After not sleeping a wink last time on the 12 1/2 hour flight, I was prepared this time. I had a prescription for Ambien to make sure I was able to get some sleep. The boarding process was uneventful. I got to my seat, which was the aisle seat in a two seat section next to the window. There was already an older middle-eastern woman in the window seat when I got there. She was dressed in traditional Arab fashion with a headscarf. For about five minutes or so, she stared out the window without saying a word, or even moving for that matter. Then she began audibly sigh and make similar sounds. I finally asked her if anything was wrong. She then told me "I was expecting to sit next to a woman, I wanted to sit next to a female." Great, this should be a comfortable 12 1/2 hour ride to Amman. It is bad enough that women who know me can't stand to sit next to me, but I've never even met her before. Unsure how to reassure her that there would be nothing immoral or anti-Islamic going on during the flight, I offered to get the flight attendant and switch to another seat. She declined my offer and went back to brooding over my (I suppose) infidel ways. Meanwhile I put on the iPod and slipped into a peaceful oblivion known as pharmaceutical induced sleep. Ambien is AWESOME. I slept for 11 hours. Given all the media reports about Ambien, I'm a little curious about whether I ate a meal, went to the bathroom, or even drank any water during those 11 hours -- but honestly, I don't care. It was like a little white time-machine that transported me past 11 hours of crappy movies, a dejected seatmate and endless boredom.
In retrospect, I didn't enjoy the sleep as much as I should have because I would not see much again for the better part of two days. I made it to the hotel and took a short nap from 7 p.m. until 9 p.m. I was awake through the night until I had to go to the Amman military airport at 8 a.m. to catch the military flight to Baghdad. I arrived by the 9 a.m. "showtime." I was then told that we would not leave until 3 p.m. We came back at 3 p.m. and were told to wait until 6 p.m. Then at 6 p.m. we were told to wait until 9 p.m. At 9 p.m. we were told that the plane had a flat tire in Kuwait and it would take another 4 hours until the flight arrived. I should probably explain at this point that everyone in the middle-east (and especially Jordan) smokes like a chimney. I mean they light the next cigarette with the butt of the last one. If I die of lung cancer, we can pin-point this day as the reason. Just when I thought the choking cloud of smoke could not get any worse, around a hundred UN soldiers came into the airport and attacked the duty free shop. It is not exaggeration to say that they cleared the shop out of cigarettes. They then stuck around for two hours to smoke practically all of them. Even the die hard smokers from before their arrival were getting annoyed by the level of smoke -- I've never seen it so thick.
Finally, we got on the military transport flight to Baghdad around 1:30 a.m. We were promised that the "Rhino" (an armored bus) would be there to meet us when we landed to take us to the International Zone (IZ), where I had a trailer reserved. After the hour and a half flight, we landed at the Baghdad airport and were told that they would not be transporting us to the IZ after all. "Get a good night's rest and we will get you out of here in the morning" they told us. They then set us up in temporary trailers at the airport. These accommodations are two people to a trailer. Everyone is dead tired. It is by now about 3 a.m. I go to trailer 18B set down my stuff. I go to the latrine, brush my teeth, try to shed several layers of nicotine off of my skin (to no avail). I return to the trailer to meet my temporary "roommate." He tells me right off the bat "I should let you know that my wife says I snore, especially when I'm tired." "Don't worry" I said, "I've been known to snore myself -- no big deal." I think we know where this is headed. I kid you not, within ten minutes I heard noises coming from this bastard that I never thought possible. I've heard loud snoring before ( Dad, that's directed your way) but whatever the hell this was went beyond anything human. I'm sure you are telling yourself "what's with Humble, everything he experiences is the worst, the worst smoke, the worst mud, worst heat, etc." Fine. Please disregard every possible piece of hyperbole I've ever thrown out there. May the Lord strike me down if this snoring was not the loudest and most annoying thing I've ever experienced. The noise is augmented by the fact that this is an aluminum trailer with nothing to absorb the noise. I could hear the people in the next trailer over discussing this situation. I put my iPod on. Opera music was fine during the high loud parts and not loud enough during the slow dramatic parts. So I switched to a talkshow podcast at the highest volume possible -- no dice. After an hour of this crap I started making noises to startle him and wake him up. That worked for two minutes before he was right back at it. Finally, around 4 or 4:30 a.m. I just gave up and took a shower and waited until breakfast started at 5:30 a.m. I called Irene and bitched about this guy. I'm sure she was thinking that I was no pleasure to sleep next to either. So I put this out there for the entire world, Irene has my permission to snuff the life out of me if I ever come close to half of this level of snoring (as if she needed an excuse).
Earlier when we had first arrived at the Baghdad Airport, I asked a guy at the military desk if there was going to be a flight directly to FOB Warhorse from the airport, allowing me to bypass a visit to the IZ and just get back to my CHU already. He said he would find out about 5 a.m. He looked a little surprised to see me so early and told me to come back at 8:45 a.m. to get on the list for the flight. After breakfast, I sat on a bench until 8:45 when he told me I was on the list, but the flight would be late because of weather. I looked outside, sunny blue skies. one hour, three hours, five hours passed. Then the guy says "its finally in the air, but they picked up too many people, so there won't be room for anyone on the helicopter." So now I need to find a way to get to the IZ, or face a night on a bench (you only get one night in an airport trailer). I was told if I could get to FOB Victory I could catch a Rhino to the IZ. I wander off to find the bus to FOB Victory, the guy tells me in passing "oh, yeah, you were going to Warhorse, right? They probably could have put you on that flight if they had known it was just you, but its too late now." Some things should just be left untold. Now I'm tired, my ass is sore from sitting for hours on end and I'm even more pissed off.
I get on the bus and am on my way to FOB Victory to get on the Rhino, when I get a hot tip that there is a flight from FOB Liberty to the IZ that has plenty of seats on it. The bus has to stop at Liberty anyway. I run off to see if I can get on the flight, the bus driver agrees to wait a minute. Just as I approach the guy to see about the flight, up rolls a motorcade of security and out hop John McCain, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham. Well who the hell do you think is getting on that flight, me or the cast of "presidential and vice-presidential wanna-bees" from the recent election? After wondering if Iraq was far enough for these guys to go for a "post-defeat get away," I'm back on the bus.
I get to FOB Victory and wait two hours for the Rhino. Now, I'm not on the manifest for the Rhino, but everyone knows there is always room on a Rhino. Well after two hours a crowd forms that is too large for all of us to get on the Rhino. It was "scorched earth policy" at this point and I muscled my way into the line and finally got to the IZ. I walked all my gear and luggage to my temporary trailer and decided to have dinner before (hopefully) falling into a deep sleep. I walked up to the DFAC ... which was closed for cleaning. I was directed to a temporary sandwich depot where I procured a piece of turkey and cheese on stale wheat bread. I returned to my temporary trailer to eat my sandwich only to find that someone had stolen the remote control for the television and my heat didn't work. I froze my ass off trying to sleep which still didn't go too well, so I did laundry. Fortunately, there was an Internet connection where I was able to get the news and e-mail. I came across this on the Internet which was posted outside the room of a wounded Navy SEAL in the hospital:
Don't I feel like a horse's ass for complaining about my trip, which is obviously nothing compared to the sacrifice of others (except, for the snoring, no one should have to endure that hell)?
I'll let you know when I get back to Diyala.
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