Victory Dance

The letter of release has been received.  I made the flight manifest.  I have cleared customs, checked my bags, and am currently sitting in the lock down terminal waiting for our plane to be made ready.  I think it's time for a little victory dance, Will Smith style.

Heather and I at the Camp Eggers Smoke Pit on my last night in Afghanistan.

 

Ok, so I'm cheating on the picture a bit.  Photography isn't allowed in the lock down area, probably so people can't study the area to figure out where to throw things over the fence and avoid customs.  So I'm using an older picture from my last day at Eggers.  You get the idea.  My Victory Dance was kindly provided by one LTC "Smiley".  (That really is his nickname, and it definitely fits.  The guy smiles even when he's angry.)  And it was delicious.  I have another primed for Ft. Benning, after which I will probably have to forgo this tradition lest my wife, and probably my mother, murder me.

 

As I write this I'm sitting in the "Freedom Area", aka temporary holding cell.  The compound is fairly large with multiple tents, the world's smallest Pizza Hut (about the size of a phone booth), a coffee shop, and wi-fi.  In typical military fashion our show time was 0600 this morning to drop off our bags, while our flight doesn't take off until 2035 this evening.  That's more than 14 hours for the mathematically challenged, most of which will be spent sitting doing nothing.  "Hurry up and wait" is more than a mantra.  When we finally do leave the ground, I expect to be in the air or on layover in either Germany or Ireland for around 16 hours.  However, because I am a fairly heavy sleeper and don't have a very loud alarm with me, I chose to stay up all night rather than chance missing the show time.  Thus, by the time the flight takes off, I should be all set to sleep at least half the way.  That's the plan at least.  If you've traveled on an airplane before, you know plans to rest usually don't survive very long.  We shall see.

I have very little to say about the past few days, largely because I have been doing very little, but I'll see what I can come up with.  

 

My officemates and colonel were fantastic in getting my letter of release completed in record time.  I still have a hard time believing such a large piece of information was completely unknown to the Camp Eggers personnel office.  When I first told my office that I needed the letter, all of them thought the lady was off base and tried to find a way around it.  I can now say that she was definitely correct.  Multiple people asked to see my letter of release during my check-in for the flight, and it was also required to drop off my equipment at the warehouse here in Kuwait so I could avoid dragging it all the way back to Ft. Benning.  It is evident that somewhere between here and Afghanistan is a massive rift in communication.  Being that this is the military, and how little attention are paid to civilians in general, I guess I really shouldn't be surprised.  This is just a lot larger issue than what normally (in my experience) falls through the cracks.

The USO is an amazing organization.  Both Kuwait (Ali Al Salem Air Base, to be specific) and Bagram Air Force Base had a USO building to provide folks a place to relax and hang out.  I wasn't at Bagram long enough to enjoy that one, but I used the heck out of the one in Kuwait.  At the USO, deployed personnel have access to  comfortable couches, TVs, a movie room, free wi-fi, phone lines to the states without having to dial an operator, PlayStation 3 kiosks, a guitar, and even hot brownies one day.  My last few days were spent nearly entirely inside this building, watching movies, playing games on my laptop, or Skyping with the family.  It was also a great place to get to talk to all sorts of people that served at little bases all over Iraq and Afghanistan.  Waiting three days for a space on an airplane wasn't very much fun, but the USO made it a lot easier to stomach.

Did I mention I watched a lot of movies?  I watched a LOT of movies.  Let me summarize and make recommendations (and I apologize if the links show up with German movie titles, I can't do anything about that, unfortunately):

Repo Men - Sci-fi action flick about repossessing artificial organs when their still-breathing owners can't afford to make the payments any more.  Very bloody, mostly predictable up until the very end.  The ending sold it for me, though I can see a lot of people hating it.  Avoid unless you're really into sci-fi or blood spatter.

Baby Mama - Comedy about surrogacy (carrying someone else's kid).  Avoid like the plague.  I think I laughed twice.  I only finished it because I was in Kuwait and had nothing better to do.

Date Night - Pretty funny, if a little raunchy at times.  Steve Farrell and Tina Fey work extremely well together.  Unique in that it's a romantic comedy that focuses on a married couple.  Who knew married couples could have romance?  If you're easily offended by sexual jokes or cursing for comedic effect (i.e., completely unnecessary) then avoid, otherwise it's worth your time.

