Kuwait

“Ladies and Gentleman you might have noticed that we are descending and will soon be on final approach. Please raise and lock your seatbacks and tray tables and thank you for flying with us.”

“Ladies and gentleman this is the captain speaking. I just wanted to say that it has been an honor to be able to fly you into Kuwait and on behalf of the entire flight staff I would like to thank you for your service to our country. Please be safe and we hope to be your freedom bird when your rotation is over. Good Luck.”

And then we were on the ground. The flight took 24 hours 3 min from the time we took off for the first time until we were back on the ground in Kuwait. And in that one day my life had changed forever and would never be the same. Before my daughter was born it was all a game to me. I was reading an article about plane crashes. After knowing I was a father the article made me sick. Before I was just going away for a few months. After I was going off to the worst place in the world and thoughts of not making it back were flooding my mind. As we landed in Kuwait all of a sudden I was not only nervous, but downright scared.
Thankfully for the most part that went away quickly and I very easily put my mind to what was going on around me and what was going to be going on.
After a nice little bus ride we were at the Camp that we would be at for what we thought would be 6 days to 3 weeks. The normal time for a unit incoming is 3 weeks or familiarization, acclimatization and training. But not us. We spent 72 hours at the training camp. We did a few little bits of training, but most of what we were there for we had spent the last month back in the states doing. So we were very quickly back on a bus and heading to Ali Al Salem Airport for the flight into IRAQ.
Once we got to Ali, we were assigned tents for the night and released to relax. And we did, at least as much as we could. We had our last McDonalds and played horseshoes and rested a little. But not much sleep was going to happen. We were all too restless and excited and ready for our trip into Iraq.
Wake up was 0200 and after a briefing and even more waiting we boarded the bus that would take us out to the C-130. We loaded up the plane (the most uncomfortable way to fly) and took off for our short jump into Iraq.
The flight for the most part was uneventful. You are seated very tightly packed in and there is no moving around. As we came in for our combat landing (lots of heavy banks and a great weightless plunge out of the sky) the guy across from me started to turn a nice shade of green. I reached up and grabbed him a vomit bag and prayed that he would not lose it all over me. The tightly packed in comment includes knee to knee. Thankfully we made it on the ground and off the plane without any vomit.
We are off the plane and into the terminal… Welcome to COB Adder, Iraq.

Back To The Sand!