20 December 2007: And then there was one

My NCOIC left Camp Liberty to head out for his R&R. For now there's one person on my team here - me. It will be short-lived. The four team members currently in Prosperity Base will be flying back in a day or so. In the meantime, I'm in a position I've not been in before. I'm on mission by myself. It's not panic time though. I planned it like this. Right now we're practically finished in Liberty. It's a good hub for me to centralize our work. That's why I'm here. Now that it's just me, I have a pick-up truck to myself. Normally, I let the team maintain control of our NTV. Since it's just me for now, I've taken possession.

I drove my NCOIC over to Liberty Pad to see him off. His flight path was from here to Balad (so he could collect a few things for leave) and then to Kuwait. The pax area was packed. It's getting down in the 30's at night now so everyone was shivering while they waited. Present were personnel headed to Taji, Balad, Washington LZ, Falcon, and another location. Liberty Pad is not a very big place. Normally flights arrive one or two at a time. Tonight something happened I've never seen before. Every flight arrived almost simultaneously. Within three minutes there were ten Blackhawks on the tarmac disgorging passengers. This caused a considerable amount of confusion for the pax terminal personnel. They were frantically running around, talking to crew chiefs, and checking manifests. By my count, it took over thirty minutes for all the helicopters to collect the correct passengers and fly off. I stayed the whole time to ensure my NCO departed without a hitch. His flight was not only the very last to load, it was also the helicopters the farthest distance away. However, everyone loaded up and the helicopters departed. I watched them fly off. As is protocol, they blacked out the lights shortly before they flew outside the VBC perimeter. I then climbed in the NTV, cranked it up, and waited for the heat to warm me back up.

So now it's just me for a couple of days. I've got an NTV with a full tank of fuel, no work planned, and all of VBC to explore. It's party time!