Arrival in Afghanistan

Departure for Afghanistan

Knock knock. It is 1245pm and because of jet lag I just woke up 15 minutes ago on my second day in Kuwait. "Sir, you have a bag drop at 1300" says the petty officer at the door. Yikes! I had anticipated staying Kuwait for 4-5 days and had emptied my bags accordingly. Gear was laid out all over my room, now I had 15 minutes to pack it and get to the rally point. No meal prior to departure either. As a chronic over-packer I really had to work hard to get everything in my two bags. 130lb of gear not including my backpack and armor. I ran out of my room at 1300h to look at the line to drop my gear but nobody was there! When I went to the office of the folks responsible for travel (known as the Embarkation Department) they told me that the bag drop was at 1500, not 1300. Thanks. At least I could go get some food.

I learned that I would be joining about 40 members of a construction battalion that would be operating out of Kandahar and would ultimately be one of the subordinate commands of the regiment. Those poor guys had arrived in Kuwait at 4am that morning and were now leaving for Afghanistan the same day. That made my abbreviated adjustment period seem decadent. I picked up my weapons from the armory. I am issued the standard officer side arm, an M9 Beretta, and an M4 Rifle (think of it as a compact M16) along with 8 magazines.

We dropped out bags off at 1500 and proceeded to load them into a container for transportation to the flight line (air field departure area). The procedure is the same for any unit movement. Load a container. Hop into busses. Drive to 'lock down' area. Palletize gear (put luggage on pallet that will be loaded onto rear of aircraft). Wait. Wait some more. Load onto different busses. Drive to plane. Take off. It is very rare to get anywhere on a direct route. Some of the folks in my group had heard that previous groups had flown to Bagram first and basically had to sleep on the tarmac for half a day before getting an onward flight to Kandahar. In any the whole travel evolution in uncomfortable and exhausting.

In our case we drove to the lock down area at 1700. Don't ask me why we had to drive busses since the area is about 500 yards from our compound. Once there you are herded into a long tent where you wait for it seems like a minimum of 3 hours before you are transported to the flight line. You are not allowed to leave the immediate area with the design that everyone will be accounted for should the flight time change. Boring. Our wait was three hours. Then we got on busses around 1100h. We drove the 20 min to the flight line where there are many transport planes lined up. We appeared to be heading towards a large C-17 when the busses suddenly stopped and turned around. They drove to a covered area and we were informed of a delay of at least 1 hour. We shuffled off the busses and lounged around. The smokers of course clustered around the 'smoke shack." We took armor off. After about an hour there was a call to get back on the bus. Armor back on. Helmet back on. Shuffle into the crowded bus. Then about 10 minutes later another delay. Many guys I was with slept on the bus. I can't blame them given their long trip earlier that same day. Finally we drove to the plane and climbed on.

The C-17 is one of the largest transport planes in the Air Force. The Hold can fit several vehicles and cargo palettes along with about 100 passengers depending on the layout. The inside of the plane is pure utility. Rollers and fastening devices everywhere. Exposed wires and ducts for easy maintenance. The pilots sit up a flight of stairs. Picture a standard wide body passenger jet with no cargo area but rather the floor being all the way in the bottom of the plane. Some of the center seats were hard to fit in with armor.

The 3.5 hour flight was uneventful. The landing was standard military evasive style with steep descents, tight spirals and lots of banking. I arrived at 530am local time. I made it to Kandahar!