Travels

I'm finally back from my travels to Balad. The flight back from Balad was pretty cool. We rode the little bus to the flight line where our UH-60 (Blackhawk) was parked in its little stall. The crew were still doing their pre-flight checks and we were just waiting there in the dark. Soon we boarded and strapped ourselves in and then the turbine engines start up. The rotors start spinning slowly at first and then gradually speed up. As you sit there the aircraft starts to rock with the spinning rotors until they speed up to a certain point. This experience never gets old, I don't care who you are. Just when you think the rotors couldn't possibly go any faster they seem to shift gears and double their speed. The hour long flight was uneventful for the most part with one exception. As we flew pretty low to the ground some type of street lights came on in the distance, which caused our countermeasure system to fire off two flares. At first I didn't know what was happening it was just a loud pop and then I was blinded by a fire ball slowly descending to either side of us. I literally could not see for a little while. I landed at Taji and was picked up by SGT De Luna and was happy to be back with my team.