Vietnam

Here is a link to my photos from Vietnam on the Pacific Air Forces Flickr page: Photos


It's been a long while since I've written, and I've been so many places since then! So first things first, I'm back dating to my trip to Vietnam.

My trip to Vietnam was a very unique experience because it was a humanitarian type mission. We had a team of docs, dentists, nurses, engineers and photographers, (Me!) to cover the whole thing.

We had a long.. and I mean painfully long.. journey on a KC-135 Stratotanker. We were all in jump seats , which are by far the most uncomfortable way to travel. They're essentially a netted seat, and about every third or fourth seat has a bar that runs right down the middle of bottom half.

We had a layover in Guam where we picked up the other half of our team that was coming from around the pacific. They pull people from all different bases to participate, so the other half of our group was all stationed in Japan and Korea.

Fast forward about fourteen hours, and we've landed in Vietnam.

It was hot, sticky and smelly. As soon as we touched down,  and opened our doors, there were Vietnamese military officials to escort us off the plane and in to the airport. (Bear in mind, it's a communist country.) We weren't allowed to wear our uniforms while we were there, or have any type of camo print back pack or anything else that would have identified us as military members. It was partially a mix of for our protection, and because the Vietnamese government did not want us to wear them. I think there was a pride issue with the American military helping their people.

So once we got through customs, we all packed on to these rickety buses with big pink curtains with tassle trim and ripped seats. Our first night there we were staying in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. There was no sense of order to the driving, nearly everyone was on a moped, and the first thing we noticed was all the crap that could be balanced and carried on  a moped. They're a crafty bunch of people.

Before we actually reached the city, our driver had to stop at some building and pay off some officials to allow our bus in to the city. The roads are so narrow, that buses are not normally allowed. But apparently, if you have money, it's ok. So he paid off the guys, and then took a short break.. with his bong. We're all sitting on the bus, hot, waiting to get going again and our driver walks back up to the side of our bus, sits down on the curb and whips out a bong from is bag and starts smoking. There wasn't much we could do on our end though, except wait for him to finish.

We got to our hotel, which was right next to the Hanoi Hilton, the POW camp where John McCain was held for nearly six years. It was a dismal old prison that had been built during the french occupation of Vietnam. The tops of the cement walls surrounding the prison had pieces of broken glass sticking every which way, and then three layers of barbed wire were stacked above that. We were able to tour it before we left, and it was pretty heart breaking. They've modified it some to make it look better than it actually was. They have pictures on the walls of the American POW's smiling and playing volleyball in the courtyard, playing cards and having a good time. All of which were entirely fabricated to lie to the public. There were still prison cells, and one large room with rows of schackles on the floor where people would sit, and their ankles were locked down. Like I said, very sad.

But we only had one night in Hanoi before we moved on to our location where we were going to be working for the next two weeks. We got on our buses and drove 8 hours on pothole ridden roads to Vinh City. Vinh was extremely poor and dirty, the same as the rest of Vietnam. The Vietnamese government had chosen this area for us to work, because it was one of the worst in the country and needed the most help. We were staying in a "four star hotel," but it was by Vietnamese standards. It had no air conditioning, smelled like sewer, and at any given time you could smell weed somewhere in the building. It was still better than some of the conditions my husband has stayed in on his travels though! ;)

Our work site was about a 45 minute drive in to the country. We passed lots of rice fields, water buffalo roaming out in the streets, and little mud huts. We worked out of a school, which was more like a compound. It had the same huge walls around it that the Hanoi Hilton did, and the pieces of glass and barbed wire. There was a large metal gate that Vietnamese guards stood at and opened and closed behind each car that went in. The classrooms were turned in to makeshift treatment areas and we had set up an entire little hospital within the school. We had everything from womens health to optometry, dentistry to general medicine and even a pharmacy. It was pretty cool.

The Vietnamese government had given tickets to people they deemed needed medical treatment, but hundreds more without tickets showed up at the gates each morning wanting to be seen. We saw about a thousand people a day. Many with infections because they dont have access to doctors reguarly. One old man was a veteran from the Vietnam war, fighting for the Viet Cong I'm sure, and had had his leg blown up, but never sought medical treatment. His ankle had been blown side ways and broken, but without a doctor, it healed sideways and broken and he hobbled around with the sole of his foot facing outward. Another woman who said she hadnt been able to hear for years, turns out, her ears were so jam packed with ear wax, they were packed all the way out to her external ear. One of our techs had to sit there with tweasers and pick it all out. But in the end, she could hear.