The A-Team - I'm old enough to remember watching the show, but young enough to not remember a thing about it.  Maybe fans of the show would enjoy this, but I really did not.  Generally bad acting, thin plot, and unbelievable action sequences.  I will say the villain's part was played rather well.  If you like completely brain dead action movies or are a huge A-Team fan then go for it, otherwise stay away.

Jonah Hex - Western-with-a-twist based off a comic book.  Mildly entertaining, but I actually paused the movie for an hour and a half to watch Remember the Titans on TV, so that should give you some reference.  Worst role I've ever seen John Malkovich play, which was pretty disappointing.  I wouldn't bother.

Terminator Salvation - The first of the second Terminator trilogy.  (Did you follow that?)  Totally worth it if you're a Terminator fan, otherwise probably not so much, as the plot revolves heavily around plot points from the original Terminator movie.  For the fans though, this is good stuff.

Salt - Probably the best movie I watched of the bunch.  Good plot, decent acting for an action film, familiar faces on the screen, twists keep you interested until the end.  Worth watching if you don't object to military-type violence.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief - The Greek gods are real and are still having kids with mortals, a la Hercules and Achilles.  Those kids play the staring role when the lightning bolt of Zeus is stolen.  The movie is pretty simplistic, but it's designed for fans of the young adult novel on which the movie is based, so it gets a pass.  Nearly every adult role is played by some recognizable actor, which was entertaining by itself as I tried to guess who was going to show up next.  Highly disappointed they couldn't land Ozzie Osbourne to play Hades.  Ok overall, especially if you're watching with kids, or by yourself in a giant, foreign sand box.

I think I've rambled on about nothing for long enough.  In entertaining myself, I risk boring everyone else, so I'm cutting myself off.  Still six and a half hours to go before our bus to the airport.  Ugh.  I think I'll go watch Salt again, or something.  On a happier note, the next time I post a blog it will be from the good ol' US of A.  /cheer

See you soon.  Out here.

Gone, baby, gone

Afghanistan is in the rear view mirror.  So is Qatar.  Current residence is Kuwait.  And now I'm stuck here.

When leaving Camp Eggers, most people are required to secure a letter of release from the command, certifying that you have reached the end of your orders, your replacement has arrived, and you have had adequate change-over time to teach your replacement your job.  However, when I asked about getting a letter of release for myself, I was told that civilians were not required to do this.  I was rather happy, as they are kind of a pain in the butt to get completed, and could have delayed me getting home.  So I left Camp Eggers, letter-less, hoping for a quick journey home, but prepared to slog it out one stop at a time.

The MRAP ride to Bagram Air Force Base left bright and early at 0600.  My office mates came out to see me off and help me carry my bags to the meeting point.  We had one last Monty Python joke, hugs goodbye, and then I was off.  Two hours later, I was in Bagram, prepping to navigate my way through the endless adventure that is space available travel.

Space available, or Space-A, is exactly what it sounds like.  If the plane has seats available, then they take passengers.  If they don't, then they don't.  Most of the planes leaving theatre are not taking passengers specifically, but cargo from one base to another.  How much cargo they will carry and how much room that cargo will take up isn't known until shortly before the flight leaves.  As such, how many seats are available is not known until shortly before the plane takes off.  These seats are given out on a first come, first serve basis, leading to a long list of sign ups to get to where you need to go.  I signed up for a flight to Kuwait more than a week ago, and I was 62 out of 250 on the list.  The first flights leaving for Kuwait were the next day, so I figured that I'd have to spend at least one night in Bagram, and depending on the amount of space, possibly more than one.  But the officer in charge of getting people home from Camp Eggers had another suggestion.

Qatar is a small nation south of Kuwait occupying a peninsula bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south and the Persian Gulf elsewhere.  It's also a portal into the Southwest Asia theatre (Iraq, Afghanistan), and a little known exit route.  While few people choose to go through Qatar to leave Afghanistan, it's a pretty efficient method.  The planes going to Qatar usually don't carry much cargo, meaning there are a lot of seats available, and there are several flights from Qatar to Kuwait each day taking people back and forth on 4 day pass.  As it happened, there was a flight to Qatar leaving at 1515 the day I arrived in Bagram, and upon switching my sign up I was number 19 on the list.  Sure enough, when roll call came around, I had a seat.

After manifest, loading bags, waiting out a small dust storm and a three and a half hour flight on a C-17, I arrived in Qatar around 2100.  Annoyingly, I was made to go through immigration, even though I would only be there a couple of hours.  Then through a brief customs check, before going to check on a flight to Kuwait.  There were two leaving in the next 6 hours, and I was number 9 on the manifest.  Yup, this was definitely a better idea.

