Blackhawk landing in Durango, Colorado

I am very proud that I have a "military" family. My dad and my three brothers have all served with the Utah National Guard. My youngest brother, Johnny, is being deployed to war for a third time. After his second time out he came home and transferred from his Special Forces Unit in Utah to a unit in California to train as a Blackhawk Pilot. His unit is currently in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. The six Blackhawks in his unit left California on October 17th on their way to Oklahoma. They were originally scheduled to refuel in Provo, Utah and we had planned on going to watch him fly in and land. Plans changed, as they often do in the army, and their new flight plan had them flying from Sacramento to Las Vegas; the Grand Canyon; Durango, Colorado (for an overnight stop), Santa Fe and on to Oklahoma. Since I knew this may be a once in a lifetime opportunity to watch him land and then take off the next morning my parents and I decided to drive out to Durango to watch him land and then leave again the next morning.

My mom and dad, the four kids and I, and Johnny's wife Stephanie left on Friday morning for Durango thinking it was about a 6 hour drive. We were wrong. The drive ended up taking 8 hours, but luckily for us Johnny landed later than expected. The airport in Durango is very small and we weren't sure exactly where they were going to be landing and it was dark. We drove around in circles until we spotted some other Blackhawks, which turned out to be a unit from Nevada. We were parked a couple of buildings away and a chain link fence separated us from the landing area. I was pretty sure we'd be able to get closer. I found a maintenance guy and told him why we were there and asked him if we could park a little closer. He let us park on the landing field! It was fantastic! After Johnny landed we waited a few minutes for the Blackhawk to power down and then we all got to go right up to the Blackhawk. The kids all got to sit in the pilot's seat. Grace, of course, was in heaven. It was amazing to watch my little brother climb out of the cockpit of this huge helicopter and shut it down as nonchalantly as I lock up my minivan at Target!

We waited to take more pictures in the morning when all the Blackhawks from Nevada and California took off to continue on to Oklahoma. We had a terrible dinner at KFC in Durango. They actually ran out of chicken while we were there. The bun on my chicken sandwich could also have been used as a weapon if necessary. Let's just say the bread wasn't fresh. =)

The next morning we spent a couple of hours at the airport taking pictures and watching Johnny do his pilot thing. The unit from Nevada left first. Johnny told us after he took off he'd circle around and do a fast, low fly-by just for us. It was amazing. It was loud and windy and my heart was pounding. I had a whole mixture of emotions all at once. I was sad to see my brother leave. I was sad he was leaving a wife behind. I was so proud of him for being in the army. I was...here it comes in all its cheesy glory....proud to be an American. I was grateful my kids got to see something so amazing.

They get four days off to come home and enjoy Thanksgiving and then they will be leaving for Afghanistan the first week of December.