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.