word from Captain Knipe

Jojothedogfaceboy and the Glimmer Twins sent a package overseas to the troops. This is the response we received from Captain Knipe.


Glimmer Twins & Jojo,
I’m not sure if anyone has already sent you all a thank you note, but I just wanted to make sure that you were thank properly. Thank you for you package, it is greatly appreciated, and I must say that yours does have a certain amount of glam that others do not. We always appreciate the packages that we get. It shows that people care and we aren’t totally forgotten unless it is a “controversial new movie” or a Time article. Thanks again.
Your package found it way to VMFA(AW)-121 (that stands for Marine All-Weather Fighter Attack Squadron, how you get that from VMFA(AW) is something that I can’t begin to understand), we are the Green Knights. We are based out of MCAS Miramar of TopGun fame, in lovely San Diego (I’d quote Ron Burgundy here but I probably shouldn’t). We fly F/A-18D Hornets in support of all the guys on the ground. We have about 200 people in our squadron and we are based at Al Asad Air Base. A typical day for us is planning and briefing for about 2 hours, putting on all our gear and then starting the jets up to take off. We usually fly for about 4 hours, we will work for a Forward Air Controller (FAC, we love our acronyms) for about an hour and a half, we will then refuel airborne, and go work for another FAC, then land, take all our stuff off, do the paperwork for the flight and debrief. All told it is usually about 8 hours for a flight. Then we start to work on our other jobs. It isn’t too bad our maintainers work 12 hours on and then have 12 hours off, and they are usually busy throughout. I guess it better to be busy than bored since it make the time go by faster. Also since there has to be a runway for us, that usually means the base it going to be pretty well developed so we have it very nice compared to some of the guys that we work for. That is about all you want to hear so I won’t bore you all with anymore info. Go out and enjoy Boston, I miss it like crazy, besides the Sox are doing pretty good. Thanks again, we appreciate it. I attached some pictures, I hope it won’t crash your mailbox.

Very Respectfully,
Capt James F “Postal” Knipe