Final Approach

I have not posted for a while due to me finally moving out of Iraq through Kuwait and Portugal, finally on to Fort Stewart, GA, and then into the arms of an anxious family. We have just gotten through a month of vacationing that took us to Florida, Utah, Virgina, and Outer Banks, North Carolina. We have finally settled in back here in Arlington, VA and I have started my civilian life over again.
There are a whole bunch of pictures and stories that I did not have the time to cover during my time in Iraq, so I will add a few here at the end in some last few posts.

Since I have been home the question I have been asked the most is, "What exactly were you guys doing over there?" I have already sort of answered that in a previous post where I spoke about convoy security, patrol overwatch, route/area recons, etc..., but it occurred to me that these words mean little to non-military types, so here is an example. Along the Iraq-Iran border in the South are a series of lakes and marsh land. Due to the difficulty of patrolling this area on the ground, we were tasked to patrol there as much as possible. It is one of the smuggling routes that Iran uses to sneak weapons into Iraq that are later used in rocket attacks, IED attacks (the most deadly IEDs known as EFPs come mostly from Iran), etc...
If you look at the top left corner of the above picture you will see a white spot in the reeds. My front seater (Apache pilots fly tandem meaning one in front and one behind each other) saw it as we were flying over this area of the border looking for anything suspicious. You can see how it would be impossible to see from ground level. One of these boats has some US Special Forces types and the other has Iraqi border patrol guys inside. We were guiding them to this "cache" over the radio by literally flying right over them and telling them to turn left here, then turn right there, etc... It was a maze of tributaries we had to lead them through. Besides this cache there was another hidden canoe sized boat nearby that we found. Now a lot of times these turned out to be weapons caches, and the mission became classified, and I would be going to jail right now for telling you all about it, but in this case the white tarp and hidden canoe just concealed illegal fishing equipment such as generators that the illegal fishermen used to shock the water to collect fish. I flew 8 1/2 hours on this mission, and we used a ton of resources just on some illegal fishing equipment, so while we sort of felt dumb, the Iraqi border patrol loved us. Illegal fishing in the area is one of their top priorities, so at least we earned some brownie points.

You can see how lost these guys could get in the marshes without us above telling them exactly which way to go to get in/out.

These are just some cool pictures we took of us shooting flares. Without going into classified detail, Army helicopters have a system that looks for potential SAM (surface to air) launches at us. If it detects what it thinks may be one then it automatically deploys flares to distract the missile that is coming our way at several hundred feet per second. Besides this use, we can manually punch them off to designate an area of interest or sometimes if we had been escorting a convoy for a long time and they were pretty cool over the radio we would give them a little firework show to wish them good luck and increase morale and unit cohesion.

















Just throwing this in for fun.

My Latest Foray into Infamy

When the 1st Infantry Division came to Iraq in February they sent out their military reporters to gather some stories. As the commander of all the Apaches at FOB Delta they wanted to interview me about our role in Iraq. I gave the interview, but had no idea they were going to make such a production of it. Next thing I knew I saw myself on the Armed Forces Network (AFN), which is the military's TV channel for its service members all over the world. When I lived in Germany for 3 years growing up AFN was the only English TV channel we could watch. AFN gets regular TV shows (30 Rock, Seinfeld, The Office, etc...) for free from the networks in exchange for not making money on them, so there are no commercials on AFN. To make the time slots line up they put short military news clips or military history stories or even military public announcements where commercials would normally go. Well, I am now a 1 minute commercial on AFN.

Iraq the Beautiful?

So Iraq is an ugly war-torn country full of tragic stories and scarred earth. The media has been putting that out for years, and as a first hand witness I can say that it is true -- about 98% true. Every now and then you will see a nicely cultivated area near the Tigris river, or a beautifully colored sunset. These pictures are some I have taken that show a different side to Iraq.

