Major Parker in Iraq

(Note: click on pictures to view full size)   Click here for June 2004 ; August 2004

Major Robert Parker is a Certified Professional Controller with the FAA serving in Iraq with the Mississippi Air National Guard.

Live from Iraq with Major Parker (Month of July, 2004)

01 July 2004:
Hi Everyone,
   Busy over here today with painting. Here is a picture of me painting. The next is a pic of the guy's attempt at humor. The yellow lines in the background mean stop, but the guys thought that the Army might need a little more help. The last is of one of my favorite quotes from Gen Powell. I have to get back on the airfield.

Robert

02 July 2004:
Hi Everyone,
    Here are some pics. Me at the radar this afternoon about noon, 110 degrees in the shade. Other pics are of the mountains to the north looking toward Syria and Iran.

    For those of you not in Memphis, i received some very sad news this morning. A very good friend of mine, Mike Creager from Memphis Tower sent me an email and said that his son Timothy, a Marine, was killed in action here in Iraq a few days ago. I cannot tell Mike how sorry i am for his loss. Please keep him and his family in your thoughts.

Robert

03 July 2004:

Hi everyone,
Sorry to those who are tired of seeing pics of me, but, my Mom likes it so here they are.

Me painting the last bit of red on the new helipad. (John, yes this was staged..ha)
Me becoming an honorary Civil Engineering Officer with the traditional ice cold water poured over my head. the red face is more from embarrassment rather than sun. Man, i fell right into that one. They even said you should take off your weapon so do don't get paint on it. What a sucker i was.

SMSgt Summerlin, TSgt Neil Anderson and me with out Bulldog Flag at the new sign for the civilian terminal.

Me at the new sign.

More pics to follow. I have to get busy on my weekly airfield power point briefing. Thanks for all of the emails. It really makes my day just to hear what is going on back there.

Up on the Civilian Terminal Mosul Airport with Neil Anderson and Jeff Summerlin

06 July 2004:
Hi everyone,
Here are some pictures of the base. One is of the approach end of Rwy 33. You can see the new paint on the rwy. You can also tell where we ran out of paint. The other pic is of the north ramp. You can see where they are tearing down the old military bunkers. I will have to sit down and write sometime. I have been appointed to the Mosul Airport Authority or the Govt of Iraq. They sent me an appointment letter in Arabic. I asked Gen Kaream what it said and he told be is says that Maj Parker agrees to stay in Iraq for 2 years to be on the Board. Then he laughed. ha ha ha. I have sent the letters to the interpreter. I will write more as soon as i can.

Robert

07 July 2004:
Here are just a few pics of some of the folks. I will try to send some more when i can. If you need the names on any of them let me know.

10 July 2004:

Hi Everyone,
Sorry i have not written of late. If you have been watching the news, and if they are showing it, you will know why. We have had plenty of "fireworks" since the 4th. Thanks to that, it has caused me a lot of work on the airport. My folks did not take any injuries so that is good. We have had some real close calls. The last two days it has been so windy that the visibility was less than a mile in blowing dust. Yesterday it was 115 degrees with a 30 knot wind. HOT. Everything else is as normal. I still like the job a lot and i am learning a lot. Well, i better get back to the war. I have some pics to send. Here is one of an Iraqi 9mm pistol. One of my guys found it on the road and turned it in to me. The Iraqi that lost it was happy to get it back. Who knows what they do to someone who has lost their weapon. Ouch. I will write more when i can. Keep the emails coming from home. I love hearing what is going on back there.

16 July 2004:

Here is a pic of me and the guys when my boss came to visit. Col Brad McNealy is the 185th Aviation Task Force Commander.

Here is a pic of Safo, our Iraqi labor guy at the radar site, Jon Long, Charles Felder and me. Safo cooked us some local food at the radar site then we all had some "Alabama Ham". It was great.

Here is a pic of me with Safo's daughter Ekrem. She is 6 years old and just like any other 6 year old in the world. Safo brought here to work the other day. She learned how to say "thank you, yes and no". She was a real cutie. Everyone made such a fuss over her. It was the first kid any of us have been around in a long time. They guys went to the BX and bought her a musical camel, some ear rings and gum. They showed her our candy stash from our care packages so it didn't take her long to get all sugared up. We have a phone that runs from the office into the radar room that rings when you pick it up. The guys were letting her call the radar all day. It made us all really miss our kids. There were some tears shed by many before she left. I better get back to the war. I will try to write more as i can.

