Marine gives Blacksburg students a glimpse of service in Afghanistan

U.S. Air Force Tech Sgt. Michael Nix holds the hands of his daughters, Abigail and Addison, in the Charlotte Douglas Airport last week after arriving home from a two month stint in Afghanistan. Santa Claus goes everywhere from his base in the North Pole.

Blacksburg resident Michael Nix has experienced the far reach of Santa Claus firsthand through his duties with the U.S. Air Force. Care packages and letters have arrived from Blacksburg Primary and Grassy Pond Elementary to remind Nix about the Christmas spirit.

He returned last week from a 9-week stint working as an aircraft flight engineer in Afghanistan. He visited classrooms at Blacksburg Primary Friday while on leave from the Air Force. His wife, Jennifer, is the school's guidance counselor. He will return to active duty on Dec. 15.

Nix started his military career with the U.S. Marines shortly after he graduated from Blacksburg High in 1992. He spent eight years with the Marines and then enlisted in the Air Force. Nix has made several trips to Afghanistan, typically staying for tours of two to three months in length.

Flying over the mountainous terrain, Nix monitors the elaborate flight instruments on a C-131 transport carrier on its daily missions to deliver supplies and move troops to different locations in Afghanistan. The missions support soldiers from the U.S., Germany, France and other countries assisting America in the five year war against terrorism.

"The mountains are really high and the roads are so steep in Afghanistan that sometimes an airplane is the only way to get supplies to an area," Nix said. "We have a parachute with a little rope hooked to a special camera. As it floats down from the plane, the camera looks around and sends information to a computer in the plane to let us know the exact location where we need to drop the supplies."

Afghanistan — slightly smaller than Texas, the largest state in the U.S — is a mountainous country covering 252,000 square miles of terrain, compared to 268,000 square miles in Texas.

"We didn't have a regular schedule when we were flying missions," Nix said. "We would work all night and sleep all day."

Nix was among eight people that lived in a small hut on the Farah Air Base. He used a laptop computer to correspond with his family and answered questions emailed by students at Grassy Pond Elementary. He kept a bottle of water by his bedside to help deal with the dry conditions in Afghanistan.

Local cooks provided good meals on the base for the Air Force. Showers were not an everyday occurrence.

"A shower was one of the highlights of the day when we had hot water," said Nix, describing life on the air base in Afghanistan. "We could only have a three minute shower. We don't have a lot of water on the base so we have to be careful about how much water we use."

Nix spent two and a half years in flight schools with the Marines and Air Force so he could learn how helicopters

and fixed wing aircraft such as the C-131 operate. When he isn't on active duty, he splits his time between working at Curtiss- Wright Controls and working at an Air Force base near Charlotte in North Carolina.

In three more years, Nix said he will reach 20 years of military service and plans to retire so he can spend more time with his family.

"The hardest part of being in the military is being away from my family. You miss so much when you aren't home," Nix said. "I have two young daughters. When I left for Afghanistan, my youngest daughter Addison was barely walking and wasn't really saying too much. I got home and she was saying full words like 'da da.' Once I finish my military service, it will be time to do something else that keeps me closer to home."