An American flag sits in the cockpit of an Apache that Chief Warrant Officer 3 Sean Merrill checks on Thursday in Balad, Iraq, before he leaves on a mission. Pilots bring the flags with them on missions and then give them to people who send them care packages. Flags coming from Merrill's unit, the 2nd Battalion, 159th Aviation Regiment, are flown all over Iraq because the Illesheim-based group has a mission that takes it across the country. (James Warden / S&S)
An American flag sits in the cockpit of an Apache that Chief Warrant Officer 3 Sean Merrill checks on Thursday in Balad, Iraq, before he leaves on a mission. Pilots bring the flags with them on missions and then give them to people who send them care packages. Flags coming from Merrill's unit, the 2nd Battalion, 159th Aviation Regiment, are flown all over Iraq because the Illesheim-based group has a mission that takes it across the country. (James Warden / S&S)
1st Lt. Christopher Gerbas checks a log book Wednesday before leaving on a mission from Balad, Iraq. Apache pilots with the 2nd Battalion, 159th Aviation Regiment are getting to see a lot more of Iraq than their peers because of a mission that sends the unit across the country. (James Warden / S&S)
Chief Warrant Office 2 Jeffery Smith, 25, checks his helicopter Wednesday before leaving on a mission from Balad, Iraq. (James Warden / S&S)
Spc. Tim Villa, 23, a crew chief, stands ready Wednesday in Balad, Iraq, as an Apache begins its preflight warm-up. (James Warden / S&S)
Related article: Crew chiefs stuck with scenery near Balad
BALAD, Iraq — There is no shortage of maps in the mission planning room for the Company A “Assassins,” of the 2nd Battalion, 159th Aviation Regiment. Maps adorning the walls show seemingly every corner of Iraq.
This cartographical flourish isn’t just for decoration, though. It’s essential for a battalion that flies missions all over Iraq.
Most combat aviation brigades are assigned to one of the various divisions in Iraq responsible for a specific region. Multi-National Division—North, for example, covers cities such as Mosul and Kirkuk in the top half of the country. Multi-National Division—Baghdad, on the other hand, is responsible for Iraq’s capital.
But the Illesheim, Germany-based battalion is assigned to Multi-National Corps—Iraq, which has oversight over the entire country. Pilots in the 2-159 fly from the Iranian border in the east to the deserts of the west and most places in between.
“We kind of bounce around,” said Capt. Jarat Ford, an Apache pilot and commander of the battalion’s Company B “Paleriders.”
“We’re basically a flying [quick reaction force],” he said. “Once we show up, it’s pretty much over if we see them.”
The varied flying requires an adaptive pilot, said 1st Lt. Christopher Gerbas, a 24-year-old pilot and platoon leader in Company A. Out west, it’s mostly desert with a few small cities. Even Ramadi is small enough that the Apaches can stay outside the city limits and still see what’s going on inside the city. Baghdad, by contrast, is a sprawling, densely populated city, while the eastern part of the country has more palm groves and farmland.
“It keeps you on your toes,” Gerbas said.
Flying in so many places also can make it harder to spot the small changes that are crucial to understanding what’s happening in an area. The 2-159 units arrange their mission structures so that an Apache team already familiar with an area is on each mission, never leaving any flight entirely to pilots who haven’t flown over an area before.
It also requires extensive coordination. Ford was heading out on a mission Thursday on which he could end up supporting up to seven brigade combat teams. A division-level Apache unit may support just one.
The pilots haven’t personally met many of the units they are supporting. They get a request for a mission, talk with some of the ground officers on the phone, plan the mission and then fly it.
“I’ve never met anybody from Baghdad,” Gerbas explained.
Yet the far-flung missions give the pilots an overall view of Iraq that other units don’t get. At one point, the Apache pilots were regularly flying missions over Ramadi, recalled Maj. Greg Tily, the battalion executive officer. The city was peaceful and settling down despite attacks in other parts of the country.
“If that was the only mission we would have fought, we would have thought this war was over,” he said.
It’s this perspective, and the variety that comes along with it, that the pilots enjoy so much. Gerbas has friends in units that cover only Baghdad, and he said he wouldn’t want to trade places with them.
“If I was stuck in that [area of operations] for 15 months, I would lose my mind,” Gerbas said.
