USMA IN THE NEWS
Kuwait City - First Lt. Jeffrey Ker has logged more than 170 hours of combat time in his Apache attack helicopter, which can exceed 220 mph. He's earned two Air Medals in Iraq.
But it hasn't been all high-flying for the 1995 Brecksville-Broadview Heights High School graduate.
He's also rebuilt schools and police stations.
He watched tears roll down a principal's cheeks when teachers had blackboards to use for the first time in years. In Gwar, a Kurdish village, his team's efforts brought a steady flow of electricity. That sort of thing is fairly typical for infantry units but rare for aviation units, he said proudly in a voice brimming with youthful enthusiasm and confidence.
And now it's time to go home.
Ker, 27, and elements of the 101st Aviation Regiment have done their time in Iraq. They're part of a massive rotation out of the country, with the roughly 123,000 U.S. troops being replaced with about 110,000 fresh soldiers.
Ker begins his return trip to the United States today.
He has served a little more than nine months in-country as a platoon leader for Bravo Company of his regiment, which is attached to the 101st Airborne Division - the guys with the Screaming Eagle patch on their left shoulders.
They're based at Fort Campbell, Ky., where he'll spend the next 10 days or so before coming home to Northeast Ohio. "Seeing [Iraq] and the state we're leaving it in, we did the right thing," he said in a phone interview from Camp Udairi, outside Kuwait City.
Ker's military career has soared almost as fast as his Apache.
After high school, he enlisted in the Army and spent two years as an infantry soldier before qualifying for the West Point prep school. That led to an appointment to the United States Military Academy.
He finished at West Point in 2001, then spent 20 months in flight school at Fort Rucker, Ala. Last March, he passed his final flight test at Rucker and was certified as an Army aviator.
The next time he throttled up an Apache, on May 28, it was to fly a combat mission over the deserts of Iraq.
He got his first Air Medal for flying six months in a combat zone; the second was for flying 75 hours in a 90-day period. Army aviators receive extra pay for flying, but to earn it, they're required to spend 70 hours in the air in a six-month period.
That means he's done some hard-core flying. "You're not just flying some jumbo jet; you're flying an attack helicopter," said the 6-foot-2 former starting quarterback for the Brecksville Bees.
But whatever schoolboy delusions he may have had about the glamour of flight vanished in the first mission. He said knowing that a rocket-propelled grenade could be beyond the next rise heightens your awareness levels.
"You pretty much think about it any time you're flying a mission," he said, "but you don't dwell on it. Doing so is a sure-fire invitation to disaster."
He said flying the Army's foremost attack helicopter offsets some of his concerns. The two-seat Apache "can shoot back." Thus, the enemy tends to target lightly armed Blackhawks, tiny Kiowas and the lumbering Chinooks, all of which make for less lethal targets.
One particular mission - a night flight he said he couldn't talk too much about - rated highest on the pilots' fear factor. An hour before liftoff, intelligence reported 50 or so "noncompliant personnel" (the bad guys) wandering into the landing zone that he and his co-pilot were to clear for an air assault mission.
He turned to his co-pilot, shrugged and headed off in the wild black yonder, confident that "at least we have bigger weapons than they do."
There was no one at the landing zone and the mission went off without a hitch, but the tension remained high throughout the night, Ker said.
The flying is thrilling, he said, but the real joy comes in doing for others. From some, that might sound like a snippet from a sound-bite manual. But Ker comes across as sincere.
He is circumspect about his feelings for the war - just before this interview, his unit lost its first helicopter and crew in combat. "I trusted my government and I trusted the people in the military making the top decisions," he said. "I did my job."
Going from flight school to war - and right into a platoon commander's role - has been tough, Ker said.
"The living conditions, the hurry-up-and-wait attitude - yeah, it can suck. But you feel like you're doing something productive."
When he gets off the plane in what Vietnam-era soldiers used to call "the land of the Big PX," he has some serious life moments waiting on the tarmac.
First will be his wedding May 22 to Jennifer Patton, at her home in Parkman in Geauga County. Patton is about to complete her fourth year of medical school, then the two of them are headed to Fort Campbell.
He said he hopes she will end up nearby at the prestigious Vanderbilt University Hospital; regardless, he's committed to the Army for at least four more years.
"Most of my classmates and friends feel a commitment to duty. The majority will stay in," Ker said.
He ended the conversation with that pilotspeak phrase, "I'm outta here." That signifies the end of a successful mission.