines in the squadron to have the jets ready to support the Marines on the ground throughout cities across Iraq like Al Qaim, Haditha, Ramadi and Fallujah.
The pace has been extremely difficult at times on my Marines. They work 12 hours on, 12 hours off seven days a week. (Just imagine life back home if you worked for 120 straight 12-hour days).
No such thing as a weekend at Buffalo Wild Wings or some football over here. Unfortunately the war doesn't stop for the Buckeyes.
I am here at the squadron for an average of about 13-16 hours a day and then head back to a small trailer to crash for about 6-8 hours a night.
Pilots have been averaging around three to four missions a week at about 31¼2 hours apiece. They usually consist of two trips to the tanker for fuel and then two one-hour missiosn involving NTISR (Non-Traditional Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance).
I can't go into details of what we do for NTISR until we get the chance over a beer someday back home but it is a constant search for targets, really.
We have seen a lot of improvement across the entire AO (Area of Operations) and have seen entire cities that were once 24-hour-a-day violence to completely peaceful. Of course the news would never show the progress because that just wouldn't be newsworthy, now would it.
We are down to under 20 days left here in Iraq and then we will be back on the USS Boxer for the trip back to the States. We plan on roughly five days in Australia on the way home, so that will be a huge reward for all our Marines.
When it is all said and done and we are back in the States it will have been roughly a 9-to-10-month deployment (that was supposed to be 6 months by the way).
The good news is that before I come back here for seven months next spring, I will be in the U.S. for almost 10 months of "normalcy."
Thank you to everyone who sent over packages during the holidays. I could've done without the enormous amount of cookies though. I look forward to seeing you all when I get back.
Capt. W.J. Deaver , HMM-165 (REIN), Unit 41076, FPO AP 96610-1076
Ellie
By Capt. Wes Deaver
Guest columnist
Just wanted to send out an update of the latest happenings over here in lovely Al Asad, Iraq. It has been a long six months, but our four months here in Iraq have been extremely rewarding as well as important to the future of Iraq.
Still not sure what is going to happen over here in the long run, but it is my job and the job of all the Marines in the squadron to have the jets ready to support the Marines on the ground throughout cities across Iraq like Al Qaim, Haditha, Ramadi and Fallujah.
The pace has been extremely difficult at times on my Marines. They work 12 hours on, 12 hours off seven days a week. (Just imagine life back home if you worked for 120 straight 12-hour days).
No such thing as a weekend at Buffalo Wild Wings or some football over here. Unfortunately the war doesn't stop for the Buckeyes.
I am here at the squadron for an average of about 13-16 hours a day and then head back to a small trailer to crash for about 6-8 hours a night.
Pilots have been averaging around three to four missions a week at about 31¼2 hours apiece. They usually consist of two trips to the tanker for fuel and then two one-hour missiosn involving NTISR (Non-Traditional Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance).
I can't go into details of what we do for NTISR until we get the chance over a beer someday back home but it is a constant search for targets, really.
We have seen a lot of improvement across the entire AO (Area of Operations) and have seen entire cities that were once 24-hour-a-day violence to completely peaceful. Of course the news would never show the progress because that just wouldn't be newsworthy, now would it.
We are down to under 20 days left here in Iraq and then we will be back on the USS Boxer for the trip back to the States. We plan on roughly five days in Australia on the way home, so that will be a huge reward for all our Marines.
When it is all said and done and we are back in the States it will have been roughly a 9-to-10-month deployment (that was supposed to be 6 months by the way).
The good news is that before I come back here for seven months next spring, I will be in the U.S. for almost 10 months of "normalcy."
Thank you to everyone who sent over packages during the holidays. I could've done without the enormous amount of cookies though. I look forward to seeing you all when I get back.
Capt. W.J. Deaver , HMM-165 (REIN), Unit 41076, FPO AP 96610-1076
Ellie