I ducked to avoid the hot, oily blast of rotorwash and walked up the ramp into the back of the last helicopter. Inside the aircraft was at half capacity, my companions buckling themselves into the red nylon seats along the wall. After the crew finished strapping down the duffel bags and rucksacks in an orderly pile in the center they, too, sat down.
No one spoke, or tried to, and if we wanted to talk, the twin engines above us created such a din the only option was to put in earplugs and enjoy the ride. It was late in any case, far past midnight, and we were tired. The engines changed pitch as the pilot lifted the ungainly machine into the air. After we left the dust on the ground behind, the crew chief lowered the tailgate and I watched the lights of Hawijah, prominent in the dark countryside, grow smaller and smaller until they disappeared.
In the darkness below I imagined the routes and checkpoints, villages, sheiks, projects, operations, craters, and ghosts and watched them disappear into the night. The pilot banked around the oil fields on the outskirts of Kirkuk, dodged the exhaust vents belching orange flames and asphalt smells into the night, and turned to the airport.
I could see the silhouette of our companion aircraft behind us and to one side as it followed. Then it faded into the shadows. When we landed at the airfield it was our turn to be hustled off the aircraft. An orderly ran my ID card through a bar-code scanner and it was done.
I write this as we sit in Kuwait, waiting for the flight back to Fort Drum. There are only fifty of us left, the other Soldiers from our battalion are already home. The battalion that has landed has begun to change, and over the course of the next few months we will become a different unit entirely, barely recognizable from the one that existed a few weeks ago.
