Jack_Crow
Enlightened
Hi all,
Got into London yesterday and it's so nice being back in the first world.
My internet time here is very expensive and don't know when I will get back on again.
Here is a prepared item that will give you some feel for the trip. Please note, I did not say flavor or smell. Neither of them were nice.
If any of you get the urge to reach me, try e mail at
[email protected]
Later kids
Mike aka Jack Crow in London
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink2.gif
......................................................
All,
One of the more interesting aspects of war is taking to heart everything you hear. Usually if it's bad, that bit of news is accurate. Good news tends to be wrong.
A couple of weeks ago, 'someone' (not me, I would have used Ray Stevens) posted a flyer around the base. It was a concert announcement for Britney Spears to appear on July 4th. You care to guess how many troopers fell for that line of crap. Some people should know better.
How can this bit of wishful thinking come to pass? In a war zone your emotions get torqued. Life is perceived as a stream of small cumulative stresses. Every so often a large problem is tossed into the mix. Each problem, each dilemma adds to the stress level. My co workers told me to go on this R&R a few days early. Seems I was becoming a twitch, and didn't know it. After six months in the zone I was more than ready.
One of the tools we have at the comm shack is a fancy GPS receiver. On the front of this is a gauge that reads in days, hours, minutes and seconds. I got to Kuwait around the 12th of December. On New Years Day I remember the gauge reading 000 days. Before I left it was at 189 days. Too dam long to be away from everything I considered real. Time to split.
CSC Scania is a truck stop in the middle of no place. It's about two hours south of Baghdad and about eight hours from the Kuwait border.
Humvees (Replacement vehicle for the classic Jeep) are a lot of things, but they are not comfortable. On the outside they are huge; on the inside they are cramped and full of articles. Coolers for ice and water bottles. Ammo Boxes, personal weapons of the troops, two military radios, GPS receiver, and a data terminal computer. The only member that has any freedom of movement is the gunner in the top hatch. He is also the most exposed to fragments and small arms fire. So any protracted trip in one is going to be miserable. With the advent of summer, this situation has gotten worse. The metal armor just absorbs heat. From the sun, and from the drive train parts. The most recent Humvees are armored with the ability to turn a rifle bullet and resist all but the strongest road side bombs. This is the vehicle I got the ride in. In fact this one had air conditioning. Just don't get too excited. It's not air conditioning as you know it.
Since heat season has started, I wanted to spend as little time as possible in the Humvee. Keep in mind we are required to make this trip in body armor. Now that our armor has plates, the vest weighs about 50 lbs and the helmet tips the scales at about 12 pounds.
I took the minimal approach. I went north to BIAP. (BIAP =Baghdad International Air Port). On the day of the trip I caught some breaks. The temps were lower due to low level dust. Our 'normal' day time temps were in the 120's that day was in the 110's. I will take any advantage I can get. Also convoys have taken to running at night. I only had to drink 3L of water to make up for all the sweating I did on this trip. The air conditioned armored Humvee is an improvement but it had some limits. The crew only turned on the A/C while making road speed, and not for traffic or check points. Very often they simply forgot to turn it back on after a check point. Since I was the 'package' to be delivered, it was not my place to make requests. Since when dose a 'FedEx box complain about the environment? Sweating is a quiet activity. I got good at it.
At least on this trip nobody took a shot at us. Since most of the travel was to take place after sunset, a fair amount of the trip was made driving with Night Vision Gear. I was not issued one for the trip. Remember Iraq is the third world, and it's dark.
We leave Scania about an hour before sunset and arrive at BIAP about two hours after sunset. We had some issues on the convoy. Out top speed was limited because one truck could not shift into 'top gear' and keeping up was a problem.
We pull into BIAP and after a few false moves; we end up in front of the terminal. Terminal is a good word for it. It made Scania look good.
Time now about 10 pm.
The USAF passenger terminals of BIAP are rough. There are three tents. The first one made the most sense. It's a series of counters. In my case I went to the 'contractors' desk and found out what to do. They directed me to the travel desk. The travel desk determines who gets to fly out on which plane.
