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Mission to Mosoul, Iraq: Part 1. I was told to get my team ready, but after our first mission, I knew to ask more questions. Where exactly where we going and what should be bring. I knew we were not going to bring all of our equipment—we’d have to hire a donkey to carry all the crap we had. This trip was going to be by helicopter. Oh joy, I hadn’t been in a helicopter in almost a year. It was a safer way to travel unless gravity beat you down.
We packed up our personal stuff, then I split the team gear up to shove into duffel bags and ruck sacks. We still had to take one Pelican case of stuff. The commander still couldn’t give me much into….he only knew that since a mess tent was blown up in Mosoul on Dec 22, it was crazy up there.
We had “reservations” on a Black Hawk flight out of Baghdad. This was good, as we would not be on “Space A” but our orders would give us a bird of our own. (The Army flew Black Hawks like a bus service all day long from one camp to another. Normally you just got on if there was room, but our orders gave us our own bird.)
We loaded our junk and ourselves on and took off. This was my first time seeing Baghdad from the air. What a mess. Even without the war, it looked like hell. I found some of my team had never flown on a helicopter before and they had just given us a brand new “terp” since the last one got fired a few days before. I just hope nobody gets airsick……
To be cont.