Desert Deployment 2002-2003
This is the unedited series of postings I did on the CoFR BBS while I was deployed to the desert in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. This is probably too long to read in one sitting unless you’ve got a lot of time to kill so… it’s been arranged according to date originally posted.
September 16, 2002
Welcome to the first in an irregular series of reports, outlining my stay here in the Big Sand Box.
Dirt and rocks… When you tell someone you are going to deploy to the desert, the image in their mind is of brown rolling sand dunes. Not here. Dirt and rocks. All gray. Everything, inside and out, moving and stationary is covered in a talcum power type of gray dust that’s impossible to get rid of. But you know what? I like this place WAY better than Prince Sultan Air Base (PSAB) in Saudi Arabia.
The C-5 landed at around 0445 and as we stepped out of the plane, we were greeted by a blessedly cool and breezy morning with the Sun just beginning it’s 12-hour journey across the sky. The other two Suns would rise in a couple of hours. There are three Sun’s in Qatar in case you didn’t know.
We inprocess and head to our new living quarters for the next 4-5 months. 7 man Temper Tents. We have wooden floors, wooden partitions inside which create cubicles for the rooms, a TV and a DVD player. As soon as supply gets more refrigerators we will have one of those as well to chill our bottled water. In the past month, Camp Andy has replaced the shower and crapper tents with hard wall “Cadillac’s” which make life much better. The Chow Hall tent is open 4 times a day and, for the most part, has better food than PSAB.
It is wonderfully cool in the morning. The Sun starts rising around 5 am and I sit on our little couch (a couch consisting of one cot on the ground and another cot lashed to it to form a back) on our porch (consisting of wooden pallets on the ground with plywood nailed on top) drinking my chow hall coffee and smoking my morning cigarette while enjoying the cool breeze. But then… when the Sun has been up for a while, it rises like some angry, evil Inferno God and lives only to smite down all people wearing desert camo pattern boonie hats. I can’t complain though. It’s hasn’t gotten over 106 since I’ve been here and that’s better than the 120 at PSAB.
Worked 12 hours the first day, 12 hours the second, 16 hours the third day, 12 hours the fourth and finally got a day off. We’re going to be working 12 hour shifts our whole time here. I get off at 7pm. Beer sales start at 7pm. Life is good! When someone asks me what time I get off shift I say, “Beer o’clock.”
Right now it’s just a few of us working. We are the advanced team taking care of things and preparing for the arrival of the Air War computer systems. Once they get here this place is going to be a complete nut house.
Picture a warehouse full of a thousand Daffy Ducks jumping around going, “Whoo-hoo! Whoo-hoo! Whoo-hoo! Whoo-hoo!” with several Elmer Fudd’s (Officers) running around randomly shooting the bills off of various Daffy Ducks. That’s what this place is going to be like.
I’ve finished wiring up our tent with CAT5 but nobody really has a powerful enough laptop to do any gaming. We’ve been swapping MP3′s and pr0n. When the build team gets here, a good number of them will have powerful laptops and I’ll have to start digging trenches between the tents for the CAT5 drops. I can’t wait because I really miss playing with you guys.
Until we play again (it’s 20 ’til beer right now)… I’ll drink the next one to you guys!
Ciao!
Scott
AKA Direwolf
Coffee in the Desert
September 27, 2002
Sweat and dirt. That is my world. Well, that and beer. I’m allowed 3 beers per day. Mmmmm…. 3 beers… You know, I’ve been to Prince Sultan Air Base where alcohol in any form is not allowed and I’ve been here.
I now think that you don’t really learn to appreciate beer unless you are limited to just a few. If you are not allowed any… Hey. What can you do? There’s no beer. Go to work. Get on with your life. Then the deployment ends and you get completely tore up and have a 3 day hangover and you’re right back in the rut you were in before.
It’s different when you are limited. 3 beers just isn’t enough for a lot of people. 3 beers would just piss Soapy off. When you first get here, you sit at the Wagon Wheel and swill down 3 beers in an hour and you’re sitting there thinking, “Now what in the hell do I do?” After a while you learn to savor each and every sip. Mmmmmm… Each sip is an experience, a time to reflect on how wonderful beer is. You drink one in about 45 minutes. Then you get another. You sit and reflect on what a wonderful thing a FULL beer is. Then you take a sip. Mmmmmm… You get the idea.