Since I'm a civilian and taking R&R, I had to fly 'standby'. So if a military member had someplace to go, their higher priority got them a seat over mere humans like me. The travel desk told me to be ready at 10 AM the next morning. Had about 11 hours to kill. Managed to spend some time by sleeping badly in a chair and trying not to annoy my well armed neighbors.
The 10AM flight didn't happen for me.
The noon flight didn't have any stand by seats either.
At this point I'm sticky, bug bit, exhausted and miserable. I was not acting when I went back to the travel desk and made sounds like a sad puppy. I whined, scratched and begged. That got me on a flight. I'm not ashamed of my actions.
The USAF facility is a series of large tents and Hesco barriers. (A Hesco barrier is about the size of a refrigerator box, wrapped in a wire mesh, filled with dirt. Image a five ton sandbag and you will have a clue)
In the second tent were about 250 troopers in various states of exhaustion in this waiting room of a tent. In the middle was a large screen TV tuned to AFN's sports channel. As the clock rotated to Sunday morning the sports programming went away and I got to hear more about the 'hour of power' that ran 30 min.
Troopers are amazing in exhaustion. Many of them slept on any surface they could find. It was not unusual to see one with a towel over his face. I slept in a chair. Poorly at that. Every hour or so various self inflicted pains woke me up.
*****, *****, and more *****.
Anyhow as the clock moved and I didn't.
Two flights came and went and I didn't get cleared for the first two flights. After the beg festival I got the word to get on the third. With that, I was instructed to wait in the third tent. Call this one the 'ticket holders' lounge. When the flight is called, those traveling on military business are grouped in a 'Chalk'. Us second string R&R types travel in a 'Chrome'.
Anyhow our flight is called, and we of the ticket holder's tent/lounge assemble outside, the chalk types and the chrome types. We are shuffled onto buses and taken out to the flight line.
We get into a USAF C130 aircraft. This was my first time in such a plane. It looks small on the outside compared to normal transport aircraft. From the inside it's something else. In a normal air liner your hips are in line to the direction of thrust. C 130 uses bench seating, and you're at right angles to the line of thrust. This is disorienting. It's also hard to look out the few windows. Lastly the military crews use premium heads sets to knock down the noise. They issued to the human cargo (chrome and chalk) simple ear plugs. My ears are still unhappy.
I was warned that when the C130's rotate out of BIAP they use a combat take off. Apparently the threat level is down. Since I know more than a little about the flight profile of turbo prop aircraft not too much of this was a surprise. Didn't even come close to tossing the MRE I had for breakfast six hours before. Meatloaf in the morning, wonderful when you haven't eaten for many hours.
About 90 min after takeoff we land at an airfield in Kuwait I had best not talk too much about. I got to see things Tom Clancy writes about. From there we take a bus to camp Doha. Doha when I left there in December was a little rough. It's better now. We check in, and hook up with the company rep.
Once more back into the living bay. More about that another day. Let's just say it's got all the charm of living in a ware house.
I leave my goods and head off to take a shower. At this point things are sticking to me in uncomfortable places. 36 hours in the same duds is 12 hours too long in desert heat.
After that I indulge in something I haven't had in a while. The Doha PX complex has a small food court. In there is an Asian food dealer. Yes, I had Chinese food, and got the chance to pay for it. It was a nice break.
Next stop was to the PX to pick up a few critical items, then off to the bay to sleep.
Monday morning I go to the travel agents on base office and change my flight from Wednesday to Tuesday. Monday was fun. Got to buy a pizza for lunch, and shared it with one of my former tent mates from Scania.
Around 9 pm I got a lift to Kuwait International Airport. In the mid east you learn not to trust things. Remember the 'Inshalla' (Gods Will) mentaliaty that runs most everything in the mid east . I can't imagine Allah expressing an opinion about my getting to the airport. I didn't want to depend on a shuttle bus coming to the base. After this much time in the mid east I didn't want to take the risk of a no show. Neither did I want to take the risk of a local cab. Considering bad things have happened to AMCITS in Saudi, why discover the hard way if extremists are working in Kuwait. There are better ways of loosing thirty pounds of bone and gristle than being beheaded. I would rather spend the night in the airport terminal and be first on the plane.
