Transcript of interview with Col. Brill

The following is a minimally edited transcript of a Friday telephone interview the Deseret News conducted with Lt. Col. Mike "Brillo" Brill, who is deployed at Balad Air Base in Iraq, hours after a flying mission that pushed him past the 6,000-hour mark in the cockpit of an F-16.

DN: What was the nature of the flying mission today where you crossed the 6,000-hour mark?

Brill: Actually it was a fairly routine sortie, which is the way most of them have been going recently. With the surge operation that started, there was a lot of drama, I guess I could use the best word, in the fall with the guys having to respond to troops in contact situations and deliver ordinance. But it has actually slowed down significantly since the, about, Christmas time frame. Most of what we have done in the past two months is just, in the simplest term, just make noise, just keep the bad guys hunkered down in their holes right now, where we've got them now, and keep them there.

Today's sortie, there were two different operations, which is the way most of the missions are tasked: You're airborne typically between three and a half to four and a half hours. Today's was actually a tad shorter than that. But usually you head out to one of the areas around Baghdad or up to Mosul or down around Basra. You work there for an hour, hour and a half and then go to a tanker.

Then you'll move on to a separate operation away from that. For today we were first on a mission that was what they call "armed overwatch," which is again, we're just overhead. The operation that's going on, to be there in case they start taking fire and then to put the bad guys down.

And the second portion of the flight was tactical reconnaissance, where we were working on one of the main roadways that runs between Mosul and Baghdad, looking at specific structure, about five miles in length and looking for any vehicles that had stopped or any spots on the ground where it looks like there might be disturbed earth. We're basically using our sensors with the infra red to find any indication there may be some buried explosives or improvised explosive devices.

DN: So you're flying to make noise, literally?