Back in the states before we deployed I thought about what it was going to be like to be in an actual war zone. All I had for reference was the evening news and hundreds of war movies. I knew that neither was a credible gauge to go by. I had really no idea what I was in for. Like most, I wondered if I really had what it takes within me to do what had to be done. How could I know, I didn’t even know what had to be done yet. I could only hope I wouldn’t let anyone down when the time came.

After settling in and beginning my job as a Blackhawk crew chief I soon realized this was not the war I had expected. For a couple of months my comrades and I shuttled our fellow soldiers to and from the many FOB’s (Forward Operating Bases) throughout the country. I watched for bad guys, missiles and RPG’s (Rocket Propelled Grenades). I saw none of these. Then came my first Air Assault. This is what I expected, this is what we do. It was very exciting to be on my first air assault. I had heard that one was coming up, but had no idea I would be on it. The night before the assault we loaded our equipment in the helicopters; everything was ready to go. We were released early so we could reverse out, in other words stay up late so we would sleep all day the next day to stay up all that night.

I decided now was a good time to write those letters to my loved ones just in case. Having never written one before it was quite an experience. How do you put everything you want to say in one short letter? Once I finished that I got everything else ready. I watched a movie and I talked with my roommate who was also going to be on the flight with me the next night. My buddy Rat had already done an air assault with another unit right after we had first arrived here. That one had gone well and hopefully ours would too. I guess there was no reason to be nervous, but I had spoken to someone involved in the planning and this was going to be a big one. Finally in the wee hours of the morning I went to sleep.

I woke up the next day and got ready just as always. We went to chow and hung out and waited. Now it was time for the Air Mission brief. We would be told exactly what we would be doing, where we were going, and whom we were going after. We all filed into the briefing room. There were a lot of us and that was just our portion of the assault, there would also be CH-47 Chinook helicopters large cargo helicopters capable of carrying large numbers of troops. They would go in first and put the first large wave of troops on the ground and we would follow them in and put our guys at different locations around the village where the bad guys were.

The village was in a remote area in a bad part of the country, one we generally avoided. There was one road that led into the village so it was hard to get in with any amount of surprise. In this village were seventy foreign fighters basically our briefer told us these men came here to die. Among them were several "High Value Targets". Well just in case I wasn’t paying attention before, I was now. They expected us to take fire the minute we hit the ground as the Chinooks that went in minutes before would have surely awakened them.

After a few months of being a "taxi" service we were going to do what we had really trained for in the past. Fly into the middle of a firefight, drop troops off, and lift off to go get more troops. It was going to be interesting. In addition to us there was going to be Apaches flying above to give us cover higher up; there were F-15 Strike eagles and an AC –130 "Specter" gunship. Also circling above was an unmanned aerial reconnaissance vehicle or UAV to watch all the "festivities". I guess this was going to be a big one.

After the brief we went back to our company area to get the last of our stuff and get to the flight line. Before we went out, our commander got us all together and told us again this was the biggest assault we had been involved in and his main concern was that we all get back safely. He asked us to watch out for each other and stay focused to get our guys in and out safely as well. So we rode out to the helicopters, put on our gear, and cranked up. We were to take off in several groups, or serials. We were going to fly to another FOB to pick up our infantry guys and launch from there to the LZ, or Landing Zone. As we got to where we would pick up our troops, we could see the first serial landing. We saw lots of dust and heard a lot of go around calls. If you can’t make it to the LZ you do a "Go around" and try again. "Go around’s" as they say, are free.

Bird after bird was going around, as the LZ was very dusty. Dust landings are tricky enough in the daytime. In the dark with night vision goggles, they are a whole different ball game. There was no moon that night and it was very dark. Now it was our turn. As we came in I watched the ground scanning with my goggles. There is no peripheral vision, you are looking through two tubes focused into one, and everything is green. My buddy Rat was going to be making the calls as he was on the right side I would listen and only speak up if I saw something that might be a hazard for us. Everything was going fine and then we lost sight of the ground; our PC, Pilot in Command took the controls and announced a go around. Man this was going to be tricky. We climbed above the dust, went around, picked our spot and went for it again. Having cleared some of the dust on the last attempt, it wasn’t quite as bad. We made a steeper approach and headed for the ground a little quicker. Just before we touched down I lost sight of the ground, a second later we were there. We shutdown, to evaluate the mission and make sure everything was still in place.