Take a quarter of a warehouse and put a temporary wooden wall around it. Take a fourth of that and put in an office to work out of. Then take half of what’s left and fill it with rows of shelves full to the brim with computer equipment. Take the other half and put in 8 military aircraft pallets piled high with transit cases full of computer equipment. Now take that warehouse and decide that you want to turn it into a Air Operations Center, with all new computer equipment. That’s what I arrived to.
They tell me, “See all this equipment? We’re not going to use any of it so it needs to be put on pallets and taken out of here so we can begin construction on this place. Oh, by the way. We are bricking up the roll up doors in 3 days so you won’t be able to get a forklift in here so you need to have it done by then.”
So there I am tearing down walls, humping equipment onto aircraft pallets, trying to keep up with the equipment inventory, strapping and netting the pallets, all in 110 degree heat with about 90% humidity. Oh yeah. The air conditioning units for the building are on order and should be delivered in a week or so. Oh yeah, the office needs to stay intact and since we have classified information, a wall needs to be built around the new smaller area. It’s at this point that I seriously consider screaming out, “I’M A SYSTEMS ADMINISTRATOR!!! I’M A UNIX GEEK!” And after having done that I think it would have been appropriate to put my face in my hands and sob quietly for about 45 minutes. To make a long story short, we got it all done and the sense of job well done is strong. Through it all I also managed to deal with everyone’s little network printer problems and E-mail problems and shared folder problems with wonderful Microsquash Windoze NT. You’ve got to love an operating system that makes you click 15 friggin’ OK buttons for everything it does.
I’m going to set up your printer!! Click OK!!
*click*
I’m setting up your printer now!! Click OK!!
*click*
Your printer is set up!! Click OK!!
*click* *sigh*
I’m going to print a test page now!! Isn’t that wonderful!! Click OK!!
*SMASH* (The sound of a mouse getting destroyed with a sandbag)
Life is good here. I’ve got my tent “cubicle” hooked up with some sweet plastic drawers as well as a bathroom rug! I’ve got a empty coffee can serving as a light bulb shade! Every day is a new, eagerly anticipated experience as our chow hall serves up tasty hockey pucks, shoe soles, small shapeless mystery thingies, and Baskin Robins ice cream. I often joke that if you get one of the pieces of cake in the desert cooler and pour some water on it, it turns into a whole cake. There’s beer every night and the base commander is an Air National Guard guy who loves beer and comes up with an excuse at least once a week to up the limit to 4 beers. I’m going to head into downtown Doha tomorrow and maybe pick up a digital camera and some Pizza Hut. Maybe I’ll get some pictures out to you guys.
Kudos go out to the fine folks in uniform who serve us up the suds every night. Big Kudos to Coder for posting my little reports for you guys to read. Kudos to the people who run the chow hall and all the generators on base and the guys who provide water for the pisser and shower tents.
Those guys can’t afford to have a bad day and never do. We always have power, food, and water. We don’t always have the LAN up. Keeps things in perspective doesn’t it?
Until next time, GG’s all!
SSgt Scott Sexton, 9th Air Expeditionary Task Force
AKA Direwolf
October 2, 2002
In it’s short history on this small blue/green planet, mankind has had to face many challenges. Challenges great and small. Some are caused by sociological demands or differences. Others are set as personal challenges by the individual. Many are brought about by the environment. Arguably, the root cause for all of our challenges can be summed up in one word: survival. I would guess that our most daunting challenges are caused by harsh, unforgiving environments. Such as the one that I find myself in now. Thus, Direwolf finds himself in the throws of one of his most difficult challenges yet. And that challenge is this:
Finding a pair of cheap sunglasses in Qatar.
I’ve been to the largest mall I’ve ever seen. I’ve been to gas stations, convenience stores, the Qatari version of Wal-Mart called Lu Lu’s. Book stores, restaurants and more. Nowhere is their a pair of shades for under 200 Riyal’s (About $70). In this country, where the Inferno God rises on high every day to smite this scorched landscape with all of his UV drenched hatred, you would think there would be racks and racks of dirt cheap sunglasses everywhere! They should be sold on every corner. Down on their luck, dirty Arab men standing in the middle of the road should be trying to sell them to you as you lock your car door, trapped by a red light. Trucks should be driving down every street with men in the back tossing out handfuls of low quality shades to the screaming masses in this country. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE! I will find some cheep sunglasses. That is my challenge. For myself. For my survival.
