The Journey

Good things come in three's.
The Godhead.
Hamburger, fries & a coke.
Peter, Paul & Mary.
My Iraq journals…

Ok, so not everything that comes in three's is a good thing. Question: What do Sylvester Stallone and I have in common?Answer: Despite our better judgement, we both feel the need to make a sequel in hopes of extending our "15 minutes of fame".

Where Stallone and I differ is that one of us gets paid massive amounts of money for his story, while the other one can act.

So, in case you haven't guessed by now (or didn't know already), I am headed back to Iraq. In fact, as I began writing this, I was sitting in an apartment in Kuwait City, waiting to travel north into Iraq. I started out last week by spending a week in Killeen, Texas completing "Soldier Readiness Processing". Essentially, that effort is intended to ensure that I am medically cleared to deploy to Iraq. The process was much less painful than the week spent at Ft. Bliss (El Paso, TX) in the past and I got through it without any difficulty. On Saturday (Feb 16th), I left Austin on my way to Kuwait.

After a short (30 minute) flight from Austin to Houston, I had a few hours to kill before boarding my flight from Houston to Dubai on Emirates Air. To be honest, before last week I didn't know anything about Dubai and had never heard of Emirates Air. The airline is based out of Dubai and the plane was very nice. I was in coach this time, which wasn't so bad. Thankfully, I had an isle seat. The flight was long (15 hours) and I spent most of it watching movies. The selection was long, but I watched The Bee Movie, Michael Clayton, Mr. Brooks, Gone Baby Gone and 3:10 to Yuma. I did manage to take a couple of short naps as well, but my intent was to stay awake as long as possible so that when I got to Kuwait, I would be very tired and it would help me get on the right schedule. Kuwait is 10 hour difference (ahead) of Arizona. Anyway, after landing in Dubai, I had a short layover and then a 1 1/2 hour flight into Kuwait City.

Once in Kuwait City, you have to get a Visa, a process that only takes about 10-15 minutes, but the line is long to get it. Unfortunately, right when I walked up, they announced that the system was down. I grabbed a number (992) and looked up to see that they were helping #921. I figured I'd end up being there all night. Fortunately, the system came back up 15-20 minutes later and they began running through the numbers. I noticed that they would call a number 2 or 3 times and if no one showed up, they would move on to the next number. I also noticed that they never asked for or looked at your number when they came up to the counter. So, when they announced 951 a second time, I stepped right up as if it was my number and I just wasn't paying attention. The guy began helping me, and after a couple of minutes a guy walks up holding ticket #951! I didn't know what to say or do, so I just stood there while the guy helped me and when he finished, I left the counter quickly.

Because this whole process took about 45 minutes, I had to track down my bags, which I finally did. The Kuwait airport is very annoying because when you walk in, the "sky caps" are very pushy. They will follow you around and "hound" you to let them help you. Because my bags were heavy and because I didn't know where to go, I let one of the guys come help me. All he did was put my bags on a cart and follow me to the Starbucks where I was supposed to meet the people picking me up. I gave him $3 and when he dropped me off, he wanted more. Needless to say, he didn't get it, which didn't make him real happy.

I met up with Tosca and Mike and they took me to the apartment where we are "staged" waiting for transportation into Iraq. Evidently, they have 12-15 apartments for people coming in on different programs. When I got to the apartment, Wayne (one of the guys who works for me) was there as he had arrived the night before. We talked for a bit, and then I went to bed. The next morning (Monday by now), Wayne gathered all of his stuff as he was heading into Baghdad that day. We drove out to Ali Al Saleem Air Base where I turned in my passport and visa for more inprocessing. We went to lunch in the DFAC, then dropped Wayne off and Tosca brought me back to the apartment. I spent the rest of the day napping, checking e-mails and watching a little TV.

On Tuesday, we were expecting for me to fly from Ali Al Saleem into Tikrit, but as we drove out to the air base, it became obvious I wouldn’t be flying anywhere that day due to a sandstorm. This storm wasn’t the same intensity that many of you have seen in pictures, but it was very surreal for me. It reminded me of driving in blizzards in Wyoming. Sand was blowing and creating “drifts” in the road much as snow would. Visibility had decreased to between 50-100 feet in spots. At best, the visibility was probably no greater than ¼ mile. Needless to say, when I got out to Ali, they informed me that I had 2 chances of getting out that day: Slim and none. So, back to the apartment I went.

