Catching Up

Yeah, I haven't posted in a while. Things actually were pretty busy at Christmas, and I got a 4-day pass to Qatar (which stretched into a week away from Speicher). So, let's summarize a little . . .

The week before Christmas, we rushed to finish writing up material for our SOPs (standing operating procedures) and our aircrew training manual. Then we had to get ready to train some new operators.

The week of Christmas, we ran a ground school for three soldiers from the active-duty side of our task force. This was the first out of 9 folks who we will have ended up training, and they will be able to fly a couple of times a week. This will help meet our flight schedule, and also help us to meet other obligations (like PX guard, MWR Duty, and Duty Driver). In general, the first training cycle was a good experience, aside from some conflict with one of the NCOs from that group. Doing that training forced us to start revising and updating our training materials (or creating some from scratch).

The next week, we flew with the new operators and spent more time on training materials for the next group. However, after that, I was out of the loop for a week, having scored a pass to Qatar for a little R&R. I ended up leaving very early on the morning of January 7th, riding a C-130 to Baghdad and on to Qatar. At the Air Force Base there, I was met by one of our pilots who is down there as a liasion -- this base is where all the coordination of aviation issues in Iraq and Afghanistan happens. And, you could get a beer there. Actually, three beers or other drinks a day. It was a pretty nice post, and I got a lot of time to read, drink coffee, and I even got a massage. Plus, one day I got to go off post into Doha.

Doha can best be described as "under construction." It seemed like all the buildings in downtown still had cranes on top, and they are putting together an Olympic village in hopes of winning the 2016 summer games. There is also an old section of town. We looked at a couple of malls, as well as the souk (market) in one of the older sections. It was interesting to be out in the "real world" again. We also went out to eat at a Thai restaurant -- a nice change of pace. One day we went to the Army base to see where I would have ended up for R&R had the liasion not sponsored me. It wasn't a bad set-up -- decent-looking lodging, some amenities, a Chili's, and some watering holes. There was also a bowling alley. Alas, we did not have time for the bowling. All in all, I had a good time, and the TF Odin folks down in Qatar were good company.

I left Qatar Saturday morning, flying to Balad AFB in Iraq. I was supposed to get picked up there by one of the task force's aircraft as it was going home after a mission. After calling back to Speicher to let them know I was ready to get picked up, I sat there for a long time until I called back, were I found out they kept putting off picking me up. A plane finally arrived about 1 AM Sunday morning, but as soon as they got off, I learned that Speicher was closed due to visibility. Hooray. We ended up getting transient housing around 4 AM. Transient housing is just a bunch of bunks thrown into some huts and filled at random. Pretty ugly.

When we met at 1230 Sunday, nobody had managed to get any decent sleep, but we went off to the airfield to find out what would happen next. The task force had assigned us missions. We had to do some juggling of aircraft and crews to make sure some deadlines were met, and off we went. For a while we thought we would have to wait until some mechanics were flown down from Speicher, but luckily we got to leave. I finally got back to my CHU around midnight Sunday night. It was a long and nasty trip back, but at least I got away for a while.

Now that I'm back, it's back to a mix of training on the ground and in the air (the last set of folks I referred to above). And hopefully, this will only be for another several weeks. Our replacements have been mobilized, so once they get here (late February, we hope), we can get out of this hole. Something to look forward to, we hope.