They sell sunglasses on base. But they only sell the entire 1969 Jackie O collection. I’ve thought about buying a pair and running around base going, “help MEEEEEEE! help MEEEEEEEE!”
Another necessity here is a small flashlight. Preferably a Mini-mag light. The reason for this is not so much to see in darkness, as much as pure consideration for your fellow tent mates. You see, without a flashlight, you have two options at 1:30am every single morning. You could turn on your overhead light, and wake up everyone in the tent as you scramble to put on clothes and race out of the tent. Or you could fumble around in the darkness, crashing into your wall locker and cursing and wake everyone up as you scramble to put on your clothes so you can haul ass to the pee tent and drain out 3 used beers. So a flashlight is needed, so you can have light and not wake up your tent mates. Because you WILL wake up at 1:30am every single morning busting for a wizz.
Saw my first bird since I’ve been here this morning. It was after I had finished that long, bleary eyed, morning walk to the chow tent to get my morning coffee. I was drinking it and having a smoke when I saw the bird walking on the ground between the tents about 40 yards away. It even chirped a couple of short songs for me. It was a peaceful moment. Then some guy came blundering out of his tent heading for the showers. The bird flew off and the moment ended. It was a nice moment while it lasted.
Things have been pretty calm here, as of late. Now we are in a waiting mode. Next week the build team will start arriving, bringing with them 3 C-5 loads of deployable shelters loaded down with servers, routers, switches, phone equipment, satellite communications equipment, radios, etc, etc. Construction continues on what use to be this warehouse. When I go back to my tent at night, I have to take a running drill and press it against my wooden wall while using my other hand to pound on the wall locker with a hammer in order to get to sleep.
Chow hall menu for this week came out today. Once again no Sloppy Joe’s this week. I’m very disappointed. The Sloppy Joe’s are good. Tonight there is “Grill Pork Chop” or “Lemon Herb Chix.” Chix? What are they talking about? Cereal? Women? Chicken? I’m frightened and hopeful at the same time.
Join us again next week when we hear Direwolf say:
“I’ll give you 9 Riyals! Come on!!! 350?!? No shades are worth that! Tell ya what, I’ll give you 13 Riyals. No? Please? Come on!!!! Work with me here!”
October 20, 2002
Around here, a day off is like a dollar bill lying on the ground with a string attached to it. Just as you think you have it in your hand, it’s snatched away by a giggling captain hiding behind the sand dune. Today is my 8th day in a row working these 12-hour shifts. That’s not a bad thing though, because it makes the time fly by.
Wow! I can’t believe I’ve been here 40 days already. Only another 100 to go. It’s truly amazing the transformation this place has made. A half empty warehouse now has 2 floors. The area that was full of equipment (remember the walls we had to tear down and re-build again?) is now empty (we tore down the walls again) and ready to be transformed into an operations floor complete with an entire wall devoted to video screens.
There have been some hang-ups. I can picture it as clearly as if I were there watching it!
All of the C-17′s are lined up, glistening with dew in the humid, South Carolina sunrise. Fred slides gracefully past the heavy lifters, dwarfing them, his four engines singing an eerie, off-key harmony to each other. The 50 people sitting in the passenger compartment, above the cargo, read their books or lean their heads back against the seat and close their eyes. There are no windows in the passenger compartment so there’s nothing to see. Fred lines up on the end of the runway, then the engines scream higher and higher in pitch before quickly settling into growling rumble. Inside, the people put in earplugs as their seats shake. Halfway down the runway, the engines suddenly wind down. The loadmaster, with a disgusted look on his face, plugs his earphones into the wall jack and begins talking on his mike. A few passengers, those who haven’t been in the Air Force that long, look around in askance. Most passengers keep their eyes closed and just frown. For all of them have just experienced THE most common occurrence in the Air Force. Fred is broke.
10 foot flames out of one of the engines from what I hear. Bottom line is, all 3 C-5′s that were carrying our comm shelters broke somewhere along the trip. Not to mention AMC frustrating one of our shelters for a damaged pallet, removing it from the aircraft and not telling us! We had to track it down. Damn thing sat in Spain for a week before they managed to get it to us. No matter how well thought out your plan is, AMC (Air Mobility Command, or more commonly known as Aircraft May Come) will find some way to screw it up.