Our engineers built a birthing clinic down the road from our school. There was one already standing, but it wasnt much of one. There were hypodermic needles all over the ground, in the dirt, a literal shit creek running behind the facility and it was the least sanitary place you could possibly imagine. So they partnered with members of the Vietnamese military, and some locals who showed up out of nowhere and wanted to help, and they totally revamped the clinic.

Our days were long and hot, I took two or three showers a day just because we got so dirty and nasty throughout the day. When we'd get back to the hotel, we'd all head down the street to the KFC. YES.. there was a KFC. And it tasted like home, surprisingly enough. And it was one of the few things that didnt make me sick. We drank lots of beer because it was cleaner than the water. There were a few days where the only thing I'd eaten was a piece of toast for breakfast, icecream cone from KFC for dinner and beer. A couple of times I tried to venture out and eat some of the food that was provided to us, but it made me so sick.

They have no concept of refrigeration. The beer was warm and the meat sat out. I ate fried rice one morning, and bit into a piece of rancid meat. I went back up to my room, puked and went to work.

Sergeant Early, our broadcaster, nicknamed me 'Toast,' because it was the only thing I could keep down.

After two weeks we were so ready to go home, it wasnt even funny. It had been fun, but we were ready to go. The only thing standing between us and home on the day of check out was an 8 hour bus ride back to Hanoi, one night there, and 14 hours worth of flying back to the states.

When we got to the airport and got on our plane, we were so thankful to see our 135 crew who flew in to take us home. We loaded on the luggage on to the plane in record time and sat down and shut up. We must have burned rubber peeling out of there.

We were about two hours outside of Guam and we were all stretched out on the floor of the aircraft, sleeping, watching movies on our laptops and reading, when we hit a little turburlence. I was asleep in my sleeping back on the floor when I bounced about six inches off the ground and landed again. I woke up and saw people scrambling back to their seats and putting their seatbelts on. So I rolled over to do the same. I had just gotten out of my sleeping bag and was bent over to pick it up when our plane dropped 300 feet and everything that wasnt strapped down, including me, flew up and hit the ceiling. I think I closed my eyes, I'm not sure, but I remember hitting my head on the pipe running down the middle of the plane, then came back down and landed on my wrist. Overall, nothing was broken and I felt ok. A couple of guys pulled me up real quick and stuck me in my seat and buckled me in. My roommate who I'd been sharing a room with in Vietnam had hit her head too, but she landed back on the luggage pallet and began having seizures. Luckily, all of our docs were on board and they did what they could until we got to Guam. A couple of other guys got banged up too. One of our engineers had caught his head on something on the way up and had about a 6 inch gash that went from the top of his head down the back of it.

One of our docs was a facial reconstruction surgeon and he ran around and triaged all the guys in the back. I felt fine at first because my adrenaline was going, but after I sat for a while, it all started to hurt.

When we got to Guam, there was a crew of medics waiting for us and my roommate and the engineer were hauled off to the hospital in Guam. The rest of us were seen by the docs who were waiting for us and given some motrin. Bad news was, we were stuck in Guam. Our plane was broken. The jolt to the plane from dropping and then coming to an abrupt stop had popped the rivets off the pannels on the outside of the aircraft. So we were stuck. We stayed the night in Guam and it wasnt until about three days later that they finally decided our plane was too broken to fix any time soon. So in the end, we booked commerical flights home.

That last little wrench in our trip made it the most fun I never want to have again. I had a blast while I was there, it was new and exciting, but I think I'll pass if I ever get the opportunity to go back.

Pictures to come soon!

At 'em boys! Give 'er the gun!

Over the past month I've had the opportunity to meet some pretty amazing people. Public Affairs is a bittersweet career field. Its either really awesome or ruining the experience.

For example, most recently, Chad Hennings, former A-10 Thunderbolt II pilot and Dallas Cowboys defensive lineman, came to visit Hickam and did a morale visit to a lot of the squadrons. I spent the day following him around, talking to him, and taking photos.


