War in Iraq, a Soldier's View

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11-Aug-03 9:49 PM

Well alot has happened in the last few days and now I’m finally home (when you’ve been in a foreign country for the last 9 ½ months, anywhere in the US is home). The experience has been great; it’s so nice to think that we’re almost back to normal civilization.

Checking out of Kuwait was a bit of a pain, first we had to move all of our vehicles to the port on Saturday. The humidity has been really bad for the last week or so and the drive was pretty miserable. The heat plus the humidity means that you always have sweat pouring off you. When we got to the port they didn’t know we were coming even though we’ve spent the last two weeks waiting for CFLCC to get us authorization to load our gear. They just checked us in no questions asked, if we had known that we didn’t need CFLCC’s help we would have brought the vehicles here back on the 20th and been gone by now; but as soon as that was done all we had to do was wait to fly out. Since we were flying out at 7:30 am we needed to be at Camp Champion by 9:00 pm but SGT. Slocum wanted to be there early so we left Camp Doha at 5:30pm. It didn’t help though; we ended up waiting at Champion till 2:00am to have our gear checked out by Customs. We were tired of the heat and humidity and the waiting by time we ran our stuff through so it was irritating to unload all of our carefully packed bags, then repack everything while others waited. Then we had to wait in a tent for till 7:30am to get on a bus to head into the airport to the plane.

The officers got all the business and first class seats, typical but it seemed to sting worse than usual because the officer in charge, Major Lee, was an ubër prick. He segregated everybody into E-7/below and officers for everything then made all the lowest ranks do stupid menial tasks just to keep us busy. Even in basic I’ve never seen so much segregation and mistreatment of the ranks, it was like he was always mad and he took his frustration out on the lower enlisted. And if any of the lower enlisted came near him he would glare at them till they left. This made me think that he may use his bad demeanor to keep his soldiers from bothering him with their problems. Even though you should be able to go to your officers for help and guidance he tried to scare off all who tired to come to him for help.

Once the flight got started it was great. The flight crew was all volunteers who wanted to be the ones to fly soldiers home; most had plenty of time in their jobs, apparently a lot of people volunteered to fly troops home so the ones with the most experience got the job. They encouraged us to visit them and talk with them about our experiences; even the pilots had an open door policy and let us up into the cockpit to talk.

It was the friendliest flight I had ever been on, and the inside of the plane was decorated with yellow ribbons, flags, and drawings and letters made by elementary schools from all over the US. At Frankfurt the flight crew switched and another came on and were just as good to us as the one before. Every crew that came on would say over the intercom how it was such an honor to be able to be the ones to being us home. I talked a little with the stewardesses and I went up to the cockpit and take some pictures out the windows, with all the restrictions on airlines now I doubt all ever get the chance to do it again.

As we flew over the Atlantic everybody was falling asleep, I had slept on the way to Frankfurt (and missed the chance to take a picture of the great pyramids in Egypt and the Collusieum in Rome from the air) so I wasn’t tired. I kept looking out the window and watched as we passed Greenland and flew over Canada. Then when we approached Michigan the captain came on and apologized for waking everybody up but told us to look out the windows and said, “On behalf of the flight crew and everybody else in America, we’d like to officially welcome you back to the United States.”

As we were flying back the unit that had chartered the flight (Maj. Lee’s unit), asked why they couldn’t fly straight to Ft. Hood rather than Dallas/Ft. Worth. The captain radioed and asked why not and the response was that even though the soldiers had been through customs the flight crew hadn’t so they decided to switch flight crews in DFW and make a quick jump down to Ft. Hood. This was all great for the unit going home to Ft. Hood but our connecting flight to Ft. Carson was at DFW so we were stuck in Ft. Hood turning our hour layover into a 24 day detour, thanks again Maj. Lee.