But the shelters are here, powered up, and air-conditioned. Today is my last day in SYSCON (Systems Control) and I move to my primary job of administrating Theater Battle Management Core Systems. The orchestra is warming up their instruments and soon a symphony of whirring fans and hard-drives will emanate from shelters filled with all the things that make a true computer geek erect.
Needless to say, there hasn’t been an update for a while because, frankly, I’ve been to busy. I’ve even got some open nights on my beer ration card due to being to tired to drink after work, if you can believe it! Not tonight though. Those three beers are going to be good tonight!
November 3, 2002
Cigarettes. Coffee. Beer… and Counter-Strike!
Boredom. I now think that boredom doesn’t really exist back home. There are so many devices and procedures in place to deal with boredom when you are home. Here, I don’t have a remote to flip through the 200 channels that I don’t have on my non-existent TV. I don’t flip through the magazines that I don’t get in the mail. I can’t grab one of the many books that I don’t have. I can’t hop in my car and drive to the store. We are not allowed to leave base. I DO have a 24-hour internet connection but it’s not near as fast as my cable modem and I can’t surf pr0n or play games. So how does one deal with true boredom? In very interesting and humorous ways, of course. One way is to smoke lots of cigarettes and drink lots of coffee! Lethal amounts of coffee. There is a large wooden crate that sits a good ways from our smoking area. There is also lots of rocks around our smoking area. There are now many holes in the wooden crate and it’s almost come completely apart. That’s another way to deal with boredom. More ways include pouring water on your crotch and walking into Systems Control yelling, “Where’s the bathroom around here? I gotsta GO!!!”� Another way is to load up Counter-Strike on the computers at work and create the gaming LAN.
Many CoFR members don’t consider themselves very talented CS players. I now believe that many CoFR members underestimate themselves. We’ve got 5 computers loaded up with CS and have played a lot of 2v2 and 1v2. Most of the people here love that really crappy game Quake 3. I will now tell you that death matchers SUCK at Counter-Strike. It’s kind of boring to play them! Trying to strafe jump and laying down on the trigger. It’s easy to kill them. After playing with these guys for a while I realize how much I miss playing on FR4 and FR8.
Things are proceeding along fairly well here. The building is almost complete and soon we will be placing and wiring up the 700 or so computers that will serve as workstations for the users to destroy and corrupt. The servers are purring and talking and we are working out minor compatibility issues. Also doing HUGE amounts of mouse clicks while transferring all our users from the base servers to our own servers and copying home and shared directories. I would like to personally thank Bill Gates (with a large brick) for my Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.
Beer is still a wonderful thing. There are ways to catch a great buzz off of just 3 beers. I’m off on Sundays and a good friend of mine who works mid-shift is off on Sunday nights. So, when he gets off on Sunday morning, I’m just waking up. 3 large beers at 5% on an empty stomach early in the morning gives you a great buzz. It’s yet another one of those wonderful boredom killers.
November 25, 2002
52 degrees. Kinda chilly for most people. A bit nippy. Kinda cold for others. Add in that it’s around 80 during the day. Add in that two months ago it was 92 at 0530 and last month it was 70. Add in that it’s not called Winter here… it’s called Windy. Add in that long walk to the chow tent for coffee… And finally, add in the fact that I didn’t bring any form of long pants and I’ll tell you that it’s FLIPPIN’ COLD!!! No long pants. What was I thinking? Methinks I will have to re-evaluate my packing method of packing the night before deploying whilst drinking heavily. Gonna call Mom and have her send me some sweat pants.
The screens are up, the plasma displays are in the offices, I’ve personally connected up about 100 computers, hauled and unpacked the boxes for around 300 more and have seen another 300 or so hauled in, unpacked and hooked up. That’s all the computers… for the first building. Soon we’ll be starting up on the Joint Intelligence Center building. The users will be here soon to screw everything up and make our lives hell. I think I’ll blame everything on the firewall. It’s always the firewall’s fault.
“I can’t open attachments!”
“Yeah, it’s the firewall. They’ve got it set up to block binary.”
“My computer wont turn on!?”
