BLOG: INDIRECT FIRE -- Hazy and transient

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Jacob Richmond
  • 355th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
SOUTHWEST ASIA --  Landing in Southwest Asia. Darkness greeting us on the flight line. Diffused runway lights. Stamping paperwork, waiting for briefings. Briefing, briefing, briefing. 5 a.m. sunrise. Filling bags with more equipment. Hungry, not hungry. Tired, wired. Unpacking, repacking short-stay bags. Really, really gloriously cold AC on the bus to billeting. Grabbing linens. Deciding whether to eat or shower first. Struggling to find far-away sleep tent. Sidewalk, white sand, white rocks. Squinting at the brightness. Inhaling dust I can't quite see, feeling it take residence in my throat. Seeing it cover the sun like a veil. Big heavy camo backpack bending me forward. Pupil-dilation-panic walking into dim tent. My very own bunkbed...next to dozens of others. Lukewarm, preferably colder, shower. Sweating on the way back to the tent. Finding chow hall, wondering if FDA has a role here. Deciding to go with scrambled eggs instead of over-easy next time. Eating like I'm back at boot camp. Finding one bar of WiFi connectivity. Trying in vain to charge my laptop via one of the outdoor outlets. Walking and sweating back to tent. Remembering to time sunglasses-removal perfectly as I walk through the door. Setting phone alarm for 3:15 p.m., knowing a nap is on tap. Watching third episode of "The Wire" for about 25 minutes on my bed before eyelids stop cooperating. Shutting down computer and myself. Waking up foggy, not remembering alarm, but realizing it's exactly alarm time. Computer telling me it has an Internet signal but not making any web connections. Feeling my wife and son waiting at the web cam for me, pressed for time in their morning routine. Frustration and anger. Feeling silly for being angry at the lack of WiFi on a DEPLOYMENT. Morale call to wife from the Airman Readiness Center. Son saying "I miss you, da-deee." No more frustration, just smiles.

That's how it felt to be me for the first 14 hours here at the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing.

We got here and didn't have a scheduled departure date/time for our flight to Balad. We agreed to meet later that night and see if anything had changed. Eventually, we got word we were set to leave.

It's strange to see so many people excited to find out they'll soon be entering the combat zone. This place is actually pretty nice for a remote installation. Two movie theaters, a couple of dining facilities and little annexes for Subway, Burger King, Popeye's, etc. There was even live music under the "BRA" last night (I'm sure BRA stands for "Big Recreation Area or something like that, and is not at all a reference to the two large, round, white conjoined tents under which everyone gathers). Still, we're all anxious to get to where we're going. It won't affect when we leave for home, but it'll be nice to set our bags down, unpack and get to work. After a while,
everybody gets sick of traveling; sooner than that, people get sick of waiting around.

Sometime during these listless hours, I picked up a Stars & Stripes. To my pleasant surprise, I found an interesting, thorough, truly journalistic story about the U.S. security withdrawals from Baghdad that began June 30. It basically makes the point that Iraqis have mixed feelings about the withdrawal while President Al-Maliki is marking the day as a glorious victory. The most interesting part to me was a couple of quotes from locals, accusing Al-Maliki of spinning the withdrawal for his own political gain, since elections are early next year.

The ambivalence and uncertainty of the citizens quoted cast a slightly sour mood on the story, but I found it remarkable that Iraqis are already seeing this tenuous situation through the eyes of politics. If this reporter's sources are representative of the Iraqi sentiments, then we can assume it's already in their consciousness that the withdrawal will have an impact on their political leaders' futures; at the very least, even if things don't go as well as hoped, the Iraqis feel that they'll be able to assert their will via the elections. That's a foothold of a free society. Life's not always rosy, but in a democracy, the people can affect change. I find myself feeling genuinely happy for them.

I'm not yet sure exactly how I'll be able to contribute to the overall U.S. mission in Iraq, but I'm suddenly captivated by how it will play out. Preparing for the deployment, I had planned on spending most of it rooting for my beloved Packers during the NFL season. Only now do I realize how much I'll be rooting for the Iraqis, too.