Well, I have returned!
The US Army Central Command Chaplain authorized me to depart Kuwait on 15 May. The US Army Central liaison at the Gateway (the airfield administrative area) said that due to the volcano erupting in Iceland, the weather in Kuwait and/or the rush of people going on rest and recreation leave (R&R) there was a backlog of people who had higher travel priority than I and I could not count on getting out of Kuwait until 22 May.
There's a policy in US Army Central that when you have been stuck in Kuwait awaiting a military flight for three days, you can request a commercial ticket; there's no guarantee you'll GET one, but you can't ask for it until you've been stuck three days. However the personnel office has the ability to look at the availability of seats on the military flights a few days in advance.
If I could get a memo from them that there would be no seats available for three days, then I thought perhaps I could get my commercial ticket authorized without going to hang out at the Gateway with no work to do for three days. Even if I did have to wait three days, better to wait three days in my OFFICE, where there's always productive work for me to do. So on the 15th, I went to the personnel office and asked the warrant officer who does such things to check on the availability of seats.
"Oh, we're not booked up," she says, "In fact, there's a flight leaving today at 2130 with plenty of available seats." (That's 9:30 pm, for you civilians.)
"What's show-time for that flight?" says I, meaning, "What time to I have to sign in at the airfield in order to be able to get on that flight?"
"12:00," says she.
I looked at my watch and and got an adrenaline rush as I noticed that the time was 9:30 am. The trip from Camp Arifjan to the airfield takes an hour and a half. That meant I had an hour to get my chaplain assistants back to the office, get my luggage loaded into the SUV and depart for the airfield. Fortunately, I had already packed - except for a few items that needed to be stashed in various corners of my luggage - and had my room inspected and completed all the administrative out-processing required.
My assistants grasped my sense of urgency, and drove with enthusiasm and focus. I won't say that we were speeding... but I won't say that we weren't either. So we made it to the airfield at about 11:25. I signed in and the sergeant at the liaison desk gave me a memo authorizing me to get a space-available seat on the flight, and told me to be in the departure briefing tent by 11:45!
From there, things went relatively smoothly - for me. Not so much for the staff at the Gateway, as we lost power in the briefing and administration tent twice, which created significant challenges for the staff, as well as making the travelers and staff alike very hot and cranky as we sat in the dark with no air conditioning while the tent rapidly approached the outdoor temperature of about 106 degrees Fahrenheit.
However, by about 3:15 pm we were through Customs. By the way, that involves unpacking EVERY bag and having EVERY item visually and manually inspected to ensure we're not smuggling anything dangerous onto the plane, or anything illegal into the US. Since I was not merely going on leave, but actually going home, I had two large duffel bags and a rucksack as checked luggage, and a day-pack and a laptop case to carry on the flight.
To keep the customs process more manageable, I had already mailed a footlocker and two boxes home. That stuff gets inspected at the Post Office before mailing, and reduces the amount of luggage you have to lug around the airfield and unpack and re-pack at Customs. There was a bit of an admin mixup, as the Customs inspector inadvertently gave me the customs form belonging to the Soldier to my right, and gave him mine, but that was resolved with a minimum of fuss and inconvenience. He discovered the problem and reclaimed his form from me, but somehow mine was mislaid and I had to fill out a new one.
Anyway, we made it through customs with time to relax for a little while. I phoned home to tell Becky that I did make it onto a flight on the 15th after all, but I did not know what time I would arrive in Atlanta. We ended up having to manually generate a passenger manifest, because of the power problems in the administrative tent, but other than that, everything went pretty smoothly. The flight was pretty uneventful, except for a philosophical discussion with the young agnostic who sat beside me on the aircraft.
After the plane landed in Atlanta on Sunday morning, we had to go through Immigration, Baggage Claim and Customs, then those of us whose final destination was Atlanta had to plop our bags BACK on a conveyor belt on which they traveled to the baggage claim at the terminal. I meant to phone my wife as soon as I got off the plane, thinking that in the time it took for her to get to the airport, I'd get through to the final baggage claim and have only a short wait for her to pick me up.
