The not so great escape

I wanted to call this blog entry how I learned to hate the Air force and want to hang them from poles and use them as Piñata’s but it was too long so I stuck with “the not so great escape”. I would never have imagined that it would be so difficult to get to a war zone in time of war. Our escape from Kuwait was so fucked up that I am sure that I will not even be able to come close to conveying the horribleness of it all into words. We had spent a little over 2 weeks in Kuwait and as I have said before we were all ready to get the hell out. Kuwait was really hot and miserable, about 115-120 in the day with the hot winds of death. Plus we were all absolutely tired of all the silly training they had us go through, over half of it had absolutely nothing to do with what we would be doing in Iraq.

We were scheduled to leave Camp Buehring on Thursday the 23rd. I say scheduled because when Thursday rolled around they announced that we were on 24 hour stand down and that we would not be leaving until Friday (crap). The previous two days we pretty much had off, Harbin, Lacriccio and I ( the angry old man trifecta )were so ready to go that we packed two days early. If it had not been so hot outside I believe we would have sat outside for 2 days to wait for the buses to come take us away. Sleeping on a cot and living in a tent with 65 other people will eventually drive you mad, more so when you are old. So the day finally arrives when the buses are scheduled to pick us up and take us to al saleem airfield which is where you go to fly to Iraq or to fly home if you are going home on leave. After baking in the sun for a few hours the buses finally arrived to aid in our escape. Before we could load the buses we had to load our duffel bags and rucksacks into a semi trailer Mind you there were a lot of bags. Each of us had to wear our body armor, rifleman’s kit, rifle and carry our Kevlar’s . We also each had a computer bag and an assault pack. After a short bus ride we arrived at the airfield and unloaded all our bags. At first they lined us up in a large open area where we could bake in the sun some more ( I already have a wicked tan or really bad skin cancer by the way ). After a while they decided to put us up in some not so air conditioned tents, I felt like a dehydrated plant in a greenhouse. By this time we were all questioning if we were actually going to be able to escape the hell of Kuwait. Just when total despair was about to set in they announced that they needed people to go unload the semi truck that had all our duffel bags and rucksacks on it so that we could palletize all the gear for our flight out. I was very excited about this prospect ( not really, they made me go ) and went outside once again into the scorching sun only to realize that it was cooler outside than it was in that damn tent. We made short work of getting our gear unloaded and loaded up and secured onto the aluminum Air Force pallets that they use to transport stuff on military planes then headed back to where the company was waiting. After waiting around again for a few hours they finally had us line back up in formation where they started calling off our names to load the buses that were going to take us to the flight line. We promptly loaded the buses with a great sigh of relief because by this point we were convinced that we would finally be able to escape ( Liiiieeeeeesssss!).

This was a very strange bus ride for me, the area that they had been keeping us was all new and had been added to an old Kuwaiti Army / Air Force base. I had not fully realized where we were until we got on the buses to head to the flight line. Once we got to the old part of the base I realized it was an area that I had driven around back in Desert Storm and that a lot of the old buildings were still there. But the weirdest part for me was seeing the old concrete aircraft bunkers just off the runways. When Iraq invaded Kuwait and settled in for their occupation they had been using that airfield and Army barracks to keep their planes and some troops. When the bombing campaign started in desert Storm that area was one of the first places hit and all those bunkers had been bombed. So rolling out there and seeing all those bombed out bunkers still sitting there after all these years was quite an experience for me. Anyways, they finally drive us out to the flight line where we can see a waiting C-17 military transport plane. The C-17 is a fairly large cargo plane and we were all happy to see it as it would mean there would be plenty of room for all of us and all our gear. So the bus pulls up but the doors don’t open, we sit there for less than a minute and the bus starts back up and starts heading off the flight line. My exact words at this time were NNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOO! Apparently no one was listening because we kept driving away. They then took us to a little waiting area where the Air Force people explained that there was a hydraulic problem but that they were going to fix it. So we waited for another hour then got back on the buses and headed back to the flight line. This time we stopped and they actually opened the doors and people started getting up to get off the bus, that is when they closed the doors and started driving away again. But this time they did not take us to the waiting area , they took us all the way back to the hot ass tent area. My spirits were crushed, I was not a happy camper and neither was anyone else.


So back into the tents of despair we go although this time they let us use two tents so I went to the other one and was pleasantly surprised to see leather couches and real air conditioning. By this time it was time for dinner chow so we all headed over to the local chow hall to get some food as most of us had not eaten all day. After chow we all headed back to the tents to be informed that it could be up to 12 hours before we would be able to get another flight, bastards!!. So with that bit of information we all tried to settle in as much as possible for the long wait. A couple hours later they ( the Lazy good for nothing piñata Air force) come back into the tent to say that they are going to move us to Camp Virginia and put us up for the night as we will not be escaping anytime soon, total buzz crusher. But before we can go we have to go outside and un palletize all our gear and load it all back into the wretched semi truck.

So after re-loading all our gear we load the buses and off to camp Virginia we go. Camp Virginia is the base you go to when you are done with your Iraq tour and are getting ready to go back home for good. I think they sent us to that base just to be mean so that we could go and see all the Joes that had already finished their tours and were going home, and here we were not having started our tour yet, dirty rotten bastards!

So we finally arrive at the camp and of course we have to unload the semi truck again, by this time we had moved those godforsaken bags in and out of that damn truck 4 times already. By the way the average weight of one rucksack was around 120 pounds and the duffel bags were not much lighter. They end up putting us in the same types of tents that we stayed in at al saleem, at least these ones had good air conditioning, and proceed to tell us that we will be there for 24 hours at least. Redrum, Redrum, Redrum.

The next day we had nothing to do but wander around and glare at all the bastards we saw that were getting ready to go back home. I did get a chance to eat a Big Mac which for some reason I was really craving as soon as I saw the McDonalds. It was good but not as good as back home. It was at that point that I realized I had not had any fast food for about 2 and ½ months and that I really did not miss it. At least I got to take my picture with a life sized replica of Ronald McDonald that they had sitting on a bench in the middle of the desert, strange world.

So as you can see our escape was not much of an escape at all. My next blog will cover our absolutely horrible plane ride and our glorious introduction to Iraq ( it was not really that glorious).