Sleeping in an airport terminal is not exactly comfortable. Anyhow I got on the flight and made it to Heathrow airport. My first trip in a 747. Nice plane. Found a Holiday Inn to stay in. The prices here are very stiff. I paid and promised my self to spend part of today to find out if there is anything cheaper.
This message comes to you via a high speed wireless internet connection. High speed and even higher cost. 30 min of air time works out to about 9 bucks! For the first time I have scene Yahoo work well. An Army connection is dead slow.
Today's plan is to call my travel agent and see what's going on.
I'm going to borrow a London phone book and look up some non tourist things. I need an electronics parts dealer. Seems the military uses these hardened computers. The computers them selves are fine, but there is a 'fast recovery' diode in the power supply that is poorly heat sunk and I have a need to replace one that cooked. Also need to pick up some half watt resistors for a cordless drill battery charger. I want a look at some of the Euro style test gear. Also need a hair cut. I want to learn how to get from here to the 'tube' station, and to get around without hiring cabs. London cabs are cool vehicles. Will need to get some photos of one.
The TV's here are cool. The picture is rather good. That's the 'PAL' vs the NTSC limits.
The Holiday Inn is nice, just over priced. Heck even British pass port and customs were reasonable.
Q Reason for visit
A To spend money
My passport inspector told me to go and have a good time. Can't beat that with a stick.
I also discovered I can't drink a full pint of beer. Next time I will only order a half pint.
I will post some photos on Yahoo and send link addresses.
This is the first step to seeing the wife again, and having that married feeling.
To go to the first world and be human again. The benefits of modern life away from the third world.
If luck is looking after me, I will get to pet some dogs today.
Later all
Jack Crow in London.
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/nana.gif
Got into London yesterday and it's so nice being back in the first world.
My internet time here is very expensive and don't know when I will get back on again.
Here is a prepared item that will give you some feel for the trip. Please note, I did not say flavor or smell. Neither of them were nice.
If any of you get the urge to reach me, try e mail at
[email protected]
Later kids
Mike aka Jack Crow in London
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink2.gif
......................................................
All,
One of the more interesting aspects of war is taking to heart everything you hear. Usually if it's bad, that bit of news is accurate. Good news tends to be wrong.
A couple of weeks ago, 'someone' (not me, I would have used Ray Stevens) posted a flyer around the base. It was a concert announcement for Britney Spears to appear on July 4th. You care to guess how many troopers fell for that line of crap. Some people should know better.
How can this bit of wishful thinking come to pass? In a war zone your emotions get torqued. Life is perceived as a stream of small cumulative stresses. Every so often a large problem is tossed into the mix. Each problem, each dilemma adds to the stress level. My co workers told me to go on this R&R a few days early. Seems I was becoming a twitch, and didn't know it. After six months in the zone I was more than ready.
One of the tools we have at the comm shack is a fancy GPS receiver. On the front of this is a gauge that reads in days, hours, minutes and seconds. I got to Kuwait around the 12th of December. On New Years Day I remember the gauge reading 000 days. Before I left it was at 189 days. Too dam long to be away from everything I considered real. Time to split.
CSC Scania is a truck stop in the middle of no place. It's about two hours south of Baghdad and about eight hours from the Kuwait border.
Humvees (Replacement vehicle for the classic Jeep) are a lot of things, but they are not comfortable. On the outside they are huge; on the inside they are cramped and full of articles. Coolers for ice and water bottles. Ammo Boxes, personal weapons of the troops, two military radios, GPS receiver, and a data terminal computer. The only member that has any freedom of movement is the gunner in the top hatch. He is also the most exposed to fragments and small arms fire. So any protracted trip in one is going to be miserable. With the advent of summer, this situation has gotten worse. The metal armor just absorbs heat. From the sun, and from the drive train parts. The most recent Humvees are armored with the ability to turn a rifle bullet and resist all but the strongest road side bombs. This is the vehicle I got the ride in. In fact this one had air conditioning. Just don't get too excited. It's not air conditioning as you know it.
