I just wanted to fly away

January 04, 2005

It’s sleepy in here.

Between the hum of the hot air being pumped into this tent and the quiet murmur from the TV, it’s hard to stay awake.

Of course, this is a place for waiting.

This is the Army airport at Baghdad.

I’ve heard nightmarish stories about this little place. I’ve heard of soldiers on their way to or from leave being stranded here for days at a time.

This is a place of legend.

You climb out of a helicopter amid a whir of rotor-churned air and find little more than a handful of dingy tents, camouflaged netting and gravel.

Getting here started a flurry of e-mails that bounced from Kuwait to Baghdad to Taji. Finally, I just went to the guy at the 39th — Maj. Brad Cox — who is in charge of the brigade’s movement.

He got me on a flight without problem.

After that I was on my own.

I gave up on my e-mail inquiries for help three days without success and went to the soldiers.

Almost everyone in the 39th has navigated the matrix of confusion, lines and waiting that is found in most military airports.

SoIdiers told me just what I needed to know. Go to the third tent on the left after following the gravel path from the helipad. They’d tell me how many days I’d be waiting for a hop out to Kuwait.

Then I was told to secure a cot.

What?

There aren’t a lot of cots in the two waiting tents, so it’s important to claim one if you find it. A soldier told me yesterday that he spent two days here last month sleeping on three chairs. He said he was fortunate to find one chair without arms to put in the middle so he had a make-shift bed.

Another told me he only got out of there, sparing a three day wait, after making friends with a helicopter pilot who got him on an unofficial flight.

I came prepared for the long haul.

I’ve got my pink flip-flops for the shower, a sleeping bag and clean underwear.

Fortunately, it looks like I won’t be needing any of it.

I flew from Taji with a group of 39ers heading to a meeting in Kuwait to prepare for the brigade’s movement home in a couple of months. One of them, a colonel, said they’d try to get me on their flight to Kuwait. Colonels can do that, you see.

Maj. Chris Campbell let me follow him down the gravel path to the third tent on the left, just as my other advisors had recommended.

Inside were three walls of plywood counters.

I clutched the invitational travel orders that would allow me to fly on military transport to Kuwait and catch my commercial flight to Germany.

See, I’m going on R&R for a week.

I’m going to try to forget about Iraq for a few days in the Alps.

I doubt I’ll be able to stop thinking about what’s happening here, though. Most soldiers who have already been on leave told me they often thought about Iraq and their buddies.

Right now, I’m thinking about what I’ve already missed in the two hours I’ve been away from Taji.

And I’m thinking about how I’m going to find the Air France business office that is located nowhere near Kuwait City International Airport to find the tickets waiting there for me.

And I’m wondering if after 10 months of no activity, Visa will freak out when I start shopping.

I know — one step at a time.

First I have to get out of Baghdad.

I’m sure the shopping will take care of itself.

Maj. Campbell lined up the flight for his party and then took my travel orders and handed them to the soldier across the counter.

“I need to add her to our manifest,” he said. “She’s with us. Has been for a while.”

The soldier behind the counter crinkled her brow. I thought to myself how glad I was to remember my flip flops for the shower. I was sure I’d be here for a while.

Then she made copies of my orders, stamped another form and told me to go to the next counter.

I was in!

I’m not sure how it happened.

It’s Tuesday, you see. One of the many, many e-mails I got from various U.S. Army and Pentagon-level offices with more acronyms than I care to type right now, clearly stated that no flights flew to the Army airport in Kuwait on Tuesdays.

I know. It doesn’t make any sense to me, either.

Why aren’t there any flights on Tuesday? What sense does that make?

And if there aren’t any flights today, why am I about to get on one?

But here I am on a Tuesday sitting in a tent waiting for my flight to Kuwait that will leave in an hour. It’s one of several flights heading that way today.

Like I said, this place is a matrix of confusion.

The lesson here is simple.

Listen to soldiers who have done what you’re about to do because what is supposed to happen and what does happen usually are two totally different things.

THE THING ABOUT TUESDAYS

Now I know why they said there were no flights on Tuesdays.

You see, I thought I was flying to the Army airport, entryway into Kuwait and Iraq. But those are the flights that don’t happen on Tuesdays. So here I sit at Ali al-Salem Airbase without a Kuwait visa and no way to get one.

