"Leave your veapon on zee plane."

When posting to a blog, the site records it in chronological order, in the order it was posted. In this case, I wrote both of these entries before I had any kind of reasonable internet access and I am going to post them out of order so that they will appear in chronological order. So, what you are about to read is really the first of two entries, posted in “reverse” order. In other words, this post is about the first ½ of my travel and the second post is about the other ½.

Well, I’ve got to say that I am considerably impressed with my trip to Kuwait so far. Everything I’ve ever experienced in the Army told me that I would have to wait inordinate amounts of time just to get where I am now. I am delighted that for once, this has not been the case.

Flying to an area for the Army has been grueling in the past. My experience with this is not considerable, mind you, but my two experiences heading out to train in Louisiana have been par for the course with everything else that I’ve experienced in the Army: hurry up and wait.

For instance, in March, when I flew to LA for training, our unit was required to muster at in the company area, draw weapons and head out to the deployment facility. Our initial meeting time was 0200- and that is in military time, meaning 2:00 AM. We obtained our weapons, loaded up on busses and headed out to the airfield. We arrived at probably around 0400. We actually didn’t fly until almost 1200. So, we waited for nearly eight hours until flight time. What did we do? Eat, slept, read, and talked. And I still haven’t figured out why we couldn’t just draw weapons at, say, 0800. Everyone I’ve talked to says that this is normal for the Army when deploying: show up hours early to wait for hours to fly for hours to wait for hours to catch the connecting flight or sit on the tarmac.

But, I am pleased to say that this experience has been different. For one, this was my first real deployment, and my first experience at the deployment facility at Ft. Hood. Once we got through the initial deployment ceremony, which both my wife and I say we could have skipped without real consequence, we headed out to the airfield. We were supposed to head out at 1600, and we actually did, but it took a little while to load up all the busses. I expected to get to the airfield and wait for hours, upwards of five or six before we actually left.

Without being too verbose, I was pretty impressed with what the Army had waiting for us over there. USO, Salvation Army, and other non-profits just waiting for us to encourage us and give us care packages. There was even a woman there whose entire job was to hug every soldier. And that she did. I think I got two hugs; one in the chow line and one when we left to get on the plane.

We arrived at the airfield at around 1700. We were on the plane at 1800. So, basically, we had enough time to eat, visit the different booths and head back to the briefing room for the briefings. Impressive, I tell you, considering what I was expecting.

From Ft. Hood, we flew to Bangor, Maine. I’ve never been to Bangor. I don’t think I’ll go back. Nothing wrong with the airport, it’s just that I’ve spent enough time in the north. I left Ft. Hood when it was in the mid 70’s. Bangor, Maine was in the low 40’s. Forget strike one. You are just out. It was good, though. We didn’t have to stay on the plane, so it wasn’t all that bad. We stayed there for a little more than an hour so that the plane can fuel up and restock the food and then we took our six hour flight to…

Germany! This is where I am writing this from right now. We arrived at about 0630 CST, which is 1430 Local, I think. Uneventful flight, really. I slept most of the way. I partially woke up for a second and dreamed I saw The Thing from Fantastic Four. Turns out, that was the in-flight movie, but I didn’t realize it until we landed.

The most amusing part of this trip has got to be the announcement that we were in Germany. See, in Bangor, we were told to leave our weapons on the plane, and disembark to the terminal. Everyone was happy about this. When we arrived in Germany, a German guy got on the intercom (we didn’t even know there was a German guy on the plane) and gave us our announcements (Local time, weather, etc.) with a German accent. Believe it or not, it sounded like it was out of a movie, more than it sounded real. I thought I was watching a James Bond movie for a second. In fact, one of his final comments, “Leave your veapon on zee plane…” was so amusing, half the plane repeated it, accent included, in a mocking, comedic sort of way. So, just imagine about 40 or folks (the number within earshot of me) saying that several times.

Well, now we have about a four hour wait until we board the plane for Kuwait. This means we’ll get there around midnight, local time, which is one of the worst times to arrive. I would much rather arrive in the daytime when the sunlight and the unfamiliar surroundings assist in my battle with the intense urge to sleep.

I’ve heard great things about this deployment. And I have to tell you, if the rest of the deployment goes as smoothly as the trip, I am in for a pleasant experience.