Since heat season has started, I wanted to spend as little time as possible in the Humvee. Keep in mind we are required to make this trip in body armor. Now that our armor has plates, the vest weighs about 50 lbs and the helmet tips the scales at about 12 pounds.
I took the minimal approach. I went north to BIAP. (BIAP =Baghdad International Air Port). On the day of the trip I caught some breaks. The temps were lower due to low level dust. Our 'normal' day time temps were in the 120's that day was in the 110's. I will take any advantage I can get. Also convoys have taken to running at night. I only had to drink 3L of water to make up for all the sweating I did on this trip. The air conditioned armored Humvee is an improvement but it had some limits. The crew only turned on the A/C while making road speed, and not for traffic or check points. Very often they simply forgot to turn it back on after a check point. Since I was the 'package' to be delivered, it was not my place to make requests. Since when dose a 'FedEx box complain about the environment? Sweating is a quiet activity. I got good at it.
At least on this trip nobody took a shot at us. Since most of the travel was to take place after sunset, a fair amount of the trip was made driving with Night Vision Gear. I was not issued one for the trip. Remember Iraq is the third world, and it's dark.
We leave Scania about an hour before sunset and arrive at BIAP about two hours after sunset. We had some issues on the convoy. Out top speed was limited because one truck could not shift into 'top gear' and keeping up was a problem.
We pull into BIAP and after a few false moves; we end up in front of the terminal. Terminal is a good word for it. It made Scania look good.
Time now about 10 pm.
The USAF passenger terminals of BIAP are rough. There are three tents. The first one made the most sense. It's a series of counters. In my case I went to the 'contractors' desk and found out what to do. They directed me to the travel desk. The travel desk determines who gets to fly out on which plane.
Since I'm a civilian and taking R&R, I had to fly 'standby'. So if a military member had someplace to go, their higher priority got them a seat over mere humans like me. The travel desk told me to be ready at 10 AM the next morning. Had about 11 hours to kill. Managed to spend some time by sleeping badly in a chair and trying not to annoy my well armed neighbors.
The 10AM flight didn't happen for me.
The noon flight didn't have any stand by seats either.
At this point I'm sticky, bug bit, exhausted and miserable. I was not acting when I went back to the travel desk and made sounds like a sad puppy. I whined, scratched and begged. That got me on a flight. I'm not ashamed of my actions.
The USAF facility is a series of large tents and Hesco barriers. (A Hesco barrier is about the size of a refrigerator box, wrapped in a wire mesh, filled with dirt. Image a five ton sandbag and you will have a clue)
In the second tent were about 250 troopers in various states of exhaustion in this waiting room of a tent. In the middle was a large screen TV tuned to AFN's sports channel. As the clock rotated to Sunday morning the sports programming went away and I got to hear more about the 'hour of power' that ran 30 min.
Troopers are amazing in exhaustion. Many of them slept on any surface they could find. It was not unusual to see one with a towel over his face. I slept in a chair. Poorly at that. Every hour or so various self inflicted pains woke me up.
*****, *****, and more *****.
Anyhow as the clock moved and I didn't.
Two flights came and went and I didn't get cleared for the first two flights. After the beg festival I got the word to get on the third. With that, I was instructed to wait in the third tent. Call this one the 'ticket holders' lounge. When the flight is called, those traveling on military business are grouped in a 'Chalk'. Us second string R&R types travel in a 'Chrome'.
Anyhow our flight is called, and we of the ticket holder's tent/lounge assemble outside, the chalk types and the chrome types. We are shuffled onto buses and taken out to the flight line.
