But it’s a dry heat…

31 July 2008

0730 drive to Ramstein Airbase. Wait all day for a space available (Space A) flight that never happens. The four of us spend the night at a nearby hotel.

01 August 2008

0730 flight scheduled. We actually made it onto the bus and it took us right up to the plane, before being turned around. There were two flights planned that day, neither one of them happened. We spent the night in the same hotel as last night.

02 August 2008

1040 check in for a flight at 1130. While we are waiting upstairs a message comes across the intercom that there will be no flights to our layover destination for 72 hours. We wait at the terminal for another flight that is due out tonight. It’s taking us to another layover destination, but at this point I am willing to be carried by swallows (“It could grip it by the husk!”). When this flight is cancelled, there are two more (direct) flights scheduled for tomorrow.

It’s hot here. Very few buildings in Germany are air conditioned, so it’s also hot inside the terminal. Hot and sticky, so I’m sitting on a bench outside where at least there is a breeze. We had lunch at the Chili’s on base two days in a row. It was not very good on either day, but I was out voted when the time to eat came around. Sitting outside reading and it’s looking like it is going to rain. It looks as if this small bit of comfort I am getting from the breeze will be gone soon as well. At least I have the new P.J. O’Rourke book to keep me company.

At 1930 we board the plane. As it turns out, it is making one stop to pick up some folks, and then continue on to our final destination. We may be able to take this plane straight through...

It’s a C-17 Med Evac plane. We stop at Ali Al Salem airfield in Kuwait, pick up a couple of wounded soldiers and head over to Joint Base Balad (JBB).

That’s in Iraq, approximately 68kms north of Bagdad. We got off of the plane and went into a large theater-like room, where we watched a video in-brief about what to do during a mortar attack. The video basically consisted of “get down, find cover, and come out when told”. Pretty basic stuff really. JBB used to be called Anaconda, and was known as “Mortar-ita-ville”, because of the numbers of mortar attacks they had. I was told that about two months ago they caught the crew who was doing most of the shelling. They have only had three attacks in the last two months ... I miss out on everything!

After the video we loaded our stuff into the back of a pickup truck and were taken to our home for the next week or so...

I'm back in Germany now, and will be posting more on this trip soon.