I’m finally in Afghanistan, but still another flight away from my final destination, and that flight would be 100% over Afghan soil with a 30 minute drive from the Kabul airport to the camp.  I wasn’t so sure of doing all this extra traveling on 9/11.  I know…I hear people saying that 9/11 would be the safest day to travel since everyone is at high alert…well, I didn’t want any part of it.

Luckly, I talked with the Air Force logistics officer at the Bagram airport and she was in agreement with me…oh, guess what here name was…Master Sergeant Jennifer Stout…as in stout beer…I knew she was the one person to understand me!

So…another night hanging out in a strange place.  Luckly, MSgt Stout was there to take care of me, because she was able to get me a private room to sleep in.  Of course, there was good news and bad news.  The good news of course is the private room; the bad news is that I could check into the room at 1130PM and then had to be at the terminal at 5:30AM for an 8:30AM flight.

So, 2330 shower, 2400 sleep, 0500 alarm, 0530 terminal, 0600 drag 7 heavy bags from temporary storage to hanger for palleting, wait 2 hours in terminal (at least it’s Sunday night at home so there is football on), board plane (C-130) at 0800, take off at 0830, land at 0900.

Kabul International Airport…now what.  There is one phone in the terminal with a line, so I figure that I should get in the line as well.  I need to call someone for a ride to Camp Eggers.  Of course, I have already asked everyone standing around if they were going to Eggers, but no luck.  After about 5 minutes in line someone walks up to the line and asks if Major Kail is here.  HUH…someone knows me here?!?  It winds up that people in my office had to make a run somewhere near the airport.  They know I was coming in sometime today, but didn’t know exactly when, so they stopped at the airport to see if I was there yet.  Twenty minutes later I was in the back seat of a truck getting my first taste of driving in Kabul.  Check out the YouTube video I posted of driving through Kabul...and I thought New York City drivers were crazy.  The video is over 6 minutes long, but it is kinda cool to see.

30 minutes later I make it to Camp Egger.

HOME SWEET HOME

I think I spent about 3 days or so in Kyrgyzstan.  It was all pretty much a blur between getting over the jetlag and not being able to sleep because the sleeping tent had 40 other women on different sleep schedules. 

I do know that the food was pretty good, there was a bar that served beer (more about that later), and it was a safe distance from any warzone.  Needless to say, I wasn’t in any hurry to leave there.  Every evening at 10PM you had to show up to a briefing to see if you were scheduled to depart for Afghanistan the next day.  Now I know how those guys felt back during the Vietnam War when they were waiting for their draft number to be called.

So back to the beer…I was pleasantly surprised that I would be able to drink beer here in Kyrgyzstan.  I thought that my last beer (for at least 6 months) was the one I had in Germany on the way here…of course there was good news and bad news about the beer availability.  The good news…there was a large selection of beers in big bottles for only $2.00!  The best beer was a Russian high-octane 9% beer called Baltika 9.  It was important to go for the highest-octane beer you could because…now here is the bad news…you could only purchase two beer within 20 hours.  So, of course I went for Baltika 9 most of the time.  I did however have to try the local beer, brewed right there in Kyrgyzstan called Karagandinskoe…only 5% alcohol, but was actually really good and worth giving up 4%.

Well, as they say, all good things must come to an end, and it did with my number being called on the evening of 10 September.  Can you believe that this means I will be traveling to Afghanistan on the tenth anniversary of September 11th! 

My mind was doing flips.  Not only was I traveling to Afghanistan, I will be traveling there on September 11th. Some of you don’t know, but I lost a close childhood friend on that day.  Michael Boccardi was on the 93rd floor of Tower 1 of the World Trade Center the day the towers fell. 

So here I am, after spending two and a half days in Kyrgyzstan almost over jetlag when the military throw another challenge my way.  I have to drop all my bags off at 3:30AM so they can palletize them before they load them on my 11:00AM flight.  Oh…remember those beers I was telling you about? Well, I finished my last one around 12:30 in the morning.   Anyway…drag my bags at 0330, show up at 0800 for what they call the lock-in that occurs 3 hours before the flight, load onto a bus at 1000 to head to the plane, sit on said bus for 30 minutes while they load our gear on the plane, and finally board at 1030.  Take off was promptly at 1100 with the flight landing at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan 90 minutes later.

WELCOME TO AFGHANISTAN!

The day is actually here, the day to board the plane and head out for Afghanistan.  Everyone that has been on deployments have all told me that the worst part of the deployment was the getting there.  I am about to see exactly why this is.  The best way for me to explain the trip is to show you the timeline of events….so here I go.

NOTE:  Time format is:  CST (Local time) - Of course it is in military time.

7 Sept 11:
Time 0400 (0400) - Wake up for trip to Ft Walton Beach, FL Airport
         0600 (0600) - Board plane for Fayetteville, North Carolina (Stopwatch
                             started)
         1009 (1109) - Arrived Fayetteville, NC
         1109 (1209) - Arrived Ft Bragg Army Base by base taxi (Taxi driver is 
                                from my hometown of Mount Vernon, New York!)

         1930 (2030) - Board plane for Bangor, Maine (Along with 250 Army 
                                Airborne troops.)

         2115 (2215) - Arrived Bangor, Maine (20 people greeted us upon 
                                arrival...this is at 1015PM on a weeknight!)

         2305 (0005) - Depart Bangor, Maine for  Leipzig/Halle, Germany

8 September 2011:
         0535 (1235) - Arrive Leipzig/Halle, Germany

         0805 (1505) - Board plane for Manas Transit Center, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan
                                (go ahead and look it up to see where it is...I had to!)    
         1405 (0135) - Arrived Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan (Manas) (Stopwatch stopped)

So, we get to Manas in the middle of the night, over 32 hours after leaving my house, and we are made to sit through a 1-hour “fire hose” briefing (don’t ask me what they said).  We were then given time to find our sleeping tent and drop off our bags...oh no...it is not time to sleep!  We next have to go get our additional equipment issued to us at 0430 which take us to 0600 when we are finally released back to our beds for sleep.  Now that is a LONG day!