Going 10 days without a mission makes you wonder if you even remember how to fly the thing....
I had just finished a nice breakfast of fresh strawberries, melons and yogurt (wondering HOW a remote site like Farah can have such great food and yet a major hub like KAF can't seem to do any better than canned fruit- but I digress...). The radio operator was obviously in a good mood and knew that after so many days, this call would come as a shock.
"Gooooood Morning! (dramatic pause....) MEDEVAC, MEDEVAC, MEDEVAC!" I didn't even hear the rest of the call. I can only imagine the scene we left behind in the chow hall as we scooped up our trays and bolted out. (it adds to the aura and mystique of pilots when we dart out to something important without explanation ;-)
The call was for 2 local national females to be picked up at the point of injury (POI) instead of a secure FOB as is more common. Mechanism of, and type of injuries wasn't listed, just labeled as a CAT A- Urgent (highest priority). Immediately we had security concerns. The lack of information left us to fill in the blanks with the worse case scenario (ploy to lure MEDEVAC into an unsecured site? suicide bombers? lots of possibilities). We walked through them with the crew as we were simultaneously running up the aircraft. I guess KAF had the same concerns and held off on approving us to launch until 5 minutes after we were spun up and ready. Maximum risk mitigation is necessary, and we are just grateful when the situation negates the need.
We picked up a mother and her young daughter who had fragmentation injuries from an incident earlier that morning. The husband/ father escorted them as is customary. Site was secured a couple HMMWVs and a few men with the haggard, bearded appearance of CJSOTF operators. When all was said and done, the hardest part turned out to be the brownout conditions dust landing, but we do enough of those that it is almost second nature to land with no visual references.
Felt good to be back in the saddle again...