The longer overdue update

Sorry it has taken me so long to update my blog with this long awaited second installment. Things have been been pretty busy in my first month, as you can imagine, so I will use that as my excuse.

Well, after the week of April 10th that I had to spend in Fort Benning, GA getting trianed, I now know how to stand in line and say HOOAH, which I think means I understand? The Conus Replacement Center (CRC in Fort Benning, GA) was as story all in itself which I will not go into now. Suffice to say, I learned to stand in line quite well and to put my Individual Body Armor (IBA) together and put it on; something that has been sitting in the bottom of my tough box collecting sand since I've been in Iraq.


Well, my trip to Iraq started in Colorado Springs on April 24st from where I flew Delta to Atlanta and then on to Kuwait. I had enough Delta miles to upgrade to First Class and I am very glad I did. It was on a 777 where the first class seats actually make into a bed! The rest of the trip was all down hill from there.



Once arriving in Kuwait the next day, we had to hang out at the Kuwait Airport where everyone smoked constantly and I think I may now have lung cancer. We (I met up with a couple of other new Westar guys in Atlanta) waited in Kuwait for about 5 hours for a US Army bus to come pick us up and take us to Ali-A-Salim Army base where we had to wait for an Iraqi visa for a day and then for a fight to Iraq.



We were assigned a tent (among what appeared to be thousands which were air conditioned by the way) each having 14 bunks, with no linen or pillow except for what what you could scrounge up from what others had left behind.



As soon as we got our visa's we began hanging out at the base PAX terminal for a flight. They book you on the next available flight. We had a reservation for Friday, April 24th but that flight was cancel due to a sand storms where visibility in Baghdad or Kirkuk made flying impossible.



The next day they loaded us all up on a C130 personnel and cargo plane. We took off and flew to Baghdad only to find out the visibility was still too low to land so we returned to the Army base in Kuwait and waited some more. This is where I learned the term "you have left until you've landed somewhere else". The flight took one hour each way.

I don't know how many of you have had the pleasure of flying in a C130 fitted with crew seating (I did it one other time in Rwanda during the genecide back in 1994) but they are very uncomfortable. You are smushed in with 60 other happy travelers all in flack gear and helmets, and most are soldiers. The seats are very uncomfortable and you are either too hot or too cold. But it was a great adventure and it did made coach seats seem like first class.



After returning to base, we were told to show up at 4:00 AM the next morning to standby for a flight . We got there and they told us that the flight was full and we would need to wait for another one. I had talked with enough guys there to learn if you really want to get out of there you have to hang out at the PAX terminal and try to find out as much as you can about upcoming flight opportunities. So as I'm trying to get to know the soldiers that get you onto these flights they said, hey we have 2 seats still available on the orginal flight you were suppose to be on and if I was ready we I coul dtake one of those seats. I grabbed my stuff and boarded the C130.

We took off on our way to Baghdad but when we got there the weather was still too bad to land as we were diverted to Qwest, another base in Iraq. Once on the ground we were told to get back on the plane and they were taking us back to Kuwait. The flight commander (the highest ranking miltary personnel passenger on the flight said "I don't think so, we are staying here" which we did. The food was good and the rooms where much better then the tents in Ali-A-Salim so we spend the night.

The next day we spent trying to find another flight to Kirkuk which was only about 45 minites away. We waited around all day and finally about 9:00 PM two Blackhawk helicopters brougth in th load of soldiers and decided to take us over to Kirkuk. That was a neat ride!

So I finally made it to Kirkuk at about 10:00 PM on Sunday, April 26th.

I will give you the next installment next Friday - Inshalah (meaning - the Lord willing) a term uses alot in Iraq.