Deployed

10 Mar 2008

The Offer

Thursday, April 19th, 2007

I sit here, staring at the paper in front of me. A humble E-mail in print, yet probably the most important I have ever received. I've no idea how many times I've read over these words, and numbers - numbers preceded by dollar signs, large enough to make employment in a war zone seem appealing.

Next month marks the start of my terminal leave, wrapping up a four-year enlistment in the United States Air Force as a 3C2X1 (Tech Controller). After spending the bulk of my enlistment at Nellis AFB, NV, it's time to get out of Las Vegas. Don't get me wrong, I like my job, and I love the field, but for the first time in my life I'm free to go just about anywhere.

Military enlistment has proven to be a double-edged sword. One can find comfort in knowing exactly when he will be able to seek new employment, and terminal leave (provided you have any) serves as a convenient transition period. The drawback is that you are obligated to serve your full enlistment term; there is no such thing as two-weeks notice in the enlisted service.

My enlistment doesn't officially end until late July, but having stockpiled 77 days of terminal leave, I'm effectively released from duty in May. Next month. Obviously, I've had my calendar marked for some time, but it's done little to quell my anxiety about the transition back into civilian life. One could argue it's easier to join the military than to get out.

With the trickle of calendar days a constant presence in the back of my mind, I consider what to do with the rest of my life. 54 days left, I should make a resume. 38, do I want to stay in Vegas? 26, do I want to leave? 19, why haven't I gotten any calls yet? What's wrong? I only have 12 days to go! Granted, the countdown was to two and half months of terminal - I had five paychecks still to come, and wouldn't have to show up for work anymore - but it was still enough to make one nervous. How long would this last?

I couldn't say when, but at some point I decided filling a contract position in Iraq would be a good idea. In addition to the copies already well in place on Dice and ClearanceJobs, I decided to apply to several well-known defense contractors. It seems this application process is merely a formality - the large majority of contract slots are filled by backchannels. It's not what you know, but who (pardon the cliche). Fortunately, there are few degrees of separation between everyone in the military, and I was able to reach a recruiter personally.

Fast forward to present. Words and numbers, which will hopefully verified tomorrow when I call this document's author. To say I have questions is an appalling understatement, yet I find myself wanting more and more to take the position. I'm still overwhelmed by the pace of it all; two E-mails and a phone call, and I'm staring at a new opportunity half a world away. Hopefully I can push this all out of my head long enough to get some sleep tonight. Tomorrow promises to be eventful.

Paperwork sucks

Saturday, April 21st, 2007

The last two days have been a steady blur. Yesterday I accepted my future employer's offer, and received a large to-do list in return. In addition to the normal pre-employment requirements, by far the two most invovled tasks were obtaining a US passport, and passing a thorough medical exam.

The passport application went pretty well, which I attribute to having been adequately prepared. As instructed by my employer, applying for a passport requires:

Fortunately, my employer was able to provide an expedition service, free of charge, saving me the $30 execution. It would have been handy to know this before I purchased the money order. I now have a money order made out to the U.S. Department of State good for $30 sitting on my desk.

I managed to gather all the pertinent information and materials, and the Las Vegas City Clerk's office was extremely helpful in assembling it all into something meaningful. The whole bundle shipped out today via FedEx. We shall see how long it takes for my passport to arrive.

Today's big accomplishment was completing the mandated - and very thorough - medical examination. The entire process took about four and a half hours, more than half of which was spent waiting, reading a borrowed copy of Chuck Palahniuk's Haunted. The irony here is that I've been globally qualified to deploy by USAF standards for years, but apparently that isn't good enough for contractors. To be fair, I can see why.

With my passport application mailed, and my exam out of the way, routine paperwork is all that remains. I've received my acceptance confirmation and employment agreement, both littered with bits of information about employment overseas. It will take some time to make better sense of it all; fortunately I can breathe a little easier now that the hard stuff is out of the way.

