Things get stranger as you move east

By: Vincent J. Curtis

Date: 2 Dec 10

Dateline:  Forward Operating Base Sharana, Afghanistan

Airport terminals are a good place for people watching.  All manner of people come and go through airports, and things happen there you would never see anywhere else.  While waiting for a flight, people-watching is an interesting pastime.

As you fly east from Buffalo and get closer to the Middle East, the people and the happenings get stranger and stranger.  Frankfort airport in Germany was the first stop on my trip to Afghanistan.  Frankfort is one of the busiest airports in Europe, and when we arrived a light snow was falling.

The snow lay a half inch on the ground, wet and slushy.  Buffalo would be embarrassed to be inconvenienced by it in winter.  But in Frankfort, air operations were reduced to chaos, and many flights were cancelled.  The German reputation for efficiency absorbed a serious blow.

In the lounge next to my departure gate, a well-dressed man of Middle Eastern descent was sitting alone, minding his own business.  Two German gendarmes appeared, a man and a woman.  The man carried an MP5 submachine gun slung casually across his chest in the ready position.  The gendarmes sauntered into the departure lounge and walked directly to the Middle-Eastern man.  They evidently asked him for his passport and travel documents, which he gave them.  They walked over to a counter where a telephone was and called someone.  After some back and forth over the phone, they hung up and the gendarmes huddled in discussion.  After a few more minutes, they sauntered back to the man, returned his papers, and as casually as they entered sauntered out of the lounge looking at no one else.  That was the only time I saw gendarmes in the airport.

Because of the back up of flights, my flight to Dubai from Frankfort had to be dispatched from a different gate.  Everyone was shuffled to the new gate, but when we got there the airport officials could not get in.  They swiped their access cards to no effect.  Eventually a janitor appeared and used to key to by-pass the security system and open the doors to the gate.  So much for security.   Another blow to the German reputation.

Not enough weeds

Flights to Dubai attract a some characters.  The characters I have in mind have a certain look which they think helps them blend in to the crowd.  They try to look non-descript.  The clothes they wear are subdued in color, and look just a little sloven.  But they look well groomed, are lean, and wear their clothes tight-fitting.  They have an expression on their faces that has a seriousness to it, grim and determined.  They are all about their work.  They travel alone, never with a woman or children.  They are in their 30’s 40’s or 50’s.  With only one or two of these in a crowd, they would not be noticed.

However, when a departure lounge has thirty or forty of these characters together a pattern begins to emerge.  That pattern becomes more noticeable when the characters start to stand together and chat.  With so many together, these characters start running out of weeds to hide in.  There just aren’t enough old couples, young families, and skiers going to Dubai to hide among.

The Arabian Princess

We boarded the flight to Dubai at 2:30 in the afternoon, and had to wait eight hours in the plane on the tarmac for the wings to be deiced prior to take-off. (German reputation…!)  But the wait was not altogether boring.  A few seats ahead of me sat a raven haired woman, in her late twenties, not especially good looking but nicely figured and with long legs.  She wore a wide leather belt around her waist that had the effect of a bustier.  Va-voom!

Her luggage was in the overhead bin immediately in front of me.  When this woman wanted to get something from her luggage she would reach and stretch wayyyy up high, higher in fact than her shirt would allow.  The shirt would rise up with her arms to reveal a large colorful tattoo of a butterfly located quite low on her back.  Over the eight hour wait on the tarmac, she did this often enough that I began to wonder whether she was doing this for her own amusement or for mine.  She would also occasionally stretch her legs, also to good effect.

When we arrived in Dubai, I saw her again in the terminal.  I was shocked.  Her body was well covered with a wrap-around shawl and her hair was covered in a large dark veil.  That she was of Arab descent suddenly stood out.  She revealed herself to be the daughter of a wealthy man, and she dressed for the occasion whether it be Europe or the Middle East!

Dubai Terminal

Dubai is a kind of crossroads in the Middle East.  Westerners, Far Easterners, and Middle Easterners all mix together.  Men in classical white Arabian dress walk and talk with men in the best business suits; and jeans interact with business casual.  The airport is clean, well designed, and thoroughly modern.

A few minutes observation reveals the absence of things you would expect to see.  Not a single woman with a face-covering veil was there.  Women were well covered with flowing dresses, and voluminous veils covered their hair, but no burqua-clad women or naqibs with eye-slitted face veils were to be seen.  Not during the time I was there, anyway.