There would be another brief here at this FOB. Our leadership would review last minute Intel and decide if we would continue the mission. It was one of those situations where you could feel something in the air. We milled around and wondered where the Chinooks were, they were supposed to be here before us. Maybe something was up. Then we heard them. I put on my helmet to use my goggles, and there they were, one after another, they came in. One did a go around after kicking up a lot of dust. Finally, all of them were down and slowly spinning down.

We got the word. We were a go. We loaded our guys onto the bird and cranked up again. "This is it", I thought as I climbed in. For the first time since I’d been in country I felt like I was in a war zone. We lifted off and I kept going over in my head what my job was- watch the LZ, keep my weapon away from our guys, and cover them as they got out of the helicopter. As we got closer to the LZ we heard the other elements of our group talking over the radio. We heard the guys watching from the UAV announce the Chinooks were down. We heard the Apaches talking. The radios were alive with chatter. The Chinooks lifted off and were gone. We were next. Then we heard someone call out that the Chinooks were flying right through our formation and not talking to anybody. Man this was going to be interesting.

We got to the LZ and so far we hadn’t heard anything on the radio about anyone taking any fire. At first that sounds good, but it could also mean all of our info was wrong or they had gotten tipped off and were already gone. We heard the commander of the ground troops from the Command and Control aircraft talking to his guys.

We were on final approach to the LZ. Rat was calling the pilots in. We were good on my side. There was a tree line and I scanned it to make sure no one was hiding in it- So far, so good. Just before we touched down, we got dusted out bad. Our pilot called our go around and we pulled up again and swung around to the right. There were formation lights of other aircraft everywhere. We came in for our second approach and our pilot picked his spot and went for it again. Rat and I scanned the area out to the side and below our aircraft. I saw a large bush on my side, but we were well clear of it. We came in a little faster. I watched the tree line and we were on the ground. The helicopter shook and I was thrown forward a little, but nothing serious. I’d had rougher landings than that during the daytime. I checked our landing gear quickly and saw that it was planted firmly. I then looked back at the tree line and waited for the guys to get out on my side. One by one they filed out and took up their position on the ground and waited for us to lift off.

That was going to take a while however. Rat announced from his side that the first troop stepped out and fell about three feet to the ground. I was scanning my side and saw one of our other aircraft slightly forward of us but all I could see was the main rotor and hydraulic area. It became apparent that our LZ was a bunch of dirt mounds and the other aircraft had landed between two of the mounds. We had landed with one gear on a mound and the other wheel floating just over the depression between them. Our pilot Chris had made an incredible landing and kept us from rolling over into the ditch.

The guys on Rat’s side finally made it out and Rat called us clear. We lifted off, climbed out of the LZ, and headed back to pick up our second load of troops. We could hear the battlefield commander on the radio and while they were detaining some people it appeared that they were not meeting a lot of resistance.

We picked up our guys and headed back to the LZ. On the way back we talked about the landing and exactly what happened. That was when Chris said, "You know I’m not so certain we didn’t crash." He asked us to check our landing gear and the aircraft when we went for fuel. While it was obvious that we didn’t actually crash his statement was a tension breaker and we began to relax a little bit.

We dropped our second group of guys and went to refuel and shut down until we got the call to extract the troops. The helicopter was fine and we continued our mission. The rest of the mission was fairly routine. We extracted our guys and while it appears that the bad guys were tipped off and left the night before, our guys did catch a few people and weapons. We all made it back and my first Air Assault would go down as the only scary time I would have while I was here- not at all like I had expected from the war movies I had seen.

There are many more troops who have had a rougher time than I and I hope that they all make it back to their families safe. We went to breakfast after we got back and I thanked Chris my pilot for basically saving my life with his great landing. Modest guy that he is, he told me. "I was saving my butt Cliff you were just along for the ride."