122 hours enroute to Bagram

On Sunday morning, following a great night out on Saturday with my amazing new Sacramento friends, Jose and Jon were kind enough to take me to the airport. I arrived to an endless check-in line but eventually made it through and got through security quite quickly thanks to being in uniform and being allowed in the TSA pre-check line. The flight from Sac to BWI was uneventful and despite waiting ages for our bags, I was able to hook up with Shiri as she came and picked me up for food. We headed over to a nearby mall and hit up Nando’s. It was a bit different from the originals in the UK but still so good. It was great to get to see her again, even though I had just seen her and it was for such a short time. She dropped me off at the hotel, we talked to my parents and to Michal, and then she went home seeing as she had work the next morning.

On Monday we bummed around the hotel all morning and after lunch at Cracker Barrel headed over to the airport. The check-in period for our rotator (civilian airline flight contracted out to only military people) was from 5:30-9:30 but when we arrived at 5 the line was already stretching all the way across the terminal. After waiting for about 2 hours we made it through check-in and went to find somewhere to eat dinner and watch the National Championship game. We watched the first half and then went through security to our gate. However, when we arrived, we learned that our flight was delayed for 3 hours, meaning more time sitting on the floor of the airport, hoarding electrical outlets like our lives depended on it

Finally made it to the front of the check-in line for the Rotator

 

About 9 hours after we got the airport we were finally on the plane and taking off for Ramstein. When we arrived in Ramstein we were allowed about an hour and half to leave the terminal. Thankfully there was a large mall directly across from the terminal where we were able to get some food and German beer. The currywurst and spatzel that I had were amazing and we all polished off our liter of beer like it was our job. It was a nice “last beer” to have before our 6 months in Afghanistan where beer is prohibited. We then got back on the rotator for our flight to Turkey, this one was only delayed about an hour and, when we arrived in Incirlik, we anticipated a three hour layover before continuing on to Manas, Kyrgyzstan. However, we were greeted by the news that our layover would, in fact, be over 12 hours! Thankfully they had arranged for rooms at billeting for us so after about 2.5 hours of waiting in line for the hotel check-in, we finally got our room for the night.

Passenger terminal at Ramstein

Welcome to Ramstein-- gateway to Europe

Currywurst, spatzel, and beer! Don't worry, only one of the beers is mine

Incirlik terminal in Turkey

 

Being able to shower and lie down in a bed was amazing but my internal clock was so messed up from time zone changes and sleeping in bits and pieces on the various flights that I didn’t actually sleep that evening. At 0830 on Wednesday morning we were back on the buses taking us from the hotel to the flightline and several hours later we were boarding our flight to Kyrgyzstan. We arrived in Kyrgyzstan late in the evening and had a few in-processing briefs before being taken to the linens tent to collect our linens and be assigned a tent for the time we’d be in limbo here. The tents were pretty nice, with bunk beds and very effective heaters, which was really all I cared about after a long few days and a nippy 18 degrees Fahrenheit. We got some food and then went to Pete’s (the bar) to wait until our assigned time to pick up our chem gear and body armour. Manas has a 2 beers per 20 hours policy but I didn’t have anything to drink, realizing the Russian beer they had would never top the lovely German beer from earlier. While technically our assigned time for chem gear was 0400, we snuck in with the 0100 group and they thankfully didn’t turn us away to come back later. Finally, after about an hour and half in the chem distro warehouse we were released to go to sleep.

Tent in Manas

Pete's Bar in Manas

 

We weren’t supposed to report until 2200 the next day, at which point we would find out when we would be continuing on to Bagram. So I attempted to sleep in (lasting until about 0930) and then after getting some breakfast at the chow hall went to the MWR (Morale, Welfare, and Recreation) tent to read for a few hours. We got kicked out so they could clean and so I came back to my tent to read some more and write up this blog post.    

When we reported back they told us that our “bag drag” (where we take our bags and pack them onto a cargo pallet) was 1030 and our “lockdown” (essentially we check in and go through security for our flight so we’re not allowed to go anywhere or do anything outside the passenger terminal) was 1530 so we went back to sleep. After the bag drop we went back to Pete’s, had our last beers for 6 months, and played Cards Against Humanity. SUCH an inappropriate game! We then grabbed lunch and went over to the PAX terminal where we immediately found out our flight was... wait for... delayed!! So we sat in the terminal until around 8 pm when we finally got on the C-17 that took us into Afghanistan!!

Snowy Kyrygzstan

On board the C-17. I was in one of the jump seats along the side.

We landed a few hours later, started our in-processing process, met our First Sergeant, and got our rooms. Tomorrow we’ll continue the in-processing and we will probably start flying around Thursday of next week!

Next blog will have a bit about the base and my room and stuff like that! Sorry for the length of this blog—turns out I made it almost as long as the entire trip was!!