Quite simply, I’m at the wrong place and have no way to legally get to the right place.

And all there is here are tents, sand and C-130s cargo planes, none of which appear to come from Little Rock Air Force Base.

GOING TO THE DOGS, GOING TO THE APOD

Well, things are looking up.

I called one of the public affairs officers at an acronym-laden military agency here in Kuwait and got yelled at.

“I told you not to fly anywhere but the APOD,” I was told. (That’s the military airport.)

Yes, that’s what they told me and that’s what I promised I’d do.

It’s just that I thought Ali al-Salem Airbase WAS the APOD.

Nope, the APOD is at Kuwait City International Airport.

Oops.

I explained about the colonel and how I thought this was the APOD.

And he explained how there was no way to get me to a place where I could get an entrance visa into Kuwait.

Once I left military property, I was screwed.

So here I am, trapped at Ali al-Salem Airbase, a desert oasis just about five miles from the tent-city camp I called home 10 months ago when the 39th arrived here.

I find it kind of ironic.

After I was finished getting yelled at, the acronym office and I went to work trying to fix my mess from our very separate military bases.

I ran into the 39th’s executive officer, Lt. Col. Don Cronkhite, and told him my predicament.

What I needed was a flight to the APOD.

Those don’t really exist from Ali al-Salem, since it’s just a half-hour drive away.

“Well, have you found a movement control guy?” Cronkhite asked.

Just then, a guy bounced toward us holding a two-way radio.

Yep, he was movement control.

And there was a flight going to the APOD because in a fluke, a Department of Defense contractor — who I call the dog guy — was escorting five of the U.S. Army’s explosives-sniffing dogs out of the country because they’d proven ineffective. They’d been in Iraq too long.

There wasn’t enough room in a bus for five huge animal crates, so they were spinning up a C-130 for him.

These poor dogs were heading home because loud noises spooked them. During their time in Iraq working to detect explosives and drugs, these dogs learned that boom meant death. Well, it may not be quite that clear to our furry friends, but they definitely know booms are bad.

And the after-smell of a loud boom was usually saturated with explosive residue. That’s what they’re supposed to detect in searches of luggage, vehicles and people.

They had become scared of anything that smelled remotely explosive, making them totally ineffective as bomb dogs.

Basically, they have combat stress.

I felt their pain.

As I slowly head to Germany, I realize these dogs and I may have something in common.

I hate big booms, too.

I called my acronym friends back and told them I was flying to the APOD. I told them about the dogs and we all agreed that I’m one lucky girl.

I may get lost, but somehow I always get where I’m supposed to be.

As I was walking to retrieve my duffel bag from the pile unloaded from our C-130 from Iraq, a guy passed me and said, “They couldn’t put this any further out, could they?”

It was a hike.

Nothing is easy in military travel.

As I’m lugging my bag, I begin to take inventory.

What’s in here? What could I possibly need so badly that I packed it and am now hauling it all over the sandy desert of Kuwait?

That’s when I found the dog guy, my ticket to the APOD.

There, near the white tent I had taken as a temporary home for the last couple hours, was a wooden pallet with five dog crates strapped onto it. Next to them was a guy with dyed jet black hair who I’d spent the last couple hours sitting near in the tent.

The dogs stared up through the wired doors with a look I interpreted as, “Will we ever get there?”

Plastic baggies of dog food lay on top of each crate.

I guess there would be snacks for them on the flight.

Tony, the movement control guy who had just saved my life by putting me on the flight with the dogs, told me to pile my insanely overpacked duffel on the pallet with the dogs. It was strapped down between the crates with someone else’s luggage of duffel bags and large storage boxes.

It was me, the dog guy and a tired Internet technology specialist who was just trying to get home to see his family. I had passed him while getting my duffel.

Somehow we had all become stranded at Ali al-Salem. And because of the dog guy, we were all going to escape.

From that moment on, whenever anyone asked where the dog guy was, we all raised our hands. And that’s what everyone called him ... the dog guy.

Ali al-Salem is a flurry of soldiers and defense contractors, but most of them were able to take buses to Camp Doha. None of us could go to Doha. For our various bureaucratic reasons, we could only go to the APOD.

An airman came up to us and told us to get on a bus. We were moving to a waiting area for our flight.

We had more than three hours before it would take off.

