All of my experience leading up to my fourth deployment prepared me for what I was to do there. I would say my career timeline is unique, in light of the fact that most junior officers get one deployment if they’re lucky, and almost never get two. I had three in five years. Showing up to Mosul, Iraq in 2016, there were 1,000 flight hours under my belt. I knew what was going on in the world and how my unit fit into the broader picture of things, and could see things in a way that I probably wouldn’t have been able to if not for the experience I had accumulated.
All of this was so helpful, because there was so much going on in Mosul. I have been on 12-ship air assaults in Afghanistan that have been like a Sunday walk in the park relative to the first time I flew in Mosul. Every radio is blaring, and all of it is for you. The ability to filter through all that information is a skill that I had developed which was extremely advantageous in that situation, but maybe not so much in marriage, at least that’s what Lindsey would say.
Another ability I had developed was to notice when something wasn’t operating efficiently and then problem solve solutions. The company in Mosul needed to be organized and streamlined, which is what I initiated there and led the way in doing so. My ideas and procedures reduced the workload of the pilots and the JTAC (Joint Terminal Attack Controller) by 70% on the way out to the city which freed my guys up to concentrate on flying their aircraft and preparing for a fight in the city.
This positive change I implemented gave me credibility and standing, so I was able to direct even more improvements, including switching over from Gray Eagles to Apaches for shooting missiles. Gray Eagle aircraft are unmanned aircraft systems that were taking ninety seconds just to get a missile in the air, and I could get a missile on target in approximately forty seconds at eight kilometers- the farthest you generally fire. After implementation of this change, we became the most lethal platform on the battlefield, shooting hundreds of missiles within a couple of months.
At the end of my tour, I remember sitting in a hangar with Colonel Eddy Lee in Taji and having a hard time because I felt again like I was abandoning my people- who had another few months to go in Iraq. I was PCSing to grad school in Boston and my unit from Fort Lewis was staying. That was hard for me, but knowing that we had won the Army Aviation Unit of the Year Award made me feel good and softened the blow a little.