Women took up most of the receptionist jobs.  These women wore long-sleeved blue pant suits with hair veils.  Their photo ID badges showed the woman with her full face and hair.  If a veil was in the picture, it was pushed well back on the head to show her hair plainly.  In America, some are fighting to permit photo ID of women wearing face veils, with nothing but eyes showing.  Full face and hair is how they it in Arabia.

The Primitive

Nothing contrasted more with the modernity of Dubai airport than an Afghani fellow.  He looked like a Taliban: white brimless woven hat, brown sleeveless sweater, flowing white shirt and pants, brown sandals and brown socks.  He did not so much sit in a seat as he squatted on it.  He was an Afghan primitive.  He looked lost and bewildered.

Then, his sleeve pulled back to reveal a thick gold watch.  A cell phone appeared and he called someone.  When he got up from his seat, he took a bag of duty-free with him.  Even a strict-living primitive can enjoy the fruits of modern technology!

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Next: Into Afghanistan

Onto FOB Sharana

By: Vincent J. Curtis

Date: 2 Dec 10

Dateline: Forward Operating Base Sharana

Reaching the military base at Kabul Airport, most of the way around the world from Buffalo, took two days of hard traveling.   Getting to FOB Sharana from Kabul took a whole other day.

You could call that day one of productive confusion.  Productive, because I got to see things that excessive haste would have denied me, and I had the time to talk casually and at length with people who have a lot of experience in theatre.  Confusion, because who was responsible for what in making travel arrangements was not clear to me, and I missed the flight I was scheduled to be on.

To get to FOB Sharana, where Task Force Currahee is based, one has to go through Bagram Air Base.  A fifteen minute flight from Kabul Airport.  One flies to Bagram from KAIA (Kabul Afghanistan International Airport) because the road between them is so poor.  And frequently mined with IEDs (improvised explosive devices).  Without delays due to mines, the road move from KIA to Bagram is said to take over an hour.  To fly that fifteen minutes from KIA to Bagram takes up to three hours of waiting.

The KIA base is used both as a dispatch point for patrols and to house transients like myself, who come in and out of Kabul and need accommodations.  The waiting area of the terminal is outside the departure check-in area because the terminal building is so small.  Several patrols, including patrols with Special Operations guys, were organizing in the parking lot in front of the terminal building.  The Special Operations guys were dressed in non-descript, subdued colored clothing, and tended to wear an Arabic style neck scarf.  The leaders appeared to be in their fifties.  They were all armed with short barreled, collapsing stock assault rifles.  The tough look these guys had on their faces put the characters I saw in Dubai and Frankfort airports into the “wannabe” category.

Missing the first scheduled flight between KIA and Bagram meant that it would not be until 1:00 in the afternoon that I would reach Bagram.  The flight, which happened in broad daylight, provided another glimpse of the city of Kabul and the countryside around it, and added to the brief glimpse of the city I had from the taxi ride from the civilian side to the military side of KIA.

The city of Kabul is extremely poor, and the worst slum in America is palatial by comparison.  This is hard-core, third world poverty on display.  There are some nice looking buildings well away from the airport, but Kabul on the whole is terrible.  It lacks a sewer system and a water system.  Poor people burn old tires for warmth, and the far end of the airport is invisible from the terminal due to the haze and dust.

The check-in at KIA shows how ridiculous strict adherence to procedure can be.  Soldiers with weapons had to put their weapons, body armor, and any other metal objects, such as knives and coins, on a belt which carried them through a standard airport metal detector.  They then walk through a metal detector themselves just like in any standard airport.  If metal is found on them, they are made to go back and put it through the conveyor belt detector and walk through the detector for people again.  Upon having passed through the screening successfully, they pick up their weapons, body armor, knives, etc. at the far end of the belt and proceed to the departure lounge to await boarding.  The point of confirming by X-ray that an M4 assault rifle really is a rifle-shaped metal object, and then handing it back to its owner for him to board the plane with, is hard to fathom.   I saw the same thing in Iraq.

The flight to Bagram carried us over the countryside north east of Kabul.  Since the altitude of the flight was low the details of the country side were plain.  Although seemingly barren from high altitude, the countryside is actually dotted with small villages and walled compounds, which ascend near to the top of the hills.  The hills are craggy and really amount to small mountains.  Walled enclosures are common and appear to protect cultivated areas.  At this time of the year nothing grows, and the interiors of the compounds are as khaki- brown as everything else.  The walls are quite high and thick; banditry is not new to Afghanistan.

