York Town News
A soldier comes home
By Melissa Wood
Michael Mellette, 28, Army Warrant Officer 2, sits in the cockpit of his Chinook helicopter on Christmas Day this past December while serving in Iraq. Mellette, a member of the York High School Class of 1997, is pilot in command of the heavy-lift helicopter, carrying troops, supplies and cargo around the Baghdad area.
Courtesy photo
YORK - For Michael Mellette, "home" for the past few years has been some of the most dangerous spots on the globe: Korea, Pakistan, New Orleans immediately after Hurricane Katrina and now Iraq, where he has spent six months already and will be returning for another year to 18 months.
The 1997 York High School graduate flies a Chinook heavy-lift helicopter while serving with the Army's First Calvary Unit, which has been stationed at Camp Taji, about 20 miles north of Baghdad near the Tigris River, since last October.
"I mainly do troop transport, cargo … a little of everything," said Mellette.
He explained that transporting troops by helicopter helps keep them safer because they are off the streets where they are more susceptible to improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and ground attacks from insurgents.
"They're not as good at shooting down airplanes as they are at shooting down convoys," he said.
With his mother, Susan Mellette, looking on in her Kittery living room, Mellette downplays the danger he faces in every mission.
"It's not too bad," he said. "You get good at it, especially if you do it a bunch of times."
This month Mellette, who is 28 years old and grew up in York, came home for a two-week visit with his family.
"She's happy about it," he said looking over at his mother.
The First Calvary is the Army's only lift unit in Iraq, requiring Mellette to run on average four or five missions per week. He said when going on missions he didn't feel scared, but that it was hard not to feel completely overloaded with so much going on around him.
"There's an overwhelming amount of things going on at all times," he explained.
As pilot in command, Mellette flies with a co-pilot, and a flight engineer and crew chief are responsible to stay with and maintain the aircraft. He said the group is relatively new to working with each other and just starting to come together as a unit.
"We're getting in the groove," Mellette said.
A Chinook is one of the biggest types of helicopters used by the Army, holding as many as 33 troops, 24 medical litters, or up to 50,000 pounds. It has three hooks on the bottom from which cargo can be carried in nets in "sling loads," and guns mounted on its doors and back ramp.
Mellette is also aviation safety officer for the company, making sure they meet Occupational Safety and Health Administration compliance and conducting accident investigations.
He described the time between missions as monotonous with no one to talk to besides the guys he works with.
"I get up and I do everything the same each day," he said.
But Mellette is not a person who plays video games to kill time. He is currently working on his master's degree in industrial technology safety management by taking correspondence courses online through Texas A & M University. He hopes to earn the degree by spring of 2009 and plans to someday work as a corporate safety manager
"I like to fly, but there's not a huge market for heavy lift helicopter pilots," he said.
He also goes to the gym frequently and said that the camp is large and developed offering a full post exchange (PX) area and dining and entertainment options, such as Burger King, Cinnabon, Taco Bell and a movie theatre, set up in trailers.
"I definitely drink a lot of coffee," he said, adding that his favorite and only brand is Starbucks.
Mellette and other troops at the camp get around mostly by bike within the camp, bought from other departing troops.
"It's a good distance around the base," he said.
He said his bike pretty much fell apart soon after he bought it, so before coming home he left it out to be stolen, which it was.
He described the area off the Tigris River as a very sticky gray mud produced from rains that come every night.
"My sneakers are disgusting," he said.
Mellette said it would probably dry out in the summer, but summer would also mean high temperatures in a helicopter that does not have air conditioning, while he's wearing a flight suit, cavalier body armor and survival vest.
"It gets hot," he said. "Luckily, it's been nice and cool."
Mellette said he usually tries to start up the helicopter quickly, and it gets the blade going to cool things off.
"I'm used to going from one extreme to another," he said.
Mellette learned to fly airplanes in college where he earned a degree in aeronautical science at the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla. He joined the Army on Nov. 1, 2001, a date his mother has engraved on a cross she wears on a necklace.
The army taught Mellette how to fly a helicopter in a program called Foreign School 21 where he chose the Chinook as his helicopter. Before going to Iraq, he spent two years in Korea, was in the Gulf Coast immediately after Hurricane Katrina, and has gone to Pakistan twice, including providing relief for victims of the earthquake in October of 2005 by flying humanitarian aid through the Himalayas.
While home for two weeks of rest and relaxation, Mellette says he's been visiting with friends and family, reading and, of course, drinking coffee.
"A lot of people have left notes in the mailbox to say hi to him," said Susan Mellette who, along with husband Butch, moved to Kittery from York about two months ago. Mike also has a younger brother, Christopher, who works as a graphic designer in Portsmouth, N.H.
Mellette said that people in town, including students at York High School, have been generous to him and other members of the community serving in Iraq. He especially thanked Dick Filliettaz of the York Veterans of Foreign Wars for sending care packages for him and others.
Mellette said he is used to the lifestyle of the Army and said living in the small trailer in Iraq was not as bad as Pakistan, where the troops lived in tents inside a hanger.
"It's not horrible; it's like an extended camping trip," he said, and added that staying with his family in a house actually seemed odder to him. "Everything I own is in a box now."
However, one day he would actually like to see parts of the world that aren't in a war zone or recovering from a natural disaster.
"I'd like to travel somewhere with buildings," he joked.
