FIX BAYONETS!

Day 330

Last night in my room. I’ve moved everything I own, except for my travel gear, into my office until I get back. Since they need beds around here, those of us being transferred to ISAF can’t keep our rooms while we’re gone. ISAF doesn’t have beds for us, either, but we’re promised (by the Command Sergeant Major at Camp Eggers, NOT anyone over at ISAF) that housing will be available when we get back. We MUST turn in our room keys today.

We’re supposed to get on a C-17 headed to Ramstein AFB in Germany, then a C-130 up to Stavanger, Norway, for a training exercise. I certainly hope this is more appropriate than the planning conference I just got back from.

Oops, a little glitch. The plane is delayed until tomorrow. Room keys? Aaaaaah, I think I’ll just borrow a cot and sleep in the office tonight.

Finally, muster for travel to the airport at 11PM. Oh, hadn’t you heard? The plane’s been delayed again. Muster is at 5AM, now. We do have someplace to sleep right over here… Oh, and turn in your ammunition, you won’t be allowed to take it on the flight.

At 0500, the muster finally happens. We load up our gear and climb into the vehicles. ‘Everyone’ (except for most of us, who they manage to miss) is issued one magazine of ammunition for the drive to the airport. Not much, but much better than the CSM’s original plan, to put us all in a bus, (not armored) WITHOUT our protective vests or weapons, because accounting for them would have been difficult for him… Someone had managed to speak sense to him. (The threat on our route of travel had also increased…) We wore our IBA and helmets, which we turned in, along with our weapons, to the convoy commander once we arrived at the airport. I didn’t get a magazine for my pistol, but my driver had a rifle, so I just carried that for the trip.

We got to the airport without any extra drama, turned in our weapons and protective gear, checked our luggage and headed for the plane. The flight has changed to a direct flight to Stavanger, since we’ve long since missed the C-130 connection.

The C-17 we’re flying in is an ‘extended range’ version. Nothing obvious tells us that, but I find out from one of the loadmasters, when I ask him about the tie downs that appear to be holding the wing to the fuselage.

Three web strap, ratchet type tie downs, like you might find holding down the tarps on a flat bed truck. They’re hooked to something solid on the fuselage, right in front of the wing root, run underneath of it and attach to the fuselage directly behind the root. They are ratcheted down tight! I’m fairly sure they aren’t REALLY holding the wings on, but I think I’ll go take a nap so I can ignore the whole problem. Before long, the loadmasters pass out box lunches. This is the first time I’ve ever seen this happen on an Air Force flight. Usually, you’re on your own and starvation is definitely an option. They don’t completely ruin my preconceptions, though. They didn’t bring enough for everyone. There are enough that sharing gets everyone fed.

Since it’s not really easy to sleep in these troop seats, I spend some time reading and some staring out the little window in the paratroop doors in the back of the plane. Somewhere over Northwest Afghanistan, possibly Faryab province, we pass over a highway, (only two lane) that runs through desert from one horizon to the other. One little compound is visible from our altitude, (with a lot of shiny bits that might be old cars), and absolutely no other sign of life. One other formation looks man made, but I’m not sure what it is. Like the highway, it’s miles long, but looks more like a berm and ends in the middle of nowhere. Then we come into an area where the landscape looks like low hills or riffles of sand. Some areas look like big ponds or huge areas of bare rock. I’m leaning toward the bare rock explanation, because some of them have dust across them that looks like vehicle tracks. Most are a dark, not quite black color; some have a hint of red thrown in.

The terrain shifts to an irregularly dimpled appearance and then we cross a river that meanders through an extremely wide alluvial plain. Pretty flat here. Checking on Google later, and trying to track our flight path, it looks like the rock pans and the meandering river are just to the East of the Black Sea. The rock pans form a semi circle, like they might have been created by a fair sized meteor strike. Very interesting.

We’re told to get back in our seats at some point in the trip, because they want us well organized while we do a mid air refueling. Anti climax. No way we can tell what’s going on out there. They may have just been funnin’ us…..

When we finally arrive in Norway, we have to wait while the distinguished passengers’ names are called and they get off first. Turns out we had ten or twelve Brigadier Generals on board with us, and most of us didn’t even know it. There’s one advantage to having so many nations serving together. It’s really easy to miss what someone’s rank is, even if you do manage to find it in time. (Some are on collars, some are on epaulets, ours are now right in the middle of our chest, but our IBA has it, well, wherever).

Norway. Overcast. Gloomy. Raining. Very green, which is soothing. Lots of neat, well kept homes as we drive from Sola down to Stavanger. The city appears to be exceptionally tidy and clean. Washed down by the rain perhaps?

We’re on big tour buses for the trip to our destination, and I’m not always sure there’s enough room on the road for them. Kabul has big traffic circles that border on chaos, but traffic does move. Norway has little roundabouts that barely bulge the roadway, and are incredibly civilized. Everyone takes their turn and traffic moves fairly well.

