I Have Arrived...Sort Of

Hey all, I have gotten to Afghanistan, and maybe to where I will be at for the whole 15 months. Actually, I got here on the 6th, and have been in a tent for the past few days. I'll get to that in a few. Right now, I think I'll continue my story about the trip here.

Where did I leave off, oh yeah, New Hampshire. So we leave there and go to (CENSORED). (Which, believe it, or not, was warmer than New Hampshire.) We were supposed to be there an hour for gas. No big deal, right? Wrong. We were there for 2 hours, and we had to stay on the airplane. All because the (CENSORED) (SP?) government charges 15 Euros per person to use a terminal, and the Army is to cheap to pay it. But, we did get given some real good chocolate. (Like that made it any better.) So we get the gas and are off to (CENSORED) for a 4 hour stop over. Cool, we can get off the plane there and smoke. Again, that is a big NO GO. We land, there is like 3 feet of snow on the ground, and they park us out in the middle of a ramp. The crews are getting bitchy at us because we're all standing around in the aisles and making it hard for them to do the swap out. Well, here's a little secret, if we weren't on the plane, we wouldn't be in the way.

We finnally take off from there and fly to Kuwait. We land there, get off the plane and onto a bus. The bus takes us to a holding area, where we were supposed to stay for a littl bit. And, we finnally get a chance to smoke. (YAY!) And let me tell you what, after 17 hours cooped up in a flying metal tube, some of us were getting down right bitchy. We had exatly enough time for me to suck down one cigarrette. (At least it took the edge off.) And got right back on the busses for an hour and a half ride to the transient holding area. We were supposed to be there no more than 48 hours. Think the Air Force was able to make that time frame? You're right, that's a big fat no. So we are there an extra day. Sure the down time was nice, but over all, I was bored out of my skull there.

We leave out of Kuwait on a C-17 that is set up for passengers instead of cargo. Now this is new to me. Everytime I've been on one, it was a cargo one. There are over 100 people on this thing. And talk about crowded. I'm sure ya'll know what flying coach is like. Well, this was like flying Sardine Class. I'm not a very big guy, but the seats were almost too narrow for me to sit in. Its another 4 hour flight to Baghram. The absolute worst flight I have ever been on. We get off the plane and its raining. We have to pull al of our bags off of the pallets and set them out on the ground while we go inside for a brief. Then we load the bags onto 5-tons, ourselves onto busses, and head over to these huge fest tents for our temporary quarters. (For those who don't know, these tents can sleep about 130 people on cots.) This place is 4 miles from anything you can do on the base here. And the bus schedule to get there is erratic at best. Anyway, we're there for 4 days, it wasn't too bad, the heat worked great there, so I didn't really have any complaints. Then today, we were moved into our (possibly) permenant quarters. They are called "B-Huts". Basically a B-Hut is a plywood and 2X4 building that sleeps 8 people. Everyone has their own little room, about 10 foot X 7 Foot. 4 rooms to a side, with a 2.5 foot hallway down the middle. Its really not too bad. I hooked up internet service today and here I am letting all of you know how things are going.

Of course there is more to tell, but I've written enough for now. (Oh, and by the way, the (CENSORED)s are from me, not someone else. Some old hbits are very hard to break.

I'll see ya'll later.