This is going to be a quick and dirty late night diary. It'll probably disappear without a trace in the early hours. FWIW this is a bit of therapy and a chance to pass on a few things that might be useful.
My wife called me at work on Friday from her job, really upset. She'd gotten a call from Little Rock AFB to let us know that a member of our family who's currently in Iraq flying C-130 Hercules transports was NOT involved in a C-130 that had to make a forced landing, and that everyone who had been on the plane was okay. They didn't want us to be worried if we saw/heard anything on the news. Except we hadn't and still haven't seen anything. I did some googling tonight and finally tracked down the details, such as they are.
Not enemy action, so no big deal. The traditional media blackout on Iraq wasn't worth breaking for the story of a plane going down since everyone survived - and didn't end up on a mysterious island. And if there's any story beyond that, well we all know they're not looking. I did find a couple of other things of interest though. (more)
I found the remains of a blog by a Captain Jay, another C-130 driver out of Little Rock. The last entry was posted in August of 2007. There are a number of entries with some fascinating anecdotes of what life for a C-130 driver is like, on a broad range of subjects. Here's a few snippets.
JUNE 15, 2006
Mama said there'd be days like these
Have you ever had a day that just wouldn’t end? Ours went a little something like this: We were alerted at 4 in the morning. The mission was supposed to be a double shuttle. We'd take off from home station, hit the border, and follow the Tigris river to Tikrit. From Tikrit we'd stop in Kuwait, refuel, reload, down a quick MRE (Army boxed lunch), and make our way up to Tal Afar.
When I checked the weather before our alert, I wasn't too thrilled. Our "Weather For Dummies" forecast comes in three different colors. If the field's weather is printed against a green background, it means you'll see it from outer space. If it's printed against a yellow background, consider flying an instrument approach. If the weather has a red background, bring a seeing eye dog wearing infra-red goggles -- you're gonna need him.
Here's another snippet.
MAY 30, 2006
Driving Miss Daisy, Iraq-style
The DV is a strange and precarious creature. Like a cheetah in the wild, everyone wants to glimpse one, get next to one, and walk away with a story they'll embellish repeatedly. I got to be a part of the festivities yesterday and witness three live DVs being moved and handled.
For those not familiar, a DV is a "Distinguished Visitor" in Air Force parlance. DVs are given their own priority order, with the lowest going to colonels and 1-star generals, and the highest going to the President, then his cabinet, and state governors. On my last rotation, I carried Undersecretary of State Robert Joseph from Amman, Jordan, to Ashakbat, Turkmenistan.
This time around, I got to hang with the 3-M governors (Massachusetts, Missouri, and Montana). Mitt Romney, the governor of Massachusetts, Matt Blunt, the governor of Missouri, and Brian Schweitzer, the governor of Montana, rode shotgun with us on a day trip to Baghdad. Our mission was to get them on target, on time, and in relative comfort (although When your 10-year old Jeep Wrangler has a better air conditioner than the 43-year-old airplane you fly, comfort is definitely a relative term).
You know, reading this stuff in full kind of makes you wonder if there ever was any real press coverage of the War That Must Not Be Reported. So many details, such a different perspective than we get from the nightly propaganda/pacification channels. Here's a link to a January 2008 post re Afghanistan by newly minted Major Jay.
For a somewhat more official style news bulletin on what operating a four engine turboprop aircraft with a 132 wingspan in Iraq can be like, try this story.
Dust, wind formidable foes for C-130 crew
Iraq weather hampers Arkansas group’s mission to ferry 22 patients to larger hospitals
By Amy Schlesing (Contact)
KUWAIT - The medical team stacked litters for wounded three high in the back of the plane and placed oxygen and heart monitors at the ready.
They were flying to Iraq that day to pick up wounded and move them from small military hospitals in combat outposts to bigger facilities. For some of the patients, the C-130 ride would be the first hop on a long ridehome.
Even while the traditional media is busy finding more important things to talk about than a combat theater where thousands of American military personnel are going about their jobs every day, and the narrative that "things are getting better" is allowed to take hold, a basic truth is being suppressed.
Military operations - even under the best of conditions - are almost never easy or safe or pleasant. Iraq is far from the best of conditions. The stories above give a small idea of what kind of effort is needed to keep operations going over there. The reality is being kept from us.
Right now John McCain's status as a Vietnam P.O.W. and his naval service is a major part of his credentials. Obama's lack of comparable military service is being held against him. But, how much did McCain really know about the Vietnam war as it was being fought, and do his experiences then really make sense of his determination to stay the course in Iraq? Britt Blaser over at Escapable Logic, as another C-130 driver has some pretty cogent insights on that whole thing right here. Here's some excerpts.
Why ask the C-130 Drivers?
Even though every military expert agrees that there could never have been a Vietnam effort without the prodigious cargo-hauling contribution of the Lockheed C-130, I don’t think anyone has bothered to conduct a systematic survey of Vietnam C-130 crewmembers to archive what we learned as we “hauled trash” hither and yon along the long breadth and slight width of South Vietnam.
I believe that such a survey would reveal a consensus that we have got to be kidding ourselves in Iraq. Winning against an insurgency is a lot like capturing the heart of someone you can’t live without, when the magic isn’t there for them: It’s theoretically possible but statistically nonexistent.
And,
John McCain is an expert on what it’s like to be captured a few weeks into his otherwise glamorous role as a Navy fighter pilot. but he’s no expert on the Vietnam experience. Though I never experienced a fraction of the pain imposed on Senator McCain, I am, relatively speaking, an expert on the reality of the South Vietnamese experience which was, I assert, the point of the entire sordid exercise.
And that’s the point of all this. We haven’t lost in Iraq, we’ve simply taken on a project that we never could have won. That truth brings on board a more important truth: If you’ve never experienced combat, yet you still embrace the undefined “victory-in-Iraq” notion, you are a fool.
Read the whole thing. It's that good.
We've thrown our military into a difficult situation on the basis of lies and illicit fantasies. The truth is being kept from us, by the perpetrators of this insanity cowering behind cries of "Support the Troops" and "Nothing less than Victory".
"We pray for mercy because we would all be fools to pray for justice."