Freedom Flight

As promised, a bit of back-fill on how I got to the IZ from Fort Benning:

Last Friday my escort dropped me off at the CRC "pavilion" so I could check my duffels (one duffel of "personnel effects," one of body armor, neither of which was allowed to be over 70 lbs.) and get a green light to deploy. Instead of "hurry up and wait," this was just "wait." I got there at about 1100, when the poor folks who hadn't been treated as VIPs had been there since 0730 for some reason. I waited there in the heat (over 100 degrees plus humidity, making it worse than Baghdad's 120 dry degrees) till about 1730, when we boarded buses for the airfield and what would be known as a "Freedom Flight." (But wouldn't the return be the real Freedom Flight?)

In that time I read two books (ended up finishing five, plus several inches of background legal materials to prepare for my job, in the week since departing for Georgia) and had a decent boxed lunch. Then, as we were boarding said buses, the heavens opened up and unleashed a rainstorm unlike any I've seen in quite some time.

Thus we arrived at the airfield and entered the huge waiting area. First we went through security, which consisted of weighing us and our carry-ons, emptying our pockets, and then a wanding. I couldn't help but chuckle to see all the soldiers in front of me standing with their arms and legs spread getting wanded while holding M-16s in their hands. Suffice it to say, you didn't have to put your shampoo in a ziploc bag. Then the K-9s sniffed through our carry-ons while we had a nice meal of turkey with all the fixin's (Thanksgiving in July?).

We hung out on barcaloungers, watching SportsCenter and Seinfeld re-runs until we were called for out final pre-flight briefing. The chaplain spoke, as did several others, and a warm feeling of togetherness settled over us as we walked onto the tarmac, to the leased commercial jet that would take us to Kuwait via one stop that shall remain nameless. (They use refueling locations at commercial airports and military airfields all over the world.)

After two uneventful legs, we arrived at Kuwait International Airport and again boarded buses, this time to an army base/airfield about an hour away that is a way station for soldiers and civilians deploying to and returning from operations all over southwest Asia. It was HOT -- over 100 degrees in the dead of night -- with klieg lights and flying sand everywhere. Enormous white tents sprung out of the ground, interspersed with concrete barriers.

We got another briefing and filled out one more form, though were told by the man in charge of contractors that we could "forget about all those regulations back in the United States" because we were "headed to the war zone and will be treated like adults." Alrighty then. This adult was met by another escort, this time a JAG captain who brought a manila folder with the picture from my firm bio on it and "Operation Shapiro" written in block letters.

He helped me get my bags -- after all us civilians formed "bucket lines" to unload them from big trucks -- brought me food because the DFAC was closing, and held my hand through the final flight arrangements that needed to be made. I took a shower -- it had now been over 24 hours since I'd left Fort Benning -- changed, and passed the time by watching some weird movie that was showing on the "gate area" big-screen TV. This stage of the trip seemed like a way-station from one of those Star Trek spin-offs; all sorts of familiar but slightly off features, with different species (military, government civilian, contractor, journalist) embarking to and disembarking from far-flung reaches of the galaxy.

Eventually it became just listening for the last four digits of my social security number, shake the JAG captain's hand, and out the door to the blinding white light of Kuwait at 0530.

I inserted my earplugs, boarded the belly of a C-130 (military cargo plane), sat wedged along fellow deployees and across from others (about 80% military), and lifted off yet again. About an hour and half of half-asleepness later, we began circling and eventually landed, somewhere in the desert. This was Baghdad, and it was very very bright and incredibly, broilingly hot.