Never Give Up

About a year and a half ago I was told that Japan would be one of the places that I could be stationed at and it immediately sounded like something that I would want to do for a variety of reasons.  First off, they fly a lot out here, at least twice as much as anyone in the states.  Second, I've always been a fan of a change of scenery.  And finally, the type of flying offered out here would be something totally different than anywhere in the states.  We deploy every year on short stints rather than once every three years for a longer period of time, and the places we go and things we get to see are completely unique.  I just never thought I would get to see something so unique so early into my time here.

We were in Hong Kong enjoying a little bit of time off.  Most of the people I was with (including myself) were buying suits and clothes and you could get them pretty nice for a decent price here.  In between fittings we would grab a bite to eat or pass the time with the much missed internet and all of it's offerings.  As the browsed we started seeing more and more stories about the typhoon that was making it's way to the Philippines and we all started asking the same question: are they going to call us in to help?  It's something we've done in the past (Fukushima in 2011, Haiti and Katrina as well) and we were probably the closest option.  Sure enough we all eventually get the word passed through email and Facebook to come back to the ship early.  While they never told us why we all knew and began to get a little bit excited.

When I choose to go to Japan, that was really half the choice, the other half was exactly what helicopter to fly.  For simplicities sake, there are two main helicopters that the Navy uses, the 60S and 60R (referred to as the Sierra and Romeo respectively).  Each has their advantage, and I'm not going to go into all of the differences, but the Sierra is much lighter, has way less equipment, both of those things making it the optimal platform for search and rescue (which is about 99 percent of what we do) as well as logistics (fancy word for moving supplies and people).  Both missions, at their best, were something that appealed to me.  So with that being said, when we were called to help with the Philippines we knew that our aircraft would be the most heavily used throughout our time there.

It took us about three days to get there, and along the way we began all of our planning.  Lets figure out how much weight we can carry, do we have pictures of places that we can land, do we know what areas were hit hardest, the JAG on the ship came and talked to us about any legal snafus that we may come across (one particularly motivated pilot asked if they would be giving us firearms to protect ourselves, they of course did not).

Side story: when I was at the academy as a freshman there was a lot of random, seeming useless things that they would have us do, and at some point about halfway through the first summer there I began to see that these seemingly random and annoying tasks actually had purpose.  Saluting all seniors who had more than three stripes wasn't pointless, it was meant to get us to start looking at people collars insignia so we could actually see the rank of officers.  Having us rip the sheets off of our bed and remake it in under a minute wasn't meant to be just a time waster, but to teach us the sense of urgency, without sacrificing quality of product.  For the 2 and a half years before I made it out to Japan I went through various stages of flight school and while all taught me various aspects of flying they all taught me one aspect of life: it is best to be flexible.  Often times I would show up expecting to fly a specific mission but due to weather or crews or available aircraft, I would be canceled or end up flying something totally different.  At the time it was annoying, spending hours preparing for something you wouldn't do, but on this deployment, and especially in the Philippines I began to see the value.

Our carrier, and specifically our helicopters were very much the tourniquet for the wound that was suffered after the typhoon.  A disaster occurred, and we were the closest  to the area.  We did not have specific training as many other organizations do, and we may have not been the best equipped, but we were close, and we were well trained.  All those years of being flexible, not knowing what to prepare for, ended up becoming incredibly important.  We were going to an area we had never been to before, to do a mission we had never explicitly done or even trained for, but we were all ready and excited to go.

Over the course of ten days my squadron alone moved close to 500,000 pounds of water, over 300,000 pounds of food and supplies, and over 1000 people, ranging from people who needed to be transported off of isolated islands to doctors making it to remote places to treat those who needed it most.  Over the course of my life I have certain things that are ingrained in my brain in such a way that I can vividly remember every aspect of what happened.  The sound of the pads as they clacked together as I made the best hit I had ever made on a kid in a football game in 7th grade, seeing my dad jump up and down after i scored my first goal on a team where i was younger, smaller, and less talented than every other player, but decided to work hard.  The smell of my grandpa's room where I would sit and listen to his stories.  To that I will add the plethora of images I saw while helping people who truly needed it.  I saw a helicopter get mobbed by people seconds after landing in a field that seemed empty.  I saw 2 navy crewmen fit 5 people in a rescue basket designed for 2 because a woman refused to leave her children behind.  I saw a man punch a child for a bag of water.  I saw the look of panic in people's eyes as I pulled out an orange to give them what I had, and I remember the pang of guilt as I knew that I wouldn't be able to help them nearly as much as they needed.  I remember flying over an island that looked like a nuclear bomb had just gone off, and after a week seeing roads cleared, people fed, and civilization restored. And I remember, and will always remember, seeing a child, standing on a beach, wearing the most poignant shirt that I have ever seen.

