29 January 2008: Club Liberty Pad

If this is deja vu I'm not surprised. There is obviously a glitch in the matrix. The agents must've changed something several times this week. Once again my team spent most of our evening at Liberty Pad. Once again our flight cancelled. We came tantalizingly close too. Our showtime was 2200. It was a windy night and the pax tent was packed. However, helicopters were flying. Once we checked in we did the normal routine. Several of us drove over to Cinnabon to get coffee and hot chocolate for everyone. Then we sat outside sipping our hot drinks and swapping stories.

One of my NCO's joked, "When this is all over I'm gonna open my own club back in Houston. I'll call it 'Club Liberty Pad'. I'll have specials like 'Weather Hold Thursdays'." We all got a kick out of that. Everyone agreed that it would be a hit with Iraqi Freedom vets. At least we'd all get the humor and understand where it came from. I'm glad my team continues to find ways to laugh even when we are experiencing the frustrating moments.

I had walked into the pax tent, where everyone was enthralled by "Tango and Cash". After watching a few minutes I came to the conclusion that the movie was much shittier than I remembered. About 2330, the KBR lady rounded us all up and walked us to the opposite side of the landing pad. She said, "I'm walking you over here 'cause this flight always lands here. The helicopters are about fifteen minutes out." About 45 minutes of shivering in the high winds later, she called on the radio to see what was up. Then she announced, "Ok, those helicopters are still in Al Asad. They're on weather hold." There was a lot of grumbling in the ranks as we picked up our gear and trudged back to the pax area.

I walked back into the pax tent to find "Stripes" with Bill Murray on TV. Awesome! The movie is a timeless classic. I watched the whole movie. As it was nearing the end, I looked at my watch and wondered what was up with our flight. Right then the KBR lady came in and announced, "Invincible flights are cancelled!" Dammit! Here we go again. I got up and walked outside. The team was still out there laughing and joking. I let them know the flight was cancelled. At this point nobody seemed to care.

For the third time in four nights, we loaded up and drove back to our hooches - no flight. I was back at my hooch by about 0245. After sending an e-mail to the unit that was expecting us, I climbed in the fart sack and called it a night. I'll have to pay a visit to Club Liberty Pad when this is all over. That way my team can drink a toast (or two) to the many fruitless nights we spent at the real Liberty Pad.