The soil here is a mixture of khaki-colored pulverized dust and two-inch sized stones.  The ground is as hard packed as cement, but there is enough free pulverized dust that it gets everywhere and coats everything.  Bottled water is available everywhere on base, and you need lots of water to wash down all that dust.  One seems always parched with thirst from the dust.

The layover in Bagram meant that the flight to Forward Operating Base Sharana would land in darkness.  The flight was aboard an older C-130 Hercules transport aircraft.  On the flight, the passengers, who were mostly 101^st Airborne troops, were packed into the jumpseats of the Herc like sardines.  We were given earplugs because the noise inside the aircraft would otherwise be unbearable.  Taking off in total darkness, the soldiers and I were pitched from one side to the other as the aircraft took off down the runway, climbed to altitude, and leveled off.  It was completely dark inside.  With no light and no hearing, it was like sensory deprivation.  Only the fumes of the fuel, the growing heat inside the plane, and the sense of compression from all the bodies gave any sensation at all.

Fortunately, the flight was only an hour in length, and almost all the passengers were members of the 101^st Airborne Division, who are experienced in this kind of flying.  I was thankful for having missed lunch.

Finally, we landed in complete blackness at Forward Operating Base Sharana, which is the location of the forward operating headquarters of Task Force Currahee.  Now the real work of the embed can commence.

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Into Afghanistan

By Vincent J. Curtis

Date: 2 Dec 10

Dateline: Forward Operating Base Sharana, Afghanistan

The eight hour delay in Frankfort meant that the connecting flight to Kabul aboard Safi Airways was missed.  A media colleague, a producer for ABC News, and I both believed that rebooking a missed connecting flight should be easy.  Not to be.  The Middle East is quite adept a bureaucratic inefficiency.  That inefficiency was applied relentlessly to these two westerners.

After some humming and hawing at the check-in desk, it was determined that we had to purchase new tickets to board the next flight, but the ticket would only cost $132 US dollars.  My colleague took the news with a sense of depressed resignation, and pull out his credit card.  Oh, the ticket desk was over there, not here.

Between the check-in counter and the ticket desk, the cost of a ticket somehow rose to $180.  Taxes, currency conversion, and other fees you know.  And if you don’t like it, too bad.  His sense of gloom deepening, my colleague pulled out his Walt Disney Visa card and paid for a ticket.  Me likewise.

Back to the check-in counter, and the girl there studied my colleague’s ticket carefully.  Although the ticket counter was in full view of her location, she looked concerned at something or other at the freshly purchased ticket, and spoke to one of the other girls.  Finally, she concluded that the ticket was legit, and issued him a boarding pass.  She took mine and issued me a boarding pass, stapling one copy of the ticket to the pass and keeping the other.  We then headed to the departure lounge.  With all the coming and going we passed through the security check point at least three times, and became quite efficient at stripping and dressing.

If Frankfort had a lot of non-descript looking characters, the departure lounge for the flight to Kabul was full of them.  For the most part these were men in their 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, and even early 60’s.  There were absolutely no old people or young families.  Some woman were headed to Kabul, and a few men in their twenties.

The flight to Kabul took a little over two hours, and from the air one could get a good view of the Afghan countryside.  Afghanistan from the air resembles Colorado and Arizona: brown, barren, and mountainous.  The mountains here are higher and there is more water in the valleys.  It would be hard to hide from the air a large moving body of men or maintain a supply route.  The Taliban somehow do it, but the bleakness of the terrain limits the volume they can send through.  Mostly, they move down the valleys from Pakistan into Afghanistan where there are numerous small habitations.  Men and supplies are hidden in the routine comings and goings of the villagers.

Kabul Terminal is not for the average tourist.  It is spartan and forbidding.  However, the immigration officials act with reasonable proficiency, and move us along.  Our group is comprised of the kind of folks that provide them with jobs and security.

Because it has so little business, the exit area of Kabul terminal has only a few shops.  Fortunately, one of them sells cell phones.  I needed one because no one was there to greet me and take me to the embed assignment.  I had a contact number and bought a cell phone to call for instructions.  The store clerk was helpful and put the phone together for me.  The $40 for the phone and air time was well worth it.  However, the charger for the phone is designed for a 220 V connector of a type not used by NATO or ISAF forces.