Strangely, I passed NO pay phones anywhere between the concourse where I deplaned, and the final baggage claim. I could have borrowed another Soldier's cell phone as soon as we got off the plane, but I didn't, because I thought I'd see a pay phone any minute and I didn't want to impose. Ironically, when I finally did get to the final baggage claim, and found a pay phone, I could not make my prepaid calling card work, and ended up borrowing a cell phone from a co-worker of mine - a Major who works in the Aviation section at US Army Central - who came in on the same flight from Kuwait... so if I were going to borrow a phone, I'd have been better off to just do so as soon as I got off the plane.
Anyway, put my luggage on a cart and went to hang out at the USO until the family came. Instead of going home, we went straight to church - with me still in the uniform I had been wearing for over 24 hours and smelling something less than daisy-fresh. We arrived about half an hour late for the start of the second service, walking in just as the children were blessed and sent out to Children's Church and the praise music began that immediately precedes the sermon.
Anyway, enough for now. The main thing is, I'm home, safe and sound, with my beloved family. I'll be on leave for a month, then go back to work briefly before signing out on travel leave, to move to a new assignment at Ft. Carson, Colorado.
Thanks for all of you who prayed for me and for my family while I was away. There is no doubt in my mind that your prayers brought me the spiritual help I needed to handle the challenges of separation from my family and the high pace of wartime military operations.
Showing posts with label Kuwait. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kuwait. Show all posts
Monday, May 17, 2010
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Outward Bound Part II
Well, it’s Saturday afternoon 19 December 2009 – housekeeping day – and I’m sitting in the laundry room waiting for the washing machines to finish washing my clothes so I can move them to the dryer. So, I thought I’d use the time to prepare the next installment of Tales from the Sandbox.
Last time, I only write about half the trip out here, stopping when we left Leipzig Halle, Germany. The second leg of the flight was only about four and a half hours long. It was about 8:30 pm and fully dark when we landed in Kuwait. Even if it weren’t dark I would have been unable to send any pictures of our arrival, because photography on military airfields is not permitted without prior permission from command authorities. It’s too easy for the enemies of the United States to use information from those photos for targeting.
As we taxied to where we would disembark, in the runway lights we could see that it had been raining. Later I discovered that the brief, rainy season in Kuwait started about three days before our arrival. We filed off the airplane and onto tour busses where we sat for a long time, waiting for the baggage detail to take our bags off the airplane and put them onto a cargo truck.
Once they had completed their task and joined the rest of the passengers on the busses, we convoyed to a place about twenty minutes away, where we killed time for an hour, waiting for a Kuwaiti police escort to bring us from our holding area to the place where we would do our administrative inprocessing.
The location was pretty austere – just a bare patch of hard-packed silt and blowing sand, surrounded by concrete blast-restraining walls. For our personal comfort, there were a row of plastic porta-potties, several coolers with iced-down water bottles, and a pallet-load of water bottles waiting to go into the coolers. Under a sand-colored sun-shade (which was more of a screen than a tent) were picnic tables where we might sit and enjoy our water and any snacks we might have with us. Of course, it was dark, so the sun shade didn’t do anything for us, but I suppose it was nice to know that if we HAD been stuck there in daylight, we would have had shade.
When our escort finally arrived, we loaded the busses again and headed out. All the windows on the bus were curtained, and we were strictly instructed to keep the curtains drawn. Nobody told us the reason, but I suppose it was probably so that any hypothetical terrorists out there could not aim at the people on the bus. They could take out the WHOLE bus with a bomb or shoot randomly through the windows, but could not target individuals. (When you’re a Soldier you think of such possibilities as an ordinary part of planning a trip.) However, there have been no attacks on US forces in Kuwait since the beginning of the war in 2003, and the trip proceeded without incident.