Never Give Up.

Salty Sam

A month and a half ago I made my way to Japan, and I've spent a grand total of 12 days in the country. That's the way it tends to go out here, the squadron I'm in is what's called forward deployed, so rather than the normal one time 9ish month deployment that most squadrons do, we do several, and constant, short deployments.  I'm going to see as much of the Pacific Ocean as I will Japan over the next 3 years.

At the end of July I flew out to Brisbane, Australia to meet the fellow Golden Falcons as they were in port there for a few days, not a bad way to meet up.  The feeling of checking into a new squadron, at least this time around, was very similar to the feeling I had when I was younger and we moved from one town to another.  Up until now I've gone from training command to training command, typically with a group of other people which is nice because a) there are people you know that are coming with you, and b) it's a training command so there isn't much socially expected of you.  This time around I was coming by myself to meet not teachers and instructors, but co-workers.  Everyone was nice though, the traditional new-guy hazing to be expected but all in good fun.

After a few days to enjoy the Australian culture (and by culture I mean food.  The exploring that I'm most interested in has always been around a dinner plate) we made our way onto the ship and headed out for a few weeks underway.  A few things I learned while being underway.

1) The days are pretty long.  On land the work day is broken up by drives to work, going out for lunch, separating yourself from the workplace.  This is impossible when you live where you work.  Also, between the studying I need to do and the job I now have, the days can get long.  Nothing terrible, just something that becomes noticeable as the days go on.  Which brings me to the next thing I figured out.

2) There are no weekends on the ocean.  There is no Monday to Friday, there is no break.  I guess I should have expected this, what would the entire ship sit around playing video games for 2 days?  It's not so bad though, if anything that 3:30 feeling on Friday when you're waiting for the weekend and it seems to drag for the last couple hours is gone, you just kind of get in a routine and cross the daily things off your list as you do them.

3) The carrier, the big wigs at the top anyway, really only care about what jets are doing, which is a shame.  Helicopters are incredibly capable platforms with a variety of important missions that we can preform, but the carrier only sees us as the child in the kitchen while mom is cooking thanksgiving dinner.  The mom will hand him a spoon saying "here, your job, and it's a very important job, is to hold this spoon while mommy cooks dinner, think you can do that?"  Our man job while on the ship is to fly what's called plane guard.  Essentially, any time anyone is flying we need to have to have a helicopter in the air in case anyone goes down so we can pick them up.  They have a variety of rules for us, we can only go so far, we can only have certain things in the helicopter, but for the most part we take off and do our own thing for a few hours.  We take advantage of this lack of supervision, getting as much training as possible.  In the end I get to fly a lot, more than most of my fellow helicopter pilots in other squadrons, so there's definitely nothing to complain about.

I'm back home for a few weeks before we head back out and do it all over again.  Sure to be a blast

Sayonara

Contact is Made with the Locals

Monday I started my AOB (area orientation brief) class which culminated yesterday with a field trip to anywhere we wanted to go in Japan.  The class itself was pretty good.  We had two locals teach us about the country, places to go, basic phrases, and what to expect when we go out.  Some things I found interesting:

1.  The Japanese language is very structured and strict.  While the English language has thousands of different sounds the Japanese language has only a few hundred, and letters are always pronounced the same.  Also the words are always the same, they don't have as many verb irregularities as we do.

2.  Japanese people have a very hard time pronouncing the word "irregularities".

3.  We were talking about what to expect shopping wise, and they were talking about how most the stores are small and specialty stores.  She explained that we shouldn't walk outside and expect a Walgreens, or a Walmart, or a Target, then she got quiet, her eyes gazed off into the distance and she said, to no one in particular "I wish we had a Target here".

So we were in a group as we headed out.  A couple of the people picked a shrine to go to and I'm all about tagging along.  The world is filled with too many leaders right?