On the other hand, the Air Force Birthday Ball was on Friday and I didn't particularly care to go. Spending a night all "dressed up" in uncomfortable blues at a formal ceremony where I had to stand at attention for every other person I talk to.. ehh.. not alluring. The Marine Corps Ball on the other hand, open bar and an evening gown; sign me up! Back to my point, I didn't buy a ticket because I didn't want to go. Buuuuut.. since I didn't buy a ticket that left me open to cover the event for the paper. Wooooonderful. (For the record, I made Tyler bring a camera and suffer with me. Misery loves company, right?)


So as I said, PA can sometimes rock, or ruin your day. In my case, recently, it's been amazing more than not.


The list of people I've met is topped by someone that most people have probably never heard of. His name is Brian Kolfage. He's a triple amputee from the Iraq war.


Senior Airman Kolfage lost both of his legs and his right hand when a 107mm rocket landed less than 10 feet in front of him as he walked out of his tent in Ballad. He is wheel chair bound with the most handsome smile you've ever seen, next to my husband of course! He made jokes about his situation, talked candidly about his injuries, showed me pictures from his operation and unscrewed his bionic hand for laughs. His story was incredible, and I feel obliged to tell it.


"I was just going to the gym," he said. "The gym was to the right, but I wanted to get a bottle of water before I went, so I hung a left outside my tent. I had only walked about twenty feet when I heard the rocket. I didn't have time to think though. The sound of the turbine had just registered, I can still hear it in my head. After that, I blacked out.


I woke up a few minutes later on the ground. I didn't know I'd been hurt yet. I could hear people screaming everywhere. I didn't know what had happened though. I was still trying to put it together; the people screaming, the dirt in my mouth, the fact that I was on the ground.. I started to think, oh crap, maybe something happened to me!"


A moment later, Brian's friend ran up and flipped his body over.


"At first, I looked over and saw that my hand was gone. I tried to look down at my legs, but my friend covered my eyes so I couldn't see. People started doing first aid for me while we were waiting for the medics. One guy took his shoelace off and tied it around my wrist to stop the bleeding. People started stuffing towels up into what was left of my legs to stop the bleeding. My friend literally hand up inside of me trying to stop my femoral artery from bleeding out.


When the medics showed up, that's when the pain started to set it. I started yelling at some Airman to give me some pain meds, but he told me they couldn't, because it would thin out my blood too much and I would bleed out.


The last thing I remember was being wheeled into Ballad hospital and passing under this big American flag that was draped across the ceiling."


Doctors immediately operated on Brian and sewed up his right wrist where his hand used to be. There was nothing left of his legs and they had to be amputated at the hip joints.


Brian was medically evacuated to Germany shortly after. His family was called and notified that they should fly to Germany to meet him there, because he wouldn't survive long enough to make it back to the states.


Somewhere along the way and during his flight to Germany, doctors decided that there was hope for Brian and they notified his family to fly to Maryland instead. Brian was treated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. He spent two months in rehabilitation before he was finally sick of the hospital and begged for out-patient treatment.


"After two months, I got up and started to wander around the hospital. But I never once felt sorry for myself. I saw people that had their faces blown off, their heads caved in and severe burns. I had it easy."


Today, Brian is a newly-wed and a full time architect student. He gets around on his own and leads a mostly independent lifestyle. But of all the things Brian has accomplished since his injury, his attitude was what impressed me the most. He didn't once let his injuries get him down, quite the contrary, he made jokes about it. There wasn't a thing in the world that could've kept him from smiling.


Brian was easily the most incredible person I've met since I've been in the Air Force.

Senior Airman Brian Kolfage and I

Photographing Vice President Joe Bidens visit

On the set of Hawaii Five-0

Terry O'Quinn and I on the set of Hawaii Five-0

The Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force James Roy and I

Chad Hennings and I

(Former A-10 Thunderbolt II pilot during Desert Storm and Dallas Cowboys defensive lineman... and his three Superbowl rings on my right hand!)

Rip-diddle-ip-tip it's your biiiirthdaaaay!!

Tylers 21st Birthday was Saturday. He tried to play down the fact that he was *REALLY* excited to finally be 21, but I know that's a complete load.

