On the road - and catching up!

So I'm sitting here in ridiculously hot Kuwait (more on that later!) simply amazed by the speed of the wireless (free!) internet available at the Starbucks here... usually it takes me 10-15 minutes to upload the pictures for this blog. Today it was under a minute. Now, if it can be done here.... Anyway, I digress.

Yes, I've left Afghanistan. Hard to believe because when it happens, it happens quickly! But there were quite a few events before I left that I didn't have a chance to write about before I left, so here goes...

My farewell from the SJA shop was a group dinner and my choice of a movie for movie night. For the record, I chose "A Few Good Men" - time to inject a little bit of Navy culture into this Army environment! :) As it turned out, a few of the JAGs were unable to attend due to other commitments, but that's completely understandable (they weren't even on base at the time). Between dinner and the movie was my going-away presentation. Scott made some very flattering remarks (some of which I hope were actually true!) and I received my flag...



The shop votes on the quotation on the flag - we don't know what's on there until we get it. I love mine! In case the picture isn't clear enough, it reads "Desert Sailor: Mentoring on a Sea of Sand" - pretty darn appropriate! :)


That day was actually a double farewell, as one of our attorneys had brought in an Afghan lunch for us. Another terrific meal!!! SO spoiled!

The next day was farewell to one of our mentees. We have two, but we spend a lot more time with one due to his job and what we can do to help. It was very difficult saying goodbye. He brought in lunch for us as well as a few of his senior officers to say farewell. I've kept pictures and names of most of our Afghan friends off of here to protect them, so I'm left with just a picture of the beautiful red blouse he gave me as a farewell present. How pretty!


And then it was time to leave Eggers. I lucked out and my final transportation left the base at a reasonable time, so I didn't have to get up ridiculously early and could still run errands that morning. It also meant that a few more people could come out to say goodbye - here's my goodbye gang...



I lucked out at Bagram and got a room instead of having to stay in the transient tent (thanks Lindsay!). Had to grab another mountain shot though - the low clouds made the mountains appear taller, and what a beautiful day!



After a few days at Bagram, it was time to head to Kuwait. Out of all of the travel we've done so far, this was by far the most frustrating leg. It started out with us being told to show up an extra half-hour ahead of the "real" show time - not that big of a deal, except that the terminal was closed for painting, and the USO across the street (remember the only one in Afghanistan?) was closed for the month of June. WHY choose June, one of the busiest travel months, to close these places??? Aaarrrggh... But as it turns out, those were just really minor inconveniences.

So we sat outside in the sun for a few hours, then palletized all of our luggage. Keep in mind at this point I'm dragging four seabags worth of gear (three full of stuff to turn in once we reach Kuwait), my backpack and both of my weapons, as is just about everyone else on the flight. Then we waited around a couple more hours. We finally load the plane, and it's obvious some rain is coming. Once we're on the plane, they tell us we're not going to take off for another 1-1.5 hours because they can't move the luggage from the previous flight (ground stop due to lightning in the area). Never mind that it was OK to move people on the plane, but can't move the luggage! Sometimes you just have to laugh... Here's Lindsay and me trying to make the best of the situation:


So about five hours after we first reported to the terminal, we finally take off. The flight itself is just over four hours to Kuwait. We get off the plane in Kuwait and immediately I'm grateful the sun has already set - it's HOT, even at night. We get on buses and they take us to a processing tent, where we swipe our IDs and then go to another processing tent. The next 1.5 hours is a little chaotic and a lot frustrating, so I'll just summarize the steps:

1. Get brief about base (most of which I can't hear), get bus passes for the morning bus. Great, we're going to have to stay here tonight.
2. Carry body armor and backpack (I'll just call this stuff my carry-on to save typing) to billeting tent, get tent assignment.
3. Take carry-ons to tent, walk back to get baggage.
4. Change of plans - they're going to get us on a bus tonight. If we can manage to get our group together and all the luggage loaded in under an hour.
5. Find baggage, put in pile to load onto bus.
6. Go back to tent to grab carry-ons, go to another tent to check on bus passes.
7. Help load everyone's gear onto bus.
8. Go back to bus tent to get bus pass stamped.
9. Finish loading gear.
10. Go back to bus tent yet again to get manifested for bus, wait around while they find third bus for our group.
11. Drag carryons on to bus, grab seat and try to get some sleep on trip to other base, which takes about 2 hours.

None of this stuff by itself would be a big deal. But by the time all this gets done and we get to our current base, it's about 0230 Kuwait time, which means 0400 Afghanistan time. As an added bonus, when we get to the base, a sandstorm kicks up so we're trying to offload luggage and can't even see what we're doing. We were covered with dirt and sand by the time we got all of our gear to our tent, so we unpacked only as much as we had to and then hit the showers. By the time we did all of that it was about 0430, so we just waited up for breakfast and then went to bed - luckily we had no required events for the rest of the day.

After catching up on sleep, I went over to the tent to clean my weapons. Since I have two, I figured it would take a while, and it did - but I ran into a few people I know on the way and it was good to catch up. One even helped me clean my M4 (thanks Jeff!). We then headed out in a big group to the movie theater on base and then to dinner.

Today has been a very good day - this morning we turned in all of that gear plus our weapons. Since I had mine cleaned and inspected yesterday it went very quickly. The longest part of the turn-in process was the survey - I forget how many questions, but I quickly tired of filling in little boxes! :) We have a travel brief this afternoon and then we find out our medical appointment schedule (all the active duty have to do a screening here) and our class schedule for tomorrow. The schedule is very relaxed here, and we can even wear PT gear or civilian clothes. Just having time enough to do this (now very long!) blog entry is a bonus. But, it does make me more anxious to get home... just a few more days now!