I finally made it...

Let me first say this...Government travel is horrible! wow...they need to improve that system. We were told the night before that yes, we would be leaving the next day at 1545. We needed to be ready to go by 1245. This really isnt a big deal cause we finally are getting to go in country and start our six months of fun. Then comes the actual day of travel...The guys show up at 1100 to pick us up. We were like "are you serious? we have two more hours!" I felt sorry for a couple CE Lt's that werent even in their CHU's when the guys came buy to get all our gear. But it was ok...we just rolled with the punches and threw our bags in the back of a truck and headed down to the terminal. Next problem: you have to wear your full battle rattle and have you side arm on you. Um...why didnt anyone tell us this? My group of friends and I had spent all morning carefully packing our battle rattle into the a-bags so that they would fit. To do this we had to take out the plates and roll them up...And not to mention my thigh holster for my weapon was convinently packed at the bottom of my bag! So my friends and I had to dig through all our gear, find our holsters, and put together our battle rattle in 100+ degrees of heat. funfunfun. BTW, this was going on the entire time that the CE troops looked on and laughed at the four CONS troops get ready for a "deployment." Anyways, we make it into the passenger terminal with all our gear and chill out for a little bit. Some guy comes on the overhead annoucing that fligh XX (my flight) will be having their mandatory safety meeting now. Ok, no big deal. roll with the punches. We go to the meeting and here the safety info. then we are told that we have to move our bags onto the pallet area for the flight and are told that after the bags are palletized, we will have roughly 1.5 hrs before the flight. ok, no problem. we go out and see where they want us to move the bags - it is right freaking next to the area that the bus dropped us off at from which we hauled our crap over to the passenger terminal. Do you realize how much crap we have at the point? Ug! so we move it over, and head back inside because the sun is blisteringly hot. As soon as we get inside we hear on the loudspeaker that flight XX is ready for departure. What?!?! we just loaded it and got inside! so we head over to the bus, but are told on the way that we have to have a mandatory water bottle with us. Whatever. We get our bottles and go. by the time we are seated on the airplane and take off it is 1330. What happened to the 1545?
Then we get to the combat landing. I am not a fan of combat landings. First of all we are sitting on cargo nets. those automatically make your butt fall asleep within minutes of takeoff. Then we are all cramped together, no air is circulating, and there are no windows to see where you are going. After a while you feel the plane pitch like it is going to crash into the ground and you stay in that position for a while (go figure! it takes a while to go from 30K to 0!) it takes so long that you kind of get use to it. Then suddenly you level off and slam into the runway. the pilot has to hit the brakes instantly and the entire cabin is filled with the smell of smoking rubber. Great!

Anyways, I finally made it here. It's not as bad as i thought it would be. I have my own CHU with a bathroom. there is internet and phones in each room. I have a car. and for my first real day of work I went to the pool, bbq'd, played volleyball, and hung out with the entire office. I htink i can handle this deployment...

pictures will come up soon...