As soon as I found out that I was going to be around for his birthday, I started scheming on how to make it extra special. I finally settled on a surprise party.

I started planning weeks ago how to do it, where, how to keep it from him, etc.

He asked me to plan something for him while he was in Mongolia. As soon as he got back he asked, "So what are we doing for my birthday!??" I had to say, "Uhh.. I'm really sorry babe, I've been so busy I haven't had a chance to even think about it.."

His little face looked so hurt. He looked and sounded like a beaten puppy. I felt so guilty. Like I actually had forgotten to plan him something, but I didn't really!

He'd been bugging me all week after that to plan something, call people and get everything together so he wouldn't have to "look like a loser planning his own party and asking people to hang out with him on his birthday."

Little did he know, I'd already bought him multiple presents, ordered him a Captain America birthday cake, planned a surprise party, and reserved the waterfront clubhouse.

I had everyone either cancel on him last minute or tell him they already had plans when he invited them out himself. (He was really butt-hurt.)

But we went out out to dinner at the Kailua Pub with our friends Mark, Erin and Woodall (Danny) and  he had a few drinks/shots.  Mark came up with a plan to get Tyler back to the house. We told him we were gona go out in Waikiki, but first we were gona take the cars back home to drop them off and take a cab out.  Then we were all gona go out, and get "completely smashed."

Of course Tyler was game.

At first he poked fun at me for Mark taking more time to plan his birthday than I did. I was counting down the minutes until we got back to the house and I could rub it in his face.

Meanwhile, back at my house I left my friend Alex in charge of letting everyone in, parking cars, last minute touches on the decor and informing everyone when to yell, "SURPRISEEEEE!!!"... and when to shoot him with the confetti guns, that my loving mother provided. (Which were a nightmare to clean up I might add.)

At first I was thinking, "Ok.. awesome.. that gets him back to the house, but how do we get him down to the clubhouse without suspecting anything?!"

Well Mark had that planned out too. He had everyone go up to my house for the inital surprise and hide in the dark with all of the lights out.

As we approached the gates, I shot off a quick text to Alex to let her know we were home. We parked and got out and Mark was already waiting for us.. teeetering and loudly exclaiming he had to crap.. *deepsigh*

So he rushed Tyler to the doors and shouted while he fumbled the keys. Tyler finally got the door open and the lights switched on and over 20 people popped out from every corner of the living room, shot him with confetti poppers and scared the hell out of him. It was perfect!

His face was dark red with a hint of purple. He jumped back about a foot and stood there for a minute before it registered.

All I can say, is its a good thing he doesnt pack a gun. I could just picture him doing a shoot out at his own surprise party.

In the end, there was way too much food and beer, Indy wound up in the pool and Tyler didn't puke. I'd call that a success. :)

Gooooooooood morning Ulaanbaatar!

It’s been a while since I’ve written. I figured it was about time for an update!

In a nutshell, Tyler’s home (YAY!) and I’m awaiting a new tasking to deploy (meh.)

Tyler finally got back from Mongolia last weekend. He’s got a million stories and I have to admit I’m jealous of his experiences. Well… most of them anyway. Sleeping on a hard surface, eating food solely boiled in lamb fat, showering with every other nation in an open bay shower and working 14 hours a day, he can keep. ;)

I think one of his favorite stories to tell, is the fermented horses milk story. I’ll do my best to retell it in the way he told me.

He had been in Mongolia for a few days and kept hearing stories about the locals drinking fermented horses milk. So he and a few of the other Marines started asking around about where they could get some. One of the Mongolians loaded them up and took them to a ger (the round house tents Mongolians live in) and when they got out, there were farm animals running all around, and all the kids gathered around the truck to see them.

He said they went into the tent and one of the Mongolians filled this kettle full of lumpy, smelly milk (that still had HORSE HAIR floating in it. BARF.) and started heating it up. Eventually, the lumpy, smelly, hairy milk was warm and he poured it into a bowl for them to drink.

At this point, Tyler’s thinking, “ok.. cool. We have one bowl full, we each take a sip, pass it around and we’re done.” Wrong.

Their translator informs them they have to drink the entire massive kettle full of hairy milk.

