Ok, Ok... I know what everyone is thinking. Where have I been? I'm sorry to keep you waiting. It's my intent to have my updates ready for your morning coffee. I hope nobody has been worried about me. Everything's fine. The past 36 hours have been very chaotic. Then it didn't help a bit that I had this entire entry ready when *poof!* Lost in cyberspace. This will be a rare entry - my second iteration. Normally RD equals FC (RD - rough draft, FC - final copy). Well you are the benefactor because today you will get not one, but two entries. I'll start with 6 May 07.Our inspections are complete. All we're doing is awaiting travel to LSAA. Unfortunately, there's no direct flight. That means we go back to LSAA via FOB Speicher. The first leg of our journey wasn't until 2200. So we have the entire day to explore. Hell, we saw the whole place yesterday. There's only so much to do at FOB Marez. It's hard to top the MWR Cinco de Mayo Fiesta. We didn't sleep in though. My two soldiers got up early and went back to MWR to watch the Merriweather-de la Hoya fight. I went to breakfast only to find the fight on at the DFAC. The irony is that my soldiers skipped breakfast to watch. There was a big crowd of Joes at the DFAC. I really couldn't tell who the favorite was among them. I personally found the fight to be boring. There was a collective groan at the split decision. When it was over I just sat back and enjoyed more coffee. I didn't need to be anywhere soon.
After breakfast I paid a visit to the trailer latrine. Remember coffee has that effect. Inside the stall I discovered that an aspiring retention Joe had paid a visit. He had left a powerful retention slogan to motivate others. After some thought I concluded that he has a future not only as a retention NCO in his unit, but also as a recruiter. Here's what he wrote:
"For a good fuck..... RE-ENLIST!!"
I find his slogan eye-catching, poignant, and quite simple. Yep, he's got a future.
There really wasn't much to do with the rest of the day. I visited the Marez gym. At 2130 we all met back at the unit orderly room with all our gear. The CQ runner gave us a ride back to the pax terminal in a 5-ton truck (a bit of overkill). Although we had been assured by the unit that our "show time" for the flight was 2200 we found out otherwise. We were late by almost two hours. Only two things saved us from missing the flight - the helicopters were late AND my persistant pleading that it wasn't our fault. It turned out to be the shortest stay at a pax terminal yet. Within 30 minutes we were loading onto CH47 Chinooks for the flight to Speicher. The Chinook is an ungainly, Vietnam-era helicopter that has two, counter-rotating, main rotor blades. It's the largest helicopter in the Army's inventory. Don't let it's age, size, or appearance fool you though. It's the fastest helicopter in the fleet. The one we loaded was completely packed with personnel and cargo. It was an incredibly uncomfortable flight. I believe everyone let out a collective sigh of relief when we finally touched down at Speicher.
Once we arrived a POC from another unit picked us up for transport to our billets. We had no mission at Speicher but a unit had been designated to provide our life support. The SSG that picked us up tried to be a tour guide. It was too dark to see anything. To make matters worse, he kept turning on the interior light of the bus every time he tried to point something out. That meant we could only see our own reflections in the bus windows. I quickly told him we had already been to Speicher and to just get us to our hooches. It was after midnight for cryin' out loud. He shut up and hurried us to our rooms. I was asleep within ten minutes of getting in my room (including a trip to the trailer latrine to brush my teeth). For whatever reason the beds had no pillows. I improvised with my pants and bath towel. This proved to be a lethal combination on my neck. I wouldn't find that out until the morning. For now I was just glad to have the day over. Now if we could just get back to LSAA.
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