Home Sweet Home

corey    Military, News    

I finally made it home!

We took a C-130 to Al Udeid, Qatar. It was a 3 hour flight and very cramped. I’ve decided that, given a choice (ha!), I won’t fly on one of those again. The pilot got to do his combat jinxing during take off, so we had some fun G’s for awhile, but the plane is so darn cramped with 45 people in it. It’s crowded, hot, stuffy, and claustrophobic. Doesn’t make for a very good flight!

Once we got to Qatar we had about 24 hours until we flew out, so we were able to go to the BX (and buy some shorts and a t-shirt since mine were packed) and otherwise look around the base. They have a small above-ground swimming pool, which is nice. The base is a lot like Balad but is smaller and has hardly any permanent buildings.

There’s some cool satellite imagery of Al Udeid to be found here. (There is also a little bit of Balad, Iraq to be found here, but not as much info due to Force Protection measures I assume).

We flew into Frankfurt, Germany for our crew switch and refueling stop. It was 1330 Sunday (local) at that point and apparently everything closes at 1pm, even the USO people had gone home! (Though they did leave us some cookies). So we were stuck in a passenger terminal with no open shops for an hour and a half. At least they had DSN (government) phones for us to use.

From there we had a looong flight to Bangor, Maine. When we got there, there was a bunch of veterans and other families in the terminal, shaking everyone’s hand as they came off the airplane. While that’s nice, it’s still very weird to have people you don’t know come up and shake your hand and say thank you. I’ve had to happen in the grocery store and other random places while in uniform. It’s kinda cool, but when that happens I feel like I’m obligated to act some soldier-esque way .. wouldn’t want to disappoint anyone, now would I?

Anyhow, there were also a bunch of Marines lounging about. They were on their way over to Iraq, poor guys. Since they weren’t allowed to drink any beer all the Air Force guys made up for it by drinking twice as much. Despite that, we only had one mishap: a Marine, some how, stepped through a floor-to-ceiling window at one of the shops. Since he wasn’t drunk I can only assume it was fatigue/jet-lag/whatever that caused it. Or maybe he was just bored (apparently they had been there awhile already). The USO folks there had a bunch of cell phones they were letting people use to call their families, which was nice: we didn’t have to use our calling cards or call collect!

And, finally, after 2 and a half hours in Bangor, we left for home. At that point I was pretty tired since I had only slept maybe 4 hours during the other parts of the trip so I was able to crash for a couple hours. Once we got off the plane there was more handshaking (Generals and Colonels this time) and cheering (well, at least family members were cheering when they saw their loved one disembark). Even thought it was only 40 days or so, it was infinitely satisfying to finally hold my girlfriend in my arms again. It had been years!

I was pretty disappointed that I couldn’t find any good souvenirs. Since we were on a closed base it’s not like I could go out and buy some local ale or anything. I did bring back some Coke and other pop cans that are in Arabic (at Sheila’s request), which is kinda cool – but I only got to bring 4 of them. Other than that, I don’t have anything! (Well, I did get Cheryl a shirt).

I guess I could order T-Shirts (or those coins military people seem to have a fetish for) for everyone, but that’s expensive. :P

I’m on orders for at least another 2 weeks, but most of that should be recuperation and vacation time (I have to use any earned vacation I have before I get off orders), so it shouldn’t be so bad.

And so, I’m home again.

Books and Generals

corey    Books    

The AF portion of our base is getting a new commander. I forget his name now, but he came to visit us last night. He’s a three-star general, so it’s much like getting a visit from the President. He has 5 vehicles in his convoy, filled with “full bird” Colonels and Lt. Colonels (and a one-star General). Plus, what I assume is, civilian OSI (Air Force Office of Special Investigations) trailing along. Lots of guns. I didn’t see any snipers around, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if I did. I was outside when he came by.. since it was quite top heavy I just held my breath until they went away. Luckily they don’t really notice a 3-stripe airman!