Meanwhile, one of the Mongolian mothers, whips out her boobs in the middle of the room and starts breast feeding this butt-naked baby.

Tyler said it got really awkward at that point and all of the Marines immediately diverted their eyes to the floor and started concentrating on not snickering, like little kids, at the naked lady and baby. They continued to pass the bowl and worked on putting away the hairy horse milk so they could finish it and  leave.

No sooner had she started feeding the baby, it let out this “massive, projectile, liquid shit (these are Tyler’s words mind you..) that shot, no joke, three feet across the room.”

The lady and baby are covered in it and she gets up to go outside and clean off.

So now they’re all looking at each other like, “WTF. It smells, there’s crap everywhere, let’s GO.”

As they’re leaving, they’re informed that it’s custom for visitors to give the baby money. Not, give the parents money for the baby, but literally hand the baby the money.

So as they were on their way out, they were all tucking dollar bills into the babies clothing.

Tyler said it was coming out of his sleeves, his collar, his diaper, etc. And in Tyler’s words, “he looked like a little baby Lil’ Wayne. He was big pimpin’.”

He wanted to take a photo, but was worried about offending someone.

Now, my other favorite story from his trip was Bush getting drug by a horse.

Before I sound mean for saying it’s my favorite, I’d like to add that he’s *mostly* uninjured.

Bush is one of Tyler’s friends that’s stationed with him at Camp Smith. He’s a little bit younger and just got here from MOS school a few months ago.

So one of the days they were there, they had the opportunity to ride horses. The Mongolians are sort of funny about telling you they want their turn though. They’ll just jump on right behind you and kind of push you off the horse. It’s a very subtle message.

So Bush is out there riding around and laughing, having a good ol’ time.

At some point, a Mongolian came up behind Bush on the horse and spooked the horse. It freaked out and sort of took off running, and then slowed back down. Bush got this freaked out look on his face and tried to jump off when it slowed back down.

However, when he made his getaway, he forgot one important aspect to dismounting your horse; remove your foot from the stirrup.

As Bush jumped down, his foot got caught and the horse took off. Bush was drug for about 200+ meters, kicked between the legs, kicked in the leg, has a bruised rear, back and groin. He’s missing patches of skin from his back, forearms and hands.

The best part? It was all captured on video.

Gunny Holly, Tyler’s gunny at MARFORPAC, began filming the initial ride and ended up capturing the drag too.  The audio was removed from the video, but had it been there, you could hear him laughing and cussing up a storm. Initially anyway. At first it was more of an, “OH! Crap!! Hahaha.. “ and then it turned into.. “ooooh.. crappp.. uhh.. “ Except his language was a little more explicit. So… use your imagination.

Like I said, Bush escaped without any life threatening injuries. Just a really sore rear end.

Anyway, that’s enough for now. More pictures to come soon!

Rewind and Press Play

So my deployment got delayed again. Various reasons really, but bottom line, I'll be home for at least another month.


It's typical of the military to go back and forth with these types of things. In the past 8 months alone, I was supposed to go to Japan for relief efforts, Washington, Thailand, Cambodia and Afghanistan. Every single one got cancelled. All of them for one thing or another, but the back and forth is to be expected in the military. We're always told, "you're not going and it's not one-hundred percent until you're boots are on the ground."


I won't lie. It toys with my mental stability. One of these days I'm just going to snap and show up to work naked and just be typing away at my desk like nothings wrong or something. I'm not complaining, but its tiresome.


I finally talked to Tyler, who is still in Mongolia. We really only got to talk for like five minutes on Facebook chat, but I'll take what I can get. He's having a blast working with all the different countries and seeing how their military operates. I think they all traded off weapons at some point, he got to shoot an (old) automatic AK-47 that belongs to the Mongolian Army. He also mentioned something about drinking fermented horse milk(???) with some villagers in a tent. He said it was disgusting. They hiked twenty miles up a mountain to a small village to get some vodka that night. (After drinking fermented horse milk, I'd want some too. ...But I would just wait at the bottom and make him bring it back for me.)


Only 9 more days until he comes home though! It should go by quick.


On another note,  I was sitting at the Wright Brothers Cafe on base this morning having breakfast and a submarine on its way out of Pearl Harbor passed by! So naturally, I stood in front of it and took a picture. :)

Green Light...