Inprocessing at the training site is predictably chaotic. The area being used is way too small, so the lines move slowly and it takes forever. I finally get assigned to a billet, (shared with another guy, who has the only key,) and pay for the privilege. We also pay for our meals. By the time I pick up my ID badge, the word gets passed that some general has ordered an end to inprocessing for the night, “We’ll finish in the morning.”

So we go collect our luggage from where it’s been dumped in the rain, and try to find the bus going to our lodging area. Then the word comes down, no one can leave until the inprocessing is DONE. (Just can’t trust some generals…) So we head back up and find a place in the last line, to get my computer passwords. It’s not moving. Half an hour in that line, with absolutely no movement, and we’re told the buses are leaving, better get on them or get left. Finish in the morning. We opt to get on them, and they do, in fact, drive off. Since it’s a twenty minute drive to the camp where we’ll be sleeping, I think we made the right decision.

Off to our new digs. It’s a twenty minute bus ride through town. Slow waaaay down for every one of those little traffic rounds, and not so much for the tunnels, though they’re pretty narrow looking, too. (There are a LOT of tunnels around here, the bones of the earth stick up everywhere, so they’ve bored holes through for traffic.) We’re being housed on the Norwegian Navy and Air Force Basic Training base, in one of their barracks. Pretty nice for boot camp, but kind of tight for old pudgy officers.

The rooms have a bunk bed and a bathroom. Only one chair and desk, but two lockers. It’s small enough that you have to be careful turning around, especially if both of you are out of bed at the same time. The bathroom has a toilet, a sink and a shower curtain with drain. No enclosure, though. The entire floor becomes the shower enclosure, with the curtain only serving to limit the overspray somewhat. They provide a large squeegee to dry the floor with.

We didn’t get there in time for dinner, of course. Fortunately, the MWR (Morale, Welfare, Recreation) building was open, and they have a little pizza shop. Also a computer area, where I was barely able to keep up with my e-mail. (They had Apples, which are enough different that they’re a pain, especially when you don’t have much time to learn a new system.) The pizza was good. We couldn’t read the menu but we ordered ‘The Chicago’ in the hope that it would be vaguely familiar…… AND, they took a credit card, which we found out was somewhat rare.

We should have gone to bed then, but the club called, and our lawyer wanted to stand us a round of beer. So we went. He ordered a round of seven. This is when we discovered that some places don’t take credit. They also didn’t take dollars. Norwegian Kroner only, please. So, we sat and sipped our beer and pondered how we were going to pay. Finally, some other folks came in who had already managed to exchange money, so we bought Kroner from them.

Good beer, too!

Breakfast did not meet the expectations created by those who insist the Norwegians subsist on a steady diet of lutefisk. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutefisk) Bacon, eggs, sausage, muesli, etc, etc. Then back on the bus for the trip in to work. This morning, it’s sunny, and the area is completely different from the way it looked yesterday. Beautiful area.

After eight months in theater, I’m classified as ‘Training Audience’, because I’m going into a different job than what I’ve been doing. They’re short on SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) for PRTs, though, which is what I’ve been working on for all this time. The training required to learn the job of a liaison officer occupies nearly an hour, and now we have a week left before we leave. Hmmmm. The second day, we go to a coffee shop off base to practice liaison with the locals. Much more productive than sitting in front of a computer waiting for new information that isn’t coming. There seem to be an awful lot of our co sufferers walking about. They must be practicing liaison, also. I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t have up to 50% of the attendees AWOL…

One day at an exercise or pre deployment classes is much like another. Boring. A couple of UN people from Kabul that I’ve worked with are disgusted that I’m TA instead of SME, and feel that my talents are being wasted. They ask me for help to present PRT information to some of the new people, so I go and spend some time doing an impromptu brief for a Brigadier and his staff. A fair amount of ‘deer in the headlights’ look. There’s quite a bit of information for them to digest; I probably looked much the same when I started.

Lunch and dinner have a lot of fish to eat, but it’s mostly salmon, some whitefish. Pretty good. Plenty of other good stuff besides, I probably put on weight.

More money wanted if you need them to do your laundry. Hah! Shower and laundry at the same time, I say!

Finally, boredom overcomes inertia and the exercise is over. My little circle decides to go out for dinner and a drink, then early to bed to be ready for the flight tomorrow. I’m too tired, so regretfully decline. The regret goes away at 0230 the next morning, when they finally roll back in. Friendly Norwegians had adopted them and commenced shutting down bars, while not letting them pay for anything. Well, they paid for it the next day…

Back in Kabul for one night, managed to jump on a convoy up to Bagram. Gotta learn the new job, and I’ve already wasted two weeks.

Update: Because of unfamiliarity with NATO vs U.S. orders and processes, I never was able to recoup my expenses from this trip. The U.S. clerical people at ISAF provided NATO travel orders but that doesn’t allow payment of expenses. You need U.S. orders for that. By the time I figured that out, after multiple submissions with incomplete explanations for being denied, it was too late. Everyone in that office had rotated out and their replacements ‘know NUSSING!’ So, I’m out over $600, because the Army can’t figure out how to do paperwork.