RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany  -- Student pilots have a tradition called the ‘dollar ride.' After a student's first flight he or she gives the pilot a dollar. The name harkens back to the county fairs of the early 1900s when barnstormer pilots charged ‘a buck a ride' to customers who sat up in the front of the airplane and acted like they were doing the flying.

C-17 pilot Capt. Ed Martin says 1st Lt. Joe Purcell owes him more than fifty bucks for all the ‘firsts' he has experienced since deploying to Southwest Asia on his dollar ride back in May.

"Our deployment to Iraq was his dollar ride," joked Captain Martin, "and it's been going on now for 50 days!"

Lieutenant Purcell and his C-17 crew mate are assigned to the 17th Airlift Squadron from Charleston Air Force Base, S.C., but deployed to Southwest Asia as the 816th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron - the first squadron of its kind for aircrews flying the C-17 Globemaster III.

Upon landing in the desert, the lieutenant racked up several firsts - his first deployment, his first time in Iraq, and his first time in a war zone. Since landing, the firsts keep coming.

"There was the first time we flew a member of the House of Representatives, the first time landing on a dirt runway and the first operational mission," said Lieutenant Purcell, counting off the new experiences he's had since joining the Air Force a little less than three years ago.

Now, he can add his first flight into Cyprus and his first experience ferrying fellow Americans displaced from Lebanon.

Lieutenant Purcell and Captain Martin were crewmembers on one of the numerous C-17 missions ferrying American citizens from Cyprus to Ramstein.

For Lieutenant Purcell, the excitement wasn't about landing at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, for the first time, it was the excitement of knowing he was participating in a piece of history and another first for the Air Force - the first mass movement of American civilians using the C-17.