I got my "words of wisdom" brief from my lieutenant this afternoon.


Lt. Smith has been in the Air Force for 17 years. He initially started out enlisted, got all the way up to the rank of tech. sgt. and then crossed over to the officer side. He's been on a few Army deployments and had some..encouraging..words for me.


He said, "The Army is a different breed. They're crude, they're dirty and often times unprofessional. There's a good possibility you'll be the only female in your unit. Just don't let them give you shit or treat you inappropriately."


-.- Awesome.


He also told me that grunts don't give a rats ass about public affairs or photography. He said they'll probably give you tasks to do that aren't in your job description or that you don't want to do. But it's best not to argue. Oh! And to be sure not to confuse their first sergeants with Air Force first sergeants..


Our first sergeants are nice approachable people that are high enough in the chain of command, that if you have problems with someone, you can always go talk to them. You can call them any time, day or night and they are there to take care of their people. Army first sergeants are apparently only their to rip new ones in people and get down to business.


Soooooo... the summary of his advice was, they'll treat you like crap, hit on you and give you shit, but don't take it. Annnnnnd.. don't talk to their first sergeants, don't complain and don't call anyone "sir." Army enlisted hate being called... sir.


SIDE NOTE: I got yelled at quite a bit when I was stationed at Fort Meade for tech school. Its a DOD school, so all services attend, but Army primarily has control of the base. And God help you if you called an enlisted soldier, "sir." The typical response was, "I'm not a SIR! I work for a living!! I am a SERGEANT." ("Sir" is apparently reserved for officers only in the Army.) And my usual response was,"Yes. Sorry siiiiiiiirr----arrgennt.." It's like when someone tells you to quit apologzing and you say sorry again.


Anyway, SSDD.


On a lighter note, here are some pictures I finally got around to downloading! Enjoy. :)

Losing my much-ness

This morning I had to drop Tyler off at the airport. He's heading to Mongolia for two weeks and by the time he gets back, I'll be at Fort Dix for combat skills training. It really sucked and kind of ruined my day. It hasn't quite set in yet that I really won't see him for the rest of the year.


I was crying when I drove away, took the wrong exit and got on the freeway going the opposite direction that I needed to be.


But I had to laugh thinking about how far we'd come in the past two years.


I thought about the first time I saw Tyler. We were at Fort Meade, Md., and I was doing the combat camera portion of my class where we went out to a remote area of the base, slept in tents and treated it like a deployed environment.


The first thing we had to do, after we rucked a few miles in to the woods, was "invade an Iraqi village and search the citizens."


Often times,  after troops would arrive to Ft. Meade, they wouldn't pick up class right away. So they were sort of stuck in limbo. Tyler was a M.A.T. (Marine awaiting training) so he volunteered to play an Iraqi villager in our field training exercise.


So our class split up in to teams and prepared to ambush the village. We snuck through the bushes and ran through the clearings one at a time until we were all grouped and poised to run, screaming at the camp with our M-16s.


We rounded up the "villagers", which was really about six Marines, and put them on their faces at gun point. They all pretended to not understand english or a word we were saying as we yelled at them. Cute.


Once we had them on the ground, one person stood with their weapon pointed directly at the Marine while another one of us patted them down.


I stuck the muzzle of my M-16 in Tyler's face and yelled at him not to move.


Divine intervention occurred that day.


After we searched them, our instructors told us that we were to, "make friends with the Iraqis. Offer them food, medical attention or anything else they might need."


I jabbed Tyler in the gut with my M-16 and asked him if he was hungry.


The rest as they say, is history.


I have a couple photos from our "raid" that day. We were still learning to run and take pictures simultaneously, so no ones photos turned out spectacular. But I do have one of  Tyler face down in the gravel. The photo also includes a dear friend of mine, who Tyler and I are also stationed with here in Hawaii, Reece Lodder.


Lodder was also tasked to deploy to Afghanistan this year with 3/3, a Marine infantry unit.


After some long reflection that lasted the entire day, everything has sunken in a little bit more. I'm a little more excited each day to go and it gets a little easier to leave. After all, being stationed apart for more than a year makes us old salty veterans at saying, "bye babe, see you soon."