The waiting game

Thursday, April 26th, 2007

The passport expediter supposedly received my passport last Monday, and claimed it would take about a week to process and send back. If this is true, I could have all my paperwork in order by next week - a very exciting prospect. In the meantime, I've been finishing my USAF outprocessing checklists (all three of them). Only a few miscellaneous items left, and my final out has been scheduled for 11 May. It still hasn't quite sunken in that I'll effectively be done with the Air Force in just two short weeks.

One of the predeployment requirements posed by my new employer is a stateside driver license valid for at least the length of my contract, so I visited a local DMV yesterday to transfer my old New Jersey license to Nevada. For some reason previosuly unknown to me, I had to take a written (computerized) driving test before they'd give me a license. This would have been great to know ahead of time, because about a third of the questions dealt with Nevada statistics and permit laws, but I still managed to pass (barely).

Recently I've taken interest in educating myself on Iraq. The CIA's World Factbook provides intriguing statistics on the country, some of which speak more to the dire condition of Iraqi society than any amount of media coverage ever could. For example, all citizens age 65 or older only comprise an estimated 3% of the total population, versus 12.6% in the US. The average life expectancy in Iraq is surprisingly high at around 69, yet the country's median age is a mere 20 years (36.6 in the US). 97% of the population is Muslim, imagine that.

Idle hands purchase playthings

Thursday, May 3rd, 2007

Tuesday was unofficially my last duty day, and it feels strange. Waking up Wednesday morning, there was an overwhelming feeling of, "now what?" I'm worried my biggest challenge until I fly out of Las Vegas will be simply keeping myself occupied. I had a full week off last winter break and I about started bouncing off the walls.

OccuMed, the medical care organization contracted by my future employer, was more than happy to help with that. Turns out the clinic I went to the other week for my pre-employment exam forgot to run some of the test, namely Hepatitus and HIV. To remedy this, I got to head across town and kill another two hours to get stuck in the arm. Fun stuff.

In preparation for my trip overseas, I saw fit to purchase a dual external hard disk enclosure for taking my data along with me. After playing around with it a bit, this thing seems pretty damned cool. A bit pricey at $150, but I'm very pleased with it; a terabyte of portable RAID-in-a-box should more than meet my needs.

My latest Newegg splurge also included a nifty new Stylus 770SW. Olympus claims this camera is waterproof, shockproof, freezeproof (wtf?), and crushproof - but nothing about sandproof. In fact, I was unable to find any camera which claimed invulnerability to sand, which makes me somewhat nervous. Friends who have been deployed stress the importance of protecting cameras (and electronic devices in general) from sand, particularly the lens. We'll see how this one fairs.

Purgatory

Friday, May 11th, 2007

As of 0900 today, I am officially done with outprocessing the United States Air Force. Four short years, culminating with my two and a half months of terminal leave, which start Monday. If my last duty day wasn't surreal enough, it's definitely setting in now. Technically speaking, I'm now out of work.

On the bright side, progress is being made in the way of heading toward Iraq. I received my passport yesterday, and was sure to forward verification of it and a few other items to my recruiter. I have a suspicion that the expediting service I sent my passport application to forgot about it; I called Monday and the gentleman I spoke with said it should arrive that day or the next. No luck. I called again on Wednesday, and the tracking number I got shows the package not shipping out until Tuesday. Seems like the dude dropped it in the mail as soon as we got it off the phone. No matter, it's here now, in all its vulnerable RFID glory.

Seems like all I'm waiting on to schedule a departure date now are the final results of my physical and verification of my security clearance (which should take all of two seconds). I'm not looking forward to moving all my crap into storage, but it'll be nice to know when I can start.

Treading Water

Tuesday, May 15th, 2007

Still no word from my recruiter regarding when I can leave. The waiting sure gets frustrating.

A bit of good news, though; I found the pants I wanted! This may seem particularly mundane, but one must understand how difficult it can be to find this particular type of pant. Specifically, pants that are identical to military-issue BDU bottoms, but tan in color with no camo print. Picked up three pairs from a local Army surplus store.