On Wednesday, the weather had cleared and I was dropped off at Ali to wait for my flight early that evening. We put all of our bags onto the palet and as we loaded up, we were informed that our flight was to Speicher, then Baghdad, then Balad. Of course, those individuals who were staying at each stop would get off. The flight time from Kuwait to Speicher is only about 1 ½ hours, so my time on the C-130 was expected to be relatively short. For those of you who don’t know (or remember), air travel on a C-130 (Air Force cargo plane) is not your ideal air travel. The good news is, everyone travels first class! The bad news is, first class means sitting in a jump seat, facing the side of the jet (as opposed to facing the front in a normal airplane). The seats are so close together that the only way to have any comfort at all is to put your knee between the legs of the individual facing you as they put their knee between your legs. Additionally, everyone on the aircraft is shoulder-to-shoulder. So needless to say, you are in very tight quarters.

About 1 ½ hours into the flight, we began our decent into Speicher. When the aircraft lands, they employ one of two maneuvers for safety. One maneuver is to “rock” the wings left and right several times. Not fast, as in to create motion sickness, but very noticeable. The second maneuver is to perform a circular landing where you continually decend in a counter-clockwise turn. These maneuvers are meant to decrease the possibility of being hit by small arms fire (SAF) or mortar rounds, etc. So when we began our left bank turns, we knew that we had reached FOB Speicher. However, hearing the flaps adjusted followed by the lowering of the landing gear never happened. Before we knew it, we were straightening out and our journey had continued. It was impossible to really know what was going on, because there are only 2 windows on the C-130, both at the rear where the load master(s) sit. So we had no idea that we had actually circled Speicher with the intent to land, but had been “waved off” because the visibility was insufficient (according to Speicher air traffic control) and were directed to proceed to Baghdad. When we finally landed in Baghdad (nearly 2 ½ hours after taking off from Kuwait), we were dismayed to hear the news. They would not let us deplane, which meant using the port-a-potty on the aircraft (another story for another weekly journal) before we began our 40-minute flight to Balad. Once at Balad, they made us all get off of the airplane and we were then left scrambling to find other flights to Speicher.

By now, it was 2am and the first “show” time for Space-A to Speicher was 0830. Unfortunately, that flight was already overbooked by 21 seats, so it was unlikely the 40 passengers who were on the flight with me would be able to get on that flight. I checked into helicopter flights, but that was no more promising. I finally arranged my duffel bags and pulled out my sleeping bag and made a “bed” on the hard concrete floor for a few hours of sleep (I use that term loosely). I woke up a few times, and finally about 5:30 decided to quit trying to sleep and just get up. I wandered around the passenger terminal for a while, talked to different people and offices trying to measure up my chances of getting to Speicher that day. The 0830 flight wasn't looking any better, but at around 8am very few people had shown up for the flight so it was looking more promising. Sure enough, by 10am, I found out that several people (including myself) would be able to get on the flight to Speicher. Unfortunately, the plane was having mechanical problems, so it was anyone's guess as to when that plane might take off.

Around lunchtime, one of the guys that works for me (who is assigned to Balad) came by and we chatted for a few. I didn't want to risk leaving the passenger terminal to go to lunch, so I gave him money and asked him to go get a pizza from Pizza Hut and a couple of cokes for myself and 2 others that I had spent the morning talking with and hoping for flight to Speicher. That must have been just the nudge needed to invoke good old Murphy's Law. About 25-30 minutes later, they came and got us and we began boarding the plane. I never saw Henry or my money again. In the end, it was probably the best money I spent in a long time!

This time, our flight went off without a hitch and we safely landed at Speicher where I was met by 2 of the guys I'll be working with. They helped me drag my gear to my room where I began to unpack and get settled. I don't want to go into more detail here, as that will be a good pickup point for next week's journal. As before, if you have questions or want to know details about something, please let me know. Also, if you no longer want to receive this update (not likely to be this long each week), please let me know and I will take you off of the distribution list. And, if you want me to add someone else, please let me know that as well.

For now, it's time to go to bed so I leave you all with this thought: If Rocky and Rambo were to get into a fight… who would win???