Welcome to Balad

We got fireworks and everything.

They whisked us off to the group greeting room (I guess) and gave us our incoming briefings, took our necessary documents, and offered us water. (Here, they don't usually bother with the .5 litre bottles. They go straight to the 1.5 litre bottles, which is a sort of paradise for me.) The first briefing concerned the most important thing to know here: the alarm system, what each sound means, and what to do.

Alarm Red: Steady or continuous tone; seek cover in the closest shelter, don your personal protective equipment, and get down.

Alarm Yellow: Stay under cover as UXOs (unexploded ordnance) may be present; mission essential personnel movement only (such as explosive ordnance disposal)

All Clear: Alternating low and high tone; return to duty, and report in for accountability.

Alarm Black: Repeated rising tone; suspected chemical/biological agent; don gear as directed and stay under cover. Panic.

Alarm Blacks have not had to be used yet. Knock on wood.

Then, all bleary and sick-feeling--indeed, I was well on my way to coming down with a nasty cold, the sore throat having kicked in before I left Al Udeid--we were greeted by MSgt Gyurke, our new first sergeant, and driven into tent city to be booked into our accommodations. We went into a tent that looked like all the rest (I was soon to discover this is normal; you just have to know which tent you need--they have small, nondescript signs indicating their purpose but you have to know where to look for the sign, even) which turned out to be a house within a tent with air conditioning. They had a large screen TV in there with a nice couch and customer ignoring counter and everything. A very bored airman piled a bunch of "linens" (if I may use the term so loosely), a blanket and a pillow on a pile and shoved it at me. Then I was shown to my tent.

Here's the street where I live. It looks like every other street.

MSgt Gyurke couldn't enter because men are forbidden in female tents unless on official business, and the tent must first be scoped out to ensure everyone's decent. So I walked in alone. The place was pitch black. There were sheets hanging everywhere for the privacy of the occupants. I peered around long enough to determine that none of the bunks appeared to be un-spoken for. I went back out and asked MSgt Gyurke about this. He entered and determined the tent appeared full, and made note of the unauthorized dayroom therein. (No! Not an unauthorized dayroom! Bring...the comfy chair!)

We went back to the "billeting office" where he set about ironing out the problem. SSgt Padgett and I waited in the van. As soon as he was gone from sight, we heard our first Alarm Red siren.

Being new, untried and punchy, we got down on the floorboard of the van where we attempted to struggle into our vests and helmets. We didn't know what else to do. MSgt Gyurke ran out long enough to tell us to get into the tent (which was fortified with sandbags). In the tent, I laid down on the floor and passed out, rousing only long enough to ask for a blanket because I had a fever and the AC was chilling me. I remember hearing explosions.

It turns out that departing troops had left linens in my tent when they vacated, and the bunk at the far end was empty, so I dragged my linens and carry-on and PPE to the bed and dropped it. I didn't have a privacy sheet. The sheets they gave me were more polyester than cotton, thin, scratchy and almost too small to make the bed at all. There was no matress pad. The wall locker closed with effort and had a rough spot in just the right spot to lay a nasty abrasion on my knuckle (it took me another three days to figure out why my knuckle was raw). The lock didn't work. I was home.

Capt Garcia had taken all our bags (that he found) back to his tent (it was the least he could do), so we stopped there next and grabbed our bags. My A bag was missing...along with my only change of civilian clothes (which I wouldn't need until I went home, but still) a brand new only-worn-once pair of running shoes, my brand new Leatherman, my pillow (I thought), and a shoulder holster a friend had loaned me ("I want this back. The only reason I don't get this back is if you have a hole in you"). Of course, the assorted usual military stuff in the A Bag was also missing. I'd just stuck extra stuff in it to balance out the load. Now they were gone.

Then, with ripped up feet, staggering from weariness and nursing a sore throat into a full-blown cold with fever and aches, I was shown to my new work center. I was greeted by Capt Mary Lou Thompson, who hugged me warmly. As well she might. I was her replacement, and my presence meant she was on a bird home that night (and so she was). I met 1Lt Jeff Baker, who just pinned on Captain yesterday, and thus is my new boss.