The Echo palm grove. This is right off the refuel area at FOB Echo. It is my favorite little space in all of Iraq. There is an old Iraqi military bunker in the middle of it that is fun to explore. One night when my aircraft broke at FOB Echo I just took a nap on the forward avionics bay (FAB) of my helicopter right next to the palm grove while I waited for the part and a mechanic to be flown in for the repair. I clipped the D-ring carabiner from my flight vest to one of the handles on the side of the Apache so I wouldn't roll off the FAB while napping.

While the ground may be mostly ugly, we see a lot of cool skies while flying our missions.



Sunrise over our hangar at FOB Delta.

This is that same sunrise a few minutes later looking back at the crash rescue fire trucks




Sunset from the top of my helicopter that I was doing my preflight inspection on before a night mission.

Comanche 06

For those of you who don't know on January 5, 2010 I was blessed to have been promoted into the job of being C company's commander. Charlie company "Comanches" or "Chuck Troop" as it is affectionately known, is one of three line companies in the 1-130 Attack Recon Battalion (ARB). Each line company has 8 Apaches and the Battalion's six companies are all designed to support the three line companies. Being a line company commander is the gold standard in Army Aviation, and highly sought after. The fact that I was blessed to get it, and then to get it in a combat zone is more than I could have ever asked for. It is the culmination of my 14 year Army National Guard career, and I couldn't have done it without the support of my family, and especially Jane who has sacrificed with me at Flight School, and by being home alone while I was at schools and a deployment. Counting it all up Jane has spent about 18 months of our marriage without me being home. She is a rock and I love and appreciate her.

For those wondering what the I2WI2 means at the bottom of the arrowhead, it is our company motto. It means, "It is what it is." It keeps us sane during insane missions/contradicting orders, etc... If you are wondering what Comanche 06 is all about, here is the explanation. In any Company, Battalion, etc.. the important people are all given call signs so that people recognize who they are talking to on the radio. 06 is the number signifying the commander, so in our Battalion (the Panthers), our commander is Panther 06. Well in C company I am Comanche 06. If the Battalion commander wants to talk to me he can call on the radio and say, "Comanche 06, this is Panther 06 over." It is also authoritative. When I go visit a FOB I have never been to before and see a sign that says "Eye protection must be worn at all times by order of Hammer 06" I just put my eye protection on and don't ask questions. I have no idea who Hammer 06 may be, but I know he is the commander of those parts, so I obey. So there you have it.
This picture is me and my new First Sergeant, 1SG West. He is the top enlisted soldier in my company and helps me run it. C company also happens to be the one line company that is split away from the rest of the Battalion. We are at FOB Delta, which is a couple hours flight from where the rest of the Battalion is. Besides C company we have slices of each of the support companies, so I am also the Commander of what we call Task Force Comanche. Overall I am responsible for about 70 people and $250 million dollars worth of equipment in a combat zone with several combat missions daily. Talk about humbling!
This is the formation for the change of command ceremony. Only day shift attended, as we have night missions also, and couldn't interrupt night shift's crew rest cycle.
Here I am in front of the formation with COL Scannell (Battalion Commander) and CPT Parsons (outgoing C Comapny Commander).

Part of the ceremony involves 1SG West handing the company guidon (company colors) to the outgoing commander (CPT Parsons), who hands it to the Battalion Commander (COL Scannell) symbolizing his relinquishing of command. The Battalion Commander then gives me the guidon (as shown in this picture) symbolizing him giving the command to me . Then I give it back to 1SG West and I take over the formation and talk to my troops. It is the most rewarding job in the Amry, but lets just say my already incredibly high workload is now almost unbearable. Oh well, I2WI2.


I have a lot of personalitites in my company. I could write a book about some of these guys, but here are a few examples of my guys. A lot of "art" goes onto our weapons, but this is about the only one appropriate for the folks back home. One of the mechanics put it on there.



This is one of my favorites (as you can see by all the pictures I put on here about it.) Some days you come in to fly, you get your mission briefings (just like Top Gun), you go preflight the helicopter, and you are all ready to go, but you can't because the weather is too bad. You can't cancel the mission in case the weather improves so you just sit around the pilot hooch bored. Well when you get a bunch of bored smart people together, you invent fun. This is one of our favorites. "NVG Jenga."




