Wyatt+H.+&+Grant+B.+-+Mr.+Hammond

Wyatt Houtz Grant Brubaker

Mr. Hammonds

Interview Questions Background Early Days of training Service Time Afghanistan Iraq Looking Back NATIONAL GUARD
 * 1) Where and when were you born?
 * 2) What were your parents occupation?
 * 3) What was your occupation before entering the military.
 * 4) Do you have any other family members in the military?
 * 5) Were you enlisted or drafted?
 * 6) Why did you join?
 * 1) Where did you go for basic training?
 * 2) Do you remember your instructors?
 * 3) How did you get through it?
 * 4) How were your days of training?
 * 5) Did you have any specialized training? What was that like? Where did you go? Please explain what you did in specialized training?
 * 6) How well did you adapt to the military?-Physical regimen,barracks, social life, and food?
 * 1) So you served in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now in the National guard?
 * 1) How was the trip over to Afghanistan?
 * 2) Please tell me some of your most memorable experiences Flying.
 * 3) Where did you fly your CH-47 Chinook.
 * 4) What is the main use of that helicopter.
 * 5) Tell us about it?
 * 6) How long did it take you to learn about it?
 * 7) What was your role there?
 * 8) Please tell me about what you did there?
 * 9) Were you ever in combat?
 * 10) Did you witness any casualties or wounded soldiers there?
 * 11) When did you return home?
 * 1) How long were you home before you went to Iraq?
 * 2) What was your role in Iraq?
 * 3) How was the transport to Iraq?
 * 4) Tell me about your missions in Iraq?
 * 5) Did you experience any casualties there?
 * 6) Were you in combat?
 * 7) How long were you there?
 * 8) When did you return home?
 * 1) Did you ever experience a situation that went badly? Please Explain
 * 2) What about one that went better than expected?Please Explain
 * 3) Did you form any friendships in war?
 * 4) What were your feelings during war?
 * 5) How did you stay in touch with people back home?
 * 6) Where were you when the war ended?
 * 7) How did you feel when you were on your way back home?
 * 8) How did you readjust back to being a civilian? How long did it take to be get to normal?
 * 9) What was the name of your rank?
 * 10) Were you awarded any medals or citations?
 * 11) Explain what those were?
 * 12) How did you get them?
 * 13) Did you do any battle planning?
 * 14) Did you feel pressure or stress?
 * 15) Do you recall any particularly humorous or unusual event?
 * 1) What extra training did you do to enter the National guard?
 * 2) What is the service like compared to the army?
 * 3) Do you have photographs?
 * 4) <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;">Who are the people in the photographs?
 * 5) <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;">Do you attend reunions?
 * 6) <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;">How did your service and experiences affect your life?
 * 7) <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;">How did you feel when the war ended?
 * 8) <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;">What did you do when you heard the news?
 * 9) <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;">How would you describe the ways that the war changed your life and those of others?
 * 10) <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;">Is there anything you would like to add that we have not covered in this interview?

Interview

Wyatt Houtz and Grant Brubaker2-17-15

We are here to talk about Mr. Hammonds from his house, for the Veteran’s History Project for the Library of Congress. Such as Mr. Hammonds being a Chief Warrant Officer, and stories of flying in his Chinook helicopter.

Grant- When and where were you born?

Mr. Hammonds- I was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida 1970.

Wyatt- What were your parent’s jobs?

Mr. Hammonds- My father worked for the utility company for power lines, and my mother was a homemaker.

Grant- What was your occupation before entering the military?

Mr. Hammonds- I was a college student.

Wyatt- Do you have any other family members that were in the military?

Mr. Hammonds- Yes, my father was. He was in the navy.

Grant- Were you enlisted or drafted?

Mr. Hammonds- Yeah, I was enlisted.

Wyatt- Why did you join?

Mr. Hammonds- Because I wanted to fly helicopters.

Grant- Where did you go for your basic training?

Mr. Hammonds- Fort Leonard Wood, Fort Leonard Wood Missouri.

Wyatt- Do you remember your instructors?

Mr. Hammonds- No

Grant- How did you get through it?

Mr. Hammonds- Basically, I just waited them out.

Wyatt- How were your days of training?

Mr. Hammonds- Currently now?

Wyatt- No how were they?

Mr. Hammonds- Long and arduous

Grant- Did you have any specialized training?

