Thursday, May 10, 2007

Goodbye Afghanistan

The ride to Kabul International (KAIA) was uneventful, just lots of people looking and waving and a whole bunch of school kids who evidently had a half day off, out and about waving and giving the thumbs up.

We hung out at KAIA for a couple hours before we boarded the C-17 and headed up to Bagram. Now, this is the interesting part. Bagram is only an hour by vehicle, and around 40 miles from KAIA. The entire flight from wheels up to touchdown was 8 minutes. 8. Odd to say the least. We landed in Bagram at around 3, and had oh, about 12 hours to kill before our next flight. If you think you have it bad with an hour delay here or there, try flying US Airforce Air. Again, I wasn't complaining, it was just an entire day of waiting. By the time we got to the point of boarding the aircraft in Bagram (about 1am) I think we had averaged about 2 miles per hour on our trip.


We loaded up the last C-17 OUT of Afghanistan, everyone dead tired and with little fanfare. It was good to just be on the plane. The flight to Manas Air Base was just under 2 hours, so I think it was about an hour past holy crap it's late, and 2 hours before 0 dark thirty when we arrived. More buses, and then a "short" brief and they cut us loose to the tents. By this point it was light out, and breakfast was being served, I went ahead and ate and then took a 3 hour nap.

That brings me to now. We awake our next leg to say adios to this little slice of heaven. In between then awaits 2 beers, a shower and a hopefully decent nights sleep.

Gary

ps. Have I mentioned I am OUT of Afghanistan. Not that I am happy about it or anything :)

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