Weekly Writing Seven It was an abnormally cold day in Baghdad, when I got my first chance to ride a Blackhawk helicopter. I woke up at 0500, began getting dressed and grabbing all the gear I would need for the flight. When I got to the tarmac the pilot was already starting his pre-flight briefs. The pilot told us it was just a routine flight over downtown Baghdad, and everything should be just fun, but Intel said there had been a recent rise in hostile activity in the area, so we should be on our guard. We began boarding the Blackhawk and getting all of our gear strapped down and the Machine Gunners began doing weapons checks on their M240Bs. When we took off from BIAP everything was going according to plan, the helicopter was operating perfectly. It wasn’t until 20 or so minutes into the flight that I would realize the true purpose of the flight was. We were given the brief that the mission was just a typical fly over for surveillance on a market in Baghdad, but after a while I noticed we were nowhere near the particular market. The Blackhawk slowed down to a halt over a small building and I could hear the pilot barking orders at the two men sitting up front but couldn’t make out what he was saying. The two men began unstrapping themselves and hooking up rappel ropes to the outside edge of the floor. I began hearing gunfire and realized we were taking small arms fire to the right side of the helicopter. The right side gunner began returning fire, I looked out the window and could see a few enemy combatants standing on a roof adjacent to the one we were above and they were firing AK-47’s at us. The gunner on the right side took a hit directly in the head; he slumped over dead before his hands fell off his weapon. I heard the pilot screaming for someone to “jump on that fucking gun!” I unbuckled myself as fast as I could, and moved the dead gunner into my seat. As I sat down I slammed the bolt forward on the machine gun and returned fire. An RPG gunner came out of seemingly nowhere, and in a heartbeat he was already pointing the rocket at our helicopter. I had a split second to make this shot because at this distance there was no way the pilot would be able to dodge the rocket. I fired a hail of bullets as accurately as I could at the attacker. At least 3 of the bullets struck him as the blood sprayed all around him and he lay dead on the roof of the building. By this time the two men rappelling down the ropes were on the building and the pilot took off. When we arrived back at BIAP we were greeted with a team of people to carry the dead soldier away, and my Company Commander. My Commander told me I would be receiving the bronze star for my valor in combat, and saving everyone that could have been saved on that Blackhawk, and for helping the team complete the mission. When I lay in bed that night I was over-thinking the flights events, it all seemed so unreal, so crazy. “Bourne…. Bourne! Dude wake up, you’re going to be late for your Blackhawk ride today” was it all a dream?