“They must be blocking power at the firewall. I’ll talk to them and see what I can do.”
The grinding routine here is starting to get to me. Wake up at the same time every single morning. Get off work at the same time. It never changes. It doesn’t help that you only have one day off a week. The thing I’m looking forward to most when I get home is two days off in a row. We make the best of our Sunday’s though…
My good friend Jay works night shift and has Sunday night off. Since none of the crew that he works with drinks, he only has one “night” a week that he gets to drink and that’s because all of us drinking day shifters get up early on Sunday to pound our 3 brews with him. Mmmm… morning buzz is a wonderful thing.
Only around 60 or so days left…
December 14, 2002
The shock was devastating. I still haven’t been able to wrap my mind around the magnitude of our loss. It’s a very sobering thought to consider that the things that you love the most are the things that you most take for granted. Last night was when we all realized that tragedy can strike at any moment, and that the things that you take for granted, the things that you love, can disappear in an instant. Last night, we all learned… that the new rotation of troops… cannot cook spaghetti.
Spaghetti was the most anticipated meal of all. It only occurred once every two weeks. It was a nice change to the monotones, nightly menu of some sort of chicken. It was amazing spaghetti. Almost as good as Mom makes. Last night, the first night that the new rotation took over, we had noodles, covered in a thin, red gruel with pre-processed, compressed, 8-year shelf life, meatballs. It was horrid. I had one bite, immediately threw it away, and then retreated to my tent to mourn our loss.
New rotations suck. New rotations also mean that you have been here longer than most folks and that means that you’ve been here WAY too long. It’s time to go home.
Today marks the day that systems testing ended. We got an excellent rating. Best Weapons System that the team has seen. Never mind that this is only the second of this particular Weapons System that is in existence. It’s been about 16 days since we’ve had a day off and that includes a 34 hour shift for myself and that’s only because I wimped out early. The other guys worked a 44 hour shift. A party was held tonight with a 4 beer limit and I’ve now finished number 4.
Tomorrow is Sunday and it will be time for our weekly Sunday morning beer drinking and Fooze-ball session which we haven’t been able to have for 2 weeks due to the testing. It is much anticipated.
I only have another 20 or so days left here and can’t wait to try some of the new mods that’s came out in the past 3 months. Thoughts of home invade every idle moment of my life here.
See you all on the servers soon…
Direwolf sends…
December 21, 2002
Sunday… An aptly named day. Out of all of my fondest memories, most have probably taken place on a Sunday. I say this because most of my memories are kind of muddy now with getting older so maybe I should rephrase it. Most of my clear, recent, non-muddy memories, and I’m sure, many of my muddy, not so clearly defined memories have taken place on Sunday’s.
(If you didn’t quite understand that last sentence, take a moment and re-read it. You’ll get it this time)
Let’s start off where I left off last update. A day off. It had been somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 days since I had had a day off (not to mention the 34 hour shift I had pulled mentioned in the last update). Last Sunday was probably the most wonderful time I’ve had here. Here’s the story:
I woke up early, like usual, but this time it was with a raging headache, and a horrible case of the screaming craps! It was one of those headaches where you have to look straight ahead. If you move your eyeballs up, down, left or right you get a lancing pain throughout your head. That pain made it very hard to walk the 50 yards to the crapper tent so I could empty my complaining bowels in a really nasty (what I like to call) ass-plosion. After breakfast, 1200mg of pain killer, two cups of coffee, and a couple more ass-plosions, I was hesitantly ready for our Sunday morning ritual of beer and foose-ball. All of the sysad’s were off that day and it was the first time that ALL of us (day and night shift) had a chance to hang out. We played cards and foose-ball and got really nice buzzes off of our 4 beers (it was a 4 beer day) and had a truly enjoyable time together. I thought that the day was complete and couldn’t get any better due to the fact that after drinking and having fun… we had naps to look forward too! I was wrong.
After entering my tent I noticed a large box sitting on my bed. Homemade cookies and (JOY OF JOY’S!!!!) SWEAT PANTS!!! It gets really cold here at nights and I had brought no long pants… Mom had heard that and sent me sweat pants!