At Ft. Hood they formed us all in a formation and lined us up to go into the gym where all the Ft. Hood guys’ families were. They put their company in front and the rest of us in back so it looked like there were a ton of people coming home and it would be a great photo op for the Colonel who gave a little speech. I was a little peeved that they were taking advantage of us like that but it didn’t really matter that much, it was nice to be surrounded by American civilians rather than just military.

I guess they didn’t realize that the whole speech of us being finally being home with our families and watching all these other people’s families and girlfriends crying was just depressing the rest of us that wouldn’t be with our families for another week. As soon as the speeches were over the soldiers were released to be with their families and the rest of us (3/4 of the formation) were quietly swept behind a curtain to sign in to the ITO to get on our way again before all the families realized that some of us still weren’t home.

Luckily not all the organizers of the reunion were as heartless as the officers. Some of the family support members came back with us and welcomed us back to the US, gave us hugs, let us use their cell phones to call home, and talked with us about where we were going and how much longer before we would be home to our own families. Those that hung out with us deserve a big thanks; it was 12:00 AM but one little girl giving out candy and a few soldiers wives stayed and talked with us and gave us some free sodas till we were on our way to our temporary barracks. I wish I had gotten their names because it helped a lot after going to a reunion that just made us more homesick.

Luckily the ITO at Ft. Hood was a lot more on its game than CFLCC; we were taken to barracks to stay in for the night and within 24 hours we had a flight up to Ft. Carson. The plan was to drive 2 hours to Austin, fly to Dallas/Ft. Worth, then land in Ft. Carson. There was a little trouble at the gate, apparently E-6 Andersen and Harline’s tickets were messed up and they wouldn’t make the flight so SGT. Slocum paid for their tickets out of his own pockets, we hope that the Army will be smart enough to realize that this was their problem and that Slocum saved the group form getting screwed over and reimburse him the $1000 dollars the tickets cost. Unfortunately we got stuck in Austin for two hours when the weather took a turn for the worse. We loved it though because we hadn’t seen rain in months and it was amazing to see lot’s of it, and lightning too.

While we waited me and Layton had a few beers at the bar, we weren’t really drunk but we were so happy to be going home that everything was so funny and we had a great time making stupid jokes. Then we found out that the flight was delayed so me, Layton, Patterson, and Hansen went to the bar and each got long island ice teas. As we were paying we were talking to another guy getting drinks and Patterson told him that these were our first drinks since getting back, so he offered to pay for our drinks. 4 Long Islands at an airport run about $28 dollars so Mark, wherever you are we owe you, thanks.

We relaxed for another half hour then found out that our flight was boarding and we had to run and catch it before it left without us. The flight to Dallas was short which was good because pounding that last drink and running to the terminal had me a little sick. Once we were at DFW we had to run to make the next connection, even though we were 2 hours behind schedule the flight had been delayed for weather so we wouldn’t have to change flights. Unfortunately DFW is a big airport and we had to run from A6 to C36 (if you’ve been there you’ll know how far this is). It’s Ironic that it took 4 hours to make it to Dallas when it was a 3 hour drive from Ft. Hood, but nobody can predict the weather.

At Colorado Springs, our out processing SGT was waiting with two vans and a truck to take our stuff to Ft. Carson. Horsy was there to meet us, his mom’s still in the hospital but so far she’s making it through. Fedak was also there, he’s a solider from the 872nd that was sent to Afghanistan and he’s currently stuck in Ft. Carson waiting for orders to get on medical disability (he got hit in the shoulder with some friendly shrapnel at a firing range). So finally after three weeks all 17 of us were back together.

Now we’re just settling in and getting ready to begin out-processing, I’m already loving having an actual bed again. We had one in Ft. Hood and now here; they’re typical lumpy army beds but compared to what we’ve had for the last 9 months they’re heaven. You can actually bounce on them, I spent 10 minutes just laying on the bed an flopping like a fish once to make the springs bounce, as soon as the bed quit bouncing I’d do it again. I feel like a little kid playing on the bed, I almost feel like standing on the bed and bouncing like it’s a trampoline.