Also, I had my car appraised at CarMax (a company which I highly recommend for used car shopping). The appraisals are free, and they even offered me a bit above the Kelley Blue Book trade-in value. I've also been shopping around for storage places. It's a funny thing to imagine cramming your life into a 5x10' box, but that's essentially what I'll be doing.

June 1st

Wednesday, May 16th, 2007

I just received a call from my recruiter informing me she has received all the confirmation needed to schedule a departure date. I fly out of McCarran International for Fort Benning on June 1st! My class at the CONUS Replacement Center (CRC) starts the following Saturday, and from what I understand should last three to five days.

I had hoped to leave the weekend prior, but apparently they can only schedule departures two weeks out at the earliest. No big deal but it does mean another week or so of counting seconds, and there are a lot of seconds in a week.

Also, I finally acquired good boots for my deployment. Standard Air Force-issue Belleville desert combat boots; exactly what I was looking for. It turns out that active duty military (technically this still includes myself) can make clothing purchases from the LCI store on Nellis, which is where I bought this pair. Good to know, particularly when searching for DCU-themed gear.

I feel like NASA when they get to start the countdown clock prior to a launch. T minus sixteen days and counting.

Going postal

Friday, May 25th, 2007

I had hoped to receive my flight itinerary by the end of the week, but that hasn't happened. With Monday the 28th being Memorial day, my logistic window is growing very narrow. It's irritating still not knowing exactly when I fly out of Vegas, as most of the remaining preparations need to be coordinated precisely around that time.

At least I resolved one issue today, which had been bugging me for weeks. What to do about mail? I've filled out a good number of forms in the last several weeks with my current address, knowing full well I'll be gone by the end of the month. I needed a stop-gap solution until I got settled in the theatre with an APO address.

I decided to rent out a mailbox with Mailboxes, Etc. for a few months, which I can use as a temporary street address; it's not just a P. O. Box. Before I leave, I'll submit a change of address with USPS, changing my current residence to the Mailboxes, Etc address. This should ensure none of my mail ends up going to my apartment once someone else is living here (a problem which previous tenants apparently were not aware of).

Once my APO address has been established, I should be able to have all mail being held at Mailboxes, Etc. forwarded overseas. The total cost for this service was $140; $30/mo for three months, plus a $50 desposit for mail forwarding. Could be cheaper, but not bad when you consider it's only $1/day (and I've been paying twice that just for cable TV I don't watch).

Into motion

Sunday, May 27th, 2007

The ball may now officially begin rolling; I received my flight/CRC itinerary yesterday afternoon. I'll be departing McCarran International at 0840 Friday, and won't get in to Atlanta until around 1800, thanks to the +3 hour time difference. I'll be taking a shuttle service from the airport to Columbus, and ultimately Ft. Benning.

My schedule seems to provide a good amount of mil-standard "hurry up and wait." I'm not sure what we'll be doing all day Saturday, as CRC briefings don't officially begin until Sunday, but the rest of time at looks like it will be spent waiting in processing lines and enduring monotonous briefings. Most briefings I've probably already had at some point in my military career, so these are sure to be doubly-boring. Of course there will be contractor- and theater-specific briefings, as well.

But that's not until next week. I still need to pack, rent a storage unit, cancel my utilities, change my address, move out of my apartment, sell my car and get to the airport first. Not neccessarily in that order.

Flying out tomorrow

Thursday, May 31st, 2007

I am writing this post from Tatulis' house in North Las Vegas, roughly twelve hours before my flight tomorrow morning. Today was moving day. I spent most of the last couple days packing my crap into various containers and securing a storage unit for said containers. Today, my friend and former coworker Tatulis helped me move all my crap from my apartment to my storage unit via a U-Haul truck. This occupied the majority of the day, then it was off to Carmax to sell back my '04 Hyundai Elantra. Carmax gave me a good deal, even a few hundred bucks above Blue Book trade-in value.