There is no greater being, no greater person on this mortal world, than someone’s mother. Here I am almost 30 years old, living on my own for over 10 years now, and in a moronic oversight, I forget to bring warm clothes when I know I am going to be in the desert in December and January… and Mother is still taking care of me! Merry Christmas Mom! See ya soon! Love Ya!
Then we get to this Sunday… Today.
Systems testing is over and now we are working on continuity and documentation so that the next rotation knows how the system is built and how to take care of it and how to spin it up to full capacity in case of war. A relaxed week but still busy. I have a few beers this Sunday morning, play some great games of foose-ball, have a great time, and come back to my tent to watch a movie. On my bed is a package. From a good friend of mine in New Jersey, Anne Smerekankz (who has recently been deployed to Kandahar, Bagrham and other undisclosed locations in the War on Terrorism and just got home) who sent me a little Christmas tree complete with batteries for the little blinking lights to brighten my tent. She sent me all sorts of homemade goodies as well.
Please take time this holiday season to reflect upon and understand the effect that friends and family have on your life and just how valuable they are. Also be thankful about the wonderful thing that we have here at CoFR and how rare it is for such a gathering of culturally people who (in many cases) haven’t met each other to create such an amazing community. I can’t begin to tell you how much this BBS and your words have meant to me while deployed.
Thanks Mom, thanks Anne and thank all of you!
Happy Holidays!
Oh yeah… Drink beer!
January 13, 2003
“The clouds prepare for battle,
In the dark and brooding silence,
Bruised and sullen storm clouds,
And the light of day obscured,
Looming, low and ominous,
In twilight pre-mature,
Thunderheads are rumbling,
In a distant overture.”
-Neil Peart
It’s a well known scene. Worldwide, everyone can picture it in their minds. It’s a scene thats been portrayed by Hollywood countless times in movies and TV. The scene has been played out in real life by many of my friends, and occurred to me a couple of times. That scene is going to occur again in a few days. The scene is that of a solder, finally arriving in his home country after a lengthy deployment to a foreign land, and of that solder heading to the nearest establishment serving alcohol and proceeding to get s**tfaced and belligerent. The scene usually ends with the solder either getting into a fight or getting bodily thrown out of a nudie bar or both… I can’t wait.
Home. Thoughts of home have invaded our every though for the past week. Mostly revolving around pondering about the first thing we are going to do when we get back. So far the general consensus is downloading lots of internet pr0n. I can’t wait.
Our little Operations Center is built. The computers are all set up and working. The users are happy. Our replacements are up to speed and our out processing is done. The Operations Center is ready for operations. As to if and when the operations happen, I cannot say. That is up to the world’s Movers and Shakers.
And so ends my 127 days, my longest deployment, here at Al Udeid Air Base. It’s been a challenging and fun deployment. Now I look forward to the long, long plane ride back, and the one night of drunken stupidity in Baltimore, and then home. Home at last. But, as the dark clouds of war gather, our Chief Master Sergeant tells us, “When you get home… keep your bags packed.”
At least I’ll have a short time at home to play with you guys. I can’t wait.
After that post, I spent a total of 4 weeks at home before deploying once again to Al Udeid.
March 3, 2003
Welcome once again to the second installment of my irregular series of reports outlining life deployed.
5 weeks ago, I left a growing, but still sleepy, relaxed little base. I have returned to a teaming, confused monstrosity.
The plane landed at around 0430 and we were herded into a large building. I stumbled through the initial in-processing in a Tylenol PM induced haze. Then it was off to the chow tent to have some soggy French toast and powdered eggs and swill down some fantastic chow tent coffee (sludge factor: 7). We then headed to the work place to find out what the deal was and was told that myself and one other were on night shift, starting at 1900. So, it was off to the tent for more Tylenol PM and to unpack. We caught some Z’s then proceeded to work for a 12-hour shift. Immediately after work, we hit the base theater for the more in-depth in-processing. We were told it would last 1 and a half hours… 4 hours later they said, “OK, you’re done! Get some lunch and report to the med tent at 1300 for your smallpox shot!”
The Air Force is known as the least military of the 4 branches. For instance, the Army is giving the smallpox vaccination as intended. Break the skin 15 times with a pair of very tiny needles (as I’m sure many of you remember from your own smallpox vaccinations). The Air Force, in order to identify those who may have adverse reactions to the vaccine and to keep those reactions from being serious, decided to break the skin just 3 times for those who have never had it. If the vaccine doesn’t take after 8 days, you get the full 15 jabs.