We get into a USAF C130 aircraft. This was my first time in such a plane. It looks small on the outside compared to normal transport aircraft. From the inside it's something else. In a normal air liner your hips are in line to the direction of thrust. C 130 uses bench seating, and you're at right angles to the line of thrust. This is disorienting. It's also hard to look out the few windows. Lastly the military crews use premium heads sets to knock down the noise. They issued to the human cargo (chrome and chalk) simple ear plugs. My ears are still unhappy.
I was warned that when the C130's rotate out of BIAP they use a combat take off. Apparently the threat level is down. Since I know more than a little about the flight profile of turbo prop aircraft not too much of this was a surprise. Didn't even come close to tossing the MRE I had for breakfast six hours before. Meatloaf in the morning, wonderful when you haven't eaten for many hours.
About 90 min after takeoff we land at an airfield in Kuwait I had best not talk too much about. I got to see things Tom Clancy writes about. From there we take a bus to camp Doha. Doha when I left there in December was a little rough. It's better now. We check in, and hook up with the company rep.
Once more back into the living bay. More about that another day. Let's just say it's got all the charm of living in a ware house.
I leave my goods and head off to take a shower. At this point things are sticking to me in uncomfortable places. 36 hours in the same duds is 12 hours too long in desert heat.
After that I indulge in something I haven't had in a while. The Doha PX complex has a small food court. In there is an Asian food dealer. Yes, I had Chinese food, and got the chance to pay for it. It was a nice break.
Next stop was to the PX to pick up a few critical items, then off to the bay to sleep.
Monday morning I go to the travel agents on base office and change my flight from Wednesday to Tuesday. Monday was fun. Got to buy a pizza for lunch, and shared it with one of my former tent mates from Scania.
Around 9 pm I got a lift to Kuwait International Airport. In the mid east you learn not to trust things. Remember the 'Inshalla' (Gods Will) mentaliaty that runs most everything in the mid east . I can't imagine Allah expressing an opinion about my getting to the airport. I didn't want to depend on a shuttle bus coming to the base. After this much time in the mid east I didn't want to take the risk of a no show. Neither did I want to take the risk of a local cab. Considering bad things have happened to AMCITS in Saudi, why discover the hard way if extremists are working in Kuwait. There are better ways of loosing thirty pounds of bone and gristle than being beheaded. I would rather spend the night in the airport terminal and be first on the plane.
Sleeping in an airport terminal is not exactly comfortable. Anyhow I got on the flight and made it to Heathrow airport. My first trip in a 747. Nice plane. Found a Holiday Inn to stay in. The prices here are very stiff. I paid and promised my self to spend part of today to find out if there is anything cheaper.
This message comes to you via a high speed wireless internet connection. High speed and even higher cost. 30 min of air time works out to about 9 bucks! For the first time I have scene Yahoo work well. An Army connection is dead slow.
Today's plan is to call my travel agent and see what's going on.
I'm going to borrow a London phone book and look up some non tourist things. I need an electronics parts dealer. Seems the military uses these hardened computers. The computers them selves are fine, but there is a 'fast recovery' diode in the power supply that is poorly heat sunk and I have a need to replace one that cooked. Also need to pick up some half watt resistors for a cordless drill battery charger. I want a look at some of the Euro style test gear. Also need a hair cut. I want to learn how to get from here to the 'tube' station, and to get around without hiring cabs. London cabs are cool vehicles. Will need to get some photos of one.
The TV's here are cool. The picture is rather good. That's the 'PAL' vs the NTSC limits.
The Holiday Inn is nice, just over priced. Heck even British pass port and customs were reasonable.
Q Reason for visit
A To spend money
My passport inspector told me to go and have a good time. Can't beat that with a stick.
I also discovered I can't drink a full pint of beer. Next time I will only order a half pint.
I will post some photos on Yahoo and send link addresses.
This is the first step to seeing the wife again, and having that married feeling.
To go to the first world and be human again. The benefits of modern life away from the third world.
If luck is looking after me, I will get to pet some dogs today.
Later all
Jack Crow in London.
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/nana.gif
