03/30/2003


Dad, Send me a copy of the article as I have no memory of it whatsoever. We are eating fine. There were some units that were down to one MRE a day but that was during the sandstorm when they were having problems moving supplies. Most all of us are eating very well. We even have chow hall but we don't make it to everymeal but there are still MREs here. Things are going pretty well here even a little bit exciting after last nights mishap on my mission. Well I will talk to you later. Love, Jeremy

Hey everyone,

Figured I would update all of you at once. Last night I flew a mission into Iraq to evacuate a wounded POW and his two daughters (one of who was seriously injured). We were landing to an unimproved landing zone that was very dusty and it was under night vision goggles. We attempted to land twice and did a go around before actually landing the third time. On the third try we landed pretty hard. Hard enough to flex the struts and rotor blades of the aircraft and stress some of the structural panels (hopefully not the airframe but we will know soon enough). I got out and inspected the aircraft along with the crew chief and we decided the damage to the aircraft wasn't that bad (at least not bad enough to land and leave the aircraft in Iraq) so we took the patients back to Kuwait with no issues and then landed and informed the commander, safety officer and maintenance. Apparently on further inspection we may have caused between $200,000 and 1,000,000 worth of damage to the helicopter. So right now my crew and I are grounded until we are evaluated by our standardization department tommorow and then it will be back to duty. Just wanted to let everyone know that we are fine though and that there is nothing to worry about. Actually it was pretty interesting. Surely didn't think that we landed that hard but oh well.
Things are going well here. Finally opened the phone lines to us to make 1 10 minute call a week so I just got to talk to Nicole and hear that she won the State NCO of the Year Board, CONGRATS!!!! That is awesome!!! It was great to hear her voice again after a week of not talking.
War sucks, ha! Not much else new to report. Thanks for the packages and letters.

Love,
Jeremy