Past Lives

I'm sitting in my room waiting for a phone call from the AC as to whether we're alerting at O' dark thirty tomorrow when I here yet another C-5 takeoff. I heard one land earlier and right after that one took off. In all my years coming here there has never been that kind of traffic since Desert Storm. Meanwhile back at the bat cave I'm waiting for Commissioner Gordon to flash the signal that will send me in harms way (cheesy Batman reference).

It's really frustrating because my counterparts that are solely assigned to the desert can't get much time off. They are flying as if there are no other 130 's in the world. I'm as fresh as a new born baby when it comes to the Herk and the more missions I fly the more proficient I will become. To give you an idea of how "green" I am: In the C-5 community I couldn't upgrade and be allowed to fly without an instructor until I had accumulated 300 hours. When I was in 130 school they wanted to proficiency advance me because I was way ahead of the average student (go figure, I already had over 4000 hours of flying time) which would have left me graduating with only 20 hours. So I stuck around for an extra month and graduated with 32 instead.

32 hours and I was considered a fully mission qualified flight engineer. There are college kids with more flight time than that. The nearest equivalent aviation example I can come up with for civilians are commuter airlines. They hire copilots with only 250-300 hours under their belt. Lucky for you the competition has become so stiff that really experienced guys are vying to fly for peanuts!

My boss has continued a know defunct official policy of makng all his engineers fly with an instructor until they have a whopping 100 hours. So here I am at 180 flying hours in the Herk. Don't get me wrong, the training I received is the best in the world. Little Rock Air Force Base in Arkansas trains aircrews from around the world how to fly. I have 100 hours in the simulator where I was trained to handle emergencies and conduct combat operations. I just feel that 100 hours is very little time in the Herk to let a guy loose on the world. Oh well, what is it the idiot former Secretary of Defense once told a soldier going off to fight in Iraq: "you don't go to war with the army you wish you had, you go with the army you have." WTF Gomer Pyle!!!!!!

Speaking of going off to war the Bat phone just rang. We are flying a mission. What do we have for the boys? It's an all expenses paid trip to the sunny but devestated........Balkans!!! You heard me right. We are still supporting operations in that shatterbelt. Here's a little tip should you become leader of a powerful nation that belongs to NATO: You cannot win a war, or build a "nation", in an area where there have been tribes for as long as mankind has existed. Go ahead, i dare you!!! You'll end up spending so much of your GDP that other nations like China and India will leap ahead and you'll be left in the dust owing them billions of dollars. Did I say dollars? Oops that's our foreign policy. That's all I'll say about that.

With that I'll sign off to get a nights rest and see you on the other side.