Hi everyone,
Life here at Anaconda is still busy. I did get two days off this week. I had exceeded my crew rest time by over 20 hours so I had mandatory time off. I spent the two days getting various things done like cleaning my trailer, a hair cut, unpacking some bags I hadn't gotten to earlier,
dropping off laundry, and going to the Post exchange.
I'm getting used to living here. There are some things that are tough to get used to. One of the toughest is the alarms for incoming mortar rounds that happen on a daily basis. Sometimes the alarms sound in the middle of the night and I jump out of bed pretty quickly. If the alarm doesn't wake me the phalinx gun does. It is designed to shoot down incoming mortars and is pretty accurate but makes one heck of a noise. Our trailers we sleep in and the aircraft are surrounded by 10 foot walls and sand bags to help protect us. The major buildings like the mess hall and post exchange have reinforced mortar resistant roofs that are about three feet thick.
The mortars do make on to the base, but haven't done much damage. A truck driver was killed a couple of weeks ago by a mortar. These are things that seem surreal. I would never be worried at home about dealing with mortars on a daily basis. My life here isn't that bad. The housing and food are OK. Todd

Hi everyone,
I'm sorry I haven't been able to update sooner. We hit the ground running. i spent two weeks in Kuwait before flying to Iraq. It gave us time to prepare our aircraft and equipment. We also needed time to adjust to the temperatures. It has been as high as 125 degrees. On the flight line the temps are even worse. Even the wind is hot here. When the wind blows (which is quite often) it blows around allot of sand and dust. At night it can cool down in the 80's.
I've been very busy. My days at work start at 5:30 a.m. and usually end around 7:30 p.m. If I fly a night mission I get very little sleep. It is good to be keeping busy. Time goes fast. A month and a half has already gone by.
My job besides flying is managing the 10 aircraft assigned to our company. I manage the maintenance, inspection schedules on the aircraft, and assign the aircraft to the missions. We are presently assigned three mission sets. I need to have 7 helicopters available to fly every day to cover all missions. It can be stressful at times trying to keep them all operational.
I will have better access to the Internet soon. It presently tough to get access when I have time.
I miss home allot. I didn't think it would be this tough to be separated from my family. I will write again soon. Todd

Hi everyone
I first want to say thank you to the people from the Floor to Ceiling Stores who contributed to my plane ticket home and the nice package of goodies and gift certificates. It was a very nice surprise.
I spent my 8 days of leave with my family. My little boy Joel has grown allot in the past 4 months. He walks pretty well with only a few spills here and there. he seems to understand a little when people are talking to him. He pronounces the word please as "da". It is cute. I been here since Wednesday night and already wish I was home. I thoroughly enjoyed being home with Peggy and Joel. Its the little things, that I have taken for granted that gave me some of the best memories while home. I got up with Joel and gave him a bath and fed him his morning breakfast. I would take him outside and push him on the swing and play in the yard. I have missed allot of his firsts and will miss many more. But I was there for his first hair cut. He did very well. Not afraid at all. Saying goodbye to my family at the airport was a very emotional draining time. I talked to Peggy last night. She is doing better as am I.
I did get into the store a couple of times mainly just to visit. I had promised Peggy that I wouldn't go and work with my time home being limited. They are doing a great job. Especially with highway 7 torn up in front of the store. It makes getting there a challenge. I am lucky to have so many people supporting me. I am truly blessed.
I can't give specifics because of operational security. I should be in Kuwait by sometime next week. The temperature there has been around a 110 with high humidity. When we get there they will give us some time to adjust. It will be nice to leave Ft. Sill and get the mission started.
Time will go faster when we are busy. I might not be able to update this blog for a little while. Will try as soon as possible. Thank you for all your support. Proud to be an American Soldier and will represent you with honor. Todd

Hi Everyone! Sorry I haven't been able to update lately. I was at the FOB until last week and had allot to take care of afterwards. I'm looking forward to next week. I am going home for a couple of days before heading overseas. The time will go fast. I will enjoy every minute of it. I miss some of the simple things. Home cooked food, space, freedom to go and do what I would like to do, and most important hugging and kissing my wife and son. I miss them very much. I have to take advantage of the time home. I won't get to see them again for approximately 10 months. I have allot of people that are wanting to see me on my leave. I hope I don't upset anyone if I wont be able to see them before I go. I'm lucky to have so many caring friends and family. Our training is almost over. The only thing I have left is downed aviator survival training. It feels good to be almost done. I'm ready to start our mission in Iraq.
Some of the training I received out at the FOB(Forward Operating Base), showed how tough and dangerous some the jobs there are. We had training on finding and identifying IEDs(improvised explosive devices) on the roads. We also did training on route clearing and convoys. We spent 4 days going out on simulated missions driving gun trucks on the routes. I was the assistant convoy commander. So I had my hands full navigating and assisting the convoy commander. I have a great appreciation for the soldiers that their job is to find and destroy roadside bombs. It is very stressful. We spent time on how to defend the FOB when it gets attacked. Hopefully, the knowledge I've gained from the training has made me and my fellow soldiers able to handle the missions we will be doing every day. Take care, I won't have an update until after I get back from leave. Todd