Mr. Hammonds- Yes, I trained in different languages and as an interrogator and as a pilot.

Wyatt- How well did you adapt to the military?

Mr. Hammonds- Pretty easily, it was very regimented program and that’s actually not bad.

Grant- So you’ve served in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now in the National Guard?

Mr. Hammonds- Yes

Wyatt- How was the trip over to Afghanistan?

Mr. Hammonds- Very long and very hot.

Grant- Please tell us some of your most memorable experiences flying.

Mr. Hammonds- There’s a million of them, there is just so many. It’s hard to pick one in particular. Well we fly around, I fly a Chinook, which is a large helicopter. We fly everything and anything we can that’s thrown in the back, from cars, to troops, I’ve flown donkeys before, flown dogs, and millions of dollars. It’s just a varied range of things we’ve carried and can fly around.

Wyatt- Where and what places did you fly your helicopter?

Mr. Hammonds- I’ve flown all over the United States, a lot of places in the Middle East to Kuwait, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Yeah that’s about it.

Grant- Tell us about that.

Mr. Hammonds- Well because we’ve carried a lot of different things, we fly long distances, with a short tank inside we can fly across the country in one day, so a lot of travel.

Wyatt- How long did it take you to learn about it?

Mr. Hammonds- Flight school took almost two years.

Grant- Ok, what was your role there in Afghanistan?

Mr. Hammonds- In Afghanistan, I was flight lead for my company and I would basically fly different aircrafts to different places.

Wyatt- Please tell me about what you did in Afghanistan?

Mr. Hammonds- Generally at the time in Afghanistan we did most resupply missions on call, and air assault missions.

Grant- So were you ever in combat?

Mr. Hammonds- Yes, in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Wyatt- Did you witness any casualties or wounded soldiers while you were there?

Mr. Hammonds- Yes, many, both enemies and our guys as well.

Grant- How long.. When did you return home?

Mr. Hammonds- In, I think it was in February 2004.

Wyatt- How long were you home before you went to Iraq?

Mr. Hammonds- I was home for about 20 days before I headed back to Iraq.

Grant- What was your role in Iraq?

Mr. Hammonds- Same role, basically.

Wyatt- How was your transport to Iraq?

Mr. Hammonds- Again very long and hot.

Grant- Tell me about your missions in Iraq.

Mr. Hammonds- Pretty much the same thing, it was more resupply than anything else, that was when we first got to Iraq, and as soon as ground forces moved in quickly, we would run a resupply chain. We would do a lot of on call missions, whether it would be mail, fuel, ammunition, food, water, and all kinds of different things for the troops. Then when we pretty much took over, Iraq it turned into resupply missions at that point.

Wyatt- So did you experience any casualties there?

Mr. Hammonds- Yes

Grant- And you were in combat?

Mr. Hammonds- Yes

Wyatt- How long were you in Iraq?

Mr. Hammonds- I was in there for 15 or 16, maybe not that long, just over a year.

Grant- When did you return home?

Mr. Hammonds- We returned home from Iraq in, I think it was February 2004, I went to Afghanistan first in June 2001, no sorry June 2002, and then I was gone all the way until, except the few day in between, I was gone February 2004.

Wyatt- Did you ever experience a situation that went badly?

Mr. Hammonds- Yes, almost every flight went badly, yeah so that’s one thing about flying helicopters and being in a war environment. Pretty much every time you go flying something’s going to go wrong. Something’s always going to go wrong.

Grant- What about one that went better than expected?

Mr. Hammonds- Very few went better than expected. No thats not true. One time we got down with large mission in Iraq, and we were able to all come back to our home base at the same time of 29 different helicopters all in one formation, back home to Mosul which was in northern Iraq, and it turned out it was the largest movement of helicopters at a time.

Wyatt- Did you form any friendships in war?

Mr. Hammonds- Yes, a lot of different friendships were made, it’s one of those things you can’t deny, a lot of friends, just a lot of different people.

Grant- What were your feelings during war?

Mr. Hammonds- Wasn’t very happy, because we were gone so long. It was very difficult, I just got married, and then it was just a couple months later, and so that was difficult, however the whole time you were over there you were thinking about back at home, but being on a missions, all you think about is protecting the guys on the ground and supporting your fellow troops.

Wyatt- How did you stay in touch with people back home?

Mr. Hammonds- Through letters and some phone calls, internet wasn’t really up and working all that great at the time, so mainly through letters and phone calls.

