Home Sweet… KAF - 5 May 2009 - 2130

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Well last night I was minding my own business when I had a bombshell dropped on me; I was going back to KAF. Not for any extended time frame, just for a couple of days to assist with a supply issue. They really didn’t know how long it would take me but they were assuming 2 – 4 days. I was pretty happy with that and was hoping that it would be as long as it could be. We haven’t been doing a ton of work in Leatherneck but we keep fairly busy and we are stretched pretty thin with more taskings on the way. I was looking forward to a nice couple days in KAF to relax and get away from some of the drama and bureaucratic crap we put up with on a daily basis. I had heard that our last 2 remaining guys had been kicked out of our old tent to make room for another unit coming in so we would have to stay in the transient lodging. No big deal, I thought. I pictured the transient lodging we stayed in when we were in Ali Al Salem Kuwait which was a GP Medium with maybe 14 guys in it (for picture check out post “Stuck On Mars” last picture). So that night I packed up and got ready to hit the Bastian Air Field for our bright and early flight. SPC Hartwell and I got there around 0700 and checked in for our 0930 flight. After we had waited for about an hour we were told that the flight was delayed about an hour. About 10 minutes later we were told that it was delay “2 hours, at least”. I didn’t like the sound of “at least”. We decided to stick it out and see what happened. 2 hours later we boarded our C130 and took off towards KAF. After the short 30 minute flight we hopped off and grabbed our bags just as our ride showed up to pick us up. SSG League is one of the 2 still left from our unit in KAF. He picked us both up in his Gator and drove us to the transient lodging office. We got our tent assignment and I was surprised to realize that it was not a GP Medium like I had thought it was. It was, in fact, a giant circus type frame tent, probably at least 4 times the size of the temporary tent we stayed in while in BAF (See pic in “Bumped For Ammo”). Upon entering, what I later realized was the front of the tent, I saw that it was completely packed with people. There was not a single bunk open. We went outside and I remembered that lodging specified that we would be in the back of the tent. I didn’t realize that there was a partition that cut the tent in 2 with a locked door in the middle. We went around to the other side to find the same thing. It was packed to the gills with nowhere to stay. I decided to check the second tent, even though I didn’t sign up for it, since it was right next door. We walked in to see two open bunks in a corner of the tent that had been flooded from a huge rain a couple days prior. We had no choice but to take the bunks. When I went to put my baggage down to claim it I saw that the person in between myself and SPC Hartwell was SGT Shimmin, and in the bunk right in front of SGT Shimmin was SSG Baker. They had both left a day before us for a 4 day pass to Qatar but had had their flight cancelled. A short while later we found SPC Bade a few bunks down who had left a couple days prior to go home for leave, but his flights had been cancelled too. We decided at that point that this was not going to be the vacation that we had hoped for. We had also been told by guys coming back to Leatherneck from a mission to Kuwait that KAF was incredibly full and lines to everything were around the block and internet was basically dead. We decided at that point that we were going to get our mission done as soon as we could and get to Leatherneck. Our first order of business was lunch. We found out that they had opened a new chow hall down on Southpark so we decided to go check that out. When we got there, despite what we had heard, there really wasn’t much of a line at all. The facility itself wasn’t like all the others on KAF. The others are all hardside buildings. This DFAC was almost the same set up as the one in Leatherneck. In Leatherneck the DFAC is made up of several GP (General Purpose) tents connected together with various connector pieces in a maze of tents with a large frame tent for overflow seating. The one on Southpark is several GPs but the first several all have food bars in them and then there are a series of passages that lead into a large cover that serve as entry ways to 4 large frame tents. The food quality was about the same but the selection on Southpark was about 3 times larger. After we ate we went and completed as much of the mission as we could. SSG League told us that the process we needed to go through was exceedingly slow and would take about 2 weeks, but that if we did all the paperwork he would turn it in and let us know when it was ready. SPC Hartwell cranked that out and we made plans to try and head back the next day. We then went and checked out the internet lab, which wasn’t busy at all and then hit the PX which I had definitely seen way busier. SSG League and I then went back out to the flight line to check on flight times for “space a” (space available) flights. Basically they are cargo flights that, if they aren’t overly full, you can catch a ride on. After that I wanted to go hit the Boardwalk, for old time sake. I went to Tim Horton’s first to find absolutely no line. We thought it was closed at first but they were, in fact, open. I got one of each of my favorites; one double double coffee, one cruller, and one cinnamon raisin bagel, toasted with plain cream cheese. It was like I hadn’t even left. After seeing that the lines rumor wasn’t true I started to think that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to stay here a while. I could just spend as little time as possible in the shitty tent and chill for a couple days. But after tossing it around in my mind a while, I decided it would be better if we just went back and came back to KAF when it was time to pick up the gear. When we got back to the tent that night we found out that SPC Bade’s flight had been cancelled again for leave. Fortunately your 2 weeks of leave doesn’t start until you get to Texas, so unless he had specific plans made for a specific date, he’s really just getting extra time off. My wife and I decided to rent a cabin on a lake in Maine for a week when I get home on R&R. It’s going to be a little risky since we paid a deposit and bought plane tickets already, but we didn’t schedule the flight until 5 or so days after my leave is scheduled to start, so hopefully we will be ok. I took the opportunity to add several pictures to my facebook while up here but still didn’t have the time to add them to my blog. I was, however, able to talk to my wife for more than 20 minutes at a time which was a very welcome perk. So we are going to try and leave tomorrow sometime to get back to Leatherneck but I may be back in a week or 2. I appreciate everyone’s concern while I wasn’t writing. It’s an issue with internet availability and PS2. I’ve been playing a fair amount of Tiger Woods 09 with my free time. I actually had my wife buy a small TV and PS2 from Wal-Mart.com and send them over. She and her mother have been a saving grace with all the care packages they have sent so I wanted to make sure I recognized their contributions. They have, as well as everyone else who has supported me in one way or another, helped make a lousy situation almost livable. We are now 40% done with our 400 day order. We have heard rumor that a unit has been identified to replace us, but I’m not going to go into any details about who or when. It’s just a relief to know that it’s being worked, because I had a real fear that we would be forgotten about, living out in the wilderness, where we really have no business being right now, and someone would realize at some point “Oh crap, who are you guys again? How long have you been in Afghanistan now? 2 years? Doing what? Oh you built this camp. Keep up the good work.” It looks like we should be home at least by when we were originally supposed to be.