Addendum to Travel Post

I ran into a friend from residency who is now stationed in Kandahar as well. His trip from Kuwait to Kandahar epitomizes some of the travel problems mentioned in my previous post. In an attempt to get to Kandahar from Kuwait he first flew from Kuwait to Qatar. He actually had to go through Qatar customs which is notoriously strict and several folks in his group has magazines and other 'contraband' seized. The stay on the ground was 8 hours. The next leg was Qatar to Baghdad. He was on the ground in Baghdad for 3 hours before flying to Bagram (Airbase near Kabul). There he stayed in transient housing for two days before flying onto Kandahar. The flight plan called for yet another stop (in Farah) but that was cancelled in the last minute in favor of a direct flight to Kandahar. So ultimately, a 3 hour flight ended up taking in excess of 3 days. That sort of circuitous travel seems to demonstrate that cargo is more important than passengers in the Air Force theatre movement system.

Intra-theater travel can be just as difficult. Last year it took mefive days to fly 100 miles from Mosul to Q-West by helicopter. Typically you need to give 10 days advanced notice via an Air Movement Request (AMR) to get a seat on a flight. Otherwise you are on Space Available (Space A) status. I was Space A and since a Blackhawk only fits about 12 passengers, there was little excess space for an additional body. I think I lost several pounds just running back and forth to the flight terminal. More than once the flight was simplycancelled at the last minute or the itinerary changed and no longer included Q-West. Travel experiences in theatre exemplifies the Middle Eastern term 'Insha'Allah' roughly translated as "God willing." For example: "He will make it to Kandahar from Bagram on Monday, Insha'Allah." Translate to "We will seem him sometime within five days after Monday." Basically the term goes hand in hand with throwing your hands up in the air or shrugging your shoulders.

The picture is of a C17 Globemaster aircraft that is used to transport large loads into theatre. The aircraft can accomodate 109 passengers in addition to 170,000lb of cargo.