Guys,

I've been here for six weeks and I've flown 150 hours of goggles so far. We launch 5 planes a night and have 14 pilots so we all go a lot. We fly anywhere from 5 to 8 hours a night stopping at from 4 to 6 airports. We haul tons of medical cargo supplies and blood. The medical needs of the outlying FOBs (forward operation bases) is how three our our planes schedules are determined. Then we layer on other cargo and personnel and then the space A personnel. Those planes launch out at max gross every night.

Two of our planes are assigned as direct support to the special operations community. Those do sneaky missions we can't talk about.

There are about 15 airports in Iraq that we go to that have FOBs near or on them. Most of them are north of Balad only three are south. We can end up flying from one of the country to another in one night. It takes about 2.5 hours to fly from the furthest north to the furthest south airport in the Sherpa.

The weather here has been dominated by sand storms. We're having one now that has taken the vis down to less than half a mile for the last 24 hours. This is a big one and has all but one of our 15 airports down tonight. Sometimes the sandstorms are not a big cloud, they're more like a narrow band of smoke from a fire and might just flow over one airport and shut it down while another airport 20 miles away is calling clear skies and all the rest are good to go.

When the weather here goes bad, especially at night, the hostile locals like to mortar and fire AK's into the base. We've been mortared a lot since I've been here. Three attacks with 15 or more mortars but usually it's only 2 or 3. Every structure on base is in a concrete barrier. Of all the attacks so far since I've been here they have not hurt anybody and have only taken out one truck. We have active defenses and immediate counter battery fire so they must not take time to aim too well. We have found some bullet holes in our planes and rooms from the AK fire. My next door neighbor had a round join him in bed last night.

During good weather there are always predator drones with hellfire missiles orbiting over head. Their motto is "Putting warheads on foreheads" and that is what they do. I've been able to see some footage of those guys taking out mortar crews when the weather was better than the bad guys thought it was. Not a lot of longevity for the mortar guys around here.

None of our planes have been shot at while flying. We go at night, darked out, on goggles and we leave the props back until inside the berm on landing so we're in the whisper/stealth mode. Most of the guys getting shot at these days are '58 pilots real low scouting out for trouble.

The weather just got very hot, highs around 120 to 130 and it's supposed to stay that way until SEP. I've actually seen 2 thunderstorms since I've been here but they were near the coast at Basra.

That's it for now, as I'm writing this the claxon just started going off for another mortar attack, as I said we're having a bad sand storm and the predators are grounded tonight so the bad guys are getting going.

John

From: Fraley, Johnny CW5 NG NG FORSCOM
Sent: Saturday, July 05, 2008 4:53 PM
To: AASF2
Subject: 5 JUL update

Guys,

Things have settled into a routine here. The pilots are on four days and off one. This is my off day today. My last four days are probably fairly typical so I'll describe what happened then. My first day on during this rotation my mission was cancelled due to a sand storm. I was suppose to go south and west and the weather was only good to the north. We've noticed that pattern. I don't see Iraq much while flying in the daytime, only early morning if a mission runs late, but there must be less sand and more vegetation up north. Places like Mosul, Erbil, Tal Afar, Kirkuk and Al Sulamania are to the north and usually have the best weather. Other places like Spiker (Al Sahara), Al Asad, Q West and Al Taqadum always tank first if there is a sand storm. Place to the south like Basra and Ali Base are the farthest away and have thier own sand storm weather patterns. When I walk out of my hootch, if there is a sand storm going on here, the airports that go bad first will be worse than here.

We have an ILS here at Balad and, as we almost always fly with goggles at night,, I feel like I can always make it back home, at night, regardless of the reported visibility. They've called it a half mile here in blowing dust and I could see the runway 14 miles away. Most of the other airports have no approaches. The biggest problem here is the traffic flow. On day 2 and 3 of my last work period I did the same mission. I flew ammo and aircraft parts to a unit in Basra. I did two trips from Balad to Basra each night. It was about eight hours of flight time to complete each mission and both missions finished goggles off after the sun was up. Both days when I got back to Balad there was a traffic jam and I was #5 for landing the first day and #7 for landing the second day. You have to get back home with more than reserve fuel to handle the delay. You hear guys calling min fuel all the time to bump up their sequence number. Balad is the busiest airport in Iraq with C-17's, C-130's, fighters, drones, real men flying Sherpa's and about a billion helicopters. Our call-sign is Boxcar, I've heard a lot of call-signs but there is a helicopter unit using the call sign "Heat Stroke" that is particularly funny.

The second night at Basra the airport was attacked by rockets while we were off loading missiles and simultaneously hot refueling. We were kind of stuck so we just sat there running while our FE's, fuelers and forklift guys were prone on the tarmac. When the Brit's get attacked the come on the radio and say "Airfield under attack, airfield under attack, arifield under attack". At Balad nobody says anything you just see all the people laying down. Anyway, they missed us. The bad guys down there are better shots than our bad guys they hit and destroy aircraft and kill folks. They attacked Basra my first night also but it happened about 30 minutes before I got there. We had to hold for them to check the runways before we could land.