So I roll up my sleeve, and take my position.
*JAB*
*JAB*
*JAB*
*JAB*
*JAB*
“Errr… ahhh…”
*JAB*
“I’m only supposed to get 3.”
He pauses with needles poised, visibly disappointed that he was interrupted from causing me pain.
“No. You get 15. You were born before ’72.”
“I was born in ’73.”
“Oh… Well, you got 6.”
Make no mistake, the Air Force is still military.
Things have changed quite a bit here at Camp Andy. There are many more tents. About half of the facilities have moved to different locations. There are WAY too many people. But I would have to say that the most tragic change that has occurred since last time was the $1 increase of beer prices. We get $3.50 per day extra in our paycheck for being here. That DOES NOT cover the $9 daily spent on beer. Of course, some things never change. It’s still a rare surprise to turn on the shower and get hot water, or indeed water pressure at all. The food is still hit or miss although you can always count on the old standby, a cold burger between two slices of brick with some chili-fries.
Night shift is a nice change. It’s a more relaxed atmosphere than day shift. I get to catch more live sporting events (NASCAR, Hockey, Boxing) on night shift. People are still posting on the BBS during my shift. Sleeping during the day takes some getting use to. Not because of the time change, but because of the loud activities going on during the day. One pleasant side effect is that when I wake up and stumble out of my tent for a smoke, blinded by the sun, I’m greeted with the distant strains of bagpipes. Apparently, one of the Ruperts is Scottish. Another nice side-effect is that there is never a line for beer at 7-9 AM. Mmmm… Morning buzz. Even if you’ve been working all night, a morning buzz is still nice.
My work place now has this amazing 4 pot coffee station. It brews two pots of coffee at the same time and takes about 7 minutes. It ROCKS! Speaking of… It’s almost 3:30. Which means coffee brewing time.
Join us again next time when we hear Direwolf say:
“Err… ahh… I was only supposed to get 15.”
March 13, 2003
I usually wake up around 4 or 4:30 in the afternoon, lounge in bed for a few minutes, then put on the flip-flops, gather the shower gear and head outside. The tent is cool and dark. You brace yourself in front of the door before you open it but nothing helps. Even with your eyes closed, as soon as you open that door, your entire world, thoughts, worries, joy’s and so on, are completely blown away and replaced with white. Just white, nothing else. After a few seconds, however, the eyes adjust and slowly the white resolves itself into sand, rocks, tents, people and the cadillacs. It’s starting to get hot now, in fact, it hit 100F for the first time today since I’ve returned. I do my squinty eyed shuffle to the smoke pit, at which point someone invariably asks me, “What the hell day is it, anyway?”
When you work 12-hour shifts and don’t get days off, you have a hard time keeping track, or indeed even caring, about what day it is. But, important things or events are scheduled for certain days, so you are quite often asked what day it is, to which I always cheerfully reply, “It’s Groundhog’s day! Every day is Groundhog’s day!”
After some discussion, we dubiously agree on what the actual day is and I then squint up at the gages on the water heaters attached to the cadillac showers to determine which cadillac I have the best chance of getting a hot shower in. I pick the one with the highest gages, hop in, and receive a luke-warm, but refreshing shower.
Then it’s off to the tent to change, then to the grab-n-go tent for a sammitch and chips, then off to work.
Night shift is good. It’s just busy enough to keep you constantly occupied and make the time fly by, but not insanely hectic and stressful. The coffee flows generously.
They installed bug zappers in the cadillac’s at work. The other night I was enjoying a relaxing and satisfying throne session, when I realized that the bug zapper was a 240 volt model. A bug flew into it. It went off. I damn near put my head through the stall door it was so loud! It sounded like an M-80 went off. When I finished up and came out of the stall, I expected to see a small bird smoldering on the floor under the zapper.
Lunch consists of snacking on the second sammitch that comes in a grab-n-go meal, as well as whatever you can scrounge from stuff other people have left unguarded.
Work some more and then, before you know it, it’s 7 AM. Quitting time. Now is when I have my big meal of the day, breakfast at the chow tent. I get a big helping of dual-use eggs (sustenance and dry-wall repair), a roundish slab of sausage that looks like it’s been freshly Heimlich maneuvered from some really fat guy, a container of milk that’s consistently 3 days past it’s expiration date, and I top off this fine repast with a biscuit that, if fired out of a cannon, could penetrate tank amour.
