It's no Clancy novel: My 2008 Afghanistan experience. (It's long, but I tried to give intimate details)

[Drew_Fl]

Disclaimer: This is a long read, but I'm trying to give as many details as possible to make it more interesting. I will stay away from classified material obviously.

I'm not a wounded/disabled vet, and i never saw first-hand combat action (i was in the USAF for christ's sake! ), but i had an interesting war experience none the less.

First some background: I worked on communication/radar/sensors for the MC-130H Combat Talon II at Hurlburt Field, FL. AFSOC (AF Spec Ops Command) is HQ'd there, and we had the most interesting set of missions of any flying unit in the military during my 6 years. I can't talk about most of them (some of my best moments "officially" don't exist b/c the US was not "officially" involved in ops in those countries), but we did other things such as humanitarian aid after Katrina. In the picture you may notice the long nose. This housed a special radar system that allowed it to do terrain following/avoidance to fly literally under the radar at about 200 ft for infil/exfil ops. When we practiced these in the US, we did it at night obviously and you could almost read every character on a license plate (with night vis equip obviously).

As for Afghanistan, my unit was continually deployed there since 9/11. AFSOC aircraft were the first in Afghanistan (and later, Iraq), and we have just rotated planes and personnel for a decade now while other USAF units may deploy once in a few years (lucky ****s). Fortunately, due to other engagements, I only had to deploy once.

Without giving exact dates, I was there during the last qtr of 2008. I was just trying to make it to the end of my enlistment in mid-2009. I worked 12-18 hr days, everyday, from the day i got there to the day i left. It was a grind. Other units from the Army and AF that were there got one day off a week, but not us. We flew everyday b/c we had a very important mission.

Our mission was 2 parts: To support the numerous FOB's (Forward Operating Bases) around, and "other things". A FOB is a small base that's made out of abandoned villages or just a small group of tents so that unit can be closer to the villages. Here is an example:

There were many routine missions where we just took food and supplies to them, and transfer prisoners and injured soldiers back and forth. My favorite one of these was on Thanksgiving. On my base, we had cold showers, fake turkey, non-alcoholic beer, but at least we lived on a place "almost" fit for humans . On Thanksgiving, we loaded the planes up with my favorite payload ever: Cooked turkey, their mail from home, huge crates of ammo, and several bad-ass rocket launchers. I'm sure we made some Army rangers/Marines feel more like it was Christmas instead that day.

Here's a video of some Talon capabilities. One interesting note at about 1:15 in the vid a short clip of an F-16 trying to lock on to the Talon in a training excersise. Keyword "trying". That should give you an idea of how advanced the sensors are on that plane. Also, later in the video is the test drop of the MOAB they did off the coast of Florida.

One cool part of the routine stuff, was we had live video access not just to the Talons, but also the AC-130 gunships, AND all of the predator surveillance drones everywhere. Some days we would watch the predator video feed of targets they were tracking for missions we would later launch. It was a very awesome thing. It was like the 4th of July when the AC-130's would shoot at Taliban weapons caches just to blow them up :pfft:

Now for some "other things". Some days on the airfield, you could just feel there was a buzz around; like there was some major **** about to go down. This was partially b/c my unit lived on the same compound with the SEALs, Marine Recon, and Army Rangers. (I have a little story on the SEALs i'll save till the end), so we knew if they were gearing up for something, then our night was going to be more interesting. Side note: remember how they said the SEALs practiced the OBL raid on a certain compound? That was the one we all lived on. It's a very secluded and secret part of the base with high walls and security checks in and out. Things happen there.

I remember on one particular night in Sept 2008, the ops tempo was crazy and we launched just about every aircraft on the base, or about 5x more than normal. It was literally a scene out of Hollywood. We knew something was up, and they would tell us that this was the first night we went into Pakistan b/c we had some good intel on a "High-Value Target" or HVT (I'll let you guess who that was). They also told us to keep our traps shut b/c this wasn't going to be on the news until days after it happened b/c we weren't exactly authorized at that point to do those kinds of things. Obviously, that mission did not pan out, but it would set the stage for our boys to finally get the job done in 2011.

