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Date: Sun, 07 Nov 2004 17:37:07 -0500 Guys, this is the first time that I have been able to get on the net in over a month. So a quick report. Life at Balad SUCKS! Hot and dusty with special emphasis on the dusty. We still get rocketed on average two times a day. And there have been some casualties. God bless our young troops. They are doing a great job. My unit flys every night. I have 81 sorties so far and about 150 hours of combat. And get this, we are being put in for air medals. Old guys get air medals? My first submission was my 16th olc. The commander saw it and said "Say what?" We have had some success in the IED battle. Our "find" rate climbs steadily. And each find means fewer casualties for our troops. We continue to "tweek" our system and it gets better all the time. Having said that, the enemy gets ever better at deploying and hiding the IEDs. They are unscrupulous bastards and do not care who they kill or better - maim. and as I write this, big battles are now waging in several locations. I saw several explosions last night. I just found out that I will be rotating home in December. When I do, I will post a full report. It also looks like I will be doing another tour over here next Spring. I wll be proud to do so again. On another front, I just got notified that Discovery channel finally has decided to do a full documentary on the Bat 21 rescue. When I get back, I will jump into that and will be contacting several of you for support so we can do that right. Tom Norris and Nguyen van Kiet have both agreed to be in it so it will be a great show. I do not know when I will get another chance to get on the net, so best wishes for Thanksgiving and enjoy the Fall. Darrel Whitcomb Nail 25/Raven 25 1972-74 Magneto 27Alpha 2004 Darrel.Whitcomb@BLAB.centaf.af.mil ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ |