Return to the USA!!

Well I made it back to the good ole USA. It was a very long day for me but as the plane lifted off of the runway in Iraq, I felt many people throughout the airplane give a sigh of relief. My day started out just like any other. Early morning explosions rocked the base about 4am, but my replacement was already up and trying to get over his jet lag. He just wanted to know what to do and I groggily said to listen if the explosions are getting closer or are they getting farther away. So, that's what he did. It was just a short burst of 3 mortars, then silence. I rolled over and went back to sleep, but he got up and left the hooch. I finally got up at 0800 on Friday, 7 Oct and smiled as I walked the 200 steps to my shower, FOR THE LAST TIME. I went in to work and tried to get my replacement to get the hang of what he would be doing for the next few months. But he still was in a panic mode. I can't blame him but what am I gonna do, I already gave him 3 days to catch up and that is more than enough time to get your feet wet. He has to learn that most things happen when you don't expect and you just need to roll with the punches and laugh along the way. But, I actually found myself running behind schedule as the day went on. Before I knew it, it was 5pm and I needed to out-process and finish the packing, before I had to report to the passenger terminal at 8pm. I still needed to eat dinner, since I didn't know when I would get a chance to eat again, and I needed to finish making sure I had all the documents I needed to bring back copied onto my thumbdrive. But, I also needed to go watch Sumo Wrestling. The Mission Support Commander had been talking trash to the senior enlisted man in our wing and had challenged him to a Sumo Wrestling match. I wanted to see the Mission Support Commander get his tail kicked. He was not a nice guy and he promptly got his tail handed to him rather quickly. Nice. I quickly finished all that I needed to do and was dropped off at the passenger terminal (a tent) at 8pm. It took the next 1.5 hours to go thru customs where they looked at everything. Everything. But I just laughed and knew that they weren't gonna find anything worth the effort but who cares. I then went into this secured area for the next 4 hours. They kept telling me that the flight was delayed and then delayed. The flight was a medical flight or better known as medievac flight. I knew that they would be patients onboard and that they needed to be handled with care, so that is why there were delays. At 3am we finally took off from Iraq. As we flew north toward Turkey, I went up to the cockpit to chat with the pilots. As I was up there, 2 people I knew from the Balad Predator squadron came up to the cockpit. These 2 people were airmen that actually did some impressive things in the last few months and I took the time to tell the pilots stories of what awesome things these two people did with their job. The young lady that is just a year or two older than Melody watched the insurgents all the time and noticed some trends that they were doing. This information was passed to us at the General's staff and we made some changes to the way we prosecute the war. And so her initiatives ultimately saved lives and allowed us to shift the war to kill them before they killed us. That is the bottom line in war. I survived 92 attacks with 213 direct impacts on my base. Yeah

The sun was coming up over Hungary as we continued to fly to Ramstein Germany. I sat up front in the cockpit as we descended into Ramstein. It was foggy at the airport. My plan was to land at Ramstein, take a taxi to Frankfurt Airport. But the fog started to make me wonder if my plan was gonna work or not. Since we left Iraq about 2 hours late, I now have 2 hours to get off this medievac flight, cab it to Frankfurt Airport and get on the flight to Detriot then Phoenix. We landed in the fog and had trouble finding the terminal but with the help of a pickup truck with bright light, we followed him to the terminal. It is 8am and there was nobody around. The terminal has carts to help me with my 5 bags but it costs money. I haven't had money in my wallet for 4 months, where am I gonna get $3 to get a cart to help me get my bags to the curb. I am ticked off that there is nobody around to help me. So I lug my bags to the curb and wait for a taxicab. Finally, one showed up and we loaded up and off we go to Frankfurt at 220 kph, I think that is around 125 mph... in the fog. The fare is unbelievable. It will cost me 170 Euro which I think is $212. It is only a 1 hour drive but what am I gonna do, so I pay it. I get a free baggage cart at the Frankfurt Airport and go up to the Northwest Airline counter, 1 hour before my flight is scheduled to leave but they tell me it is oversold and that I can't get on that flight. No big deal...I just go over to Continental Airlines and get on a flight that leaves in about 1.5 hours to Newark. I check 4 of my bags and off I go. I finally get on the airplane and we flew 9.5 hours to Newark. I watched 2 movies since I couldn't fall asleep. I go into the bathroom and notice that I look tired and nasty. So I shave and actually wash my hair in the sink and then laugh since I don't have comb with me. SO I end up improvising and use my patches on my uniform to comb my hair. I look and feel better now but I still can't sleep. After we land at Newark, I have about 1 hour to go to baggage claim, grab my 4 other bags and go thru customs, again, and then recheck my bags to Phoenix and then go thru security to the gate. whew! But I am being paged over the airport system to go back to customs. They just wanted to find out if I knew I had a gun in my bag....Duh!!!!, So back thru security etc...to the gate with about 7 minutes to spare. I had a whole row to myself for the 5.5 hour flight to Phoenix. And as we descended into Phoenix, the sun was starting to set. It was now 7pm Phoenix time and the sun that I saw rise over Hungary was now setting over Phoenix, what a day. It was a total of about 46 hours up and nearly 24 hours in the air. I got a great reception in Phoenix, and was very surprised to see Matt had made the trip from the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Very nice!! All in all, I think I am glad that I had the opportunity to volunteer to help do my part with the war on terrorism but I really feel bad for all of the people that had to either learn something different about their job and/or work way beyond the normal scope of their job to help me get to and from the war zone. I have a personal debt of gratitude to my unit's administration section (1 Person office, I won't say your name here but you know who you are...thanks, she will my guest of honor at a very nice dinner here in Phoenix soon). Thanks to everyone again that prayed and supported me during this time. This is that and that is now really that.

