From the middle of no-where

Today I'll try to recap our day trip from Buehring to Bucca. We were lucky enough to be "tied" to a large group so there were multiple black-hawk helos to carry us. The bad news is we were the end of the line becuase we were last to be added. That meant lots of stand around time waiting for our turn on the helo.



The other interesting part was our luggage. As usual the AF guys have way more "gear" than the other services. Insert your standard kitchen sink joke here. In fact we had so much stuff and we were the last group but did not have as many people as they had seats so they decided to pile all our stuff into one helo and then put people in the other two.



It was a nice smooth ride. We flew over very isolated desert. Nothing but flat lands and small hills all covered with sand for many many miles. Imagine Kansas plains but no green. All dry lifeless sand. Eventually we did get to some small groups of tents and structures where people lived. They were sproadic at first but then we did get close enough to some sort of greenhouse nursery area. I assume that is what it was. Lots of nice green in the sea of brown. Clearly planted and tended to thrive in this harsh environment.



As we got closer we could see the area of Umm Qasr. It looks to be a real city. I belive there is some sort of port/water access there as well.



One of the things we have from our travels is perspective, we've seen life in Kuwait for a week or two and life in Baghdad for a week or two, and now we can compare that to life in Bucca. Some things are better some are worse. I'll try to document those as time goes by. First impression is things are OK...not great but not the worst. It is smaller so the walk is much shorter than at Victory. We are in a large tent, but it has some plywood walls, "lockers" (I used quotes becuase many do not lock) and bunkbeds. After some searching and moving a time or two I found a bottom bunk I am happy with. Roommates seem ok.



We observed boards again today - things are slightly different than Cropper, but big picture it is all the same. Our presence helps these guys out a lot I think. They can rotate people in and out of the schedule a little more. Some of us start tomorrow. My first board is not till Saturday I think. They still don't have a good office for us to access computers and phones. But I can use the recreational facilities they have and type blogs like this one. I can get easy access to a PC here in the internet tent, but uploading pictures might be an issue. I'll have to figure out a plan for that one. They have many eating facilities here (Burger King, pizza, etc), but the D-Fac is plenty big and decent. Like I said yesterday they have DP. One issue is they do not have pumkin pie. I don't care, but my buddy has become addicted to Pumpkin pie at all the other places. I told him to find the "feedback/comments" box and write that one up. No "wings" caller either.



I'll cut this off and save more for another day.



comments:

AFN did block the commercials for the S-Bowl. I was able to see the main parts and then over the series of the next few days I caught a majority of the game at different times.