C-17 -- The military flight

I'm sitting on a C-17, right now… what an interesting experience. I'm wearing my body armor, sitting sideways along the right wall of the plane. There's a bunch of baggage (our) to my left at the back of the plane… An American flag hanging to my right from the ceiling near the front of the plane and then there's the walls…  They don't have anything on them… well, let me rephrase that… they are covered with wires and mechanical stuff and anything you could imagine, except the plastic walls that you would normally see in a commercial aircraft.  In the center of the plane, they've got about 20 rows of 5 seats, very similar to what you'd see on a commercial plan.  Another interesting thing about this plane… I can see the wings.  Not throughout the windows, because there aren't really any windows, but a the top middle part of the plane, there is the venter of the wings. i find this all very intriguing.  At the end of the flight, we didn't have a nice slow descent into the airport... no, we dropped... probably faster than a rock. I felt like if I wasn't buckled in I would literally roll into the front of the plane.

(THIS WAS ORIGINALLY WRITTEN 15 OCT 11)