My boy, Erik Holmes, is embedded in Afghanistan right now, collecting some interesting stories and an interesting perspective on military life over there right now:
You get plenty of helicopter rides being in the AOR, but yesterday was different: We got to ride along for a live-fire exercise on an Afghan National Army Air Corps Mi-35 attack helicopter. It’s an old Soviet design that you may recognize from Cold War movies. The particular helo we rode on was refurbished and given to the Afghans by the Czech Republic.
The Afghan pilot was very experienced, but was going to fire his machine gun in the air for the first time in nearly 20 years. Like many Afghan military pilots, he quit flying once the air force was nearly destroyed during the country’s civil war, and only now has an opportunity to get back into the cockpit. The average age of the Afghan pilots is about 45, some 15 years older than in the U.S. Air Force. That’s because of the years off they all had to take when there was no real Afghan military.
The pilot didn’t seem to have any rust. From Kabul, he flew low and fast to the aerial gunnery range at Bagram, then took a couple passes and fired his 12.7 mm machine gun. The gun fires so fast it sounds like a loud belch rather than individual shots – much like an A-10 cannon, in fact.
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I am sitting in the MWR center — short for moral, welfare and recreation — at FOB Blessing, checking email on a public computer. When I first came in, I overheard a soldier next to me talking to his wife back home. The first thing I heard him say was, “So do you want to get divorced or what?” I got uglier from there.
It’s just another reminder of the toll these frequent year-long deployments take on soldiers’ marriages and families. There are phones and computers to help them keep in touch, but it’s not enough to save a lot of these young marriages.
Stay safe, Holmes!
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