My instructions were to get a taxi and ask to be taken to the main military gate.  Look outside, no taxis.  A couple of New Zealanders were inside, and I asked them for help.  “You’re headed the wrong way mate!”, one said.  They were leaving, but gave me help needed to get a cab.

The cab ride gave me my first glimpse of Kabul from the ground.  The traffic was utterly chaotic, and after the cabbie with great dash and daring made he way around the traffic circle onto the clear road to the military gate, he sped up, turned a little an said something to the effect of “How you like that?”

At the main gate, having passing through another security check point, having my retina scanned, and agreeing on behalf of myself, my heirs, and my newspaper that my life was my own and that I held harmless the military, and would pay for any expenses my death or wounding would cause, I was received into the safe embrace of the US military.

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FOB Sharana

By Vincent J. Curtis

Date: 2 Dec 10

Dateline: Forward Operating Base Sharana

Forward Operating Base Sharana lies outside the city of Sharan at an altitude of 7,200 feet.  Sharan is capital city of the Paktika province of Afghanistan; and the Pakistani provinces of North and South Waziristan lie across the border of the province.  Paktika province has several high mountain ranges running through it, and ground traffic has to run along river valleys.  At this time of the year, the valleys are dry, but in spring and summer the valleys are watered by the melting of snow that fell in winter.

FOB Sharana is large and growing.  There is talk of it becoming a major logistics hub when and if Afghanistan becomes the object of a UN/NATO mission and formal combat operations by outside forces cease.   A contractor told me that the base is actually on land leased from some landowner.  Right now, the FOB is just another dusty place that gets very dark and night.  Life here is rough.

There are not only US troops on this base, but forces from other NATO countries also.  In addition, there are native Afghans who live and work on the base.

Water here is tight.  There is plenty of bottled water, but water for ablutions is tightly controlled, and is not potable.  Chemical toilets and portapotties are used here.

The creepiness of being in a war zone gets to you in the strangest places.  When I went for a shower last night, I found there were two Afghans as the only other people in the tent.  I returned to my bunk and took off everything I could not afford to lose, except for my photo ID card, which I carry in a holder around my neck.  Returning, I took the holder with my precious ID card with me into the shower.

One Afghan eyed me as I dried off and dressed.  He was fully dressed, and primped his hair in the mirror.  His buddy dressed himself in the shower stall, never allowing his naked body to be seen by anyone else.  By now dressed and about to leave, I grunted a “good night” to the primper, which he returned in English.  Perhaps he was shocked at how brazen, immodest, and casual a westerner could be.

At about 3:10 a.m. this morning bursts of machine gun fire erupted from the camp.  At least four bursts were to be heard, and the direction of the fire sounded outgoing.  In about ten minutes, the sound of helicopters could be heard from the same area.  No more machine gun fire was heard, and the helicopters sounded like they were searching the area.  After about half an hour the whole affair seemed to be over and nothing more was heard after 3:45 a.m.  It could have been a jumpy sentry, or maybe a patrol test firing their weapons before leaving the FOB, or it could have been a probe.  We’ll never know.

Morning light reveals just how big Sharana really is.  Low rolling hills hide the base from a full view, but driving around it takes time.  The roads on the base are extremely rough, and there isn’t much that can be done about it.  The dirt wears away under the load of heavy vehicles, and exposes the hard rocks embedded in the soil.  That fine, pulverized dust is everywhere, and a breeze, driving, and even walking through it, kicks up a choking cloud.  There is a good reason for face veils around here.  US troops are living in tough conditions here, but they seem to do so cheerfully.

The military equipment at Sharana is numerous and powerful.  The disparity between US military power and that of the Taliban can scarcely be imagined.  Just last month, a small US recon patrol in Paktika province was attacked in early morning darkness by an estimated company of Taliban.  With the aid of artillery and air power, nearly the entire attacking force was wiped out.  The recon patrol suffered one slightly wounded, and they expended most of their ammunition.  If the US chose to stay, there is nothing the Taliban could do about it in a million years.  Bases are occasionally rocketed, mortared, and probed, but the purpose of these actions is to rattle US public opinion.  They have no impact at all on US military power.

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An Interview with Sgt Mitchell Poulou, JTAC

Vincent J. Curtis

Date:  Dec 7, 2010

Dateline:  FOB Sharana

[Note:  This interview was done quickly, and there was no opportunity for follow-up to check on terminology and clarify inaudible portions.  What is presented below is a best effort at transcribing, at times phonetically, the acronyms and terminology used by Sgt Poulou in the course of the interview.]