With nearly all my worldly possessions residing in a 5x10' storage unit, I am left with my duffel bag full of clothes and a backpack full of equipment. Having so little is a strange feeling, but more liberating than depressing. I am tired as hell but still anxious about the flight out tomorrow morning. It will be an early morning, which is good considering I'm unlikely to get much sleep tonight (if any at all).

Lather, rinse, repeat

Monday, June 4th, 2007

Nothing worth mentioning happened today. This morning we went through what's called SRP (I can't recall ever hearing the expanded acronym) on main base. This meant a twenty-minute bus trip, each way. Did I mention Ft. Benning is huge?

One problem I encountered was during CAC (common access card; yes, it's a horrible acronym) issue. Since I'm still on terminal leave, I'm still in "the system" as active duty. Therefore, I can't be issued a contractor ID card until my active status expires at the end of July.

Fortunately, they gave me the okay to fly out with my current ID, since it will remain valid long enough for me to be issued a suitable replacement once in the theater. This exemption also saved me from having to wait in line for three hours like most people did.

After lunch we visited a supply warehouse for our equipment issue. Contractors receive the following:

That's it. This is great, since it means we'll be flying with light baggage (compared to a Soldier's four duffel bags.

Tomorrow is medical, which I'm not looking forward to. Beyond the normal nausea of getting blood drawn, we each receive a series of shots - as many as ten. Fortunately, I have my shot records from the Air Force, and should only receive about half of them, though this includes anthrax and smallpox.

I'm supposed to make contact with my company's POC some point around mid-week to sign my time sheet. Most of my time here has been boring as hell, but at least I'm being paid well for it.

Only 1 in 1,000 experience severe symptoms

Tuesday, June 5th, 2007

Today was medical, and apparently not just for us CRC folk. Our 0730 formation was pushed back to 0900, then 0930, then 1100, then 1200. Eventually, we moved out to the medical place and got to wait around some more. Then, we got inside the medical place and waited there.

The processing line was mostly paperwork, but everyone received a number of shots, depending on where they were going, what they had already received, and what day of the week it was.

I was lucky enough to receive Typhoid, Anthrax, and Smallpox - a live virus infectious by touch. And we're 2+ to a room, sharing a communal shower. Yeah, good call.

Since I have nothing else to note, I'll post some pictures from the other day.

The pavilion, where many formations are held:

CFC - The pavilion

There is a convenient little AAFES-run shoppette by the barracks, carrying a nice selection of equipment, travel and food items:

CFC - The shoppette

Helpful navigation for locating your destination country:

CFC - Signs

The temporary DFAC (dining facility) is located a short distance down a hill, and provides decent meals:

CFC - Signs

Hooah

Wednesday, June 6th, 2007

Hooah hooah, hoooah hoo-ahh. Hooah, hoo-hooah hooah hooah! Hooah? Hooah hooah hooah!!!

Congratulations, you've just experienced the equivalent of twelve hours of Army-run PowerPoint briefings. I know this because that's all we did today, from 0700 to 1900: briefing after briefing after briefing. Then there were some more briefings.

The good news is, our CRC processing is now more or less complete. Thursday (tomorrow) is mostly a make-up day for people with discrepancies to play catch-up. My employer has a briefing scheduled for 1000, not sure what it's going to cover. Hopefully they'll give us the details on our flight out of here on Friday.

I signed my first time sheet today, and found out where I'm going, sort of. On the spreadsheet, most people had their destination country and base listed; for example, "Iraq" and "Camp Victory." Apparently I'm going to "Marines." Not a Marine base, just "Marines." I want to reserve judgement until I find out just what they mean, but I have to say I don't particularly like the sound of it.

TGIF

Friday, June 8th, 2007

We're supposed to fly out sometime tonight, not a moment too soon. I think most of us were packed and ready to go before lunch today. Not that CRC has been at all inhospitable, just extremely mundane.

I didn't post anything yesterday because there was absolutely nothing to write about. A group of us did make it off-post for dinner at a place called Cheddar's in Col0mbus. The food was all right, but nothing to remember. We were just happy for the brief change of scenery.