The trip was about an hour and a half. The seats on the busses had worn upholstery – dingy with wear, but not dirty. They were narrower than the seats in American tour busses would be and had substantially less leg-room. We could not recline the seats at all without pressing on the knees of those behind us. I’m just observing, not complaining. I’ve ridden in much worse conditions.
Anybody remember the cattle cars from Basic Training? With duffel bags on our backs and rucksacks on our laps? That was worse, and certainly rides in the back of a deuce-and-a-half (2.5 ton Army cargo truck) were worse, too. Even so, I think I will never learn to love a Kuwaiti tour bus.
We arrived at the Theater Gateway, in the Logistical Support Area (LSA) at Ali Al-Saleem Air Force Base somewhere around 10:30 pm. On arrival, a junior enlisted Soldier got on the bus. “The R&R flight from Dallas just arrived before you, and so you’ll have to wait on your busses until the Dallas people are briefed and inprocessed,” she said.
“What about using the latrines?” said one of my fellow-travelers. It was a reasonably predictable question, since most of us had been aggressively hydrating during the flight and at the holding area. A wise person doesn’t want to start a sojourn in the desert already partially dehydrated.
“Oh,” she said, like this was a new idea to her, “Well, there are porta-potties right across the street, but get right back on the bus.” Then as she turned to get off the bus, she delivered this parting gem, “And go one at a time.”
A beat later, the spontaneous exclamation arose from the passengers, almost in unison, “One at a time?!? Yeah, right!!” followed by a mad dash to the porta-potties.
Apparently this young Soldier thought that there was some tragedy that would be averted by sending us one at a time. However, no drastic effects arose and about twenty minutes later as the last of the relieved passengers returned to the busses, we were told we could file off the busses.
We walked to a covered area where there were signs to various destinations. There was a sign for those staying in Kuwait, one for those traveling through Baghdad International Airport (Iraq), one for those traveling through Balad Airport (Iraq), one for Baghram (Afghanistan), and several others. Each of us stood behind the appropriate sign for our respective, final destinations.
A female sergeant with a bullhorn was walking about giving guidance about who was to go to what signs, in case we didn’t know. Her voice was high and thin and didn’t carry well – a problem many women Soldiers face when addressing large formations. The bullhorn helped a little, but not a whole lot, because the sound it produced included static and crackles that blurred the edges of her words. Since she spoke very quickly, her words mushed together and it was very difficult to understand her.
People who stood at the back of the crowds behind the signs looked at each other and said, “Hunh? What did she say?” People who stood closer and could hear her passed her instructions toward the back. Unfortunately she was still talking as they did so, so they (and the people to whom they were speaking) were apt to miss the next thing she said, so THEY said, “Hunh? What?” And so it continued. By the end of her speech, most of us had grasped about ¾ of what she said, and we hoped that nothing we missed was critically important.
After she had us properly sorted and organized, she gave us a 10-minute potty-and-smoke break. Since I had already taken advantage of the porta-potties and had no need to smoke, I took advantage of that time to search for Chaplain Huey – the person I was to replace – and Staff Sergeant Stevenson – my chaplain assistant. They had come from Camp Arifjan to pick me up and spare me from having to wait hours for a shuttle bus.
We found each other pretty easily and I went right away to load my carry-on luggage (backpack and laptop case) into the Unit Ministry Team’s SUV. I didn’t want to mess with them while sitting through briefings and looking for my checked bags.
SSG Stevenson arranged for me to be able to “swipe in” without waiting for the administrative inbriefing. I’ve been through it several times, I know the rules and since I already had a ride to Camp Arifjan the part of the briefing that tells people how and when to catch their transportation for the next leg of the journey was irrelevant to me.
The movement of personnel into the theater of operations and between camps is recorded by scanning bar codes on our identification cards. That’s what “swiping in” means – getting the card scanned. In addition to keeping accountability of personnel, swiping in also starts our various pay entitlements that go with being in a combat theater.
However, we found that I still could not depart until after the briefing because our baggage remained on the cargo truck until we unloaded it ourselves, with a “bucket brigade” style human conveyor belt. So I sat through the briefing for the fifth or sixth time.