Last Night of Vacation

Well, this is it, my last night in Iraq. Although I won't leave here until tomorrow nite, I am considering this my last night. I will be up tomorrow at 0830 and probably not go to sleep until I get to Phoenix at 4:45pm Sat afternoon. I'm flying Northwest Airlines from Frankfurt Germany Saturday morning and stop in Detroit, change planes and then on to Phoenix. I had a great send off here tonite with all of the new people that just got here and we laughed like we were on a Southwest overnite. The general here is absolutely one of the best commanders I've ever worked for. He is direct, fun, motivated and has complete situational awareness on everything. It reminds me of the commanders I had in Oklahoma in the reserves. This general loves to get down to the business of fighting the enemy and keeping them from ever thinking about bringing the fight to us in the US. We need to continue to do what we can to ensure these evil doers do not bring this terrorism back to our land ever again. And just so you know, we are fighting them really well here and are making sure they don't have a chance to run away. We are fighting the good fight here and you can be proud of the men and women that are doing our countries business over here. I'm not talking about me, but the young men and women where the rubber meets the road. That's the tough part but we are doing it in an awesome manner. I'm glad to have been a small part of this. I have a sense of accomplishment, something good not only for me personally, or for the Iraqi people, but for what we have done to ensure our nation's security and freedoms we all enjoy. Thanks for the ride folks, it has been fun writing in this blog. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I have enjoyed re-living my experiences during this Vacation In Iraq. That is really that.

Humvee

Well today I cleaned my hooch and packed all of my worldly goods into my bags. But I need to mail home about 5 boxes. I don't know where all the stuff came from but I have too much. Most of the stuff is really so that I don't jam all of my belongings into a bag. This is not a good packing technique, so I decided to mail some stuff. I also mopped my hooch, so now it smells like Pine Sol. I wonder if my replacement will mind the smell. I have to room with him until I leave on Fri nite. But that really is ok since I don't usually spend too much time in my hooch. Especially now that my laptop does not work. It's been broke for about 2 weeks now and it's driving me crazy. But at least I'm at the end of my vacation here so I can live with it for a few more days.

The picture today is from a Humvee that I had to drive around here lately. They really are very basic vehicles. Not much room and very wide on the road. The systems in it are, well, non-existent. But it goes off road really well, which of course is always fun.

My replacement is enroute as I write this. He should arrive here later today around noontime. His arrival got...you guessed it....moved back, but I know he is airborne and almost here. Regardless I have to leave fri because my AF Reserve orders are already extended somewhat and they don't like to do that very much so I need to get back to finish these orders. I probably will make one more entry before I leave so expect something great on the last post. That is that.

Arizona State

I am sitting here watching a live broadcast of college football. Arizona State vs University of Southern California and ASU is winning! It's halftime and #14 ASU is winning against #1 USC. The bad part about this is that it is nearly 1:00 am and I'm gonna finish watching the game and it'll be probably 1:30 or 2am when its over. But I like college football and it's great to watch it live.

I saw a cloud yesterday. That is the first cloud I've seen since I left Phoenix in May. No kidding, even in Phoenix we get to see clouds every now and then, but this place was the exact same every day of every week that I've been here except yesterday. I saw 2 clouds and even smelled rain somewhere. They say when it starts to rain over here, that it never stops until after the first of the year. There will be mud everywhere; the moon-like dust is just like concrete when it gets wet and I hope I get out of here before the rain starts in a few weeks. My luck, I will leave on the day that it rains here and I'll be nasty for the trip. But I'll still leave. They have me leaving Balad next Friday nite on a medievac to Ramstein Germany, then on Saturday afternoon I fly on a commercial flight to Phoenix. That may change based on my previous experience so I'll see what happens. That is that.