18 July 2004:

Hi Everyone,

I know I have not written like I should but…. Well, I just haven’t. Things have been rather hectic of late. I attended a memorial service for a fellow U.S. Air Force member on Friday. SSgt. Peters was killed here in Mosul from an improvised explosive device (IED). It was really hard on all of us. There are only 200 total USAF folks here so you get to know everyone. He was a nice guy and will be missed. Also killed were two army personnel that I never had the opportunity to know. We have been getting hit with 122 mm rockets every now and then. These rockets are 6 feet long. You can hear them when they go over your head, a kind of whistling sound. Once you realize what it is, you take cover quick.

I am having to travel again to Balad, Iraq and I am not thrilled about going either. I leave on Friday morning and will try to catch back here a C130 on Sat night or a C23 first thing Sun morning. It is even hotter there than it is here if you can believe that. Today it is only 115 degrees. The Nissan Pathfinder I am driving has a specially made radiator that is huge and a special oil cooler as well. You can imagine how hot things get inside the car with the windows up. No leaving your pets in there. It is so dusty that you have to leave the windows closed all of the time and still the entire interior is covered in dust. It is a never ending battle with the dust.

I finally found the rest of my runway paint that I ordered from Balad. It was at a base south of here waiting to be convoyed up here. It only took about 15 phone calls to track it down. It should be here in a couple of hours barring no delays on the road. The new solar runway lights that I ordered are also coming in tomorrow. They are really neat. All solar with a remote control so you can turn them off if needed for blackout operations. I will be glad to see them. They call me on the radio every time the runway lights fail, which is often. As I might have mentioned, the present lights are an old Russian system that is a continuous loop. If one light goes out, they all do. It is a real pain.

I saw Gen Mohamad and Gen Kaream the other day. I went to talk to them and when I got there they were having a business lunch. They offered me to join them but since I had just eaten, I declined any lunch. That was not good enough for them so they brought me a plate of pastries instead and tea. While I waited, Gen Mohamad translated most of the conversation. They were all talking about a used car dealer they all knew. Each one of the 8 guys there had been ripped off one way or another by this guy. Gen Mohamad talked about how bad these car dealers are, and how they are the same way in France as well. I told him it was the same in the U.S. One guy said something in Arabic and they all laughed. Gen Mohamad said that it made him so made he could kill him. Hearing him say that I guess must have struck me as something other than a joke and when I didn’t laugh, the group got a real laugh at that when they realized I thought they might be serious. Gen Mohamad said, we are not the Mob and laughed. I spent about an hour talking to them about airport issues. They are all very nice people.

    The airport is looking better everyday. They are just about finished moving dirt around to smooth out the area between the runway and taxiway. There were large piles of dirt, scrap metal, land mines, tanks etc that had to be moved. I really need an airfield manager here to help with all of this. I have KBR come out 3 times a day and spray water on the dirt to help cut down on dust for the helicopters. The choppers always fly in pairs, so two of them really kick up a lot of dust. They call it “brown out” when they cannot see due to the dust. That happens a lot. I am working on bringing in large rock to help with the dust control.   Well I better get back to it.

19 July 2004:   (Happy Birthday Major Robert Parker)

Yo PR, When do you find time to soldier and stuff with all your photo ops !? Your busier than Brittany Spears and almost as photogenic !!

BeeEee   PS Stay low to the ground !

Hey there BE
    As an officer, i have an obligation to my public to keep up my appearances. Today is my birthday. At 0130 the Iraqi's sent over a little birthday present in the form three 122mm rockets. Those rat bastards caused me to be out checking the runways for an hour. Oh well, officers don't need much sleep. I tried to get one of the airmen to go check the runway during the attack and he said "oh yeah, right". What is happening to today's military. Oh well, i better bet back to it. Thanks for the email Bonnie. I will talk to you guys later.