Sgt Mitchell Poulou, 30, is a native of American Samoa, and is usually stationed at  Fort Bragg – Pope Air Base in North Carolina.  He has served twelve years in the military.  He is recently married, with December 23^rd being his second anniversary.  At the time of the interview, his wife was on her way home to North Carolina from Iraq.

Q.  What is your current tasking?

A.  I’m currently a JTAC, within the tactee career field.  JTAC stands for Joint Terminal Attack Controller.

Q.  How much training did it take for you to get into that job?

A.  I actually crossed trained, meaning  changing jobs, within the Air Force.  This took place about two years ago. For an average tactee airman straight out of basic training it takes anywhere from four to five years to get his JTAC certification.  For a cross-trainee, we’re pretty much on a fast-track.  It took me about a year to get my certification.

Q.  Lets talk about Air Ops.  I guess there are two types, one is administrative and the other is tactical.

A.  Correct.  All the JTACs here are trained on both levels, as far as manning the TAC floor, or actually becoming operators, whichever mission is going out there.  JTAC is always on standby for support.

Q.  Are JTACs the ones who fly the drones?

A.  Negative.  The drones are actually controlled out of – if we’re talking about Predators or Reapers – they’re actually flown out of Las Vegas at an Air Base called “Creech.”

Q.  Okay, so what is that you are coordinating?  Is it tactical then?

A.  Correct.  Whenever we’re out there – boots on the ground – with our army counterparts, there has to be some type of qualifying member that can distinguish between cowboys and indians on the ground whenever the aircraft – we call it ‘kinetic effects’ when the bombs actually leave the aircraft there actually has to be a person there directing those bombs via the pilot or the controller of the UAV birds to put those bombs on target.

Q.  So, this isn’t like a Forward Air Controller, this is somebody back here?

A.  Forward Air Controller, and then there’s a step above, which is a JTAC.  Within the army, they call them JFOs, Joint Fire Observers.  In order for them to take the next step up there’s a course at Las Vegas.  Every TAC team member if he progresses in his career field has to go to to get that certification.

Q.  Are this folks on the ground or are they back here?

A.  Both.  We have JTACs that can control either from the TOC or they can control from the ground itself.

Q.  What type of tactical aircraft do you fly?

A.  We don’t really fly, we just control them.  Whenever they enter our airspace the assignment of control with be to JTAC.

Q.  What sort of aircraft would you guys be controlling?

A.  Pretty much anything that flies and has bombs on them.  That’s our specialty.  Anything that can make the ground go “boom”, we can control them, from arty to naval gunships, to helicopters.

Q.  Would it be fair to say that the primary aircraft that you guys would be working on would be the F-16 Fighting Falcon and the Apache helicopter?

A.  For the TAC team community, the bread and butter comes from the A-10 Warhog, and that’s the primary task platform.  Every single time a TAC team has one on station, we try to get a hold of him.  But anything that can go kinetic, we control.  For the most part here, within our AO, we’ve been seeing  a lot of F-16s, F-15s , F-18s either from US or coalition forces.

Q.  The F-15 is primarily an air superiority fighter, and for that matter so is the F-18.  Why is it in theatre?  It’s not like the Taliban have an air force.

A.  Exactly, but for right now, as I said, there’s only so many A-10s out there, so in order for them to back-fill they actually get fighters that are currently made for air to air combat.  They’re still qualified to put air to ground combat - per se - if they do go kinetic – put bombs on target on the ground.  Over the last few years we really have seen anything as far that OJAG up in the air, going at it.  So it’s pretty much air to ground, so far.

Q.  Do you guys work with the AC-130, or is that a completely different command?

A.  We do work with the AC-130s but a gunship, known as Spooky, is primarily a reserve for [inaudible] forces because they only fly at night, but at times we do see them and do control them.

Q.  On average, how many missions would you guys run in a month in this area?

A.  Within 4^th Brigade, I just recently moved from being the head JTAC down at [inaudible], which is right across the street.  Up here we primarily control two battalions in two AOs, that’s Red Currahee and White Currahee.  So, within any given day as far as aircraft on station, we’re looking at, probably, six to seven hours of controlling; and our job, up here at brigade level, is to oversee, in case we do go ‘kinetic effects’ or ‘bombs on target’, is make sure all the i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed so that way we can prevent fratricide, or killing the good guys instead of killing the bad guys.

