In Kuwait again

On Tuesday 20 February, I woke up early in my trailer and staggered down the paved walkway to the trailer with the showers. It was cold and the patrol HMVs were just warming up their engines, machine guns already fitted in the armored roof mounts. A large twin-engined Air Force bomber curved lazily over Baghdad in the early morning light, a low rumbling roar that fills the city. Sparrows flit over the camp, twittering, with a few Swallows diving and swooping near the lake reeds.

After a quick breakfast, and another Green Bean’s latte, I walk along the lake shore and ponder my last morning in Iraq. The news of the British drawdown has finally hit the public airwaves, which we’d been dealing with internally at Basra for some time. I feel another twinge of worry about my comrades left behind there.

Picked up by one of the Det Sailors’ at 0900, I make my way back to the Palace for a final check in before driving out to the airport. There I get checked on an Embassy flight manifest and wait a few hours in the warm sun, reading and watching crows caw and hop their way along the concrete fragmentation barriers around the tents and waiting areas – I have to think the concrete industry owners in Iraq and Kuwait have become millionaires. After a few hours we walk down to the runway and hike out to the C-130, only to be told “there’s a maintenance problem, please go back to the waiting area.” On the way back in we see two airmen carrying coffee and instant soup, so the Air Force guys might just be taking a break – you just never know. We’ve all heard stories of crews that experience minor breakdowns while transiting places like, oh, Sardinia, southern Spain, the Azores or Bermuda and, gosh, they have to spend the night, or maybe two, before the problem is miraculously “fixed.” In this case though, we’re in bloody Baghdad (!) and can’t imagine the Air Force guys will want to spend the night here – no beaches, and especially no bars – and sure enough, the problem is fixed within the half hour and we all load up.

The takeoff is uneventful, with a little voice in my head saying “wheels up, can you believe it?” again and again until we touch down in Kuwait. I turn to the guy sitting next to me on the plane, smile and say “Ha, the b- let us go…” No more IDF, no chance of IEDs, we made it. I later hear yet another remake of Don Henley’s “Boys of Summer”, which always make me introspective, and wish all my friends still in Iraq the best of luck so that they too may come home alive. We get billeted in the familiar tent city and spend a quiet night there. The next day we check in at the Seabee Camp for some briefings, then I spend the rest of the day cleaning my rifle in preparation for handing it in. I send home some more clothes and such so my trip will be lighter, visit medical for my post-deployment survey (during which I had a tense moment when the medical officer pondered whether I should stay a few days for some tests) and do some laundry. In the evening I go to Green Beans’ and get a cup of coffee, which proves a mistake, as I’m half awake all night long. The next day we take a bus ride south to Arifjan, my old vacation spot from the summer. It is the same, the DFAC with ceramic plates and real metal forks, the swimming pool, the volleyball courts, movie theater, the huge Walmart-sized PX, etc., all the comforts of home. I’ve said it before, but if I ever hear anyone say they had it tough in Kuwait I may punch them in the head…

After we arrive they drop off us at yet another tent city – hopefully my last for a while – and we go turn in our weapons and gear for local storage. I have too much oil in the rifle bolt for storage and so have to break her down and swipe the pin and chamber dry, which puts me at the back of the line with the people who didn’t clean their pistols correctly (sigh). We dump our gear in various storage boxes, to be sent somewhere and refurbished we surmise, unceremoniously saying goodbye to the armor, Kevlar and other gear that has kept us safe these many months. After that we are free to go, so I spend a lazy afternoon wandering about the base, making a few phone calls, drinking coffee and pondering the future.

The next day – Friday – is even simpler, some briefings in the morning and we are done in time for lunch. Now begins the most colossal waste of time (sigh). From lunch time until the following morning we are on our own, with not a lot to do other than read, tap on the internet, drink coffee and nap. After a restless night, we spend Saturday morning turning in our checked bags through customs before being released at 1100, and told to return a 0100 Sunday (!). Another long, boring day, growing ever more irritated with being there in Arifjan. Again, phone calls, shopping, napping only goes so far. Time crawls. We watch a movie in the evening and then walk across an industrial yard to the customs point. The yard is full of damaged vehicles being washed down for shipment home, which must be a sad, morbid task. An hours’ wait out in the cold darkness, actinic glare from the lights bright in the distance, and we move inside, get our carry on bags checked, and then wait another hour (!) for the buses to arrive. A two and a half hour lurching bus ride later we appear at the military side of KWI – to be confronted with another three hour wait… (aaaarghhhhhh…)

We finally board the aircraft at 0900, twenty-five hours after our initial wakeup. At any moment I expect us to be called off the plane, for the flight crew to find something broken, but no, we go wheels up about 1030… to the sound of cheers and clapping, of course. I finally crack a smile. The flight to Frankfurt takes six hours, during which we have plenty of room to stretch out. Then a three hour layover (during which it takes an *hour and a half* to reboard the aircraft, mainly because we have 50-60 civilians who also board the aircraft and take up all the empty seats) followed by a ten hour “cattle-car” flight to Baltimore. To top it all off, it takes an hour for the baggage to arrive and in the confusion I lose some important paperwork (darn!).

Then, and only then, some 45 hours after waking up Saturday morning in Kuwait, do I finally get to sleep in a real bed in a posh hotel in a civilized country… wondrous!

Most of you know that I’ve been home since March, so this is late in posting. Took two months off to get centered back into civilian life but have now re-started work at the Naval Historical Center, with things returning to “normal” (whatever that means these days).

I really did appreciate all the support (packages, e-mails, comments) from people while I was over there, please accept my thanks. Made things a lot more bearable.

I may continue to infrequently post things under the Brown Sand Sailor moniker, though it will just be my “veteran” view of how things are unfolding in Iraq (the surge, Basra, etc.) without any first-hand knowledge anymore. Let me know if you want me to delete you from the distro list.

Tim