It was kind of strange leaving Ft. Lewis . I expected that it would only be our unit at the air base getting ready to leave but it turned out there were 3 different units leaving that day for Iraq and Afghanistan. We got to the hanger around 1500 and after a couple briefings were able to wander around while we waited to load the plane. The USO is a wonderful organization they were there handing out gift bags with playing cards, snacks and toiletries. They also had a little shop off the hanger with free coffee and snacks. With a final farewell from several officers and high ranking NCOs’ the time finally rolled around to load the plane, so with a bit of apprehension we walked out onto the tarmac and loaded the plane.


Boy what a trip, 26 hours of flying and airport time. We left Ft. Lewis around 1700on Thursday the 9th and arrived in wonderful Kuwait around 0100 Saturday the 10th. Talk about some serious jet lag. The flight over was absolutely brutal. The plane had seats for 420 and we only had about 300 people but because of weight distribution we all had to pack the back of the plane. This was tough as each person is carrying a large assault pack, computer bag and an M-4 rifle with attachments. To say it was a little cramped is putting it mildly. After about 4 hours of sitting in such a cramped space my knees felt like they had been opened up and broken glass had been inserted, not a good feeling at all. We started the flight with our unit of 135 and about 60 folks from another unit. Then we had to fly to Colorado and pick up 100 more people. The flight to Colorado was only a couple of hours and was not too bad. We sat there at the airplane hanger for a break for about 1 and a 1/2 hours then loaded up and took off again headed for Minneapolis /ST. Paul. We arrived there around 0200 in the morning feeling a little bit worn out. We were able to de-plane for a nice 2 hour break and were greeted by the USO. If there ever was an organization to donate money too it would be the USO. We were greeted by 7 smiling ladies who handed out Burger King cheeseburgers and cold cokes. They had books that folks could take for free and all sorts of snacks and such. I was humbled that these folks took time out of their lives to meet us at the airport at such a late hour and take care of us the way they did. We left Minneapolis around 0400 for our flight to Shannon airport in Ireland for the first long leg of our journey. I had stayed awake Wednesday to Thursday night for the most part so when we boarded the plane I fell asleep and woke up when the wheels touched down in Ireland. We were able to de-plane while they refueled for several hours. Because of course it being Ireland the main section of the airport has a huge bar in it. It was a trip back in time for me as my unit stopped at that same airport on our return flight from Desert Storm. Of course the terminal was brand new and completely different from my last visit which had been 18 years previous. I chose to skip the beer as I have already checked the box of having a draft Harp and Guinness in Ireland. Instead I went with some nice hot Irish coffee. The prices were outrageous and I am now the proud owner of several Euros which I will now have to carry with me for a year. I honestly do not remember what time it was that we landed in Ireland as I was a bit out of sorts having traveled backward in time and being jet lagged and confused. After a nice break and several beers drank by most we got back on the plane for our final leg to Kuwait.

The flight to Kuwait took about 7 hours and it felt like I was in the 13th ring of hell. I am accustomed to flying and traveling but being in such a cramped space for so long pretty much had everyone extremely annoyed by the time we finally landed in Kuwait. Landing in Kuwait was a surreal experience for me. The last time I saw that airfield and terminal it was all pretty much on fire and the skies were blocked by oil smoke. This time around they had a new terminal and the runways were not cratered from cluster bombs. We got in around 0100 which was actually a blessing as it was only about 85 degrees out at that time. I was defiantly feeling weird about the whole experience , I would not say I was having flashbacks or anything of that sort but there was defiantly a weird vibe about the whole thing. For one thing I could not believe I was back there getting ready to go fight in another war in that region. . We unloaded the plane on the tarmac and loaded some buses that took us to a little rest area that had bins of ice water and some latrines. We were able to take a break and stretch our legs for a bit then we were loaded back up onto the buses for our trip to the FOB we were going to. We had to stop at al saleem airfield to drop off the troops that we had picked up in Colorado then we were off to Camp Buehring which was the base that we would be staying at for our hopefully short stay in Kuwait. All in all we spent about 2 hours on the bus which was annoying after our joyous airplane trip.

After finally getting onto base we drove to a briefing area and unloaded the buses. We were allowed to run over to the chow hall and grab breakfast which was awesome because all we had eaten in the last 30 hours had been airplane food. After chow we had to go through some briefings about the FOB rules, most of which are stupid in case you were wondering. We also had to have a briefing where they tried to convince us that Kuwait is a combat zone, it did not work we still don’t believe it. After the briefings of which 90% of them I cant remember because they gave them to us after we had all been traveling for 30 hours we got back onto the buses and headed over to our barracks area. The barracks are pretty awesome here, air conditioning and electric lights. Basically they are just huge steel support tents with plastic covers. A very different experience from my last deployment. We unloaded the truck that had all of our bags on it and moved into the barracks. Most people dropped their bags and racked out immediately , it was late afternoon by this time. Surprisingly I was not able to sleep so my buddy Harbin and I went a wandering. It was hotter than hell and a bit of a shock to the system but we forged forward because we had heard there was a starbucks on base and we are both coffee hounds. Sure enough there is a Starbucks here along with a Burger king, taco bell and a KFC. We wandered around for a bit then headed back to the barracks where I promptly fell asleep for about 12 hours, it was awesome.