Why does flying bother me?

With my mission in Tarin Kowt finished, my group flew down to Kandahar today to rejoin the rest of our company. In one sense, I was happy to be one step closer to going home. In another sense, though, I wasn't too excited about the flight.

I don't know why flying bothers me so much these days. When I was a kid, I flew several times a year between my parents' houses. Even as an adult, I didn't really have any issues -- I had no problem flying to France three months after 9/11.

So why is it *now* that I have issues? Part of it began after I'd read the introduction to the 9/11 Commission report; reading about the final moments of the four flights really messed me up for a while.

Nowadays I'm not so much concerned with crashing as I am unexpected movements: the times where you dip down as we're going up, and the opposite movement during landing. Military flights bother me in particular because pilots don't necessarily get paid for keeping their customers happy.

On the previous flight down -- the one for our OCP uniform draw -- I freaked out a little (meaning I said, "Whoah" audibly enough for the person next to hear). But this was not without reason. On military flights, you sit on the side of the plane and face inward. It's good for space, but I couldn't see the horizon and got disoriented.

The 2G turn was really what got me -- as we were landing, the pilot climbed a little bit (unexpected movement there), then banked right, forcing me into a reclined, astronaut kind of pose.

Then we did a 60 degree left bank to shed altitude and circle around. As I pitched forward, I was so sure we were going to roll over. Then, before I knew it, we straightened out and touched down.

So maybe it's not so much the flying part but the fact that I'm not in control. In any case, military flights tend to bother me more.