I've gained a duffle bag during my stay here, filled with 40lbs of issued equipment. Contractors are allowed two checked duffle bags (no hard cases) plus a carry-on, so I'm set.

I see more and more people showing up throughout the day, as the week-long cycle begins and ends on Friday. Amaury, who I used to work with at Nellis, should be flying in some time this afternoon. Hopefully we'll have some time to chill before I have to catch my flight out.

Arrival in Ali Al Saleem LSA, Kuwait

Sunday, June 10th, 2007

This post was written at 22:20 10 June, Kuwait time.

The trip to Kuwait has been long and tiring. First, a sudden rainstorm drenched most of our bags as they were being loaded on the trucks for the aircraft at Ft. Benning. We flew out from the air terminal at Lawson Airfield around midnight on Friday, Eastern time. Roughly seven hours later, we arrived at our mid-point of Shannon, Ireland. Shannon was unimpressive to say the least, a tiny airport with very little traffic.

A second seven-hour flight took us from Shannon to Kuwait. I got to help on baggage detail offloading the plane. Many of the bags (including mine) were still considerably wet. From the airport it was about a ninety-minute bus ride to Ali Al-Saleem, an in-processing base for transient personnel.

I'm writing this post sitting in one of many, many tents here; there are about twelve of us (several of whom snore) sharing this particular tent. While living conditions aren't horrible, they could stand to improve greatly. The tents do have power and air conditioning, but shower, restroom, and laundry facilities are housed in separate trailers a good distance away.

I managed to catch a few hours of sleep this afteroon, my first sleep laying down since Ft. Benning. I'll probably catch a few more hours tonight before another in-briefing tomorrow morning. This is what really aggrivates me about the whole setup: we don't need to be here. We've done absolutely nothing today (Sunday), and tomorrow looks to be about the same. They have us scheduled for some briefings Tuesday, and we're supposed to start flying out on Wednesday. Why? There's nothing they can show us via PowerPoint in Kuwait that we couldn't be shown at Ft. Benning.

I suppose I shouldn't complain, as I'm being paid either way, but it's an enormous amount of ass pain. When my group showed up this morning, even after around two days with little or no sleep, we were ready to start processing or even catch another plane. Maybe others aren't so hardcore.

To my relief, my electronic gear accepted 220V input as it promised, so I was able to kill a few hours watching movies. I've also taken a tour of the shops on base, including the PX, food court, Internet access facility (will have to stop by later to post this), and some other ransom shops. The dining facility here isn't bad, though it is crowded. It's also surprising that they seem to be pushing soda over Gatorade and water.

One good thing about Kuwait is that water's always freely available in the DFAC or laundry trailers. It's still feels odd seeing so much in Arabic labeling; even the Kit Kat bar on the flight over was labeled in Arabic.

Bags in the rain, waiting to be loaded at CRC:

Bags soaking at CRC

Shannon, Ireland airport:

The Shannon, Ireland airport

I am staying in one of many, many tents here:

Kuwait tents

Inside view. Spacious, no?

Inside view of my tent

Trailers house our restroom and laundry facilities:

Kuwait trailers

Your typical American food court, with a few minor differences:

Kuwait food court

Korean Village

Tuesday, June 12th, 2007

I haven't posted the past couple days because we've done absolutely nothing. Sunday and Monday were complete wastes of time. Today we finally got to head off-post for some briefings by my employer.

Kuwait is a very strange place. They have very strict laws apparently covering everything but traffic regulation. These people are fucking crazy on the road. I was genuinely afraid we were going to get in an accident the entire trip there and back.

I did finally find out where I'm headed: some place called Korean Village. I did some brief googling, and it seems this is a small Marine camp near the Syrian border - most likely a shit hole. We'll see. I'll get a chance to speak with the country manager before I head there anyway, so I might be able to convince him to send me somewhere my skills will be put to better use.

For now, I have yet more time to kill before the manifest meeting tomorrow morning.

Al Asad

Wednesday, June 13th, 2007

Fortunately I was able to make the first available flight out of Ali Al Salem yesterday to Al Asad. That was my first flight on a military aircraft - a C-17. Very fun. Only one other guy from our group came to this base.