Before I forget I wanted to do a quick rundown of the books I’ve read here. In order:

Friday – One of Robert Heinlein later books. Interesting story, especially the moral aspects of artificial humans. However, the sexually amoral side of this book is quite annoying. Not one of his best books, I’d have to give it 3 out of 5 stars. ***

Pattern Recognition – A modern day novel by William Gibson. If you’ve read Gibson’s earlier books, this might surprise you. There’s no cyber-punk theme here. It’s simply a modern day novel. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a good book but if you are looking for his great cyber-punk stories like Neuromancer this isn’t it. I still give it 4 out of 5 stars, a very good read. ****

Reality Dysfunction, Part 1: Emergence – The first half of the first book in this sci-fi trilogy, Peter F. Hamilton writes about an awesome universe where nano and bio technology are massively pervasive. I give this book 4 out of 5 stars simply because Mr Hamilton writes about sex a few too many times when he should be continuing the story. ****

The Reality Dysfunction Part 2: Expansion – Part 2 of the first book by Peter F. Hamilton. Continues the story from the last book, I can’t wait to get my hands on the next book The Neutronium Alchemist : Part I – Consolidation. This one gets 5 out of 5 stars. *****

Hope everyone had a good Father’s Day weekend. If anyone is planning a BBQ for July 4th, I’m free… :)

Bombs Away

corey    Military, News    

We finally got to bomb something! You probably saw it on CNN this last weekend, blowing up some building in Fallujah. It’s nice to see that after all our work our pilots are finally able to bomb something. It’s also nice to see that we loaded them right, otherwise they would have missed (no fins came out to guide it) or not blown up (fuze wasn’t pulled)! I don’t think it was one of my bombs; we’ve loaded, unloaded, and loaded again a lot the last couple weeks, so who knows who’s bomb that was.

Over in OPS(Operations) they have the cockpit video but I haven’t had a chance to go over and see it yet. I hear the secondary explosions are pretty cool.

The current rumor of the week is that we will be leaving for Qatar on the 26th, and then leave from there on the 28th. Hopefully that means I will be home by the 29th. We’ve not been told for sure, and we probably won’t know until the day before we leave.

I really feel sorry for the Army guys who have to be here for a year or more! While I could probably handle any period of time over here, it’s infinitely harder to stay motivated when you have no idea when you are going home. Matter of fact, I think 30 days is harder than 90. It’s always almost time to go home, at least with a 90 day stint you are resigned to hanging out for a couple of months.

It sounds like it’s nice and cool back home, I can’t wait! (Watch: I’ll get in on the 29th or 30th and it’ll be 99 degrees!)

I was trying to find some more pictures to post, but haven’t really found anything good. The photographers here on base upload all of their pictures to a shared drive so I get to look through them. Unfortunately, a lot of them haven’t been approved for public release so I can’t post some of the better ones.

Things are going well here, we haven’t had more than a couple attacks since the one that killed those guys. The food still tastes the same, the showers and latrines are broken half the time, and my bed is half buried in dust. Same as yesterday, probably the same as tomorrow. But not for long! :)

The wrong place, at the wrong time

corey    Military, News    

Yahoo! News

Thankfully, no one I know was hurt. It is still unfortunate that this happened! One of our guys was too close for comfort when this happened, but he got away without injuries. (Note: I don’t know why they call it a “logistics” base, but we are the only base near Balad; just FYI: the Army side of the base is known as Camp Anaconda).

On a semi-good note, they did fix the generator for our rooms. It comes complete with that locomotive engine sound, even with the “chuga-chuga-chuga” of a fast moving train! I think they use a sound track, but I can’t find the speakers. We were given a half day off today (thankfully), so we were able to catch up on our sleep.

Anyhow, please keep the families of these guys in your thoughts. It will be rough on them once they are notified.

Update: I didn’t want to create another post for this, so I’m tacking it to the end of this one. This is a picture of EoR (end of runway) where we prepare the jets for takeoff. You can see me standing next to the AIM-120 missile. I really like working on the jets when they are running; it’s not something you get to do everyday!

Electricity like Gold

corey    Military, News    

Well the power is out again. The generator finally blew up and they have to replace it with another one. We actually had power the night before for about 6 hours; so I was able to get some sleep in before my shift.

But, tonight, no such luck. They are currently in the process of replacing that generator with a big hunkin’ “Super Sized” generator. Pretty cool looking beast, actually. Before I came back to work (where electricity and A/C work) I saw them setup a bunch lights and start working on the bad boy. They have to redirect wiring and other such things to get it to work, but hopefully it’ll be ready by tomorrow morning.. or afternoon.. or evening.. or next month. (That’s the military efficiency again!)

The temperature was 104 F in my room, according to my “Swiss Army-knife” travel clock. And that was at 1900. Bah, you say. That’s nothing. It wouldn’t be so bad if only the window worked. No breeze to speak of, even with the door wide open. (It is a nice 80-85 outside, I just couldn’t persuade any of that coolness to come into my room).

And so, I find myself at work at 2210. I’ll probably just stay here until my shift starts at 0630. They thoughtfully setup some cots so I will be able to snooze a little as long as the jets stay quiet! (Not likely).

Hope everyone had a good weekend!