Travel Pains

The weeks just keep flying by!!! It is great to continually look back and realize that time has past, but I keep getting caught up in our mission without updating all the support from home. Senior and I had a very frustrating travel experience a little over a week ago. We should have seen it coming when the very first day of our trip (as we were attempting to depart Iraq) that it a total of five flights to finally leave. We went back and forth between our compound and the terminal all day long with delay after delay. The last flight was cancelled about 1:30 am and our next attempt was at 3:30 so we crashed on the floor of a tent to try and to get at least a little sleep. The flight the next morning did have room for us, but it was one of the worst flights yet. I don’t think I have talked about the “sherpa” flights yet, but forgive me if I have. They are the Army’s version of FEDEX and willing to fly anywhere at anytime. Unfortunately they fly between 50 and 150 feet off the deck (ground) for safety purposes which means you are constantly bouncing up and down for power lines and other structures. Once it is safe they immediately shoot to 11,000 feet (unpressurized) until they are close to their destination and then it is zipping back down to continue the bouncing. Well this poor Army guy just could not take it and got sick the entire flight. I mean the entire flight. He filled an entire garbage bag by the time we made it to Kuwait. Not a pretty flight.

Well there was a flight to our destination that night so instead of sleeping we hopped on another plane (in the middle of the night) and tried to catch some sleep on the metal floor of the plane. This plane made it halfway to Afghanistan and had to divert to Qatar for mechanical problems. As luck would have it, we spent almost 20 hours waiting in a tent with uncomfortable chairs before finally going again. Now this is night three with the only sleep being concrete or metal floors so we are kind of cranky by the time we get to Afghanistan. The visit went very well and when we found out our flight out of there was delayed until late the next day we “beat the system” by hopping a plane to Germany (because there are TONS of flights out of Germany). Night four on the metal floor with an arrival at an airport that did not open for two weeks. The Air Force called in Customs who finally just said to go away so they did not have to come in. Well needless to say we don’t want to be at this base so we convince the AF to bus us all to Ramstein Air Base. As soon as we saw the line out of the front door we knew it was trouble. We signed up for a flight and found out people had waited for over a week in some cases to go certain places. We worked the flights and after only two days we were manifested on a plane to Baghdad. It was leaving at night (see a theme here) but we did not care since we had a very enjoyable sleep at the visitor quarters the night before. Our flight finally took off, but after a couple of hours it flew right back to Germany due to - yes you guessed it – mechanical problems. Turns out there was a leak in the cabin window. Back to the quarters for a couple hours of sleep with a new check in time of 6:00 am. This then lasted five days. Show up between 4 and 6, find out it is delayed until 9 or 10. Go get some breakfast, come back, find out it is delayed until the afternoon, wait more and then find out it will be another day. OVER and OVER. The only decent day was when they agreed it would not fly on Sunday so we were able to rent a car and go see the American Cemetery in Luxembourg (where Patton is buried). It was nice to see the countryside and a little bit of WW2 history. Finally we found another flight that was going to Kuwait and we begged, bribed, pleaded to get on it. The Air Terminal crew were so tired of us that I think they would have sent us anywhere. The flight was actually a commercial plane (yeah sleep in a chair), but still landed at 3 am. We got to our camp about 4:30 and finally went to bed about 5:30. Good thing there was construction going on directly outside our trailer so we were up at 7:00. Worked all day and jumped on a plane (with 97 of our closest Army friends) for Iraq. These C130 flights are better than the Sherpas, but you sit with knees between the persons across from you. It is literally like sardines. I had the misfortune of sitting on the “crack” which was where two mess seats came together. My butt hurt so bad and was completely asleep by the time we made it home. I have never been so glad to be back in Iraq.

Well that gets me to last Monday. I will post the rest of last week tomorrow. It involves elections, cancer, and trouble so stay tuned.