Welcome to Balad

I think I left us stranded sans luggage in Al Udeid. Ah yes...

So here it was, almost 0230 am in the morning, and we've already been awaiting our flight for 14 hours, then by several weird twists, it leaves without us.

At this point, I go back to normal past tense because present tense in stories to establish immediacy just sounds affected.

I waited until I had a chance to calm myself--which didn't take long, as I simply didn't have the energy to be upset at this point...the Eternal Bus Ride From Hell had sucked the last morsel of frustration from me--then I walked up to the main counter and calmly explained our plight as though I believed everything would be all right. And I believed myself when I said that to me, too. I figured getting a seat on some plane going to Balad when we didn't have to find a place to put luggage would be much easier than scoring a seat with all those bags. Plus, our report date was upon us and I figured it mattered at least a little bit that we get there as scheduled.*

*I was mistaken, but it was a nice fantasy.

The counter personnel checked their schedule for the day, listened to our sad story, and said we'd be on a C-17 leaving at 0710.

We spent a few hours lounging around the PAX. It is a huge tent with makeshift plywood walls erected in spots with a proper door. To give you a feel for it, here's a look at our accomodations. This was shot before the crowd left without us, but the attitude of the inhabitants is the same. Note the barely discernible scribblings on the plywood in the rear.

I amused myself by reading the walls. Some of them were the usual "A1C Widget was here! CE Rocks!" silliness. Some were lists of units and their personnel who'd deployed together, along with their unit mottos. Most of these had nicknames or phrases apparently derived from standing jokes, such as "SSgt Ricardo 'Does this make me look gay?' Mendez," "Capt John 'Attaboy' Wickert" or "TSgt Nathan 'Somebody Slap Me' Brown."** Such lists gave me a warm and cozy feeling, somehow. I was reading the marks of those who'd come before and had left as a close-knit team.

**I don't remember exact ones--just the idea. Any resemblance of these names to persons living or dead constitutes little more than a fascinating coincidence.

A few of the marks were quite artistic and sometimes had the off-color tinge of GI humor I find so (oddly) endearing. Here are a couple of my favorites:

The plane that had left without us was a C-130. The bigger the number, the smaller the cargo plane, it seems. A C-130 is a prop plane and the whole thing roars accordingly. It's a bumpy, uncomfortable ride in the cargo area of a plane never actually designed to transport troops, per se. Its primary purpose is to move, uh, cargo. Hence the "C" part of the nomenclature. In these type planes, due to their purpose, passengers (if any) are seated in a line with their backs to the walls. Huge pallets of cargo are strapped in the middle.

The C-17 is about five times the size of a C-130.** It's also a proper jet-type aircraft. No props. It moves much faster. Our first plane required about four hours to get to Balad from Qatar. The C-17 required two hours, flat. Earplugs were still mandatory, but hey.

**I have no doubt that some pedant will leap forward and correct me. Whatever. It's an estimation.

We were exhausted by the time we buckled ourselves into that plane, as you might imagine. I've perhaps mentioned my lack of sleep a week prior to leaving, as well as the screwy schedule, airport terminals and flights that do not allow anything more than a couple hours of fitful sleep here and there. Allow me to reemphasize this. I was starting my third straight day of wakefulness with the exception of periods I could score three or more seats in the terminal unoccupied and stretch out for a few minutes, and when my brain would inexplicably doze off while I was, say, standing in the terminal reading the wall or something.

SSgt Padgett was buckled in to my left and some nice enlisted gentleman was seated to my right. I remember leaning right, toward the front of the plane, just a touch to compensate for the forward thrust and thankfully dozing off. I woke I know not how much later and the nice gentleman to my right was leaning forward. I was slouched hard to the right, propped on him and drooling gently down his back.

Oh the shame.

Anyhow. We got to do a tactical landing. You civilian types may never experience the thrill of a tactical landing. You have to go pay circus rides for cheap imitations. Not us. We are the privileged few. You get the warning to prepare for landing, but they don't every bother to mention what they're about to do. This must be an ongoing pilot joke.

The plane nosedives so you feel like you're dropping out of the sky, then they'll swoop around and wiggle their wings and drop again, and sometimes put in an extra tight 360 around the airfield, if there's still a passenger who hasn't puked. (The C-130 I took to Honduras long ago and far away actually came down suddenly until its wheels were on the runway, then gunned it and came around for another landing.) The goal of all this is to make the planes a harder target (unsuspecting passengers tossing their cookies is just a perk of the job). If you touch down and someone opens fire, you gun it and know to call in support before you try to land again.

Part of landing prep was to don our kevlar helmets and flak vests. We didn't have plates in ours yet, but anything's better than nothing. We stepped off that bird into our new home at 1000 local (0100 CST, Saturday morning).

The first unit I had the pleasure of laying eyes on in Balad was the Department of Mortuary Affairs.

Great.

d