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Army National Guard Unit, Company A, 1st
Battalion, 106th Aviation Regement
Mobilized December 15, 2003 |
"For
those of you who have not heard, my Army National Guard unit, Co A, 1st
Battalion, 106th Aviation Regiment, has been mobilized for active duty in
Iraq
. We report for duty on December 15th for
what will be a minimum of 12 months in country. We will fly the
Blackhawk helicopters to
Ft. Campbell
,
Kentucky
for final training in various ground tasks like
putting on your gas mask in 10 seconds and convoy ops. After we are
validated in those tasks by the active Army, we will fly the aircraft to
the designated port for embarkation onboard ship. Pilots will return
to
Ft.
Campbell
to join up with the rest of the Battalion
personnel for a chartered airline flight to
Kuwait
where we will await arrival of our aircraft.
After some training in desert flight operations in
Kuwait
, we will fly into the "box" and the
game begins. Our staff personnel, including my son, Kurt, will take
our vehicles on a three day convoy from
Kuwait
city to our location north of
Baghdad
. They can't move after dark so they will
be spending two nights in bad guy country providing their own force
protection. I can't disclose the timetable or our exact location at
this time as it would compromise our mission. I will have email once
we are in place and will look forward to the monthly newsletter and will
try to feed Morrie some info. Don't worry about me, hovering over
Sam Sisk's airstrip and flying formation on Ric Woldow's Stearman has been
good training.
I would like to thank
the Chapter for offering to forgive my hanger rent while I am gone. The
gesture means a lot to me and it will mean one less thing for Kathy to
worry about while husband and son are away.
Again, thank you all !
Jim Hannemann
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