After the briefing I went with my fellow-passengers to the cargo truck, but I found there was no need for me to be in the bucket brigade line. The Sergeant from the Theater Gateway staff was experienced at this, and knew about how long a line he needed to get the luggage unloaded and stacked for us to claim. He cut the line off short of where I was standing. So, I (and the others who had fallen in beyond the cut-off) just stepped back and watched for our bags.
I intercepted the bags as quickly as I could. I have a 65-pound rucksack (the bulk of that weight is my body armor), two duffel bags and a plastic footlocker. Chaplain Huey, SSSG Stevenson and I loaded them into the SUV, and off we went. By this time it was about midnight.
Well, this post is getting long enough. I think I’ll wrap it up for now and save the rest of the story of my arrival for later. Besides, my sheets are dry and it’s time to make my bed. Stay tuned for our next exciting episode, “Home Away from Home.”
Last time, I only write about half the trip out here, stopping when we left Leipzig Halle, Germany. The second leg of the flight was only about four and a half hours long. It was about 8:30 pm and fully dark when we landed in Kuwait. Even if it weren’t dark I would have been unable to send any pictures of our arrival, because photography on military airfields is not permitted without prior permission from command authorities. It’s too easy for the enemies of the United States to use information from those photos for targeting.
As we taxied to where we would disembark, in the runway lights we could see that it had been raining. Later I discovered that the brief, rainy season in Kuwait started about three days before our arrival. We filed off the airplane and onto tour busses where we sat for a long time, waiting for the baggage detail to take our bags off the airplane and put them onto a cargo truck.
Once they had completed their task and joined the rest of the passengers on the busses, we convoyed to a place about twenty minutes away, where we killed time for an hour, waiting for a Kuwaiti police escort to bring us from our holding area to the place where we would do our administrative inprocessing.
The location was pretty austere – just a bare patch of hard-packed silt and blowing sand, surrounded by concrete blast-restraining walls. For our personal comfort, there were a row of plastic porta-potties, several coolers with iced-down water bottles, and a pallet-load of water bottles waiting to go into the coolers. Under a sand-colored sun-shade (which was more of a screen than a tent) were picnic tables where we might sit and enjoy our water and any snacks we might have with us. Of course, it was dark, so the sun shade didn’t do anything for us, but I suppose it was nice to know that if we HAD been stuck there in daylight, we would have had shade.
When our escort finally arrived, we loaded the busses again and headed out. All the windows on the bus were curtained, and we were strictly instructed to keep the curtains drawn. Nobody told us the reason, but I suppose it was probably so that any hypothetical terrorists out there could not aim at the people on the bus. They could take out the WHOLE bus with a bomb or shoot randomly through the windows, but could not target individuals. (When you’re a Soldier you think of such possibilities as an ordinary part of planning a trip.) However, there have been no attacks on US forces in Kuwait since the beginning of the war in 2003, and the trip proceeded without incident.
The trip was about an hour and a half. The seats on the busses had worn upholstery – dingy with wear, but not dirty. They were narrower than the seats in American tour busses would be and had substantially less leg-room. We could not recline the seats at all without pressing on the knees of those behind us. I’m just observing, not complaining. I’ve ridden in much worse conditions.
Anybody remember the cattle cars from Basic Training? With duffel bags on our backs and rucksacks on our laps? That was worse, and certainly rides in the back of a deuce-and-a-half (2.5 ton Army cargo truck) were worse, too. Even so, I think I will never learn to love a Kuwaiti tour bus.
We arrived at the Theater Gateway, in the Logistical Support Area (LSA) at Ali Al-Saleem Air Force Base somewhere around 10:30 pm. On arrival, a junior enlisted Soldier got on the bus. “The R&R flight from Dallas just arrived before you, and so you’ll have to wait on your busses until the Dallas people are briefed and inprocessed,” she said.
