Happy Veterans Day!

Hi everybody, Emilee has asked me to write the blog in honor of Veterans Day. So i'm going to share a little bit of my experiences overseas. I don't really know what to share so i'm just goin to share some pictures with y'all.

This is a picture of me inside of Saddam's palace. This is his main palace (he had many). It was 4 stories tall with many rooms. The art work was amazing throughout the building. This is the main entrance from the 3rd floor and behind me is a huge crystal chandelier.

Here is a picture of another palace that wasn't quite finished. Saddam did get a chance to name this palace before he got captured. It translated to "Victory Over America." He was building it in honor of his victory over the United States. As you can see that one never got finished....

This is a snap shot of our flight line during one of our many sand storms. During times like this we were on total lock down (no planes in or out). But even during times like this the mission still went on so we would be equipped with goggles so we could keep working during these conditions.

This was a day i didn't mind being up during the day. While i was deployed i worked night shift which meant i was supposed to be asleep during the day but since i was one of the only C-130 crew chiefs i worked 18 to 19 hours a day. But like i said i didn't mind being up this particular day. They allowed some of us to go to the range and fire a number of weapons. In this picture i'm gettin to shot a AK-47.

This was mid mornin after a long night of fixin a jet. We had a C-130 that was grounded and we had to get it in the air again. We didn't like having planes on the ground longer than they had to be because they just became targets which made us targets when we worked on them. Me and my expeditor spent 10 hours in the wing of the jet trying to fix a fuel leak in the left wing.

This is a group picture of flight line crew. I'd have to say it was pretty good group of guys, we launched over 12,00 missions during my tour and we were declared the busiest airstrip in the world that summer.

I know this isn't much but as y'all know i don't talk about it a lot. Hope y'all enjoy the pictures!! Happy Veterans Day!!