NVG stands for Night Vision Goggles. We fly with NVGs as a backup night vision system to the Apache's FLIR (Forward looking infra-red) system. When not used on missions we use them to make Jenga more challenging. If you look you can see the people holding the goggles up to their eyes in these pictures. We were all getting too good at Jenga so we upped the stakes by doing it in total darkness with NVGs. One looks through them for their turn and another looks through a second set to make sure you don't cheat. Pilots are all competitive and will do anything to win (even cheat).


I put my camera up to the goggles and took a picture with no flash. This is what it looks like for us playing.
As you can see by this ridiculous stack, when you get people who have really good vision, nerves, and hand-eye coordination (pilots) together, even total darkness isn't much of a challenge.......................which is why I upped the stakes with the Firefly. If you look at this picture you can see a 9 volt battery at the base of the Jenga tower. In all of our survival vests we carry what is called a firefly. It is a tiny piece of plastic that attaches to the top of any 9 volt battery. When attached it gives off an infra-red pulse every second or so, so that the rescue teams can see you under their NVGs, but there is no visible light so the bad guys can't see you. When not used in a combat search and rescue senario, and placed at the base of a blacked out NVG Jenga game it proves quite a distraction. It is meant to be seen miles away under NVGs so you can imagine how bright it is when placed right in front of them. The tower usually doesn't last too long once the firefly is pulled out.

Christmas 2009....Ho Ho who cares, get back to work!

Explanation: I have been moved to a different FOB and have not had reliable internet, and when I have had internet it is too slow to upload any pictures. I have good internet right now as I am at another FOB for the elections, so I am going to update from Dec-Mar. Thanks for your patience.


Here is my Christmas haul. I got a lot of great stuff from a lot of great people, so I thank you all!!! I loved the book Jane made for me with pictures and well wishes from so many of you. I look at it at least every other day. I also need to give a shout out to Sadie Jensen who sent me a couple bears full of her home made honey from her own bees. You have all been very kind and your country appreciates your support of this soldier.

Here I am with my Santa hat and First Lieutenant rank on it. You can see our office Christmas tree. That is about all the Christmas decorations we were able to fit in our containers and bring to FOB Delta. In the background you can also see the C company chicken. He hangs there with our company motto written on his chest I2WI2, or "It is what it is." It is tradition to squeeze him and listen to his rubber chicken yell before going out on missions. These little things keep us sane in the sandbox.

This is a view of me shooting an approach (pilot talk for landing) into FOB Kalsu on Christmas day. We didn't get Christmas or any other day off, but I guess that's the cost of freedom.

I got out to use the bathroom while we were getting "Hot gas" and took this picture. Hot gas means the blades are still turning and engines are at 100% while we are being refueled. Warm gas means the engines are off, but the APU (auxiliary power unit) is still running, and cold gas means we have shut down completely.

