Each step you took caused little puffs of white dust to billow in the air about 6-inches off the ground around your shoes. It looked like we were walking in flour spilled on a bakery floor! It was hot, desert hot and dry.
Welcome to Texas where the locals even call it a "West Texas shoeshine."
It's kind of like getting a physical at your doctor's office. If you would like to test your hearing, backside, patience and bladder all at the same time, try a 4-hour ride in a C-130 cargo plane. Once again we were the guest of the North Carolina Air National Guard's 145th Airlift Wing, a special group of men and women who can deliver supplies, troops, trucks, paratroopers, ammo and even a plane load of bosses any time, any where! They were giving us a training ride from Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham to visit North Carolina troops who were training in the west Texas desert. Just on the other side of Ft. Hood to be exact, a forward camp called Sheridan located on the airport of the small community of Brownwood, Texas, a town know for it's pecans, peaches and heat. The 104 degree temperature waves rising from the dust cause our plane to bob up and down a bit as we gently settle onto the end of the runway.
But then suddenly, the forces break loose as the 4 giant props are reversed all at the same time, digging into the hot Texas air like giant claws, and we are all pushed forward against our seat belts with a roar and a rush and the force of flying face-on into the jaws of a hurricane. It was tremendous demonstration of the abilities of the C-130 Hercules aircraft which was designed to deliver in primitive conditions and short runways, anywhere.
It's hot and dry and dusty in June and July, simulating the conditions the men and women of the 1st Attack Reconnaissance Battalion of the 130th Aviation Regiment, 449th Aviation Brigade, NC Army National Guard, stationed at the NC National Guard Flight Facility at RDU, will encounter when they soon ship to Iraq. Their machines are the The AH-64(D) Longbow aircraft which are upgraded versions of the Army's Apache attack helicopters. The Longbow has improved fire-control radar and radar guided Hellfire missiles. The Army has also installed improved engines for the new model. Strangely enough, the day we arrived, June 26th was also the day in 1936 the first practical helecopter flew in public. The Focke-Wulf FW-61 made history in Germany.
The twin engine choppers that sit here in the Texas scrub country represent the first operational reserve unit in the Army to get the new model helicopter. They will be used by our fellow Tarheel soldiers in and around Basra, Iraq to disrupt weapons smuggling, support our troops and bases and escort convoys of supplies. With all up-grades and Hellfire missiles that cost $42 thousand dollars per shot, these green, dusty, dragon-like monsters top out somewhere near $28 million dollars each.
Their base camp is set up as it will be organized in Iraq. A computer center that even sports a "help-desk." Sleeping units, eating facilities that serve 250 meals twice a day, a command post to communicate with everyone involved in a mission on the ground and in the air, and warm showers which can be used only 30-seconds at a time. This is not a vacation!
The trip has been set up to have as many bosses as possible "pair-off" with their actual employee from back home and spend the day. Each soldier carries a rifle everywhere, on their backs, are rubber water bladders called "Camel Backs." Each camel holds about three liters or just under one gallon of water. The soldiers sip water constantly through a plastic straw to remain hydrated and the container has to be refilled at least twice a day, depending on your outdoor activities. Even those inside are never more than a reach from a bottle of water. It is only 105 or 6 here in Texas, it reaches 130 in Iraq!
All troopers also wear a reflective striped vest over their uniforms. It has been discovered that many soldiers have been injured in Iraq and Afghanistan when hit by trucks and military vehicles while walking around flight lines and base camps and performing duties in a sudden sand storm. Whatever it takes to prevent any wartime injury.
Our teams of two talk about home, civilian jobs that will be waiting for them when they return, friends and work mates back home and their thoughts about shipping out soon. Some of the pairs included Goldsboro, Fire chief Gary Whaley and one of his firefighters Staff Sgt. Jeremy Peters. Here, Peters is a Battle NCO, which includes insuring that reports and messages are distributed properly in the headquarters, supervising the publican of orders and graphics, managing guard rosters, sleep plans, and shift schedules.
Boss Bill Glisson of Wilmington, installs church pipe organs and sound systems for the R.A. Daffer Company. Here, his employee, Specialist Robert Glenn who hooks up all the wires back home, is an radio/electronics technician with the choppers.
Longbow pilot, Chief Warrant Officer 2, David Dicks drives the helicopters in a green uniform, back home in North Carolina he wears a gray one and drives a Highway Patrol car as a state trooper. When asked, his boss who has come to visit him in the desert, State Highway Patrol Commander and Colonel Walter Wilson says, "It's a pretty good bet that after the Army has spent a million dollars training him to fly a helicopter that he will be one of the Patrol's newest pilots when he gets back home." Warrant Officer Dicks wipes the sweat from his brow and grins like a kid when he hears his boss talk about getting him back to his job in a year or so.
Other VIP visitors include Raleigh-Durham International Airport Police Chief Donna Waters who has guard and reserve members on her force back home.
Sergeant Scott Knutsen who is a software engineer in North Carolina but is a helo-mechanic here. Boss Jeff Myers is with Duke Health Systems at home, here in the heat, his employee Sgt. Kevin Sullivan is an expert on helicopter rotors and transmissions. Joe Oliver is Sales Operations Manger for Pepsi back in Winston-Salem, but he and his employee Army Specialist Buchrati look more like father/son or at least the start of a pretty good basketball pick-up team as they stand and visit in the Texas sun, as they both top 6'4" or 5-inches tall.
The proudest "boss" on the trip, by far, is North Carolina National Guard Commander and Adjutant General, Major General William E. Ingram, Jr., as they are all his employees! "We pledge to give them the best training possible, get them home as safely as possible, and to work closely with all employers to see their jobs are there waiting for them when they return." said General Ingram.
Operation "Boss-lift" has been an on going project for more than 30-years to show employers what their employees do when involved in the National Guard and Reserves. The North Carolina Committee for Employer Support of the Guard and Reserves maintains warm working and friendship relations with our local units.
"It is a win-win situation for all," said state Executive Director for ESGR, Darrell Johnson as we boarded the plane for the 4 hours back east to the Tarheel State, "and I like to win!"