Grant- Where were you when the war ended?

Mr. Hammonds- When Iraq ended? I was here in the states.

Wyatt- How did you feel when you were on your way back home?

Mr. Hammonds- That’s a good question. Very happy to get home definitely, but very torn sometimes because you know you are leaving a lot of guys still overseas, cause your just very worried about them, so your the best you can but at the same time kind of sad leaving your fellow Americans over there.

Grant- How did you readjust back to being a civilian?

Mr. Hammonds- The readjustment process was pretty seamless; however, as just an American we kind of develop back from the war back home with a child or what not, my readjustment went pretty quickly however, the readjustment for Americans back in the states who don’t know much about the war or much of what’s going on and have no clue about what it’s is like to be over there cause it was tough to take.

Wyatt- What was the name of your rank?

Mr. Hammonds- Chief Warrant Officer

Grant- Were you awarded any medals or citations?

Mr. Hammonds- Yes I was awarded five air medals.

Wyatt- Can you explain what those were?

Mr. Hammonds- Basically, for different missions and war and all, we were given awards for the success outcome of missions.

Grant- Did you do any battle planning?

Mr. Hammonds- Yes, lots of battle planning at the beginning of Iraq for the first two months. I was a liaison officer with a ground unit. We planned different options and scenarios for different battle plans for the on coming, or upcoming track.

Wyatt- Did you feel any pressure or stress?

Mr. Hammonds- Yes

Grant- Do you recall a particularly humorous or unusual event?

Mr. Hammonds- Yeah, we used to do a lot of missions at night, and so we would come three or four o’clock in the morning, and we would come back and to the place we were at the time it was in Mosul, Iraq, and it was three-four clock in the morning, and we would come over to the tents, and pull all the tents apart to try to wake everybody up, and so I go one night and my buddy would go the next, and they would get lower and lower, so we were blowing everything down, and we came back in, and they would be mad at us, it was kinda funny at the time.

Wyatt- What extra training did you do to get into the National Guard?

Mr. Hammonds- In the National Guard, we didn’t have to do any extra training because I already had the training I needed to qualify me for the National Guard.

Grant- What is this service like compared to the army?

Mr. Hammonds- It’s still the army. It’s the army national guard. It’s not much different, and I took it because they don’t deploy they just have training center. I got out of the active army and now I’m an instructor pilot. Also I was not deployed at this point.

Wyatt- Do you have any photographs?

Mr. Hammonds- Yes.

Grant- Do you attend reunions?

Mr. Hammonds- No.

Wyatt- How did your service and experiences affect your life.

Mr. Hammonds- I call pride of ownership basically. Fight for something. It gives you a perspective and aspect on what it is you fought for. As an American, you really don’t care about a rental car since it’s not yours. You kind of drive around, beat on it a little bit, give the keys back when you're done using it, That’s a lie. When it’s your car, you have to take care of it, and possibly fight for it sometimes. So you have to fight them off and it gives a new perspective.

Grant- How would you describe the way that war has changed your life and others?

Mr. Hammonds- It a positive and negative. On the other side you're seeing, your how great humans can be to each other, and the outcomes of that. Especially coming back home and realizing that it gives you a final perspective on what is important and not important.

Wyatt- Are there any stories you want to share?