This picture is from our Christmas mission. As you can see there is no snow in Southern Iraq. The temperature was about 65 degrees and it was fairly sunny. Most buildings are just mud brown, but every now and then you see some like this one that are brightly colored. The favorite bright colors tend to be this tangerine orange and lavender. They are nice for us because if we see something we can reference the colorful building to talk the other aircraft onto the target like, "Target is 200 meters due south of the orange building."
So nothing else really happened on Christmas, but New Years was exciting. I was flying a mission on New Year's Eve and had some cool stuff happen. The following is a narrative from my Air Medal citation. It will explain it better than I could. "1LT Miller’s effort saved lives. Despite marginal weather, on the night of 31 December 2009 1LT Miller’s team launched to check out some local areas of interest near FOB Delta due to an elevated threat of New Year’s Eve rocket attacks. While airborne his Area Weapons Team (AWT) was dynamically re-tasked to respond to indirect fire that had been fired on FOB Kalsu, 66 miles away. Despite the marginal weather the AWT redirected toward Kalsu. Three rockets had already hit the FOB and intelligence pointed at several more to come. Upon check-in the AWT was given the Point of Origin coordinates for the rockets, and although it is extremely difficult for aerial platforms to find such small items as rocket rails from altitude the AWT found six rails next to a canal. Incredibly, two of the rails still had rockets on them with timers attached. Working with his wingman, 1LT Miller talked the Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) unit onto the rockets in the dark through the muddy fields. The remaining rockets were disarmed and no further rockets hit FOB Kalsu that night. This is just one example of the difference 1LT Miller’s efforts made while in Iraq."
We were frustrated because we wanted to blow these two rockets up before they launched. We almost had the ground commander talked into letting us shoot them until EOD came over the radio and complained about getting to do their job. We talked them onto the site and they deployed their first robot to disarm the rockets and the robot stopped working. When we heard this over the radio we were excited that we would be able to blow the rockets up (and the stalled EOD robot), but then we heard EOD say, "deploying the second robot." I can't believe they have two! No luck for us, as the second worked properly. So after we watched EOD blow up the rockets we did not have good enough weather to return to base so we had to land at FOB Kalsu and spend the night in a transient tent. We landed at about 2345 (11:45 pm) so we did the ten second countdown to the new year in the housing office with a Pakistani KBR employee who was jamming out to some Pashtun rap music, while picking up linens for our cots. Memorable for sure, but not the ideal New Years.

Been There and Done That

So this entry is about all the places I've been here in Iraq, but before I get to that here is a nice shot of CW3 Griffin and myself (notice the Y on my helmet) taking a picture with a flag that we are about to fly on one of our combat missions. I have now been signed off as an AMC (Air Mission Commander), which means that not only can I be in charge of my aircraft, but now I have been found capable of being in command of both aircraft on a combat mission. I am the guy that makes all the decisions about how a mission goes, from the planning phase to the execution phase, to making it back home with enough fuel. It is a huge responsibility, usually one reserved for senior aviators, so I am kind of being thrown into the lions' den. For those keeping track I have been in Iraq for about 4 months, and so far have logged over 70 combat missions and about 300 hours of combat flight time. I am second in the Battalion for flight time here, and only 20 hours or so behind #1. I think I can catch him before it is all said and done.

The annual Turkey Bowl. I say annual because just about every year, no matter where I go I either play in or organize a Turkey Bowl. SGT Molles and I organized this one, and my team ended up winning despite not much contribution from myself. I had a few catches and one interception is all, but I am all about the team (not individual stats), and a W is a W.

To kick things off, here I am at FOB (Forward Operating Base) Hunter. We were supporting some Special Forces operations along the Iranian border one day and some really bad weather rolled in despite the weather forecaster telling us 4 hours earlier that it was, "a beautiful day to fly." Last time he has ever said that! We were forced to land at FOB Hunter and spend the night waiting for the weather to clear up. It was actually a pretty good thing though, as we met face to face with the ground guys we have been supporting instead of just knowing them by radio calls. We spent the night getting briefed by them about what they wanted to do in their operations, and we briefed them about how we can better help them with those ops.

My team that day was CW2 Hillhouse, CW3

Griffin, CW2 Glover, and myself. It was pretty spartan out there, and it made us all grateful that we are based at a bigger base with better chow.

Here I am at FOB Echo. This place is awesome. The civilian refuelers will put steaks on the grill if you let them know ahead of time when you will be coming in for fuel. We have been known to plan in a little extra mission time in order to have some down time here at Echo to indulge in their steaks, ice cream, and even Krispy Kreme doughnuts. They get the doughnuts frozen and sent over to them just to give to the flight crews. As I have said before, we LOVE going to Echo for fuel.