We walked into a small office where they coordinate flights at the base and settled onto two couches. Someone asked what we were doing there.

I looked at the Internet contractor who looked at the dog guy.

The dog guy said he had pooches who were flying to the APOD. The Internet guy and I said in unison, “We’re with him.”

“Oh yeah, the dogs. You’re the reason for that flight. Get comfortable,” the airman said.

Then he asked for identification and travel paperwork. We all obliged.

I noticed a brown streak move across the floor out of the corner of my eye. It was nothing, I told myself.

“Hey, did you guys see the mouse?” the dog guy said.

Mr. Mouse ran from behind the refrigerator, across the doorway to the TV and back again. Who knows what he was doing, but it looked important.

The airmen never noticed him.

So we sat in silence, watching the mouse and falling in and out of sleep.

Until, of course, the lieutenant showed up.

“You don’t have real ID?” he asked me, holding my press badge in front of my face.

“That is my ID,” I said.

“This is flimsy, it’s just laminated. Anyone could make this. You can’t fly military without proper ID,” he said. And then he launched into an elaborate explanation that I completely ignored.

“What do you want?” I asked. “You have my travel orders right there.”

“A passport,” he said rather smartly.

“Why didn’t you just ask for that?” I said.

There was no need for a lecture, I thought.

I gave him my passport and he looked at it and showed me why that was needed to verify I hadn’t wandered onto this airbase in the middle of nowhere — literally, there is nothing but sand and camels for miles and miles — fought my way through countless levels of security, found this random office and tried to hitch an illegal ride.

I’ve flown from America to Kuwait to Iraq and all around Baghdad back to Kuwait over the last 10 months with my press badge as identification. Now, on this 15-minute hop from one airbase to another, I get roughed up.

“You’ve never had to show anything but this before?” the lieutenant said, once again shaking my press badge in front of my eyes.

“Nope.”

Another lecture and it was through.

After an hour of silence, an airman directed us through a back door to a bus.

There, in the bus, was a very friendly Air Force Reservist from Minnesota.

We piled on and waited.

Another airman came out and asked why we were on the bus. Our plane wasn’t ready to load us for another 30 minutes.

We went back to the couches and the mouse.

I was getting hungry. It was about 8 p.m. and I hadn’t eaten all day.

Good thing I remembered to throw that last Pop Tart into my backpack. It was nothing but crumbs and strawberry goo. But I devoured it.

The Internet guy was snacking on Halls cough drops. The dog guy wasn’t hungry.

The dogs and our luggage were nowhere in sight.

Finally, our 30 minute wait was up and we returned to the bus with the Minnesotan.

He spun the bus around and told us he was just learning how to drive it. Yesterday he’d been in his first convoy. It was very exciting, he said.

He put the bus in reverse because there wasn’t enough room to turn in one swoop, and the bus jerked back and forth.

Me, the Internet guy and the dog guy all looked at one another. He’s learning, we thought.

The door of the bus was still open.

It wouldn’t close, the airman said in his Minnesota accent.

He pounded on the button, looked around the dashboard and finally climbed out of the bus and started wildly yanking on the doors.

“I ... don’t ... know ... why ... they ... won’t ... close,” he said between yanks.

The dog guy was laughing.

The Internet guy was trying not to laugh while looking at a lever above the doors that said “Lock.”

“Hey maybe they’ll work if the switch is flipped,” the Internet guy said.

I reached up and flipped it.

The airman climbed back into the bus and declared he was giving up on the doors. They simply weren’t going to close, he said.

“Try them now,” the Internet guy said.

They closed quickly and smoothly without problem.

The three of us passengers broke out into laughter.

Our Minnesota friend looked confused, like we’d pulled a fast one on him.

He put the bus back into gear and we curled around the flightline, past countless C-130s, looking for the one we belonged on.

“Oops,” our Minnesota friend said after passing a C-130 with its props spinning.

“I just drove us between that plane and its ground guide. It was preparing to take off,” he said.

And he was very calm about it.

I processed what he just said. My mind was foggy with fatigue, but I’m pretty sure that meant we just missed getting run over by a massive plane.

I looked at the Internet guy. His eyes were big. He looked at the dog guy. He shook his head.

And the bus rolled along.