Mr. Hammonds- Yes, April 24th, 2003, we had to leave to take some supplies up to northern Iraq. So the weather was getting pretty bad, but we decided to go anyway because guys were needing food and water. And so we started flying north. The weather started coming down, started getting like a dust storm moving through, some times there call “shamalls” or whatever. And the visibility started degrading. So it was me and another Chinook. Brian Williams was not on board at the time. So we started moving north and like I said the weather was getting pretty bad. And we started slowing down but there was an eighty-knot wind, so at a hover you're moving across the ground at eighty knots. So we start slowing down even more and then we came across, I was second, then the lead aircraft called out wires. We looked on the map and there were no wires plotted on the map. There weren't supposed to be any wires there, but I guess they had missed them. So lead aircraft said, Wires wires wires he pulled up and out, they were those big high-tension high-powered wires. He went up and over, I fall over the top and then he went down into the dust and I lost him below me. About that time I try to slow down and I couldn't find him he was beneath me somewhere. And when I went to turn basically that eighty knot when hit me in the side and I spun three times and we finally got the aircraft under control and basically in the back were 51 troops who had no idea what was going on, thank God. So we landed and the other aircraft landed safely too. they kinda hopped skipped way back to us and we shut off together, so we went ahead and shut down for the night. The troops went out the back and set up a perimeter, to protect us all night long. In the morning, we woke up walked out the back of the aircraft and we basically had come underneath the wires when you looked up the wires were right above the aircraft. somehow we scooted underneath the wires and so we got out of that one. We started up the aircraft moved forward to where all the fighting was going on. We dropped off the supplies and a mortuary affairs captain came running up to us and she said that she had a lot of heroes (code for American soldiers that had died.) She said she had a lot of heroes in the back of her mortuary truck. Which is like a big refrigerator which is where you keep the bodies, so they won’t spoil. She said hey my air conditioner on the truck is not working; these bodies are going to go bad, can you take these with you. Back down south since that’s where you’re going. We said yeah sure we will do that for you. One of the bodies was a pretty famous newscaster, I forget the name. He had a heart attack while we were over there, so he was in one of the body bags as well. So we put all the bodies in the back of the aircraft. And we took off started flying down south, it was probably a good 3-4 hour trip, it was a long enough trip we had to make a couple of fuel stops so as we made our way to Kuwait. The weather got bad and we had to slow down. Finally we shut down because the visibility was so bad. At that time you had some enemy soldiers come at the back of the aircraft, and we started getting attacked so we had to take off again. And a couple of the guys were like. Were like hey lets go off somewhere in the desert and shut down and just kinda wait the storm out overnight. I said I am not waiting in the middle of the desert with bodies in the back of this aircraft and people looking for us. I’m not doing that, so we took off again and we were going slow eventually there is a lot more to the story but eventually we made it all our way down to Kuwait. Dropped off the American soldiers, we had maybe a minute or two of gas to spare by the time we landed. So it was a very long day by the time we landed. Lot of soldiers have dead days. It’s kinda like your birthday, That was my dead day, the day I should have died, but we pull through. So that’s one of the stories. There was another time; we were up in Mosul, northern Iraq. We spent a lot of time there when the war started we obviously had to move north through the country and then finally the 101st once we major round of offensive was over we set up four different units. 101st was in charge of the northern half. So again we set up an airfield in Mosul during that time a lot of stuff happened in Mosul. I had gone to Afghanistan for 8-9 months, and I kinda knew what to do because Iraq was heating up and as far as the war and they thought the war was going to happen, but they didn't really know what to do with the unit is at in Afghanistan, so like I said before. They brought us home thinking they were going to bring us home and we were going to stay home for a while but the commander was so scared about telling us that we were going back to war that they waited until we landed at Fort Campbell and the first sergeant, because the commander was too scared, stood up and said hey guys take dirty stuff home wash it leave all the gear here we're going back to Iraq in a couple weeks. Be back here in 48 hours for all the training, to go back to Iraq. So really we only had 4 days at home before we had to go back because the rest was training to go back to Iraq. So we went back to Iraq and we were gone for almost two years straight. Anyway that leading up to our time in Mosul, then they said alright we are going to send you guys home because you have been deployed for so long, over a year now. Lets send you guys home and so a couple of times they were like hey we're going to send you guys home, but it didn't work out so we spent about 4 months on the ground without any aircraft. Because what they would think that they would have the aircraft fly all the time off the aircraft and just have time left over to fly them back down south to put them on our ship back to the United States. So we had a lot of time sitting around in Iraq because they did this many times where they were thinking well lets not fix the aircraft lets go ahead and send it back home. So anyway we were sitting around a lot of the time in Iraq, which you don't want to do to soldiers because they are going to get into trouble if you give them too much time with nothing to do. So one time we’re sitting around in Iraq and up on the hill around Mosul airfield. There is a ridgeline on the western side. Up there they had a big Uxo Dump, unexploded ordnance, what was going on in Iraq is Saddam Hussein was