Maybe 20 of those missions and 50 of those hours involved actual firefights. I flew 99 combat missions for a total of 600 hours. This is the non-euphemistic definition of providing threat warning. In Afghanistan, we used these weapons against people, and my job was to help decide which people. Some could damage a car at most others could destroy a building. These aircraft differ in their specifics, but they are all cargo planes that have been outfitted with various levels of weaponry that range in destructive capability. AFSOC had about a dozen types of aircraft, but I flew solely on gunships.

We had been formally trained in Dari and Pashto, the two main languages spoken in Afghanistan, and then assigned to receive specialized training to become linguists aboard Air Force Special Operations Command aircraft. Technically, only two people had the exact training I had. In 2011, about 20 people in the world were trained to do the job I did. Even in our planes with our fleeces and hand warmers, it really was too damn cold for war. Yes, this joke came in the middle of plans to kill the men I was supposed to protect, but it wasn’t any less absurd for it. They could come early, and we need it down there to kill as many as we can.” “Go place the IED down there, at the bend they won’t see it.”

One winter in northern Afghanistan, where the average elevation is somewhere above 7,000 feet and the average temperature is somewhere below freezing, the following discussion took place: On rare occasions, they could even make me laugh.

Gunship 20o0 full force