“What about using the latrines?” said one of my fellow-travelers. It was a reasonably predictable question, since most of us had been aggressively hydrating during the flight and at the holding area. A wise person doesn’t want to start a sojourn in the desert already partially dehydrated.
“Oh,” she said, like this was a new idea to her, “Well, there are porta-potties right across the street, but get right back on the bus.” Then as she turned to get off the bus, she delivered this parting gem, “And go one at a time.”
A beat later, the spontaneous exclamation arose from the passengers, almost in unison, “One at a time?!? Yeah, right!!” followed by a mad dash to the porta-potties.
Apparently this young Soldier thought that there was some tragedy that would be averted by sending us one at a time. However, no drastic effects arose and about twenty minutes later as the last of the relieved passengers returned to the busses, we were told we could file off the busses.
We walked to a covered area where there were signs to various destinations. There was a sign for those staying in Kuwait, one for those traveling through Baghdad International Airport (Iraq), one for those traveling through Balad Airport (Iraq), one for Baghram (Afghanistan), and several others. Each of us stood behind the appropriate sign for our respective, final destinations.
A female sergeant with a bullhorn was walking about giving guidance about who was to go to what signs, in case we didn’t know. Her voice was high and thin and didn’t carry well – a problem many women Soldiers face when addressing large formations. The bullhorn helped a little, but not a whole lot, because the sound it produced included static and crackles that blurred the edges of her words. Since she spoke very quickly, her words mushed together and it was very difficult to understand her.
People who stood at the back of the crowds behind the signs looked at each other and said, “Hunh? What did she say?” People who stood closer and could hear her passed her instructions toward the back. Unfortunately she was still talking as they did so, so they (and the people to whom they were speaking) were apt to miss the next thing she said, so THEY said, “Hunh? What?” And so it continued. By the end of her speech, most of us had grasped about ¾ of what she said, and we hoped that nothing we missed was critically important.
After she had us properly sorted and organized, she gave us a 10-minute potty-and-smoke break. Since I had already taken advantage of the porta-potties and had no need to smoke, I took advantage of that time to search for Chaplain Huey – the person I was to replace – and Staff Sergeant Stevenson – my chaplain assistant. They had come from Camp Arifjan to pick me up and spare me from having to wait hours for a shuttle bus.
We found each other pretty easily and I went right away to load my carry-on luggage (backpack and laptop case) into the Unit Ministry Team’s SUV. I didn’t want to mess with them while sitting through briefings and looking for my checked bags.
SSG Stevenson arranged for me to be able to “swipe in” without waiting for the administrative inbriefing. I’ve been through it several times, I know the rules and since I already had a ride to Camp Arifjan the part of the briefing that tells people how and when to catch their transportation for the next leg of the journey was irrelevant to me.
The movement of personnel into the theater of operations and between camps is recorded by scanning bar codes on our identification cards. That’s what “swiping in” means – getting the card scanned. In addition to keeping accountability of personnel, swiping in also starts our various pay entitlements that go with being in a combat theater.
However, we found that I still could not depart until after the briefing because our baggage remained on the cargo truck until we unloaded it ourselves, with a “bucket brigade” style human conveyor belt. So I sat through the briefing for the fifth or sixth time.
After the briefing I went with my fellow-passengers to the cargo truck, but I found there was no need for me to be in the bucket brigade line. The Sergeant from the Theater Gateway staff was experienced at this, and knew about how long a line he needed to get the luggage unloaded and stacked for us to claim. He cut the line off short of where I was standing. So, I (and the others who had fallen in beyond the cut-off) just stepped back and watched for our bags.
I intercepted the bags as quickly as I could. I have a 65-pound rucksack (the bulk of that weight is my body armor), two duffel bags and a plastic footlocker. Chaplain Huey, SSSG Stevenson and I loaded them into the SUV, and off we went. By this time it was about midnight.
Well, this post is getting long enough. I think I’ll wrap it up for now and save the rest of the story of my arrival for later. Besides, my sheets are dry and it’s time to make my bed. Stay tuned for our next exciting episode, “Home Away from Home.”
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