Lock Haven soldier sees good in the Middle East

[EagleEyes]

Lock Haven soldier sees good in the Middle East

By DAVID KAGAN Sun-Gazette Correspondent
WOODWARD

LOCK HAVEN — David Woodward, U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer 3 from Lock Haven, believes he and his fellow soldiers experienced good things in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. All is not a battle against evil in those foreign lands.

Woodward served as a helicopter pilot during Operation Iraqi Freedom, crossing from Camp Udairi, Kuwait, into Iraq in March 2003 at the beginning of the invasion to oust Saddam Hussein. There until January of 2004, he then later returned to the Middle East for another yearlong tour of duty, this time in Afghanistan beginning in March 2005.

In Iraq, after the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003, and President Bush’s announcement of the end of the major military operations on May 1, Woodward had time to appreciate the Kurdish people and their land in the northern part of the country. He had befriended a Kurdish test pilot, who had left Iraq years before, joined the U. S. Armed Forces, and was now in Woodward’s Army company of the 5th Battalion, 158th Aviation Regiment.

This Kurdish friend and fellow pilot arranged to have six of the Blackhawk helicopters in the company fly to the Kurdish Democratic Party President’s guesthouse, where the crews were treated to “a huge feast,” according to Woodward. They also were taken on a tour of some of the surrounding, beautiful, mountainous land — including some “awesome” waterfalls.

Woodward also noted that the Kurds, after Saddam had cut off their oil supply, had to deforest their mountains for fuel, to keep from freezing during the harsh winters. But these people, whom Woodward grew to love during his year there, had already planted “lines of saplings all over” to replace those hewn down out of necessity during their suffering.

Talking with the Kurds, Woodward learned that they associate more with being Kurdish than with any particular religion or religions — that Christian, Jewish, Zoroastrian and agnostic, as well as Islamic influences are present. Woodward, in fact, was struck with how much their communities and land had in common with America. “I felt I could have been in a southwestern United States town,” he said. One local even told him how much he’d like their country to be the 51st state!

North of Baghdad, in Balad, where Woodward’s company was stationed after the war, Army chaplains, doctors and dentists served the Iraqi people. In turn, these “local nationals” served the American Army, cleaning, cooking and serving food (as employees of subcontractor Haliburton International Corp.), erecting buildings, and even setting up a power plant.

Woodward also got to fly a couple times to Al Hillah, south of Baghdad, where he toured the nearby ruins of the ancient city of Babylon on the banks of the Euphrates River. He felt fortunate to walk where Alexander the Great had been in the 3rd century B.C.; where King Nebuchadnezzar II had built his palace and the Hanging Gardens, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, in the 5th century B.C.; and where King Hammurabi had reigned in the 17th century B.C.

During his year in Afghanistan, now with the 3rd Battalion, 158th Aviation Regiment stationed in Kandahar, Woodward was involved in helicopter missions promoting good in that land also. He transported soldiers going on leave, flew visiting dignitaries around the country, brought USO entertainers to their performance sites and delivered mail to the American troops.

After the Oct. 8, 2005 Kashmir earthquake, Woodward was sent to Pakistan, as part of a major relief effort. The 7.6-level quake, similar in intensity to the great 1906 San Francisco earthquake, killed more than 70,000 Pakistanis.

Associated landslides in the mountainous Kashmir region ruined the roads in the passes, completely blocking off the people, many of whose cliffside houses slid down the mountains, leaving 3.3 million homeless as the Himalayan winter was about to set in. Woodward and other helicopter pilots, with Pakistani pilots accompanying them because of their greater familiarity with the territory, brought water, food and shelter to the devastated population.

During the time Woodward’s company was there, they were sometimes invited to rest and eat at the Pakistani officers’ club, where they were served tea, soup, even “French fries with a ketchup a bit spicier than ours!” The Pakistani officers paid for all this “out of their limited salaries,” Woodward said.
Now 36, Woodward has experienced and seen much since his graduation from Lock Haven High School in 1988. Joining the Army Reserves while still a senior, he at first attended Penn State, later transferring to Lock Haven University to earn a bachelor’s degree in 1995, with a double major in psychology and philosophy.

Until February of 1996, he worked as an intensive therapeutic staff support person with a firm located in Bellefonte, going into schools and homes doing crisis intervention work. Feeling that he “couldn’t do much to help at my level of education, besides taking notes for the professionals,” he resigned and signed his active duty papers for the Army on Feb. 28, 1996.

Eventually accepted into flight school, Woodward had a little more than a year’s training at Fort Rucker, Ala., the Army’s Aviation Center. After that, for about three years, he was a member of the 57th Medical Co. Air Ambulance out of Fort Bragg, N.C., on temporary duty assignments a lot in the southeastern states. He recalls being at Fort Knox, Ky. on Sept. 11, 2001.

Returning to Fort Rucker to learn to be a maintenance test pilot, Woodward graduated in January of 2003, had a short leave in February, and then was sent to Germany for a month, prior to being flown to Camp Udairi, Kuwait, to gear up for the invasion of Iraq.

Woodward has been stationed at Fort Riley, Kan., since last July. After a quiet vacation over Christmas and New Year’s Day holidays with his parents Jim and Sunny Woodward of Lock Haven, he has returned to Fort Riley, where he’ll be until the summer. Then he expects another yearlong tour of duty in Iraq, and, hopefully, more experiences of the goodness always possible in life, no matter where one may be.

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