Long Day

Show time for work today was at 11:00pm.  I was one of 4 pilots assigned to the night Air Weapons Team.  We are suppose to be a quick reaction force and be "on call" to respond anywhere that they need attack assests.  When we recieved our brief, they already had 3 planned missions for us to work.  The 1st mission had us depart at 0050am to provide cover to 2 CH-47's as they dropped infantry into a landing zone near a village where a believed weapons cache was located.  It was our job to observe the landing zone and make sure it was safe for the CH-47's to land.  Then we provided overhead cover as the guys on the ground searched the cache.  We left overhead cover and returned to Shank at 0230am.  Our next mission began at 0430 and was a simple overhead cover as two CH-47's delivered supplies to a observation post.  The landing zone was considered a "moderate threat" and the CH-47's were happy to have attack aircraft overhead.  We returned back to Shank at 0600.  Our final mission had us depart at 0850 in order to provide overhead cover for General Petraeus as he landed at a nearby FOB (Forward Operating Base) and walked out into the local area to meet key leaders.  We were on station until 1100 and then returned to Shank.  All in all it was a long night/day of flying night vision system (NVS), night vision goggles (NVG), and daytime.