From the Twin Towers to Fallujah

Several people have asked me to describe what I am doing on a typical day. I wake up at 5:30, and put my sandals on to walk to the shower trailer. I'm usually all alone on my walk to the shower, most of the camp isn't up yet. Sometimes, when the air is still, and when the helicopters aren't drowning out the noise, I can sometimes hear the morning call to prayer from the local mosques. It's that weird, warbling Arabic music, but I can never tell if it's just a recording, or if someone is actually singing. It's usually so faint that it's just barely there on the edge of my consciousness. I suppose that, in its own way, it is beautiful music. I hope it's a real person singing. Anyway, I like that part of my morning, because it's still and peaceful, and I know that stillness is not going to play a part in the rest of my day…

Just yesterday, I flew my first combat mission. It was a different experience to get out of the TOC [Tactical Operations Center] for a day, and be one of the pilots fighting the battle, not just listening to it on the radio. Of course, the danger out there is real, and there are parts of Baghdad that are still considered "Indian Country." Of course, you don't win a war by playing it safe, and you have to go to where the enemy is in order to beat him. I got my first real look at Baghdad from the air. Coming out of Taji, I can see the Tigris river as it winds south towards the city. It is always hazy over Baghdad, a combination of smoke (something is always burning) and pollution and fog. We're flying over fields of something or other, and there are lots of cattle and sheep. There are settlements here and there, mostly one story buildings with flat roofs that just look like shoe boxes with windows. Many of the homes don't even have roofs, just some thatch covering a corner of a walled in square. Piles of manure are stacked behind the house, and a clothesline with brightly colored fabrics is strung from a corner of the house to the fencepost. Some people look up at us as we fly by, others just ignore us. As we get closer to the city, we pass boys playing soccer on dirt soccer fields. Then we are over the city, flying over row upon row of irregular building block houses, with stairs leading up to the roof. In the summer, the Iraqis simply sleep on the roof, as it is too hot to sleep anywhere else in the house. The city is built close together, and the poverty is obvious. The marketplaces look like landfills, just shanty towns where goods are sold. The poorer districts are just tent cities. Even downtown, along the Tigris river, the wealthy homes have been abandoned. Many of them bear the scars of war. I saw one home that was obviously beautiful in its day, right on the riverfront, but now the second story has been blown wide open by an explosion, and the inside is filled with rubble. The swimming pool is green with algae.

There are bright points to the city, though. The mosques are large and ornate, and are exactly what you expect them to look like. The architecture is beautiful, and they have been spared the bombings that the rest of the city endured. An immense mosque, known to the pilots simply as "Mega Mosque" is being built downtown. Palm groves pop up intermittently throughout the city. I would think they were more beautiful if I didn't know that the insurgents use them for cover, and as a place to launch mortars and rockets at the Americans.

Soon we are south of the city, racing south along the highway out of Baghdad, back out into the agricultural regions. Again, everything is flat and green, crisscrossed with hundreds of small irrigation canals. The immensity of the mission we have over here is apparent. In a place where the enemy wears no uniforms, how am I to pick out the good guys from the bad? We spotted one suspicious looking vehicle that appeared to be driving aimlessly on back roads. The driver acted as if he were nervous that we followed him (can you blame him?). We wondered if perhaps it was a car bomb, looking for a target. Finally, the car stopped at a house, and people got out, looking up at us fearfully. It was a family, with small children, and the woman was holding an infant. My wingman called me on the radio and said, "well, at least we escorted them home safely." I suppose he was right. I felt bad about scaring them, but what could we do? It's our job to pay attention to things that look suspicious or out of place. The good news is that we make gains day by day. Like I said before, small victories.

Moshier, a helicopter pilot from Albany, N.Y., died on April 1, 2006, when his helicopter crashed during a combat air patrol in Baghdad. He was 25.

Army Spec. Francisco G. Martinez
March 18, 2005

hey hey hey!
This addy [address] does infact work. And it works well. Finally the post is getting slightly more high tech. They have made some of the internet access wireless (with the usual restrictions) which allows me to access this thru my laptop.

Anywho...
Pues papa, todo relativamente bien.
Desde la ultima vez en que hablamos, muchas cosas han sucedido...
Some bad, Some good.  Amongst the things that happened, a few soldiers who were dear to me lost their lives on one of our routine patrols, to an IED. It took 4 of them. It was truly one of the most trying times of my life, as I had to police up my buddies bodies/parts and put them in body bags w/ my own 2 hands. All this while maintaining my military bearing and composure.
::sigh::

Needless to say I was a bit f---ed up for a few days after the event. I dealt with it in my own way and I am good now.  One of the things that helped the most was your words: There will be more than enough time for tears later.  We have also suffered the loss of 3 other soldiers. 2 of which were in my company. For one of them I had the honor to create a tribute video for his memorial service.  The video received much praise from everyone who was there to see it. I was simply happy that it served its purpose and was well put together... to the best of my abilities.

Aside from that, we've been doing ALOT of groundpounding as of late. I've worked with marines, sailors, seals, army snipers, and so on. I must say that ever since we started taking casualties we have certainly upped the ante. Everyone involved in the mission is taking a much more aggressive/proactive approach to the mission at hand.