Now for the part on the SEALs. Everything you hear about them is true. They are as crazy as they are badass and they are the most effective killing machine I've ever seen. Instead of wearing rank they have "skull n crossbones" insignias or something of that nature. In an intel briefing, we saw the gruesome and uncensored aftermath of a SEAL raid. All i will tell you is that they DO NOT miss their targets. Remember how they told you how OBL was shot, let's just say that is no accident. They try to take people alive b/c most of these are low-level guys and we want intel. In fact, the op phrase for a found cell phone was "Jackpot", b/c it really was full of info.

My war experience wasn't all glitz and glamour though , and my most sobering experience happened when a SEAL raid went wrong. The only details I know are the breach was unsuccessful, and it left 2 of them dead. When you live and work with people daily, it hit's a little closer to home when something like this happens.

I told you of my favorite missions we launched, and now the worst one I won't forget. We launched a Talon to go retrieve the bodies. When the plane returned, it was so silent out there and the mood was comparable with a funeral. After the engines shut down and the props stopped spinning, the cargo ramp opened slowly. The 2 flag covered caskets were solemnly brought out to a waiting Humvee while all of us on the ground lined on both sides to render a salute as they started their final journey home.

To end, I just want to say thanks for reading (i wanted to put some of these memories down lest I forget), but also a big thank you to any of you who served and also the guys still on the front-lines. This experience taught me that if nothing else, no matter what your political opinions are on wars, we have some very bad ass people that are ready to do ANYTHING to keep you safe and I find that very comforting now that I'm out in the civilian world.

[PokerPacker]

I don't really have anything to contribute, but I want to acknowledge that your post did not go unread. thank you for your service.

[visionary]

Looks very interesting.

Thanks for sharing this.

Just skimmed it so far, but I'll take a longer look over this stuff when I get some time.

[The Brave Little Toaster Oven]

thank you for your service....interesting read

[zoony]

Very nice read! Thank you and hope to read more someday

[Dan T.]

Great post, Drew_Fi. Thanks. That MC-130 looks pretty agile for being such a large beast.

[Mad Mike]

Thanks for sharing. That was an interesting read. And thank you for serving.

[Bang]

Thanks Drew

~Bang

[redskns21]

Thank you for your service and for sharing!

[IHOPSkins]

.....My war experience.......

Required Reading

Thank You

[Drew_Fl]

Thanks for the comments everyone. I'm just happy to have had the experiences. I had a pretty easy deployment looking back on it. Yea I worked my ass off, but I was only there for 4 months when the Army/Marines deploy for 12 months at a time and have much more dangerous jobs. If you are one of those people or have someone in your family doing that I really salute them b/c I know how bad 4 months is, and can only imagine a years deployment. I know the services always make fun of each other, but I have much respect.

Great post, Drew_Fi. Thanks. That MC-130 looks pretty agile for being such a large beast.

This reminds me of the time one of our aircrews flew just a regular state-side practice mission in the Appalachians. When they landed, we discovered the Infrared Detection ball on the bottom of the nose had a crack in it and pine needles were stuck inside the cracks. This plane can go really low, but we were just like WTF were they doing up there? As a professional courtesy we didn't make a fuss out of it and cleaned the pine needles and replaced it and said it must of got hit by a rock. These pilots were probably ones dead set on flying fighters but got stuck on 130's.

[Dan T.]

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This reminds me of the time one of our aircrews flew just a regular state-side practice mission in the Appalachians. When they landed, we discovered the Infrared Detection ball on the bottom of the nose had a crack in it and pine needles were stuck inside the cracks. This plane can go really low, but we were just like WTF were they doing up there? As a professional courtesy we didn't make a fuss out of it and cleaned the pine needles and replaced it and said it must of got hit by a rock. These pilots were probably ones dead set on flying fighters but got stuck on 130's.

Holy crap.

[Springfield]

Awesome stories man, I really appreciate you telling them and I thank you for your service.

[twa]

Interesting perspective..Thanks for your service

[PCS]

Outstanding read. Thanks for sharing that and for your service. I hope we can get more of these from you and others who have served in the danger zones past and present.

[Gibbs Hog Heaven]

Thanks for sharing Drew. Always good to get a first hand perspective rather than watered down news reports in many instances.

And as has been said in most every post, and can't be said enough, thank you for serving. It can't be expressed enough the debt of gratitude we owe each and every one of you guys and gals'; and just how appreciative we are for the work you do.

Hail.