The last night was a short night out west and south to Al Taqadum and Ali Base. It was the 4th of July so we all brought American flags and draped them in our plane along the sides. We had 6 flags flying. I'm going to send the one I flew to the Ladies Auxiliary of the American Legion Post in Lithopolis, Ohio. They send me a care package a while back, I didn't like much of the stuff in the care package but it's the thought that counts. The pizza place at Ali Base closes at 21:30 and I haven't made it there before they close yet. I was there at 21:37 last night and though there were still people in there they weren't serving anymore. No flag for them.

John

From: Fraley, Johnny CW5 NG NG FORSCOM
Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2008 4:57 AM
To: AASF2
Subject: Re: 5 JUL update

We got a partial debrief of the attacks mentioned in a previous email (OPSEC). Two British Lynx were destroyed, two U. S. Blackhawks severely damaged and rounds landed in the housing area, don't know if anybody got hurt. Those dudes down there can get too close and they can shoot.

John

From: Fraley, Johnny CW5 NG NG FORSCOM
Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2008 5:51 PM
To: AASF2
Subject: picture

Guys,

Attached is a picture of me and MAJ Wingblade, the C.O. of our company sitting on the ramp taking our goggles apart after a mission.

John

From: Fraley, Johnny CW5 NG NG FORSCOM
Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2008 3:38 PM
To: AASF2
Subject: 10 JUL update

Guys,

We did another mission to Basra last night and sure enough the place was attacked again while we were there. This time we were shut down off loading a pallet and getting fuel when it happened. The British siren is different than the American claxon but you get the idea. There were four explosions close enough that you could feel the concussion pretty well. I rolled under the aircraft with one of the FE's, the other pilot, FE and our U.S. Army PAX just laid uncovered on the tarmac. Of course we were all laying beside a 5,000 gallon fuel truck anyway. The British refuelers, being veterans of daily attacks, ran about 100 yards for a concrete structure during the attack. Next time I'm following those dudes. The attack was over pretty quick but it left a building about 200 yards away in flames. It must suck to be stationed at Basra. The guy I was flying with has been to Basra so many times that he has accumulated a nice collection of shrapnel he's picked up off the ramp down there.

He had to RON down there once and stayed in transient quarters. Transient quarters in a tent with individual bunkers built inside. They've stacked up solid cinder blocks about 3 feet high with a sheet of steel across the top and cinder blocks on the steel. They have single mattresses on the floor inside the cinder block steel deals and you crawl up in there to sleep. You can't sit up when in. They refer to these contraptions as coffins, nice.

John

From: Fraley, Johnny CW5 NG NG FORSCOM
Sent: Friday, July 25, 2008 5:39 PM
To: AASF2
Subject: Picture

Guys,

Hopefully I've forwarded a picture of me to you. I'm not too good with these picture attaching deals and as I don't have a camera I have to mooch pictures anyway. I don't know if you can make it out but that is my blood chit in a sandwich bag with my weapon. I figure if I lose one of them I may as well lose the other one. This mission was on 24 JUL 08 and we flew from Balad to Al Kut to Ali Base (pizza place closed) to Spiker to Al Asad to Al Taquadam and back. Logged 7.3 hours of goggles and hauled a bunch of people and cargo. We started off all cargo and ended up with 14 folks in the plane, everyone wants to come to Balad. One of the boxes right behind me is full of blood. You can't see it but there are two pallets of medical supplies behind the loose boxes. A typical night for us.

John

From: Fraley, Johnny CW5 NG NG FORSCOM
Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2008 8:53 AM
To: AASF2
Subject: 21 August update

Guys,

As of 18 August I've been here 4 months. On that same day I went over 400 hours since I've been here. All of our pilots have right around 400 hours so far. So after 6 months I should have about 600 hours here. It doesn't look like our pace is letting up. As a matter of fact we're looking at going from 4 on and 1 off to 5 on and 1 off to keep up with the missions.

About a month ago the level of hostilities dropped off the chart. We rarely get mortared anymore. Oddly enough the most recent attack hit the conex right beside ours just behind the row of parked Sherpas. Fortunately, it was an inert round and just punched a big hole in the conex and didn't explode. They actually had a mortar come though the roof of our hanger before we got here but when it hit the hanger floor it didn't explode either. So the two close ones for the Sherpas were duds, thank goodness.

As we fly around Iraq doing our missions there are more and more aircrews out on training flights. It's a little irritating to have to delay for a guy doing a practice approach or traffic pattern when you're on stop one of 6 to 8 for the night. It does mean that they feel safe enough to go out and train though so that's a good thing, the security situation is improving every day.

The weather just got very humid this month. It has been hot but dry up to August. It's supposed to start cooling off anytime but not today. It's 125 outside right now. The days are getting shorter and as we fly at night, when the temperature drops off, it's a little more comfortable for us after the first couple of hours of the mission.