Risk Management Magazine

The importance of wearing a seat belt is stressed before just about every convoy, training safety briefing and weekend. Like most young Soldiers, I listened to the words and would say “Hooah!” after my leaders were finished briefing. Also like most young Soldiers, I was only responding out of habit, not compliance.

Foreign object damage on a military aircraft is a serious issue. Before every mission, the entire flight crew, which is five personnel on a CH-47, checks for foreign object debris (FOD) and ensures the aircraft is ready for the mission. Depending on the crew, preflight can take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour and a half. It is supposed to be a thorough process. During deployments, however, you get into a battle rhythm and things can go unnoticed due to the monotony of day-after-day operations. In any military aviation setting, that can be devastating.

It was a warm Sunday in Iraq, and I was at a combat outpost in the far west as the officer in charge of a detachment of construction engineers. They were working like bees to upgrade the living conditions at a particularly austere base. We were ahead of schedule on all our projects, so I decided to give the troops a well-deserved half-day off. Time for a barbecue!