To Whom It May Concern

The Not So Joyful Traveling Extravaganza

I’m sitting at 34,500 feet at this point, row 14, seat G, traveling somewhere over the northern Atlantic on a North American Airlines Boeing 767 with around 300 other servicemen and women. I don’t know that I have ever even heard of an airline called North American until I stood on the tarmac staring at this plane, but even so it was wonderful to see a piece of high tech machinery that wasn’t military in nature, for the first time in more than six months.

The last couple of days seem almost to have been drawn out into weeks. I was in Kuwait with 3 other members of our unit and we fully expected that we would be in Kuwait just a couple of hours and then head to the airport and be immediately on our way home. Well, how sadly mistaken we were. The entire process is a TOTAL clusterfuck. We arrived in Kuwait at about 1700 on the 2nd of May, and we find out that our flight doesn’t even leave until 2300 THE NEXT DAY, so we were stuck spending 30 hours on this itty bitty “Purgatory” between Iraq and the United States.

This didn’t have to be so bad, had it not been for the completely asinine and incompetent way the personnel stationed at the installation ran the place. Lazy, ignorant, non caring morons is about the best way to describe them. We turned in our IBA vests and Kevlar helmets upon arriving, and got ourselves rooms at billeting (tents) to stay overnight in. Then for some reason, rather than do the 2 week rest and relaxation briefing right there, they made us wait till 2130, despite the fact that many of us were very tired (a good portion of the soldiers were under the impression we would be on a flight right away so we had been practicing sleep deprevation so we could sleep on the plane).

Upon arriving back in the reception area at 2130, we discover that we are in there with about 100 more soldiers who had just arrived who were given the SAME BRIEFING that we received (orientation, turning in your equipment, getting billeting) some 5 hours before, so we were stuck waiting nearly an hour and a half for the newly arriving soldiers to get that taken care of. Then finally at some time after 2300 we got started and were able to turn in our request for final destination packets, and then we were told that we had to come back at 0500 to pick up our itineraries that would tell us what flights we were on.

Okay, so 4 hours of sleep and then back for ANOTHER meeting, no big deal, it’s important to get the itinerary, right? Oh, but wait, it gets better, “Be back here at 0730 to find out if there are any changes to your flight times for Atlanta or Dallas” (everyone flies to those two ‘gateway’ airports before taking a final flight to their home airport). I went up front and asked the PFC “Why are you having everyone get up at 0500 to get their itineraries when you are having another meeting at 0730 anyway, why not just give the itineraries out at the 0730 meeting???” to which I was told “I’m sorry sergeant that’s not how we do it.” Okay… “Well, what is the reasoning behind having two meetings 2 hours apart that could just as easily be combined into one meeting at the later time” to which she looked at me stupidly and said “We don’t make the rules that’s just how it’s done.”

“Oh, okay, so basic ignorance, is that it?” and I walked away. At that point I was pretty pissed off, as were a lot of other soldiers, because nothing was making much sense at all. Adding to the confusion was the apparent complete lack of NCO’s on the post doing any leadership at all, everyone running the briefings, handling the situations, etc, were SPC’s at best and many times PV2’s and PFC’s, completely and utterly nonsensical, any questions you had for them in terms of better ways of doing things were always met with the same response: “We don’t make the rules that how our leadership wants it done”. WELL FUCK, then get your leadership down here so we can discuss a better way of doing things!!!

May 3: We had an NCO pick up everyone’s itineraries for our group, which was very nice of him, a red haired SGT out of the 82nd Airborne who didn’t mind getting up early and grabbing about 150 schedules for us all, which we didn’t give much of a shit if that went over well for the people running the place or not. After all, if your freaking leadership skips out all the time and leaves the shop run by idiot subordinates who don’t outrank you, they can’t do shit about it when you do things the way you want to do them, in a way THAT MAKES SENSE.

I don’t think they were too happy about it, but fuck ‘em, they had done an admirable job of ruining our last 24 hours already. Oh, but it got better. Lockdown for our flight was at 1400, nearly TEN HOURS before we were even scheduled to board. Why? Ohhh, we get back into the reception area, and guess what? “Okay, those of you that just arrived, line up single file to turn in your IBA and Kevlar…” hey hey hey, they did it again, hooray for ineptitude, three cheers for bungling stupidity, they had EVERYONE arrive early to enjoy another hour and a half or equipment turn in by yet ANOTHER group. By this time there were many of us who were ready to choke the shit out of the military staff running this shit hole.

So, then everyone from Dallas stands in a big formation outside for about an hour before we are sent off in a giant single file line into the customs area, where our bags are ex rayed and gone thru. Then after that, we sat in another tent for 3 hours or so waiting, for what you might ask? WELL, you’d never guess it, we waited for 3 hours so we could board a bus and ride for an hour and a half then wait for an hour on a cramped bus with seats spaced out for toddlers or midgets, so we could finally board the plane.

You would never think you could actually get onto a plane and silently scream with delight about the leg room in coach, but you do when every bus in theater (Iraq/Kuwait) has legroom for little people, and you are 6 foot tall. About a half hour later and we were airborne, and I was streeeeeeetching out and loving it, MP3 player out and plugged in, sleeping, then reading a book, then sleeping, then eating one of the meals they serve every 3 hours (I am eating one, skipping one, as we go, don’t want to eat a lot before I get home, I’m sure my baby has big food plans haha).

Seven hours later we landed at Shannon International Airport in the Green Emerald Isles. I did a little shopping at the duty free shop, got some chocolates for belly, and stayed away from everything else because it was rather pricey. Ireland is every bit as pretty and green as you can imagine, and for all of us sitting on the plane as we took off a couple of hours later, after a long time staring at very little green and mostly sand for months, it was a welcome sight.

So now here I am, roughly 4 and a half hours into a 9 hour flight to Dallas, still marveling at human scientific achievement, the ability to create a machine that flies you some 5 miles in the air, whisking you around the world in such a short amount of time.

Did I say a short amount of time? Because actually, it does seem like an awfully long time. But at least the seats are comfortable, at least we have movies to watch, and food to eat (although the food has been pretty bad haha). Halfway to Dallas… then another 6 hour wait for my next flight to San Diego. Hey, look on the bright side, at least I don’t have the farking idiots from Kuwait having briefings and meetings every two hours in Dallas. I can call my wife, then find an internet café and enjoy myself.

It’s good to be coming back to the USA, even if it is to somewhere I’ve never been, and only for a couple of weeks : )