We left Buehring for Ali Al Salem, Kuwait on the afternoon of the 10th at around 1400 to board our plane to Afghanistan. We packed up our infinite string of gear, again, and jumped on a bus for our new base. This was the first time that I saw the Kuwaiti countryside by daylight. It looked just like I assumed after seeing it by moonlight. There is no color to this country other than variances of brown and grey. The sky is rarely blue but rather dark and hazy most of the time. There are small bushes maybe a foot high and foot across, but even they are few and far between, and not what I would call lush. I was surprised by the number of camels out roaming around the country freely.
The trash by daylight was even worse than I thought. Garbage clings to everything in the wind… fences, buildings, other garbage. Upon arriving at Ali Al Salem (LSA) we unloaded our gear into a staging area to be palletized to go on the plane. We would once again be with only our carryon baggage, weapons, and this time IOTV’s (Improved Outer Tactical Vests) and ACH’s (Army Combat Helmet).
We are told by our Commander to walk on the other side of buildings in our way to find tent number 4. That would be our staging area. We started off walking…. We found tent 1, then 2, 3, then finally 4. Probably a 200m walk. When we got there we found out that tent 4 is for only Soldiers waiting to return home. As much as we were hoping that was a hint, we know we were in the wrong place. After 15 min or so of asking around we were finally directed to the OTHER tent 4. The tents all have an address and a grid coordinate on the side. For whatever reason, although we were in the 6000 address block, tucked away in a corner was tent 4.
We then had some short theatre briefs and were given a hard time of 2300 for our last set of briefs before our 0200 flight. We were given free rein to do whatever until then. A group of us headed down to the food court to grab some food. When we arrived I saw the first McDonalds that I had ever seen on a military base. (They are generally Burger Kings)
Of course I had to eat it as mentioned in a prior entry. When we returned to the tent, our Commander informed us that our plane was broken and we would have to be delayed a while. This wouldn’t have raised any alarms with me typically except that we were given that same line the day we were supposed to leave Ft Sill. In that instance we packed all our baggage on a truck and sent it to the airport, only to find out that we would have to stay another night and we were getting kicked out of our rooms. The having to leave the rooms was annoying; not having our baggage for a night was a pain in the ass. We ended up throwing some money together and buying the essentials for everyone for one night. (Disposable razors, shower shoes, tooth paste, etc) The plan in this case was to wait it out in tent 4 and see if the flight was just going to be delayed or canceled. The powers that be at Ali Al Salem wanted us to go back to Buehring which would have meant reloading the bags AGAIN. Our Commander got them talked into letting us have tent 4 for the night. Tent 4 has concrete floors and no beds, not even cots. There is only 1 row of chairs from one end to the other with a single table in the middle. When I heard all the news, I knew it would be in my best interest to go back to the bag pile and fish out my sleeping bag as I had a sneaking suspicion that we would be there for the night. The shitty thing about this plan is that there were no room for our bags inside, nor did we want to carry them, so 2 man teams would have to take turns on shifts watching them as they lay outside. I went to sleep around 2000 and slept until around 0330. When I woke up I thought that our plane was parked over the top of our tent. During the night a dust storm had kicked up. The wind was howling and dust was coming in every little opening in the tent. I got up to pee which fortunately the trailer was right next to our tent. On my way I stopped to take a picture of the dust storm. I took 2 shots in the same place, one without flash, one with.
I then walked on to go pee. It was here I was introduced to the Army’s mobile latrines. Running water and flushable toilets, they are great. Not to mention the graffiti on the walls was very entertaining. I went back to bed but never really got any substantial sleep after that. There was too much wind, to many people up and about and too much light from computer monitors and other electronics. Went to breakfast at about 0700 which was identical to the chow hall in Buehring. After that we grabbed some coffee at Mean Bean and went and relaxed in the MWR tent for a while. After about an hour of killing time there, one of our guys came and got us and told us we were going back to Buehring. We gathered our things and went back to our beloved tent 4. After waiting a while at the tent to leave, our Commander informed us that the roads were not drivable due to the dust storm. Tent 4 was to be our home for the foreseeable future. Several of us went back to the MWR tent but found it to be full of people trying to escape the wind and sand. The sand storm was miserable. Everything had a red hue to it as though on Mars, dust gets into everything… eyes, nose, ears, mouth. It’s always great when you have to chew your air supply.
I decided to go with SPC Kotinek to go to the CZ to check my email while the others went to the USO tent. After finding out that the time I bought in Buehring didn’t transfer to other posts and buying another hour of internet, I did my damnedest to send 1 email and change my facebook status. I failed to take into consideration that the internet provided was satellite and soon realized that the already slow internet was unbearably slow. It took a full hour, down to 3 min, to check 2 emails, change my status and attempt to chat with my wife, unsuccessfully. I tried to open a picture my wife had sent me, but it had an estimated download time of 34 mins. After that we headed to the USO tent, which I might say was pretty nice. (As were the MWR tents) In the USO tent they had stations set up with PS2, PS3, and XBOX games, a lounge area with a movie playing, board games, and a theatre in the back with extremely comfortable recliners. We took the opportunity to sack out for a bit in the dark theatre in the comfy chairs. At around 1400 one of our Soldiers was sent to tell us that they had finagled us tents for us to stay in at Ali Al Salem.
The dust storm is expected to last for 3 days and no vehicles will be able to leave or planes take off. So here we are, nothing to do except guard our own bags out on the pad. Being a Squad Leader I had been avoiding that duty until I saw the roster and noticed that other Squad Leaders had put themselves on it. I didn’t want to be the only asshole not on the list so I added myself in place of one of my guys and did my turn on the line. It’s now about 2230 and I’m sitting in the dark again typing away, this time in a GP Medium with 8 bunks and only 11 guys, one not ours. I’m pretty confident that I just heard a plane fly overhead. Go figure.
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