Q.  Or cause too much collateral damage?

A.  Exactly.  Exactly.

Q.  Typically, how many times would you guys go kinetic in a month?

A.  So far, since I’ve been up here, and I just recently moved up, from the 1^st/ 506, at the desk we dropped at total of four bombs.

Q.  In a month, on average?

A.  I’ve been here about two weeks now, so in two weeks we dropped four.

Q.  All right, so eight then, we’ve got eight.  I guess its too early for you to observe it, but has there been a fall-off of Taliban activity between, say, September and now?

A.  Yes there has.  I’m pretty sure every single person within the US military and everyone tracking it that when it gets cold outside it seems that no one wants to come out and play.  Especially with the Ky Pass being closed with the snowfall and whatnot.  Common sense will tell anyone it’s going to slow down until spring time approaches.

Q.  Do you do any work on the administrative side?

A.  For the admin side of the house, yes, we still got to maintain our NCO duties.  As far as taking care of our guys, we call them [inaudible] performance reports.  We still got to maintain that.  [Inaudible].  For the JTAC duties, as I mentioned earlier, we’ve got to make sure that all the i’s are dotted and the t’s crossed for the JTAC that’s actually on the ground, because we’re pretty much the last guys they go through before they actually drop the bombs.  We can say “yes, you’ve got all bases covered” and “go at it, Dude.  Blow ‘em up.”

Q.  By administrative I also mean flights that are not tactical.  Like movement of supplies, movement of people, are you involved in that at all?

A.  Negative.  Negative.  We are not.  The only time we actually get involved is if we have a good working relationship with our Intel folks, and if they’re [inaudible] into the whole air game.  We’re pretty much spun-up as far as deconfliction.  If we do have an ISR asset on station we can take control via the intel guys and help them out as far as, okay, we can go in and deconflict for you.  That’s pretty much our specialty, deconflicting the air space and making sure the right bombs come off the right aircraft.

Q.  How important do you think your air mission is in terms of getting success on the ground?

A.  For the most part, very.  I don’t mean to toot the JTAC’s horn too much, but just in case the army runs out of ‘hoo-wa” that’s why the JTAC is there.  Precision firepower from the air, any given day and any given time of the day.  Yes, they miss sometimes, but so far as precision engagement, the JTAC is there to accomplish that mission, per the ground commander.

Q.  One of the threats that I saw used on the ground when I was on a mission is the belief out there among the population that they’re being surveilled at lot.  And there’s a chance that if the Taliban move into their area there’s a chance that they might get this bolt from the sky and this guy gets blow to bits, and maybe some of them as well, in terms of collateral damage.  Now, that’s a psychological threat, and it seems to be a tool that they’re using out in the field, how much reality is there to it?  Are you guys out there with your drones keeping an eye out for movement of people, suspicious movement, like two guys on a motorcycle riding down a wadi.  Are you guys out there patrolling, doing that?

A.  For the air force side of the house, the only time we bring aircraft on station is when they actually need us.  The main purpose is going kinetic, putting bombs on target.  But if it’s just a “warm and fuzzy” yes we do support that for our friendly force that’s moving out there.  Just give them that feeling inside that there is always someone watching over them just in case something might happen.  But as far as collateral damage and stuff like that, like I said that’s our bread and butter.  We do know how to dot our i’s and cross our t’s when it comes to stuff like that.  We help out the ground commander make his decision; we advise him that, yes, we can use [inaudible] on this, or, no, there’s too much civilian populace running around and no we cannot.  And that’s the only reason why they bring the air force side of the house instead into the army playground because we have our own chain of command.  We can actually tell the ground commander, no, we’re not going to do it, and we are protected from the blue side, just in case he might want to use that army proverb “oh, you will drop.”  No, the JTAC is the final approving authority.

Q.  You belong to the air force, then, not the army?

A.  Correct.  I’m in the air force.

Q.   Is there anything you’d like to tell me that you think I should know or the public should know about the work you do here?

A.  Its difficult at times from being from the air force side of the house.  But as far as training and everything goes, we live, eat, and breathe just like you guys do, and I just hope the public realizes the Air Force is – from their point of view the Air Force pretty much all they do is fly airplanes or work in the rear per se but there are guys out there running around with the army guys.

VJC.   That’s good.  Thank you very much.

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