Then you may or may not have a beer, relax for a few minutes, then hit the sack.
The next day I wake up around 4 or 4:30 and head to the smoke pit where someone asks me what day it is, to which I cheerfully reply, “It’s Groundhog’s day! Every day is Groundhog’s day!”
You get the point.
I would like to end this time by relating one of my recent experiences. When I returned here two weeks ago, the walls near SYSCON were festooned with Valentines Day cards from the 3rd and 4th grade classes in Eau Clair, Wisconsin. Almost all were address to the anonymous “Dear Solder,” and most expressed their gratitude for us serving the country. One in particular had us howling in laughter when we read it, and has had us chuckling every time we pass it, at it’s stark simplicity and sincerity.
From Adam, Mrs. Estep’s 3rd grade,”Dear solder,” he writes, “I hope you come home.”
Ahh, children. They take all the information their teachers try to tell them about world events, politics, and war, they put it all in that big cooking pot that is their brain, and boil all of that information down to it’s true essence.
“Dear Adam, If only the world were run by 3rd graders. Then you and I would not have to worry about all of this. I hope I come home too.”
April 6, 2003
You might have noticed a lack of updates to this thread. Well, when your entire day, thoughts, and TV watching consist of war, it’s hard to come up with something to write about. There are a lot of things I could write about, of course. But the fact is, I don’t know where all of you live and even if I did, I haven’t the desire nor the energy to hunt every one of you down and kill you after telling you all of those things that I could write about.
There are only so many ways you can describe camp life, and I believe I’ve covered all of them in previous posts. Now you know why there has been a lack of updates.
So… Umm hmm…
Err… Well…
So how about them **insert favorite team name here**!!
One thing I’ll talk a bit about. News. Fox News and MSNBC really need to quit saying, “Fair and Balanced News Coverage!” I’m really surprised those guys don’t dress only in an American flag and munch on apple pie while reporting. I can’t stand watching either channel.
As for balanced, un-biased news… Doesn’t exist. However, your best bet is to stick with American or European or Auzzy news. Stay away from Arab or Russian sites. Some have some value but most are horribly biased. Some (read: Russian site claiming reporting of intercepted and decrypted US battlefield radio) are total and complete fabrications. If you want just the facts… stay away from any 24/7 news channel. Instead watch your favorite hour-long 6 O’clock nightly news program. At least they have 24 hours to do some fact checking. In their rush to have the “Scoop” the 24/7 channels are forced to air the “fact” that PFC Joe Bob Billybong said that a friend said that 6000 Iraqi tanks were about to turn the right flank of Boyscout troop 622 and begin the invasion of Dothan, Alabama – and hope that the “facts” check out as true later.
As for me… It’s Groundhog’s Day!! Every day is Groundhog’s Day!!
Catch you guys on the servers… eventually.
April 20, 2003
I woke up in a good mood yesterday evening, well rested and ready for work. As I was returning from the showers to my tent, I flinched at the sudden sound of 3 F-15′s screaming directly over my tent at very low altitude. This was very unusual, so I paused to watch them. As they continued, I noticed that I could still hear loud jet noise and lifted my face skyward. There was a single F-15, almost a dot in the sky now, with full afterburner going straight up. It was then that I realized that they had just completed the Missing Man formation. A lump instantly formed in my throat.
On April 7th, Captain Eric “Boot” Das was flying a combat mission in Iraq when he was shot down. He didn’t eject.
I don’t know why I got all choked up. Maybe it was the symbology of the formation. I’ve seen it performed before, but it was always in honor of some retiree that I’d never met or indeed ever heard of. Maybe it was the fact that I didn’t expect to see the formation. I never met Capt. Das. I had seen his wife, an intelligence officer, occasionally walk through the ops center but I never talked to her. I started to think about what his wife must feel like. I started thinking about the maintainers, who waited for their pilot and plane to come back to base, wondering if it was shot down, or if something had mechanically went wrong and if they were responsible. It was probably a combo of all those things that got me choked up.
Rest easy, Captain. Your fight is over now.
Tags: Al Udeid, Deployment, Desert