Another perk about going through Qatar was the improved quality of the terminal waiting area.  Bagram's terminal was a temporary terminal with a concrete floor, non-insulated walls, and not nearly enough space for all the people coming in and out.  Qatar was an actual building, tiled floors, bright lighting, and the best bathroom I've seen since I left home.  They also had free wi-fi (that actually worked for a change) and was about 12 times faster than the wired connection I had been using in Kabul.  I was able to Skype with my wife and actually have video rather than a slide show.  I took thorough advantage of this perk until the 0130 roll call for the flight.

After another round of waiting, we loaded the airplane around 0330 and rolled out around 0400.  Given the time change, at this point I'd been traveling for 24 hours and was pretty exhausted.  Sleeping on a C-17 isn't easy, given the way the seats are set up.  The seats are along the sides of the cargo bay, with no arm rests, no head rest, and no way to recline, so you are forced to sleep sitting up.  But as tired as I was, those issues were only minor.

Now at 0600, I had arrived in Kuwait.  Here was the first known quantity about my travel.  I had scheduled myself for a flight back to Ft. Benning, Georgia more than a week ago, was confirmed to have a space on the aircraft, and knew it left on Saturday.  I was hoping to find an R&R flight leaving sooner, but knew that worst-case I would be leaving on the 18th.  My biggest worry of the travel was getting to Kuwait before the check-in time for the flight on Friday, as I thought I was going to get stuck behind all the people heading home for leave.  Now that I was here, I expected smooth sailing.

Not so fast.  Just one more little wrinkle.

You remember that release letter?  The one that I didn't have?  Apparently it's required to have one to board the flight out of Kuwait.  This is a new regulation as of a couple months ago, one that the personnel office at Camp Eggers apparently had no idea existed.  It's also a regulation that the contractor running the flights home failed to tell me about until I showed up at the counter.  I tried to find some way to leave the country without needing a release letter to no avail.  Bottom-line: I'm not going anywhere until a letter of release is signed.

Being that I'm no longer at Camp Eggers, I'm relying on my colonel and NCOs to get things worked out for me.  Usually the hold up with release letters is verifying when your replacement is going to show up and enforcing the mandatory 10 day turn over.  By hold up, I mean that letters of release need to be started about 30 days before you head home.  I've got three and a half days before my flight leaves.  Ugh.  Since my replacement is already working, and our turn over already complete, and I'm already gone, I'm hoping that things can be moved along quickly, but I really have no idea.  

I trust the folks I'm counting on to get me out of here, but its not easy sitting in a different country, hands tied, with getting home in time for Christmas on the line.  But if that's what I have to do to climb the last hurdle between me and home, then that's what I'll do.  I just hope I don't go crazy.

Sitting, waiting, wishing.  See you soon?

Out here.

Farewells

Saying goodbye sucks.  Goodbye to my family at the airport was terrible at the start of my tour.  I did not expect saying goodbye at the end of my tour would be an event.  But as it happens, I really hated telling my friends goodbye.

My predecessor did not have a very close office group.  Each person did their own thing in the office and in their personal time, for the most part, and interacted with each other minimally.  Our office is (I guess "was" is appropriate now, since I'm leaving) the polar opposite.  We've done everything together, and had a darn good time doing it.  I have made friends here that I will keep for my lifetime, even though we may not get to see each other for five years at a stretch.  And after six months of seven day work weeks, long hours, hilarious shenanigans, and even some thrilling heroics, it's hard to imagine going through a day without these guys being around.

My farewell day started with lots of errands.  There's always loose ends to tie up when moving from one place to another, whether it's switching jobs or moving houses.  Re-deploying is no exception, and has the added layer of paperwork.  Checking out of my room, turning in my cell phone and laundry bag, and suspending my e-mail accounts were all required.  I also had to finish packing all of my acquired stuff into my limited bag space for the trip home.  I mailed 59 lbs of stuff yesterday, and I still had more to carry.  I was only here 6 months, how did I acquire so much crap?

