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Sunday, September 23rd, 2007
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7:37a - why I am not taking leave next deployment
This business of trying to go on R & R leave has got to be the most ri-effing-diculous experience of my entire life, easily out dumbifying any other stupid experiences ever. At first I didn't even want to go, because I knew it would turn out to be an extra huge pain in the ass more painful than any pain and annoyance known to humankind. But from other people's safe and smooth departure and return, and the incessant bugging of my NCO's, I relented and decided, yeah, I suppose it's a good idea to take leave just to get the hell away from this place like everyone says. And thus begins the insanity.
So my leave date rolls around. You are supposed to leave the day before your actual "leave date." Which for me, is Sunday. But on Sunday there aren't any EML flights, as these special flights for people going on leave are called, scheduled to pick up on my FOB. No big deal, it happens all the time. The next day there is a flight scheduled, so I get past my worrying stage and begin to relax a little, you know, I'm actually beginning to feel just a tiny bit good about this whole leave thing, cuz everyone seems to come back happier. Whatever...So the hours past by, creeping slowly until it is time for me to go to the flightline. One hour early is the prescribed time to show up for flights. And I show up exactly one hour early and guess what! Come to find out that it had already come and left, one hour before that. In total, the flight arrived almost two hours early. This is the beginning of the sequence of stupid little events that make me wish I had never changed my damn mind to begin with. I'm so damn pissed off at this point, and for good reason. Even the flight ops guys were a little pissed because nobody told them it was gonna be all early either. But for some reason a few people made it on, including some civilian guy who just happened to be there even though he had a flight the next day. Well, since my ass is already out there and there's a flight coming in, one of the normal ones that comes three times a day like a bus, the flight ops guys was like, try to get on this one, and I'm like yeah sure. Of course there's no space on it. And the guy is like, do you want to try to get on the next one, or wait until tomorrow morning and take the place of the aforementioned civilian guy. And I'm like, I'm gonna take tomorrow morning, because they already know there's a seat on that one, and it's daytime so I can actually see where the hell I'm going. At least I got to spend the night in my own bed. I was so damn pissed off at first I didn't even want to get in bed, and when I finally did go to bed I laid there for who knows how long being freaking pissed. Needless to say I didn't get much sleep.
So Monday morning rolls around and I show up at the flight office at 9:00 for an 11:00 flight. Much to the dismay of those around me. Yeah whatever, I'm not taking any more freaking chances with those damn pilots. Now unlike the special flights for leave where it takes you straight to Baghdad Airport, these ones go all over the place and stop at a bunch of stops for people to get on and off, like a bus, right...so you gotta fly around all over the freaking place and stop and go and crap. I seemed this has built up my tolerance for extreme motion. As long as I can see where I am going, it's not too bad. I don't understand why people don't like to sit in the side seats in the back row, you get the best view from there and you don't have to climb all over freaking people when you get out and stuff. They call it the "backwash seat" or some retarded variation thereof, because when it's warm, they take the windows out of the doors, so all the rotor wash comes in the window when you get near the ground. Geez, it really isn't that bad at all, just make sure your glasses don't fly out the window and you are good. Yeah, so as I was saying you have to fly around all over the place and it doesn't go to Baghdad Airport this direction, so I have to get off at the nearest stop and take the damn bus. First I had to take this one bus from the landing pad to the PX and it goes all over the freaking place and takes like a whole damn hour or even more to get there, I wasn't keeping track. Then from the PX I had to take this other bus to Stryker where you can stay if you get stuck out there, and then another bus from there to the airport terminal. And they're all these little Kia or Hyundai minibus things with manual transmissions and it's all herky jerky, in addition to the roads not being really paved or anything. Building up that damn motion tolerance...ugh. I'm hating moving vehicles right now. Well, when I finally freaking get to where I'm going, I've been sweating balls for like four hours or so and I'm hungry as hell. Well I ended up getting 8 hours to kill before I have to come back and check for the next flight to Kuwait, so I went and got some Pizza Hut. That's one good thing about the sprawling bases on this side of the river, fast food...Well after killing 8 hours playing Scrabble with someone I just met getting off the helicopter, which wasn't too bad because it made the time go fast. I go and check the flights and everything goes smoothly. When it's almost time to get on the plane the announcement comes over the loudspeaker and everyone's all geared up and ready to go. Then when we get out there to formation, it turns out they had to tell us that the damn flight got cancelled at the last freaking minute, so this time I'm really really pissed off, but at least there's 30 other people who are equally pissed. But they're not as pissed as me because they haven't had to go through as much stupid shit. So for the second freaking time this deployment, I have had to camp the freaking hell out in these cold ass waiting tents hopefully for not more than one night unlike last time. But last time, I was with a bunch of people, this time I'm with nobody, but as long as the flight goes off as planned this afternoon I will be good to go. And there doesn't seem to be internet here anymore...so I am sitting here once again on my trusty notepad. Yes. I really cannot believe my incredibly bad luck in this stupid leave endeavour. This year has turned out to be the worse freaking year ever and it don't see it getting any better. Hopefully next year will be better.
OK, so flight time rolls around. They told us the flight was going to show up at 1510 (3:10 pm), so we have to be in the "terminal" area, which is just a row of tents and stuff where people wait around all day and night, by 1300 (1:00 pm). So we wait and wait and wait and it's like 1600 and still no announcement. If I didn't notice all the people in the tent were waiting for the same flight, I would have paranoidedly thought I missed the damn thing! Well sure enough the loudspeaker tells us to gear up and stuff. You can jus feel the excitement and relief, even though no one is really saying anything, because even for Army standards this was pretty abnormal. I've never heard of anyone having trouble getting out, it's always getting back that they get stuck. Well, to continue the bad luck streak, after roll is called and all that crap come to find out they called the wrong flight, so they were just like, er...go back to what you were doing. Man, I was so damn pissed, I'm like, if I don't get somewhere tonight I'm just going to catch a helo back to my FOB and pretend none of this shit happened! Luckily, we do get on a bird, a C-17, it holds more people than a C-130, and every seat was taken. Ugh. And yes, I ended up having to sit next to the fat guy. This just never ends does it?
Well once we get to Kuwait everything is supposed to be smooth sailing, right? Wrong! In order to get to Kuwait City airport you have to ride these busses. They're these tall ass tour bus types and the one I was on just happened to have the worse freaking bus driver in the universe. He kept hitting the brakes super hard, swerving and shit. And every time we wewnt over some lump or bump the whole damn bus would roll from side to side like it was going to roll over or something. It was so damn bad I actually barfed. Good thing I had a plastic bag in my assault pack, shiett...
Finally we get on the plane that will take us back to U.S. soil. It's this DC-10 that looks like it's from the 70's and probably is, with the name of some very generic airline that I swear is a CIA cover for something else. The plane was full to the brim, not an empty seat on board. And yes, I got stuck in the middle seat, but luckily in the window section where it's only 3 across, instead of 5 like the center sections. Man, I tell you as soon as that plane took off I leaned over with my head on the seatback in front of me and my arms on the tray table and passed the freak out. Do you think I even have an appetite to eat anything? No! I slept all the way from Kuwait to Ireland. Got off and shopped at the duty free store. Got back on and promptly passed the freak out again. I mean, as soon as I got my feet on something that wasn't moving underneath me, I was fine, I didn't feel sick at all. But just thinking about getting back on the plane made me wanna puke.
current mood:  relieved
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