Here is an infamous landmark found right on our FOB at Camp Adder. This was the headquarters building for Chemical Ali. For those of you who do not know who Chemical Ali is, let me illuminate. His real name was Ali Hassan Abd al-Majid al-Tikritieh. He was a first cousin to Saddam Hussein, and he was the one responsible for gassing the Kurds in Northern Iraq in the 1980s with nerve gas. It was one of the only large-scale uses of WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) since WWI. It was also one of the reasons we invaded Iraq in 2003. We knew Saddam had WMD (just not how much), and although several hostile countries have it, Saddam's Iraq had actually shown the proclivity to use it.............against unarmed civilians no less. Imagine dying from nerve agent. Not fun. Overall he is responsible for killing about 180,000 Kurds and close to 100,000 Shi'ite Muslims. I took this picture during one of our perimeter sweeps. You can see the holes in the roof from the bombs we dropped on it during the 2003 invasion. My dad was over here then. Iraq is sort of a family legacy. My dad was one of the first ones in, and I will be one of the last ones out.

Which brings me to the Great Ziggurat of Ur. I know I've mentioned this before, but I actually got to go tour it. It is right outside our base, and I have flown over it many times, but every month one of the Chaplains here organizes a tour for those that want to go, and I went. Since it is "outside the wire" we brought a lot of gun trucks with us and some soldiers provided security while the rest of us got the tour. We all had our personal weapons with us so if we had to shoot it out we could have. I'm sure it wouldn't have been the first battle this ancient city had seen. Although scholars are not totally sure, many believe that this town of Ur is where Abraham was born and raised until his departure to Haran later in life. The Great Ziggurat of Ur is almost 4500 years old, and was here when Abraham was, so it was pretty cool to think that he went up the same steps that I walked up to the top of the Ziggurat.

This brick, and many like it are written cuneiform, which is the oldest known writing system in the world. It was developed here in Southern Mesopotamia (Iraq), and used from 3400 BC to about 100 AD before going extinct. Our Iraqi tour guide had to rinse this brick off with water before we could see the print. He said that between tours he packs mud on the outside because this is the best specimen, and he doesn't want vandals to find it and mark over it. In Iraq there are no protected areas with park rangers. This whole place is just in the desert and anybody can walk through.

Here is another old writing system, but it is still in use today. It is the welcome sign to the site, written all in arabic. They read right to left, so if you see a book in arabic then it will look like it is backwards to you. You open the cover with the spine on the right.

This is our tour guide in front of the oldest standing man-made arch in the world. It belongs to the temple of the moon god Nana that is beside the ziggurat. Our tour guide is third generation. His grandfather helped a British archeologist dig up this site in the 1920s, and then his father helped some Americans dig this site in the 1950s. Now he gives tours and seems to know everything about all 4500 years of the history of Ur.

This is one of the royal tombs found in Ur. The Sumerian Kings of Ur ruled this area for thousands of years, and this is where many are buried.

This is Abraham's house. According to the tour guide they know this from some ancient writing that was found. It was a large place, but not very efficiently designed by modern standards. It did, however, have plumbing of sorts, which was way before its time.

This is me in Abraham's house. You can see that these walls have been rebuilt recently, but they were built on the old walls (the first foot or so), so this is the exact layout of Abraham's house. I am standing in what may have been his bedroom.....................or a storage room, nobody really knows. The only rooms they think they know are the bathroom and kitchen because they have plumbing, and the kitchen has some shelves built into one of the corners.

The Diggs

Okay, Okay, Okay. Enough already. I shaved off the abomination. Jane really liked this picture from the last post, but said the stache ruined it, so I shaved and took another one, just for her.........and Jeri........and the ten other people that told me how hideous I look. The point of the "deployment stache" is that you aren't around anybody you are trying to impress with your good looks, so might as well grow it out and have some fun (and fun I had). After I shaved it I even had one of my female soldiers tell me that she was really happy I shaved it. I know what to do now if I ever want to get people's attention.