After the mundane came the more fun sections.  MG Beare, the two star Canadian general for whom I have done most of my work, dropped by our office to say thank you to myself and to Heather, who is also leaving in a few days.  He gave us a nice send off, formally recognizing our efforts in front of our boss and our peers.  I learned that some of the work I had done in the past was being used to motivate the Afghan Minister of the Interior to affect change in a particularly troubled segment of the police, and it's working.  Noticeable changes have been seen since the information I produced was delivered to Afghan leadership.  Having this kind of effect on things is the largest part of what makes (made...sigh, I'll get used to it soon, bear with me) this job so great.  Impactful changes can be brought about on a timeline that allows me to see them.  Having MG Beare illustrate to me just how much change I've been able to affect on Afghanistan was extremely satisfying.

After this was the formal CJ7 Hail and Farewell send off.  My replacement was being welcomed as one of the new hails, and Heather and I were being farewelled (that is now a word).  Since I'm leaving, this was the last opportunity to share with the organization about my exploits.  And what fun would it be if all we talked about was work?  Here is what my buddies came up with to be read aloud by my boss to the 60 or so people in attendance, in no particular order, with a little explanation about each one:

- Apache knife fighter
Ok, so I ended up being pretty decent at racking up kills with a knife in some of the video games we played extensively.  I earned the nickname one night when we brought the PS3 to the conference room and played on the 60" plasma.  I think I knifed Steve 7 times in a row on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, bringing much amusement to the crowd of on-lookers.

- Five Star Foxhole blogger
This one should be self explanatory for this audience.

- Resident hippie/20-something
I spent most of my deployment wearing my hair long, with my customary goatee.  Decidedly un-military like, and definitely noticeable amongst the workforce.  I had people in other offices convinced I was a surfer, and had several people not recognize me after I cut it all off a couple weeks ago.  I was also the youngest member of the office, and helped bring the old farts I worked with into the 21st century by teaching them about Facebook and texting.

- Would have made it home 4 months ago if he'd found the trail of Reese's Pieces leading there.
So, I really like Reese's Pieces.  Like, a lot.  And they were the perfect snack for Afghanistan.  Small handfuls of sweetness and peanut butter that survive shipping well.  I had my wife send around 10 lbs of them during my tour.  I shared with the office, but I ate more than my fair share.

- Haiku Artist
Every week we were required to turn in "3 liners", detailing each project worked that week in three lines or less.  These are compiled and delivered to several people interested in what the ORSAs are doing.  Well, one week, I submitted mine in haiku just for fun.  The colonel posted my e-mail on his door, has them memorized, and frequently has a good chuckle over them even three months later.

And last, famous quotes, attributed to me:
"Hey, can I hold your gun?" - I was the only one in the office without a weapon and I was trying to learn.  Apparently it was funny.

"You are evil...take those truffles away from me!" - Yeah...someone shipped us Lindor truffles.  Bad news, man, bad news.

"Where is Steve?  Is he playing Black Ops without me?!" - One of the video games we play.  I was jealous of my controller time.

"There comes a point in each day when you know you're not going to get anything else done.  Well, I hit that point in my deployment about five days ago.  Thankfully, I can teach the new guy to do stuff for me."

Needless to say, much laughter was had.

After the ceremony and the medal presenting, we ate pizza in the one restaurant on camp, smoked a final cigar, watched Christmas Vacation, and made the rounds to say goodbye to people outside the office.  It felt like just another night of fun.  Unfortunately, it will be my last one with these guys.  And that just really, really sucks.  I'm very excited to go home, and I can't wait to see my family.  I just wish there was some way to transport my entire office back to Ft. Leavenworth so I could keep my friends.  Work won't be as fun without them.

We're already discussing annual road trips to meet up with one another.  Steve suggested coming up to Ft. Lewis where he's currently stationed to go salmon fishing.  John, Heather and the Anonymous One both live on the East Coast, meaning we could easily find something to do out there.  I live in the middle of the country, where the travel would be equal for everyone.  But we also all have children, and jobs, and budgets, and we know that it could be nearly impossible to coordinate something between all of us.  I really hope we are able to get it figured out.  I'd hate to think that the last time we'll all see each other is today.

I've got to be up in 4 hours to head to my MRAP convoy.  My friends are waking up two hours earlier than normal to see me off.  My journey home is about to begin.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Out here.

End Of Days

The end is near.  After six months deployed to the world's largest dustbowl, my time is nearly up.  I can't begin to describe my glee.

