Interview With Afghan War Pilot Serving in Iraq (VIDEO)

Tim King interviews an Oregon Guard pilot serving in Iraq who flew numerous missions in the war in Afghanistan.

Oregon Guard Captain John Hoffman in Iraq Salem-News.com photo by Tim King

(BALAD, Iraq) - Countless Americans in uniform are serving repeated combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. Captain John Hoffman is one of the people from the Oregon National Guard aviation unit that I was embedded with in Iraq this past summer. In fact, John was my contact person with the squadron.

I spent time getting to know John at Fort Benning, Georgia before any of us made it to Iraq, as the Oregonians finished their final preparations for deployment.

John Hoffman's background is interesting as he is by trade, a CH-47 helicopter pilot. While serving in Iraq as part of the current deployment of Oregon's 2/641 Aviation Support Group, John is in a different role; providing aviation support for C-23 Sherpa cargo transport planes.

Before leaving Iraq, I was fortunate to be able to sit down with John and record this interview. Many conversations over dinner at the base chow hall with John made me realize that his experience was one that people would find very interesting.

Among others serving with John Hoffman are two Vietnam War helicopter pilots. (see: Vietnam War Pilot Serving in Iraq Has Seen Many Changes (VIDEO) )

Video

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Tim King is a former U.S. Marine with twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. In addition to his role as a war correspondent, this Los Angeles native serves as Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor.
Tim spent the winter of 2006/07 in Afghanistan with Oregon troops. Tim recently returned from Iraq where he covered the war there while embedded with an Oregon Guard aviation unit. Serving the community in very real terms, Salem-News.com is the nation's only truly independent high traffic news Website, affiliated with Google News and several other major search engines and news aggregators.
You can send Tim an email at this address: newsroom@salem-news.com

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We are proud of John and the soldiers serving with him, thanks for this interview.

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