U.S. Army pilot Wayne Wade speaks Wednesday at Chamberlain-Hunt Academy in Port Gibson about his experiences in Iraq. Wade, a Chamberlain-Hunt alumnus, points to a picture of a gold-covered gun that Saddam Hussein gave to certain men in his armed forces.(Jon Giffin The Vicksburg Post)

[11/20/03]PORT GIBSON A Chamberlain-Hunt Academy grad paid cadets a visit Wednesday, landing a helicopter in the school’s courtyard.

Wayne Wade, a chief warrant officer in the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division made a trip to his hometown to speak to students at the private school and to a Lions Club meeting about his view from the front of the April invasion in Iraq. He had been back in the United States since mid-August.

Flying Army helicopters in Iraq as a cavalry scout for his division, Wade helped serve as “the eyes and ears” of the 3rd Division, he said.

“The cavalry goes out in front of the mechanized forces,” he said. “We’re right out in front of everything, which is kind of a scary place to be at first, but it was kind of interesting.”

Wade, 33, who is the son of Jerry and Gayle Wade of Hermanville, said he enlisted in the Army National Guard while still a student at CHA, from which he graduated in 1988.

“I wanted to fly,” he told cadets. “So what I did after that was to go to work on helicopters for about three, four years and then got to go through flight school. I’ve been flying since 1992, I’ve flown Apaches” and Kiowa Warrior helicopters.

Wade said he was deployed to Kuwait in February. As a cavalry pilot, he advanced at the front of the 3rd Infantry, which was among the first troops to reach the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

On April 9, television viewers here could see live footage of U.S. forces tearing down statues of Saddam Hussein, who was then the country’s dictator.

CHA president Shane Blanton said Wade’s visit capped a series of presentations cadets had heard in recent weeks.

“We had done a variety of things really to reflect the patriotism for these kids,” Blanton said. Some of the presentations occurred at the school’s campus, but one involved a trip to Jackson to hear former Marine Col. Oliver North.

“Wayne was a graduate so it sort of capstoned it right before Thanksgiving to bring a hometown person back in who’d gone straight from high school into the service,” Blanton said.

Wade showed cadets photos of soldiers at leisure listening to music, playing football on an airfield and using razors to give each other haircuts.

“I tried to put together a little bit of something that gives you what the life of an average soldier is like,” he told students at the military school, which has been located in Port Gibson since 1879 and has an enrollment of about 160.

Wade also spoke to students of the difficulties the desert sand could pose in flying and landing helicopters, especially during the frequent dust storms there. One of the better landing areas Wade’s unit found, because of its lack of dust, was a chicken farm that had belonged to Uday Hussein, he said.

He pointed out that the Kiowa Warrior helicopters he flew had a sphere atop their rotors that contained “low-light TV, a laser and thermal imaging” for nighttime flying.

“In the desert, on flat terrain, you can see for miles and miles and miles,” he said.

Wade also showed slides of ammunition troops discovered in many places in the country, and showed a slide of himself holding a gold-plated AK-47 automatic rifle that was believed to have been a gift given by Saddam Hussein to one of his men.

Other slides showed what Wade said were the typical, “pretty spartan,” living conditions of Iraqis he saw there. He pointed out one house that had no running water or electricity, and said its residents used propane for cooking.

“As you can see, they don’t live very well,” Wade said. “They don’t have all the niceties we have.”

The Kiowa helicopter Wade landed at the school was co-piloted by Joe Weeks of the 3rd Squadron of the 7th Cavalry Division. Both are based in Tupelo.

Wade said Port Gibson had shown him a “great welcome” on his first trip home, two to three weeks after he returned from Iraq.