Home Sweet Home

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.