The waiting game was on today. It was time for my team to move on. This time we were headed to FOB Kalsu - an outlying FOB near Iskandariyah. We’ve never been there. It’s southwest of Baghdad. I received confirmation of our flight and passed the word on the team. We’d be flying Chinooks out of Liberty Pad. Our showtime was 2130. I told everyone to hang loose, take care of last minute personal issues, and be ready to roll at 2100.
Everything was going according to schedule. We checked-in to the flight on time. A short while later, KBR personnel were calling for us to line up and get ready to leave. Our flight would be arriving in ten minutes. Sure enough, about ten minutes later two big, beautiful CH47s landed. We picked up our bags and got ready to load. I noticed confusion on the part of the KBR personnel. After about ten minutes of waiting, the helicopters took off and flew away. Nobody said a word. We kept standing there waiting – maybe those weren’t our helicopters. A steady stream of other helicopters came and went, disgorging and loading passengers and cargo. There were even two Marine V-22 Opsrey tilt-rotor aircraft that came and went. Still we waited.
After standing in the night chill for about an hour (remember that we were told ten minutes) a KBR worker told us that our flight was delayed and would arrive for another 45 minutes. After that time elapsed we were told “all division flights are running late and it will be another hour.” An hour later we were told to stay in the area, use the tent to warm up, and we’d be called when the aircraft were on their way. Most of us walked into the tent and waited. A very bad movie starring Steve Martin and Queen Latifah was on AFN. I guess it was around 0130 when someone finally told us the truth. The CH47s that landed earlier? Yeah, they were ours. For reasons that defied explanation, we were not loaded on them when they landed earlier. They had already flown back to Kalsu. We were left scratching our heads. We could’ve already been there, already checked into billets, already asleep. Instead we were still at Liberty Pad watching a really bad movie on AFN. In all the times we’ve flown we’ve never had this happen before. Even though we were ready and waiting, once our flight landed the KBR folks simply failed to load us up. I wanted to get mad but it wouldn’t have solved anything. I simply asked what our options were. They were working on getting the helicopters back.
Amazingly, they did manage to get the helicopters to return. We squeezed on a Chinook that was almost completely full of soldiers and cargo. I had a birds-eye view off the back ramp. It was a beautiful, moonlit night and the scene below was quiet. We made one stop at FOB Iskan. This is a postage stamp-sized outpost in the middle of a electric power plant and oil storage area. The scenery kinda reminded me of Pasadena, TX. We were only on the ground for a few minutes before we continued on to Kalsu. At around 0330 we touched down at our destination. Let’s see… that’s about five hours later than we should’ve been here.
It was a very long night. It wasn’t over. We loaded our bags on a truck but it didn’t show up where it was supposed to. Our ride wasn’t waiting on us. By 0400 we were faced with no ride, no bags, and no billets. I wasn’t happy at all. About fifteen minutes later our ride showed up. I sent him on a scouting mission to figure out what happened to our bags. After our bags were located we all moved over to the billets. FOB Kalsu is overcrowded right now. I was put in a room with two other LTCs. They were both sound asleep so I tried to be whisper quiet. One of the guys snored loudly – irritating the shit out of me. Every time he’d finally get quiet I’d start to doze off. That’s when the artillery would start firing and jolting me back awake. Sleep did finally overtake me but I don’t recall what at what time.
Welcome to FOB Kalsu.
Everything was going according to schedule. We checked-in to the flight on time. A short while later, KBR personnel were calling for us to line up and get ready to leave. Our flight would be arriving in ten minutes. Sure enough, about ten minutes later two big, beautiful CH47s landed. We picked up our bags and got ready to load. I noticed confusion on the part of the KBR personnel. After about ten minutes of waiting, the helicopters took off and flew away. Nobody said a word. We kept standing there waiting – maybe those weren’t our helicopters. A steady stream of other helicopters came and went, disgorging and loading passengers and cargo. There were even two Marine V-22 Opsrey tilt-rotor aircraft that came and went. Still we waited.
After standing in the night chill for about an hour (remember that we were told ten minutes) a KBR worker told us that our flight was delayed and would arrive for another 45 minutes. After that time elapsed we were told “all division flights are running late and it will be another hour.” An hour later we were told to stay in the area, use the tent to warm up, and we’d be called when the aircraft were on their way. Most of us walked into the tent and waited. A very bad movie starring Steve Martin and Queen Latifah was on AFN. I guess it was around 0130 when someone finally told us the truth. The CH47s that landed earlier? Yeah, they were ours. For reasons that defied explanation, we were not loaded on them when they landed earlier. They had already flown back to Kalsu. We were left scratching our heads. We could’ve already been there, already checked into billets, already asleep. Instead we were still at Liberty Pad watching a really bad movie on AFN. In all the times we’ve flown we’ve never had this happen before. Even though we were ready and waiting, once our flight landed the KBR folks simply failed to load us up. I wanted to get mad but it wouldn’t have solved anything. I simply asked what our options were. They were working on getting the helicopters back.
Amazingly, they did manage to get the helicopters to return. We squeezed on a Chinook that was almost completely full of soldiers and cargo. I had a birds-eye view off the back ramp. It was a beautiful, moonlit night and the scene below was quiet. We made one stop at FOB Iskan. This is a postage stamp-sized outpost in the middle of a electric power plant and oil storage area. The scenery kinda reminded me of Pasadena, TX. We were only on the ground for a few minutes before we continued on to Kalsu. At around 0330 we touched down at our destination. Let’s see… that’s about five hours later than we should’ve been here.
It was a very long night. It wasn’t over. We loaded our bags on a truck but it didn’t show up where it was supposed to. Our ride wasn’t waiting on us. By 0400 we were faced with no ride, no bags, and no billets. I wasn’t happy at all. About fifteen minutes later our ride showed up. I sent him on a scouting mission to figure out what happened to our bags. After our bags were located we all moved over to the billets. FOB Kalsu is overcrowded right now. I was put in a room with two other LTCs. They were both sound asleep so I tried to be whisper quiet. One of the guys snored loudly – irritating the shit out of me. Every time he’d finally get quiet I’d start to doze off. That’s when the artillery would start firing and jolting me back awake. Sleep did finally overtake me but I don’t recall what at what time.
Welcome to FOB Kalsu.
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