Stealthy Behemoth
It was not an actual SOLL II run going into Baghdad, but we did fly with NVGs and no lights. We flew tactical approaches to keep the threat away. Later, when we flew into Balad, the Army commander on the ground said he had no idea that a C-5 was even in the area until we taxied in. We basically made our approach by cruising at just above flight idle. We flew the C-5Bs equipped with defensive systems.
     — Maj. Jon Erickson

Job Description
The pilots eject flares five minutes out of Baghdad. My first thought is to blink, but I keep my eyes open and do my job. Everybody is at a window looking at crossfires and stuff coming at us as we descend. That kind of environment is not in the usual job description. Once on the ground, we take care of the jet.
     — SSgt. Jay Sherman

Equal Share
Everybody has an equal share in everything, including the crew chief. The object is getting in and then getting out of there. Gas and go.
     — SSgt. Jon Hoffman

Prepared
Even going into Iraq, our job is pretty much the same as it always is. We make sure the pilots are on speed and altitude. We run through the checklists. I'm set up to mind our configuration. We prepare for the worst-case scenario, like a missile or triple-A hit. We're ready to do damage control, if necessary.
     — TSgt. Joe Foster

Loyalty
On one flight out of Baghdad, one of the Army guys went into cardiac arrest. Our copilot was a radiologist. She went to the back and saved him. We picked up guys who had been through a lot. We transported a twenty-one-year-old who had been shot. He was getting out of there, but all he wanted to know was when he could get back to his unit.
     — TSgt. A. J. Jelks

Worth The Wait
On one mission, we landed, downloaded cargo, and were set to go. We were told to wait. Another aircraft landed, taxied up, and twenty wounded soldiers were put on a truck and brought right to us. Half of them were in bad shape. An RPG had gone into a fuel truck. We had to get them out of there.
     — SSgt. Jon Hoffman

Turn Times
We got good support in Baghdad. They had a K-loader and forklifts. The TALCE guys were there. It ran fairly well for off-load and on-load. We wanted minimal ground time, and the guys were racing the clock. They would check the oil and get gas. As long as we had our stuff together in the back end, our turn times were excellent.
     — TSgt. Karl Eckberg

Hub And Spoke
We went into Baghdad on 14 May. At first, the C-5s did hub and spoke operations with the C-17s, the C-5s taking the bulk of things to staging facilities in Germany at Ramstein and Frankfurt, and the C-17s taking the cargo in country. Then we went in country.
     — Capt. Hugh Hansens