So up to this point in my journey I was doing this all with a group, we were all heading to the same place, Kuwait. Now we are all going different directions, different places and leaving at different times. The nervousness of being alone and not knowing anyone has started to hit me again. My mind is running through all of the “oh my goodness what have a gotten myself into.” I don’t know why, I think it is the peace I have that I am doing the right thing, but I never worried about coming to Afghanistan--the war zone, I worried about coming to Afghanistan--the new place where I have to meet all new people and I don’t have anyone I know to help ease me into it. But whatever the case I was nervous again, what if I didn’t follow direction right, what if something happened and I missed my flight, how am I suppose to carry my stuff all by myself while wondering around looking for the right buildings (by the way, the term building is a loose term in this blog and often is referring to tents, or metal storage containers turned into a building). But as always took a deep breath and move forward one foot in front of the other.
Monday the 14th of February came around, two nights spent in Kuwait on a couch in the MWR, and I was ready to get on my flight, keeping my fingers crossed that I would make the flight. I had been checking on a regular basis and the flight booking people continued to tell me I was manifested for the flight. Trust me though I wasn’t convinced that I would make the flight nor did I take much stock in what they told me. I was nervous, “what if I didn’t get on this flight, how much longer would I be here?” these worries kept going through my head. So the time came to check in, officially, and I did, I was the first one to check in, and the guy behind the counter says, “ok, well we will have to see, I have a lot of LASOs (I don’t know what that means) and the APRS (again no clue) might get kicked off this flight then you will have to go to the back of the waiting list for flight.” Dread ran across my face, “Excuse me, I have been waiting for two days with a reserved flight.” Remember earlier I told you all about those people with priority, apparently an LASO is a unit and the unit has priority over the rest of us. YIKES!!!! But a ray of hope came shining through in the form of another guy at the counter, he told the other guy to check me in because all the LASOs might not show. Ok so here I am, I am at least possibly on this flight, and the waiting begins.
About an hour later, I have all my bags in the little tent and others are checking in and waiting to see if they are called to be on the flight as well. This flight ends up having a lot of additional room so several people who were at the CRC with me made this flight. See, you have to understand, these flights are provided by the air force on their cargo flights, if they are not fully of cargo they stick seats on the plan and we cram in the cargo bay and ride to our destination. You never know if there will be seats or not until the flights land and cargo is unloaded and loaded. So here we are, waiting. Everyone checked in and we went outside for our briefing and the guy called off the names on the manifest. Guess what my name wasn’t called, “What, I was the first to check in, I was originally scheduled for the flight not even as a space A flyer but as an actual reserved flyer, an APRS or whatever acronym they gave me. I was told multiple times (I was nervous I checked several times) that I was good to go.” So I calmly walked up to the gentleman who had been calling the names and he looked down at me and had immediate recognition that he or someone has messed up. So myself and 5 other people followed him back into the tent. As we walked into the tent the man who had originally checked me in, says “she is good, you are good (pointing at me), why is she not on the flight.” I don’t know what they did, or who got kicked off the flight, but I made this flight finally!!!
This is where I thought I would start getting nervous, this was it, flight into Afghanistan, but I didn’t, I just put on my IOTV (Improved outer tactical vest, or something like that. Give me a break there are a lot of acronyms in the army), and my Kevlar (the helmet ) and started on the journey to board the cargo plane. This flight is a little over an hour long, and we are squeezed, and I do mean squeezed, into a small seat wearing an extra almost 40 lbs of gear with the vest and helmet, and we have to hold our carryon bag in our lap. And I was a lucky one because I got two rather large contractors on either side of me as well, space was tight. So what did I do to make the time pass? I went to sleep, only waking up as we were descending into our destination. And here I was in Afghanistan, and yet my journey has just begun.
Oh, that travel was on Valentine’s day, huh, I almost forgot…kind of nice not being blasted with all the hearts and love and stuff, being single and all.
happy belated valentine's day! mine was equally as loveless :D
ReplyDelete