Hey,
Sounds like you're keeping busy over there. Keep your head down & bullet proof stuff on...don't want to attend any more visitations or funerals anytime soon. You also should probably keep good track of where your head is at at all times...seems like quite a few people over there are getting separated from theirs. If I had enough leave to make a donation I'd give ya some, but I'm not above the threshold for that. Hope enough other people are that you're still getting paid more than just military money, we all know that's not enough to live on.

Keep safe,
Scott (SJ)

Hey there Mr. Jones,
   Thanks for the email. I am keeping my head down as much as possible. Sometimes i have to get out there in it, but i wear all that bullet proof stuff as much as i can. It is going to be a little cooler here today, only 114. Might have to breakout the jacket. I will be as careful as i can. Besides, if i didn't come back, who would get employee of the month. I am thinking about starting that over here as well so i can get my own parking spot. I better get back to the war. Today has been spent trying to explain to a 3 Star General why his plane got sent around. His pilot, a full bird col, goofed up his freq's and didn't get a landing clearance and had to go around. Everyone is pissed and now i get to go to Balad HQ and explain the mess. It is funny how everyone else on freq at the time didn't have any problems. Hum..... I might be a Master Sgt again if i am not careful. Thanks again for the email. Oh by the way, thanks for thinking about me with the leave.
(Note: Weather in Memphis - Partly Cloudy with a high of around 92)

27 July 2004:
Hi everyone,

Sorry I have not written in a while. Things are busy as you can imagine. By now you have seen the news and know about the car bomb on base. That rattled the windows. We have been getting hit by some rockets and yesterday a few mortars. Some of that stuff has slowed down a little since we have started fighting back a little more. It has been a little cooler here the last few days, 110 yesterday. Last Friday and Saturday my trip to Balad got canceled because the US Embassy sent some people to see me about the work being done on the airfield. One of the guys was Marcus Castillo, FAA from Washington. He is on detail to Baghdad for a year or so. He is putting me in touch with International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) people from Brussels. I told him if I needed to go to Brussels to meet with these folks I could do that. No such luck. Today I have been out with the runway painting team from Balad. They are finishing up on the paint for the next 3 days. It looks great. I am on my way to meet with a representative of Iraqi Airlines to help them get back flying here at Mosul. They want to see the airport’s terminal, runways and such. I had to settle a dispute between the Iraqi Airport Authority and DHL. It seems that DHL is using loading equipment that belongs to Iraqi Airlines. DHL has been maintaining the equipment as rent but now the Iraqis want money for the use. DHL said fine, take your stuff back and now it is a big mess. The folks at the airport think they should get the money for rent but they do not own the equipment. DHL says they are not paying just anyone the money without a contract. It is a totally different way of doing business for the Iraqis now. Before, they made their own contracts at each location. Even though the government owned everything, whoever was the manager got the money. I better go for now and get back to it.

1530

I just got back from meeting with the guys from Iraqi Airlines. They were really nice and once again it was a history lesson. One of them, Mr. Jamal, was the Iraqi Airlines station manager here in Mosul. Before that, he was a Major in the Iraqi Air Force. I put him and the DHL folks together to talk business. It went well. Next I had to escort the company that has been hired by the Iraqi Govt to get the airport up and running for civilian traffic, new tower, water system for fire fighting, navigational aids, runways lights and all of that other stuff that I have been doing for 2 months. I have them here for the next three days. A great deal of my job is being an ambassador it seems. I had lunch with Gen Kirem and Gen Mohamad today. They ordered me a dish that was mostly grilled meat, lamb, beef and chicken with a side plate of cucumbers, onions, olives and pickled squash. It was really good. It is now almost 1600 and I am trying to get caught up on emails that I missed this morning. If it were not for CMSgt Null and SMSgt Summerlin, my two enlisted troops, I would never be able to get it all done. Thanks to them, the air traffic control mission is taken care of, which leaves me time to do all of this airfield management stuff. I am really proud of the work that all of these folks are doing here. I hear almost no complaints out of anyone. Yes, I would hear about it. They are real troopers. Well, I better send this before I get into something else. I will try to do better on the emails Dad. More pics to come. Robert

Here are a few pics. They were taken from a helicopter over Mosul. The pics were too large to send so i have cut them down a bit. I will try to get better at sizing them.