very scared about keeping his planes, tanks, and ammunition in one spot because then you could blow it up and then you would be done. So what the Iraqi army would do is they would spread out planes and ammunition and ammo dumps all across the desert. So what would happen is you would be flying and you would fly over a berm and see a whole bunch of ammo down there, sitting out in the middle of the desert. Fly a little longer and you would see some Mic 21s or some old aircraft or some tanks sitting out in the middle of the desert. So anyway they had a lot of ammunition sitting around the desert and so what they would do, is the Americans would go out and gather all the ammunition and bring back to an ammo dump and progressively get rid of all the ammunitions because it’s not safe. Well, up on the ridgeline surrounding the Mosul airport they had this huge ammo dump. They had a lot of EOD guys, which is the guys who would use demo to blow up all the UXO. Well one day they were burning some latrine and it was a windy day. Somehow while they were burning latrines, the flames got out and it caught the ammo dump on fire. Which is kinda like setting a Chinese firecracker factory on fire, it’s not something you want to do. So what happened was the whole ammo dump caught fire and explosions all the bombs and ammunition were exploding and raining down on top of Mosul and so this went on for like hours. We asked if there was anything we could do, some of it was landing on the airfield and catching the dry grass on fire. So finally they said some of the aircraft are going to get damaged we need to get these things out of here. But they had never thought of a scatter plan, like hey everybody get out of here now plan. And so they ran around to all the pilots and were like hey go grab an aircraft and get out of here. We didn't have our gear on or anything we were just hanging out. I was in shorts and a t-shirts and ran got a helmet running down the line checking in every aircraft to see if it. Keep running, oh that’s got some guys in it, oh that one two, so finally I found an aircraft so finally when I got in, sat down and put my helmet on another guy, who was a pilot jumped in, then a crewman jumped in and we took off. That was the first and only time I flew in a Chinook with shorts and a t-shirt just flying around, just flying away from all the ammo dump catching on fire. There was no place to go, it was just to go fly around. They said stay away until we get this under control. Eventually everyone got together and landed out in the desert, until they called us back. So we flew back in and everything was safe at that point. It was very strange feeling, someone hands you the keys and tells you to go fly, where, oh just around, ok. So we flew around for a while. Lots of things happened at Mosul again we were there for a long time. Another time I remember when we started to get aircraft back into maintenance started getting them fixed. There are time limits; there is a maintenance schedule, just like there is for cars, every 3000 miles you have to change the oil. Every 200 hundred hours you have to stop flying the aircraft, take a lot of things apart. Lot of times the aircraft get beat up and shot up. They would wait until a certain hour level before they fix all the stuff that’s broken. Well a lot of the times they say well we got an aircraft with 5 hours left and we want to bring it to phase maintenance, that’s what they called it. Listen we got 5 hours to burn off fly time on these aircraft, there is no missions going on, Hey let’s give the keys to these pilots and crewmembers and go fly off the rest of the time. They say you want to go fly off the rest of these hours and you would be like, okay let’s go do something fun. So we would plan a mission and fly north of Mosul. And there are some big lakes up there. Actually Saddam Hussein had his own fishing lake up there. It looked like a mountain that they chopped the top off of and it was huge, it wasn't something small. That was his private fishing lake. The legend was that he would go fishing up there and they would have scuba divers that would have fish and they would pull the thing and he would reel up and catch a fish, I don't know if that’s true or not but any way that’s what they said. So we go up there and land the aircraft and go swimming and not really have a party but we would go swimming and have the other aircraft to fly security to make sure no one would come up on us. Then in half an hour to 45 we would get in, take off and fly around. They would get out and go swimming. It was kinda like a picnic day with a Chinook. Lot of cool stories over there, obviously you can't do that now, cause war broke out and there is no fun now. One thing I do remember over there, is that some guys said it was like the Wild West in that country. It wasn't like there wasn't any rules or anything, but a lot of the things we did over there you cannot do today. What you can't take a Chinook and go fly to a pond, no way. Lots of very interesting missions and a lot of different things. I would say as a pilot flying Chinooks we carry a lot of cargo a lot of different things. Back in the Afghanistan war Chinooks were kinda like truckers those guys are just moving assets back and forth. They weren’t really on the front lines, weren’t really fighting and doing these big air assault missions. Because of the high altitudes and the density altitudes and temperatures. Lot of aircraft couldn't compete with our performance. Lot of times we were the only show in town, as far as who could go on this mission and do these high altitude missions and infill missions and taking troops up and down. They found in Iraq that the Chinook could do a whole lot more a whole lot faster with a lot less gas so it was very interesting time because it was a paradigm shift for the Chinooks from in the rear with the gear to out on the front line running all these different missions and different aspects that they can only do. So it was a very different time for the Chinook so that’s why we have the new Chinook because we went over there with the d-model Chinooks which is an older model. Now we have an f model Chinook which is an all glass cockpit and a TV screen up front all digital so with Afghanistan and Iraq and using those aircraft over there at the time, so it’s been a pretty big shift not only with the aircraft but with how we do business.

