The Air Force is trying to kill me.

At least that's what I'm going with...

Where have I been for the past three days? Spin your globe to the middle east and pick a major airport between Kuwait and Kabul and I've probably slept there. And I wish that were a joke.

The very day we get back from the range (previous post), we have to pack our stuff and head to the airport for a 0200 flight. Mind you, we were up that morning at 0400, so 22 hours have passed since we got on our plane. Which of course didn't leave until 0400. No sleep. 24 hours. Okay, I'm fine, whatever. It could be worse...

An hour and a half into our flight I was serenely napping. Have your ever seen a movie where someone wakes up to alarms and people are running around shouting and panicking? Yeah, been there, bought the stinkin T-shirt now. Klaxxons were blazing, lights were flashing, the people on the outside of plane had those masks next to their faces and were putting them on. I thought "Wow, maybe I should be doing something?" Luckily, I had, out of sheer curiosity, examined the oxygen-producing bag in the seat in front of me so I kinda knew how it worked. I say luckily because I was sleeping when they explained how to use it.

So this big fat C-17 is losing cabin pressure fast and I have the dumb look on my face that says "Huh? Is this a drill I can sleep through?" Supply Officers are notorious for taking their racks as battlestations during drills. This facade faded when I saw the aircrew guys jumping around in the seats and helping people get their masks on. If I had been up front and saw one of the aircrew girls crying, I would have needed help changing my pants later. Anyway, I put this thing on my head and pull the red ball that makes it create oxygen with chemicals and subsequently create alot of heat in the process.

This sounds exciting, I know. Please contain yourselves, it wasn't fun. Until the plane started to dive. Now ... I didn't know why it was diving, and like most everyone else, just figured it was broke and we were gonna, well, die. I find out later the pilot wants to get us to an altitude that actually has oxygen. Which leads me to my new status as a Qatari immigrant.

Yep, we had to immigrate to Qatar for the night. I say 'night' loosely. We were there maybe 18 hours. After we leave there, we get to Bagram and get another brief that was pretty much identical to the one we got in San Diego, then Ft Jackson, then Ft Jackson again (i'm not joking), then in Kuwait...you get the idea. I'm actually surprised they didn't just give it to us in Qatar as well. We stay over night in Bagram and leave this morning at 0930 from our tents for a 1300 flight. Anyone wanna guess how far away the airport is? Let me put it this way...if I were to accidentally on purpose have a raging fit of anger and throw all my belongings onto the main road outside the tent while suggesting loudly that the Air Force was primarily manned by people romantically linked to animals, the passenger terminal could hear me.

But whatever, there shipmates, you drink your freaking kool-aid and sit down. I'm so used to this, that I'm like a robot. I discontinued using my brain long ago, because, despite what the officer corps tells you, you don't need it to operate or understand the Air Force flight planning model. I'm pretty sure they use 5 year olds and high school dropouts from Kazakhstan to run things. "It's niiice!"

I'm going to bed before I get bitter....