Quick summary:

The major "religion" here is Shinbutsu Shugo, and I use quotes because it's sort of a combination of two religions, Buddhism and Kami.  Buddhism is known fairly well so I won't really explain it, and Kami is this kind of "God is everywhere in everything".  It's centered on these spirits (there are over 2,000 of them) and each has it's own shrine, they're scattered all over Japan.  We went to a shrine dedicated to the deified spirits of Emperor Meiji, the emperor of Japan from late 19th century to early 20th.

Before you go in to any shrine there are these gates, called Torii gates (below).  These are very large and are in front of any place that the Japanese people deem to be sacred.  Before walking in it is custom to pause, remove your hat if you're wearing it, bow respectfully, then enter.

Following these gates were these long wooded walkways leading in to the actual shrine.  It's kind of hard to explain the immediate impact, but within seconds you go from these incredibly crowded streets to this silent secluded area.  It's pretty neat.

After about a quarter of a mile or so, couple bends in the road you come to a purification station (I made up that name myself) before you go in to the actual shrine.  You wash both your hands, and then take a bit and gargle it (because our mouths are FILTHY) before you enter the "holy area".

The actual shrine itself takes advantage of space more than anything.  It's not incredibly ornate or architecturally innovative, but it's simplicity is equally as impactful as large statues or murals would be.  There was also a marriage taking place which was pretty cool.

Within the shrine itself is a place to make prayers to the particular Kami spirits for that shrine.  As the ceremony goes you go up to a specified area, ring a bell to awaken the spirits, bow twice (once to say "hello", and another to thank them in advance for hearing your prayer), place some money in a slot, clap twice to scare away evil spirits, then press your hands together and say your prayer.  Once again you bow to thank them then go on your merry way.  They asked that we not take pictures in this area, so I got nothing for ya, but it was pretty cool.

Later we went down some random alleyway and found a restaurant with no english, pointed at some pictures, and had this awesome egg noodle pork dish thingy.  No idea what it was.  Well, that's not entirely true, I do know it was delicious.

Sayonara

Every Journey Starts With a Single Step

At the end of 2011 I reported to Milton, Fl for yet another phase of my flight training, and early on I learned that one of the possible follow on locations would be Japan.  As soon as I heard that I knew it would be a place that I would want to go, and last Sunday I finally managed to make my way out here.

That morning I made my way to the airport. I showed up several hours early in hopes that I could drop off my checked luggage and wrap up the last few things I had left to do.  But as they say, the best laid plans of mice and men and all.  The airline wouldn't let me check anything until later that morning, so I waited.  Eventually, with everything checked and all things sorted out, I said my final goodbyes to my friends who had made it out to see me off and checked into my flight.

At this point I'd like to compliment Japan Airlines.  Before we boarded, as we sat in the waiting area they sent a representative around to check out passports and mark our boarding pass to expedite the boarding process.  As we boarded a gentleman who wasn't Japanese bowed and said some sort of welcoming or well wishing phrase to everyone as they got on the plane (I don't speak the language, but I'm pretty sure that to me he said "welcome great red head" or something like that).  The stewardesses, all Japanese, were all incredibly kind and helpful, they apologized for some delays that we had.  And not that official hollow apology, they apologized as if it was actually their fault.  And best of all, not only did they hook me up with an aisle seat, but a seat in a row where I was the only person sitting.  It was glorious!  No fighting over armrests, no large man snoring in the seat keeping me up, no child screaming, just me and my three other empty seats.  Well done Japan Airlines.

So I landed, went through customs (when the gentleman who stamped my passport said "America?" it took everything in my power to not finish the song from Team America), grabbed my luggage (using the free carts to wheel it around) and made my way to the appointed desk to catch my bus two hours south from Tokyo to Atsugi.  Here in a new country there would be so much that I wanted to see, so much culture that I would want to absorb, so naturally for the entirety of the bus ride south, through various cities and country sides, I immediately fell asleep.  What?  I was tired.

I checked in to my room, and thus far I've only managed to check in to the base, but as time goes on I will eventually venture out into the town.  Next week I go through a week long class introducing me to the new country, and I'm looking forward to Thursday: "field trip day".  They drop us off at a train station in the morning and have us go out on our own, we just have to make it back before the trains stop running.  

Sayonara