Do we really need to be here?
Well I've been in Iraq for almost four months now, and I'm just sitting here wondering why they even sent us. I could understand if there was an actual job for us but I don't understand it. We don't even do the primary job that we train for everyday which is Combat Air Drop. Like today we were only scheduled to go to two different stops and can you guess how many people we carried?? Just guess... three people. and a 12 pound box. One person to Baghdad, one to Ali Base, and one back to here. It's pretty insane what they use us for over here. Someone told me one time that it's about $8000 an hour to run a 130 with the fuel, crew, and maintenance that goes in with the whole package. I would imagine that it would make me feel pretty useless if I saw empty planes coming back if I were maintenance on them. Imagine working a 12 hour shift trying and trying to get a plane ready to fly the next day and it goes 30 minutes away then comes back. It's happened before unfortunately. Or going to a base only taking one pallet of stuff, when the plane can hold up to 7 pallets, having to fly back from where you came after downloading that pallet and picking up a 10 pound box and taking it back to the same base... it's happened. I suppose I'm through ranting now, I just thought I'd share my aggravation on the subject. I just keep telling myself 20 more days...20 more days.