Dec. 2, 2006 On My Way to the Sandbox

After filling out tons of paperwork, cheez, how many times can you fill in your name, SSN, address...ect...? Being an IT nut, I'd think there could be a database, fill in your vitals one time, and print out all the documents already filled in. Guess what, they would be able to read them too. Well I'm gone from that, hopefully they will figure it out one day.
Off to Kuwait, after sitting in the airport for 12 hours, waiting for a plane and the pilots to arrive. Found out the pilots were on a delayed flight and must have the required amount of sleep before taking off again. Required amount of sleep....hmmmm maybe we would like that too, in a bed and not on the floor.
Finally the plane is ready, note sunrise in the background. We arrived to leave at 5:30pm the night before.
Wow that wasn't a bad flight. We were all so tired, we just slept the whole way. I missed the airplane food due to my incoherent state of mind, not that I needed it. Next thing you know, we're landing in Budapest for fuel. Can't get off the plane, it's the middle of the night anyway, at least I can say I've been there. We're off again on our way to Kuwait. Couple more hours and we'll be landing in the sandbox.

Once we arrived, early morning. We're hustled off to a bus with curtians all around, so nobody can see in. Oh, and the busses were Mercedes, plush and comfortable. After about an hour we arrived at Ali Al Salem AFB where my In-Processing started. Tons more paperwork, yes, with the same information I complained about before. They claim it's to keep track of who's in country. With all that paperwork, how can they possibly track that? So we finally got assigned to our quarters (speaking of quarters, they have pogs for change here). Hey, we have AC, what for I'm not sure....it's the middle of winter.

Once I off loaded 40 lbs of kevelar and made my bed, I was off to explorer. Check this out. Now I am hungry and was ready to eat at the most famous fast food resturant on the Planet.
And here's a picture of our "Quarters", comfy. The pool and sauna are out back and not shown in the picture. What I really mean is the shower and latrines are out back, about a half block away...and it's really chilly outside. Makes your shower last a long long time. The guy in the picture is another ITT guy, one of those that has your back as I mentioned in a previous posting.
After a few days of ITT in theater briefings, we get ready to go to our final destination of which I had no idea. This is done for a reason, but it would be nice to have a clue. Oh, and of course you want to see the scenery around there. Here ya go.

For real, as far as you can see....sand, not even any sand dunes....with all this sand, where's the ocean?