Aviators from the Iowa and Minnesota National Guards stationed in Iraq in 2011 experienced the world in monochrome.
Their ally was the night. They took off from Camp Taji in CH-47 Chinooks every night at midnight and flew all night. Wearing night vision goggles, they depicted the level terrain in varying tones of green. Marti, from Donahue, Iowa, worked with Company B, 2nd Battalion, 211th General Support Aviation Battalion as a flight engineer instructor. Operation New Dawn, which marked the formal withdrawal of American soldiers from Iraq and the change from combat operations to stability operations, brought together the company’s detachments in Iowa and Minnesota.