I eventually got hold of some guys from my company (thanks to a random contact number posted at the PAX terminal I just happened to see), and they put me up for the night in one of the permanent rooms with a couple other guys. This was a nice surprise, as the alternative meant sharing a giant tent with many, many Marines and soliders.

I met the deputy site lead this morning and got a quick tour of this side of the base. Apparently there weren't any flights to Korean Village available today, but hopefully they can get me scheduled ("manifested") for a flight tomorrow. Travel will be by helicopter.

I talked to several guys who had spent time at KV, and the general consesus is that although small, it's not a bad place to start out. I may even be living in a house (shared among several people - probably one too many). Given that it is a small place I should be able to get my hands into just about every type of work, so that's a plus.

I'm sitting in an Internet cafe at the MWR facility here, and I have to say I'm impressed with the connection. It seems on par with the typical "quality of life" networks stateside, given the amount of people sharing the bandwidth.

Once again, I'm playing the waiting game; biding my time until I can fly out tomorrow. The PX here offers great selection, despite being housed in a tent. The chow hall I've been going to is simply massive, by far the largest dining facility I've ever seen. The food is decent too. Which reminds me, I need to find out what the food is like at KV. Then again, I might as well just wait and find out first hand.

First day at KV

Saturday, June 16th, 2007

With great luck, I just barely caught a flight out from Al Asad yesterday, arriving here at KV by chopper sometime mid-afternoon. KV is small, but liveable. The camp was originally founded for Korean nationals laying a highway in western Iraq sometime in the late eighties, and has since been adopted for use by the USMC as a FOB (Forward Operating Base). The benefit of this is that the camp is composed largely of hardened structures.

It turns out I'll be living in a three-bedroom "house," sharing a decent-sized room with two other guys. Unfortunately, nothing has been done to segment the room in the interest of privacy, and I have no place to store my crap. Hopefully tomorrow I can put together a spare wall locker, and maybe section off my own little area.

The food here isn't bad, and it's served in a brand new dining facility, though it is a good distance from the main camp for some reason. A laundry service promises 72-hour turnaround (though I got mine back in just a day), and the PX is small but mostly sufficient. Perhaps the biggest disappointment so far is that shower facilities are limited and water is rationed.

From what I've seen, it's only us few contractors and Marines running the network here. The guys here are all cool, which comes as something of a relief. I'm the only contracted network admin here, so at least I get to dictate my own schedule. It seems nothing major needs fixing, so I'll have to occupy myself with house-cleaning for a while. Once that's done - and it shouldn't take long working 60 hours per week - I'm not sure how I'll pass the time.

KV Pictures

Saturday, June 23rd, 2007

I've been here for a little over a week, and not much has happened. As I was warned, this is a very mundane place. But, considering the possible alternatives, I'm happy with mundane. Aside from the usual inconveniences which accompany deployed life, this is a pretty plush assignment. Everything is air-conditioned, I have unfettered (if slow) Internet access, and I even get to set my own work schedule. The hardest part will be passing the time.

As such, I've had more than ample time to take some pictures of the camp. Korean Village is so named because it was originally founded as living quarters for Korean nationals constructing H3, a highway through Western Iraq. This gives KV a sizable advantage over most forward operating bases: hardened buildings, like the one below.

KV buildings

This is the "house" I live in. The building I work in is right next door, fifty feet away.

KV house

The roof affords an impressive view.

KV rooftop

Apparently, the Marines out here got tired of vehicles running over and destroying network cabling, so they came up with another solution. Note the lack of a tension wire.

Cables strung between rooftops

Lessons learned

Thursday, June 28th, 2007

I've been at KV for two weeks now, and I figured this would be a good opportunity to reflect on what I've learned. I used to joke about how Iraq would actually be safer than Las Vegas. Sadly, this has proved to be true. I was much more likely to be killed in a traffic accident back in Las Vegas than of any other cause here in Iraq. I even feel safer here.

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