Narrative By: Wyatt Houtz and Grant Brubaker 3-10-15  __Drew Hammonds__ Mr. Hammonds was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 1970. His mom was a homemaker, and his dad worked for a utility company and served in the Navy. Mr. Hammonds went into military after he finished college. Mr. Hammonds enlisted because he wanted to fly helicopters for his country. His basic training was held in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. He pushed through the very tough training. After enduring training, he was trained in foreign languages, to be an interrogator, as well as a pilot. Flight training took him two years to finish. Then he dived into the military. He adjusted to the regiment program easily. He was first deployed in Afghanistan. The United States of America were fighting to overthrow the Taliban that was oppressing the Afghan people. His trip over was extremely long and hot. When he arrived, he and some of the guys said it was like the Wild West, very few rules and he was one of the first to be stationed there. He flew all over Afghanistan, carrying troops, supplies, cars, dogs, donkeys and even millions of dollars. His service there consisted of long days flying his CH-47 Chinook long distances. He was a flight lead, he led resupply and air-assault missions. Part of the air assault was experiencing combat and many casualties. Finally after his service in Afghanistan he came back to the states in February, 2004. Twenty days after he came home, he was sent back to fight in Iraq. His trip over reminded him of the one over to Afghanistan, long and very hot. In Iraq, he was given the same role, flight lead running resupply missions. The difference in Iraq was that much of it was more resupply than anything else. As soon as ground forces moved in, he would run a resupply chain. He would do a lot of on call missions, whether it would be mail, fuel, ammunition, food, water, and all kinds of different things that the troops needed. Then when the U.S. pretty much took over Iraq it turned into resupply missions at that point. He was in combat though and experienced some casualties. He stayed in Iraq just over a year before he` returned home. While he was serving, Mr. Hammonds says, “Almost every flight went badly.” Flying helicopters in a war environment leads to bad missions. One time though, he was done with a mission and 29 helicopters were all flying in one formation. It turned out that it was the largest movement of troops. Even with so many helicopters, no problems were experienced. Mr. Hammonds had some memorable experiences. One that he remembered well was his “Dead Day.” This was the day that he almost did die on. A sandstorm had kicked up and he lost visibility and the flight lead called that he saw wires and pulled away. Mr. Hammonds couldn't see anything and lowered altitude. He then tried to turn and the eighty-knot wind hit him in the side and the helicopter spun around three times. Once they had land it ended up that they had flown right under the wires. The whole crew hopped skipped through the storm and met up. The troops set up a perimeter and they slept through the night, but in the morning the enemy attacked them from behind. They flew off and dropped their supplies off and when they did a mortuary officer said that she needed to move the bodies of American heroes. He loaded them in the back and flew three hours down to Kuwait making fuel stops along the way. The weather had gotten very bad and they shut off again in the middle of the desert. Some of the guys wanted to wait it out but Mr. Hammonds didn’t want to, because he knew guys were out looking for them. Finally they made it all the way to Kuwait with only a minute of fuel to spare. Sometimes memories there are good memories. Mr. Hammonds had a memory of waking up early in the morning, him and his buddy went over to where the tents were at three O'clock and knocked them all down trying to anger the other soldiers. Another time they were dumping dangerous supplies that would be find out in the desert. The fire in the dump got out of control and lit all the explosives on fire. All the fire was exploding out on the airfield. It was damaging the aircraft so they were told to fly everything out of there. The troops were not ready, so they scrambled around and flew the helicopters around in shorts and t-shirts. Mr. Hammonds said that it was a great time; the first time he flew a helicopter in shorts and a t-shirt. Another fun thing he had done was when he was in Afghanistan and they flew to the big lakes in Mosul. They were told to fly off some hours on a helicopter so that it could be moved to maintenance. They decided to go to Saddam Hussein's private lake and swim. That’s what they did with a couple of helicopters, the first group would swim while the second flew a perimeter and then they switched halfway through. Another tough time for Mr. Hammonds was going home. He didn’t know how he felt about going home. He was so excited to be going home to see his family and friends. At the same time, he felt bad that he was leaving other troops out at war.