Well all the gear we could send by boat is packed and gone. I sealed the last container on Monday. It left for the port right after. This week hasn't been quite as busy. I have had a little time to get some other work caught up. I have been preparing to go to the mock up of a Forward Operations Base (FOB). It is a camp for training how life will be over in Iraq. We will learn about Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) and how to try and avoid them. We will also learn about how to operate a convoy. IEDs are one of the biggest killers over there. Hopefully it will help. Got my ruck sack packed, individual ballistic armor put together, and my weapons cleaned. We will spend 8 days and nights out there. I won't have access to Internet until after we get back from the FOB. It will be difficult to communicate back home without it.
The weather has been strange here. It has been raining every day for the past week and a half. Today being one of the worst. I guess this time of year it is usually dry. They have flash flood warnings up for a good portion of Oklahoma. I might get a little wet in the FOB. We stay in tents and have dirt floors. Doesn't mix well with water.
25 days and counting until I get to come home. I can't wait. Peggy sent me a video of our son Joel (13 months old). At that age he sure changes allot. It has been since April 9 that I saw him last. I really miss my family. Todd

A new update from Ft. Sill. First I would like to Thank Rita Fletcher, Nancy Engler, Cindi Whitmer, and Jennifer Olson for the great cookies I received from them last Friday. The amount of work they must have went through to make and ship 30 lbs. of cookies was greatly appreciated by all that ate them. It was nice to have some homemade goodies. The timing was perfect. The stress of all the training was wearing on us and it gave us a little break from it all. The cookies were all gone by 4:30 Friday afternoon.
Another hurdle is past, We sucessfully passed the eval and had the debrief on Sunday. Most of the comments we had by the trainers was positive with only minor things we could improve on.
This week we are in the middle of packing. We have to have everything that goes by boat loaded into shipping containers by saturday so it can be trucked to port at Corpus Christi, Tx. We fly the helicopters to the port on Friday and Saturday. Not all the Helicopters are leaving, ten are staying back to keep training crews. It takes approximately 3 to 4 weeks to get our equipment to Kuwait. We pick it up there and move it into Iraq. It was nice to get some gear out of our room. With six guys and all our gear in a 15 x 17 ft. room it is crowded. July 23rd is the day we fly home. I'm counting the days to seeing my family. 33 days left. Todd

Here's another update on my stay at Ft Sill. The last week has been busy. We are in the middle of our evaluation for the flying missions we will be doing in Iraq. There is allot of planning that goes into a mission. It starts AMR ( air mission request) . From that we plan the routes and landing points along the way. We also have to take into consideration were the enemy is operating and what kind of threat they pose for our mission. The mission is planned for a specific takeoff time and making our other pickups and drop offs on time. I get involved in making sure we have the required amount of aircraft available for the mission and make sure they don't break down or have maintenance issues that can prevent them from being able to be used. I attend one to two meetings a day to discuss the maintenance and inspections coming due with our maintenance company. Fortunately I have only ten aircraft I have to keep track of. I have help from our maintenance test pilots. One of them attends the meeting with me. Right now our company is planning a major air assault mission for Saturday. We are supplying 6 helicopters and 6 flight crews. Each flight crew consists of two pilots and two crew chiefs. Sometimes a door gunner is substituted for a crew chief. The assault mission will include a total of 18 helicopters from all three flight companies. The planning and coordination takes allot of time by allot of people to make it successful.
We are still gettingequipment issued to us for Iraq. I was issued a new survival vest and body armor we wear when we fly. The body armor is suppose to stop 9mm rounds up to 7.62 rounds.The weapons the insurgents are using are AK-47 rifles and the vest should stop the rounds . The down side to wearing all that while flying it weighs about 30 lbs. To help to keep us a little cooler we have a vest that hooks up to a machine that pumps chilled water through it. Also I was issued today another set of body armor that we wear when we are not flying. That one also weighs about 30 lbs. My shoulders are going to have to suffer a little to get used to it. Like they say no pain no gain.
I'm missing home. I didn't think it would be this tough being away from family. My little boy is walking and I missed being there to see it. Another 6 weeks and I get to come home for a couple days before we ship off. I hope the time goes fast. Todd