 

I have enjoyed the work.  I have made great friends and connections.  But I have hated the place.  Part of that is just being 7,000 miles away from home and family, but most of it is earned honestly.  This camp is dirty, dusty, smelly, cramped and crowded, silly, frustrating, and often infuriating.  Putting Afghanistan in my rear view mirror is high on the list of things that will make K.C. happy.  I am so looking forward to being at home and having some semblance of normalcy.

 

My replacement arrived on 1 Dec, wrung out after 70 hours of travel from Kansas City to Dallas, Maine, Germany, Kuwait, Bagram and, finally, Eggers.  That was on top of flying back home for Thanksgiving with his family between CRC and deployment, dragging all his newly issued gear with him.  Once he arrived at Camp Eggers, it was time for me to go through in-processing again, this time from the other side.  Being the expert, knowing all the paths around Camp and all the people we were passing in the street, and trying to impart some of that knowledge to someone else was very surreal.  I remember very clearly how timid and small I felt when I arrived, looking down the barrel of six months of long hours, intense workload, and painful family separation.  Seeing some of those emotions in my replacement made clear to me just how much of a newbie I was when I started.  Now wisened, grizzled, and more than a bit jaded, it was hard to grasp that the only thing between me and a ticket home was 10 days of transition time. 

 

Transition time is critical to continued operations at CSTC-A.  I have 10 days to teach my backfill everything he needs to know TO GET STARTED.  There's no way I can teach him everything I know, let alone everything he needs to know, in 10 days, but it's what we've got to work with, and it's good enough to push him in the right direction.  Speaking from experience, as the one doing the replacing it feels very much like the right direction is off a very high cliff with razor sharp rocks below.  Now that I'm the one being replaced, I can say it's more of a small ledge with a thin mattress at the bottom.  The learning process will be bruising, but it won't kill you.  I tried to tell my replacement this, but he doesn't believe me.  I don't blame him.  Six months ago, I didn't believe my predecessor either.

 

So far, the best lesson I have managed to pass to my replacement is just how frustrating this place can be.  The general chaos of a deployed position combined with messy data and infuriating technical issues make "normal" very different from our home station, and it takes some getting used to.  Case in point: today he was working on making a Power Point slide, using data with known flaws, with a 15 minute deadline, for a briefing to a general that we didn't know was happening, for people that probably when his computer locked up and all progress was lost.  That was quite the proper "welcome to Afghanistan" moment, I do believe. 

 

When getting ready to deploy, EVERYONE told me how quickly six months would go by.  I knew they were right, having been there and experienced it themselves, but it's very difficult to impress that upon the brain when you've just started.  Now on the back end, I can say that, yes, 6 months does pass very quickly.  The days are very long, but the months are mostly short.  Until of course, your replacement arrives.  And now time seems to be standing still.  Relativity needs to die a slow and painful death.

 

As much as I'm looking forward to going home, I am dreading the travel.  Because I am "re-deploying", i.e. going home for good, the military has no incentive to get me out of country quick.  lt does them no good.  As such, anyone going home on R&R gets priority for travel space over me.  This is because it behooves the military to get them out of country as fast as possible so they can get back as fast as possible and continue doing their job.  While the amount of people allowed to go on R&R at any given time is capped at 10% of the force, you can imagine that Christmas time is going to have a higher volume of people moving than other times of the year.  That means I'm likely to be waiting several days at each stop for a plane ride, making the possibility I'm not going to get home before Christmas much more likely. 

 

And while I'm playing roulette with airplane seats, getting bumped from one after another, it will be cold, I will be living in a tent, again, I will be alone, and have very little to do besides wait anxiously for the next flight manifest to see if I got a seat.  Manifest calls can come at any hour of the night, meaning I will be getting very little sleep.  I will be hauling two duffle bags plus a back pack with me everywhere I go, and assuming that they will be stolen if left unattended.  I will have loads of time to sit and think about the next flight will be mine and if I'll get home in time for Christmas.  (Aside: my girls told me that if the Air Force wasn't fast enough to get me home, Santa Claus could pick me up Christmas Eve on his way through Afghanistan and deliver me under the tree the next morning.  Fearing crushing disappointment, I told them that Santa stayed away from Air Force bases because he didn't want to get shot down.)  Movies and music can only entertain for so long before they either start to drive me insane or I run out of them.  

But, dreadful as it may be, it must be done for me to get home, so I will gladly do it.  I'd ride a camel home if it would get me back before Christmas.  I'll have a couple more posts before I blow town, but after that I won't have a reliable internet connection, so updates may be a little spotty.  I'll do my best.

All for this evening.  Out here.