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It all began at 4am on Friday morning. I drove my rental car
to the airport and parked it. Headed with my 2 checked bags and one carry on
for the fourth time into the unknown. I was to travel from Comox to Toronto
with Air Canada.
Upon arrival in Toronto I grabbed the airport shuttle to
Union Station in downtown to catch my VIA train to Belleville. From there it was a
20 minute cab ride to my hotel for the night. After a long 15 hours of travel
from 4am to 21h00, I took to sleep very easy.
It was a 7am wake up call for breakfast at the Yukon Galley
and then another quick cab ride to the Trenton Pax Terminal where we awaited
our Service flight to Afghanistan. Not direct, but many, many, many stops along the
way.
The C17 was loaded with cargo and held room for only 20 of
us whom were the lucky ones who got to travel as cargo. There were 3 PSP and
about 17 soldiers, which also included some VIP’s, and no Madonna wasn't one of them.
It was cold and loud on the way to Germany, wished I'd had invested in those $400 sound canceling BOSE headphones. We landed and
were herded into the airport for approx 2 hours until we were called back to
the plane. All this was happening at 3am with no German Beer in sight, but the
hunt had been on believe you me, fast and furiously. Coffee was our only substitute.
From Germany we pushed on towards Kuwait. Another 7 hour flight
ahead of us. It was freezing cold and only a little blanket could be drummed up
to help with the chill overnight. We landed in Kuwait at 2pm local time on a
Sunday. Only to find out we had no access to our checked bags, therefore I was stuck
wearing my dirty uniform and sleeping in my underwear. I did take a shower and
sacrifice one of the sheets they issued us as a towel. It was a great sleep. Crazy dreams of
Purple Sand and friends left behind in the Valley.
It was a rude awakening at 4am to load the 3rd
and last flight of this arduous journey. Wasn’t sure if I was going up or
coming down but zombie walked out to the flight line.
Considering what we had all just endured over the last
couple of days this flight should be a cakewalk. A few games of Tetris, half of
a movie and a couple chapters of my book and five hours late, the eagle had
landed. Kabul… we have arrived.
Excited to get settled we grabbed our bags off the palate, only
to find out that the roads from the airport to Camp Phoenix were
flagged black, which meant no passage at that time. We were rerouted in a 6 car
Convoy and a people pod to Camp Souter. Doning our Personal Protective
Equipment we traveled the 10 minutes through the checkpoints into Souter.There we
were allotted a room until further notice of the local Afghani protests and a
clear route to our new home.
To be continued….