So this is a post about where I live. I know many are curious to see where I live and work, and what Iraq looks like. Well, I can't show a lot of my base for security reasons, but I can show some of it. These pictures are where I work on my golf skills. The one on the left is right beside my office (you can see my A/C unit sticking out of the wall). It is where I work on my short game, and above is our driving range for the long game. Some guy in Pennsylvania sends us boxes upon boxes of golf balls. The field we hit them into has not been cleared by the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team so we don't dare go get the balls for fear of stepping on a land mine from the Saddam era, but we still have about 10 boxes of balls left, so we should be good for a while. So far none of the balls have set off a mine, but we keep hoping for the million dollar shot.

This is Joe Camel(spider). He is my pet. He lives right outside my office by my golf trap. He is not the largest camel spider I have seen, but he is about as long as my index finger. This is a nice shot of him eating a beetle, like the ones you see in the movie, "The Mummy." There are beetles everywhere. We also have a lot of scorpions, and killed one the other day that was five inches long. One guy has seen a desert viper, but they must be rare around here because he is the only one. Other fine wildlife we have here are sand fleas. They bite like mosquitos, but are smaller and harder to see. My room has been infested since I have been here, and I have at least ten bites at all times. Jane tried to send me a flea collar to wear (seriously), but the post office wouldn't let her send it as it is poison.

Here is yet another wildlife story. We have a lot of desert foxes/coyotes here on post. I don't know exactly what they are, but they are a little bigger than foxes and a little smaller than coyotes. Anyway, I have had to stop running at night because they have been biting some soldiers while they are running, who then have to get the rabies shots, which are really painful I hear. So I'm flying a mission the other day, and over the radio we hear a call for the MEDEVAC helicopters to come pick up a wounded soldier. Being attack pilots we listen to these calls carefully to find out if if there is anything we can do (like go kill the bad guys who wounded our soldier). Well we heard that the soldier was suffering from dog bites and gunshot wounds to the feet. We put two and two together, and it was later confirmed that he had been attacked by the wild dogs and pulled his pistol (we all carry loaded weapons over here with us at all times), and while shooting the dogs, he shot himself in the foot. OUCH! I now run at sunrise or sunset and have my pistol in hand so I can shoot the dogs BEFORE they get to my feet.

So there is my neighborhood. LA10, or "Living Area 10." We live in aluminum trailers that are surrounded by concrete "T-walls" to protect us from the rocket attacks. We pretty much live underneath the Airfield's traffic pattern so we have helicopters and airplanes flying over us 24/7. Earplugs usually do the trick when trying to get some sleep.

This one is mine (97C). Each trailer has three rooms and each room has two soldiers assigned. Sometimes it is hard to sleep when your roomie and you are on different schedules, but again, earplugs help. I have about a 2 minute walk to the shower trailer and about 3 minute walk to the restroom trailer. The bus stop is also only about 2 minutes away, and I can walk to work in about 15.

My sancuary. Actually it is my sand flea torture chamber. Anyway, this is my bed and wall locker with the broken door. Next to my wall locker is my roomie's facing his bed on the other side. My wall locker is so busted up that if it weren't for his pinning mine up against the wall it would fold sideways, but what do you expect from particle board in a war zone?

Here is the office. On my desk to the left you may notice a boxed American flag with a kid's picture glued to it. That it Luke Stacey telling me to "Stay Tough." Andrew and Lauren Stacey (friends from BYU) sent me a package with the picture of their son Luke, which inspires me everyday to work hard and stay tough. The computers above are where the bulk of our mission planning takes place. We receive our missions electronically and then dissect them and plan all the details on these computers. Below is our briefing desk where we hold our mission briefs everyday before our missions. Sometimes we get fancy and use the projector screen, but usually we just sit around the table and brief. It is also a good table for a game of cards, and it even has the markings on it to play craps, although that has only been used once to my knowledge.

To the right is the common room at our Company Tactical Operations Center (TOC). The flat screen TV is where we video conference with CIA agents about intel for our next mission, and get our real time satellite imagery of target locations..........seriously you guys watch way too much TV if you fell for that one. That is where we watch football games on Armed Forces Network (AFN), and movies sometimes.

Well, that about wraps up a lot of the stuff I can show you. There are some other places, but I don't have pictures of them yet, so I'll keep you posted.