Onward to Kuwait

We got to Gulfport, then had to wait seven hours in a hangar before boarding.

The baggage handlers loading our gear into the belly of the aircraft were our own soldiers.

When it was time to board, we loaded up on alphabetic order. Yep, I got screwed.

At least no screaming babies on this flight:)





On our flight to Kuwait, we landed in Germany to refuel and to change out the flight crew. They shuffled us off the plane to a holding area that we were not allowed to leave, and it was away from the rest of the population. I felt like we were carrying a contagious disease.


We landed at the Kuwait airport in the middle of the night. They loaded us onto yet more busses. These busses had curtains that we were absolutely forbidden to open, or even peak around.

In the dark, we drove about 1.5 hours to our military base. Here, after 40 straight hours of travel, they gave us yet more briefings. The sun was not yet rising.









Our first destination after the briefings was to our hangar on the airfield. While there, the sun rose. The haze below the sun is not fog, it is sand. The sand also has a high percentage of camel dung mixed in.

We also finally got some chow. This is the newer of the two chow halls on post. All meals are free. It is very nice not having to decide what to cook and not having to go to the grocery store to shop!

After breakfast, we went back to the unit area on the airfield. This meshed cover over our common/smoking area helps to keep the sun off, but will stay put when the winds blow, which is very frequently.

Then off to more classes with a lot of emphasis on IEDs.






Here are two more photos of our classroom area (daytime), and a night time photo of when we first arrived at the base before sunrise. Notice the spacious bathroom facilities.





Here we are at the range to zero our M16s, M4s, and 9MM. Notice all the sand! It took a lot of cleaning to get our weapons operating smoothly after this environment.

The photo of the soldier facing the camera is PFC Horsford. I had shown a photo of her earlier while we were still in FL. Hard to recognize her in all her garb.







The targets for 9M and M16.



I made a trip down to another base almost two hours south. Along the way I took photos. Because I am using my cell phone, the objects closer to the lens appear to be leaning, but they are not. Just look sideways at it and it will look better:)

There was an amusement park/roller coaster near Kuwait City.