Yesterday an Army Blackhawk crashed in Italy

killing 5 people (including the pilots).

My husband, Caynan, is a Blackhawk pilot.

We are using some of his leave to visit his family and travel because he is deploying to Iraq in early 2008.

Anyway, on this particular morning, we were at Vandenberg Air Force Base near Santa Barbara, California, and I had to go to the main lodging lobby to use the internet.

As I was checking my email, I hear CNN report, "helicopter crash in Italy" and I look up instinctively.

When my eyes met that television screen and my brain registered the now familiar Blackhawk form with its missing tail rotor and crumpled nose, I was instantaneously transported to a place that I religiously avoid: a place where his call to tell me he landed safely never comes, where my worst fear for him and us and our children is confirmed by strangers at the door that our 4 year old will probably answer before I do.

My chest tightens, my throat constricts, my eyes tear up. If I were more selfless (or a better liar), I would identify that feeling as empathy for another pilot's wife, but I think a more honest assessment would be fear, panic, shock… a sudden reminder of the possibility of becoming a widow under similar circumstances.

Caynan is going to Iraq in the spring and although I know it is going to be difficult when he deploys, the fear of being notified of HIS helicopter crashing already lives with us like an unwanted but determined houseguest who has nowhere else to go.

Since 9/11, a third of Blackhawk crashes have occurred in non-combat zones. Every time Caynan goes through his pre-flight checklist, I swallow a seed of anxiety that I refuse to let grow by sheer will alone.

That seed comes from images like this on CNN.

I could not wrap my mind around why that Blackhawk went down. When Caynan was in flight school, I helped him study all his emergency procedures: auto-rotational landings in the event of x, y, and z... but this looked like a clear day and the pilots found an even, open field. Yet they hit the ground with such incredible force. It was a really, really, really "hard landing." Why? I need it to make sense and it doesn't.*

Crashes are an occupational hazard, I know.

But it still hurts. And it is still scary. And it still makes me cry.

And today I cried for the pilots' wives too.

* The fact that there were survivors at all is a tremendous credit to the skills and ability of these pilots.

Please pray for the families of everyone on that helicopter. Please pray for all of our military families.


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