C-130 Flight into Baghdad

Our plane took off from Qatar at 11 o’clock at night, but this time, we were on a C-130. The other “military” flights we’ve taken, like on the “rotator” to Germany, have all been civilian planes, mostly DC – 10s and MD – 11s, and they look and feel like a standard commercial flight, with attendants, meals and an in-flight movie. But riding a C-130 is a different experience; you walk in the cargo entrance at the backend of the plane, you sit sideways on the nylon webbing, and you keep your helmet on, and there’s no climate control, so you get pretty cold (I took my fluffy pillow and fuzzy blanket, so I must have looked pretty funny in battle gear with the pillow and blanket, but I was comfortable and warm). Oh yeah, then there’s the part about the combat landing. When we flew into Baghdad Int’l Airport (BIAP), we took a deep nosedive and then some hard banking left and right to keep everybody guessing as to our position. A couple of us were worried how we were going to handle it, so we downed some Dramamine and that helped.