At some point, we were driven to Supply where we scored proper plates for our vests (making them more interesting to wear or carry), then to the armory where we checked our weapons.

That's right. We checked our weapons. We lugged our weapons through myriad airports and kept them with us so we could check them in the armory here. We only arm up if we're doing escort service (for Iraqis or third country nationals (TCNs) on base for various jobs) or if we go on a field trip off base for any reason. For that, you'd think they could just keep a stock of weapons here and hand them out when people need them instead of making every person who comes hither bring one from their own armory.

But see, the Army carries their weapons with them everywhere here. The Air Force doesn't. They don't train us adequately and thus don't trust us with loaded weapons unless there are no other options. So instead of providing proper training to ensure we're actually qualified (as opposed to pencil-whipped) to carry and competently use a weapon, they make us carry one from home then check it into the armory here so we don't hurt anyone, least of all ourselves. Military logic, I guess.

You know how people tell you, when you have a slight jet lag problem (in our case, we gained nine hours in three days), to "just stay up until dark, then you'll crash and you'll be fine"? It ain't true. It doesn't work. (Do you hear me, people? It. Doesn't. Work.) Just staying awake until dark "fixes" jet lag like coffee fixes drunk. In both cases, the only cure is time.

So I came back and...for a while there, there's just a big blur. I think I was shown around the communications squadron (it's small) and introduced to everyone, almost none of whom I remembered the next day. At some point, I went to my tent to sleep if I could, crashed about an hour, then came wide awake as the sun went down. I came out all bleary and wandered off in search of food. In their haste to welcome me to the squadron, get me moved in and for the appropriate parties to beat feet out of here (that is, in the general confusion of deployment rotations), no one had shown me where the chow hall was.

This, I was beginning to understand, is the way they do things in the deployed atmosphere. It's chaos, really. They give you bare bones information then leave you to sink or swim. For the first few days, you wander around like an idiot trying to locate things while attempting to not look completely pathetic and lost.

I stopped a passing stranger and asked him where the chow hall was. He said, "I don't think you want to walk that far, Ma'am. They're having a barbeque at the rec tent, though." It still catches me by surprise when a complete stranger addresses me as "ma'am." I'm old enough to warrant it and I am an officer. You'd think I'd be used to it by now.

I followed the crowd (mooo) to the rec tent and threw down on some steaks, bratwurst and green salad. The steaks were quite tasty, too. Then I went back to my tent and laid down to not sleep.

The longer I laid there, the more unasleep I became. I turned on the light and tried to read, but I was too exhausted to concentrate. Besides, the tentmate directly across from me stepped from behind her sheet to ask me with thinly-disguised irritation to put the light out. That was 0100 or so.

I put on my PT gear and went exploring. I found the Internet Cafe tent, but didn't have my account yet and thus couldn't sign on. I found the telephone morale call tent and placed a call via DSN (Defense Services Network, I think) back home.

I don't remember ever feeling so alone and lost in my life as I felt that night, physically or emotionally. I was a wreck, exhausted but sleepless, sick and blistered. I'd lost a bag with important belongings (the most important to me at that moment was my pillow). I was lonely. Eric was around somewhere, but I didn't know where. Besides...I missed home. I was drained and defenseless in a way only everything going wrong for three days could make me.

I talked on the phone until the operator cut me off. She was kind enough to let us talk for 37 minutes. I wasn't aware of the rules yet (I get two 15 minute calls a week home for morale, not to be used concurrently), so I count myself lucky that she let us talk that long. I went back to my tent, feeling only slightly better, then managed to get less than three hours of sleep before I was up, dressed, and on my way to work the next morning.

It was a low beginning indeed. On the bright side, I had so much to look forward to. It would be nice when my feet healed. It would be nice when I recovered from my cold. It would be super if I ever slept like a normal person again. None of them would happen for a while.

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