DATELINE: FT RUCKER, AL

H/T ROFASIX

If only it were as easy as going back to school...

Pilots Learn How to Not Get Shot Down
Associated Press February 23, 2007
FORT RUCKER, Ala. - At a sprawling base set amid the wiregrass pastures of southern Alabama, the Army is teaching its next class of helicopter pilots how to avoid getting shot down when it's their turn to go to Iraq.

Sometimes you fly high, they learn, and sometimes you go low. Vary your speed, and don't fly the same route too often. And always - always - know what's going on around you. That's because it doesn't take much more than a single gun on the ground to take down even the most advanced U.S. helicopter.

"Self-preservation is what the key is," said Chief Warrant Officer Troy A. Wyatt, an instructor.

The Pentagon has reported eight incidents in the past month in which helicopters were either shot down or landed under fire in Iraq. At least two suspects have been arrested. Military officials say militants are increasingly targeting choppers, firing simultaneously from different directions with an assortment of weapons, including machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

As the helicopter losses mount, instructors at the Army's aviation school at Fort Rucker are teaching the very latest lessons from the Iraq battlefield to the military's newest chopper pilots, all of whom come through this post at some point...

The rest of the article can be read HERE

This article reads like it was written by the PAO himself...not that there is anything wrong with that. :)

Everything you read in there is true. What is missing however is the cold hard fact, that in combat the enemy gets a vote. Sometimes for us to be effective we have to put ourselves into harms way more than we would like. Sometimes we make mistakes. Sometimes we get lazy. Sometimes the bad guy gets lucky. But even with all of that, WE WILL WIN...if some people will get out the way and LET US WIN.