Risk Management Magazine

I showed up at my first assignment as an aviator right as we were headed out the door for a deployment in Regional Command East. I was excited and nervous. My Readiness Level 3 to 2 progression took two flights and suddenly I was flying combat missions with my troop standardization pilot.

By the time Nicolas Laboy slammed on his motorcycle brakes, it was already too late. The Honda CBR 600 wobbled hard and fell over, and Nicolas skidded across the road until he and the bike crunched against the pickup truck.

There I was — right in the middle of all the action as the 101st Airborne Division rolled through Iraq in its quest to remove Saddam Hussein from power. As dramatic as that may sound, we also did a lot of uninteresting tasks during my time in Iraq, such as setting up assembly areas in the middle of the desert.