We found our plane and parked. Every few minutes, our Minnesota airman would move the bus a few feet closer to the plane. I’m not sure why.

We chatted about what we all do in Iraq and what he does here at the airbase, swapping stories and information.

Mostly we laughed.

AT THE MERCY OF RANDY

We were the lone passengers on the C-130.

The flight started and ended quickly, landing us where we thought we were headed six hours earlier.

I was told by the acronym agency to find a guy named Randy; he would solve my visa problem. The Internet guy was meeting a coworker who would take him to the airport for his journey home to his kids. The dog guy was headed to Charleston to drop off the pooches and pick up replacements to bring to Iraq.

I didn’t know where I’d find this Randy guy, but it quickly became clear that I didn’t have to find him.

As soon as the props stopped turning and the tail opened up, a wiry guy in his 50s popped onto the plane.

“All right. Where’s the Amy with the visa problem?” he asked the dog guy.

I waved my hand as the only girl on the plane other than the loadmaster.

“Ah yes. I’ve heard all about you,” he said, snatching my passport from my hand.

I’m quite sure it wasn’t all good.

“Who are you?” he hollered at the Internet guy.

He showed his Department of Defense identification and explained he just needed to get his luggage so he could meet his coworker.

“First let’s figure out what to do with the dogs,” Randy said.

That’s when the plane’s loadmaster stomped onto the plane with a 1st sergeant who was with the ground grew and grabbed Randy.

“We can’t unload those dogs!” the 1st sergeant yelled.

He went into a long explanation about why the pallet couldn’t be unloaded with the dogs, but it didn’t make a lot of sense. The pallet was loaded onto the plane with the dogs without a problem.

But that was at Ali al-Salem. This is the APOD.

The Air Force loadmaster argued that this Army 1st sergeant was not going to tell her how to run her aircraft.

And they all looked at Randy to mediate.

I don’t know what Randy’s job is, but it’s one I wouldn’t want. I’m quite sure his civilian defense contract doesn’t pay him enough to put up with all this crap.

I mean, at one time he’s got a spitting match between an Army 1st sergeant and an Air Force master sergeant; he’s got a plane full of combat-stressed dogs that can’t be unloaded and don’t have a connecting flight; he’s got a wandering journalist with a visa mess and an Internet guy who just wants to go home.

Randy called for more dog handlers.

Someone on the plane pointed to the Internet guy and me and said he thought we were dog handlers.

“I’ll be a dog handler if it gets me off this plane,” the Internet guy said.

I just kept staring at Randy’s hand clutching my passport. I was convinced that he’d lose it in the confusion.

The Internet guy and I moved to a van parked behind the plane and watch the show. People grabbed dogs one by one and walked them off the plane as others carried the dog crates. They were all loaded into vans.

The Army 1st sergeant stood and watched.

We had dogs sitting on seats in our van with their crates piled on top of duffel bags in other vans.

The dog guy and all five dogs were dropped off first. Paperwork had to be checked, flights had to be arranged.

He left the van and said good-bye. We wished our friend well and then, as he was walking away, we realized we never asked his name.

Nine hours together and the three of us never asked each other’s name.

The Internet guy and I introduced ourselves.

Randy returned and drove to a building and disappeared with my passport.

“Why am I still in this van?” Glenn the Internet guy asked.

“I don’t know. We’re just at the mercy of Randy,” I said.

Randy re-emerged about 20 minutes later and offered to take us to eat. There is a Subway sandwich shop on the tarmac.

“I just need to meet my ride,” Glenn told him.

We went to Subway.

The dog guy was there and told us he’d found a military hop to Charleston for him and the dogs. We wished him well.

I still didn’t have a visa.

Glenn couldn’t find his ride.

Randy was amazing, though. Through all the stupid little crises I had watched him solve, he continued to remain calm, smile and be upbeat. I couldn’t do his job. No way.

By midnight my visa was stamped, I was legally allowed into Kuwait, Glenn’s ride had appeared and I’d found a hotel.

Glenn’s coworker offered to baby-sit my helmet and body armor while I’m in Germany so I don’t have to lug it any further. I can’t thank him enough.

It’s odd. I’ll never see the dog guy or the Internet guy again, but the three of us will be telling the story of this day for years to come, I’m sure of it.

Serendipity.

Posted by Amy at January 4, 2005 01:42 PM