On A Beach With No Water!

Arrived in Kuwait today. The flight took about 15 hours with a stop in Germany. It really wasn't that bad considering I have heard some people say that it can take upwards of two days depending on the number of stops. We arrived late at night and when we debarked the plane, it reminded me of a warm summer night in the Twin Cities. The only difference was the air was heavy with dust and it smelled of petroleum. It took quite a while to get to camp and as I looked out of the bus window, I was struck by the nothingness of the place. Miles and miles of nothing.

Once we arrived at the camp, we entered a large tent for a briefing about the do's and don'ts of base and information about our stay. Since we had traveled with another group of Soldiers, we had to unload our gear (3 duffel bags and 1 ruck sack), sift through it to find our own bags, reload our bags, move to the location we would sleep at, unload our bags and sift through all the bags once again to find our stuff. Got to love it! It's like throwing a needle in a haystack especially when everyone has the same bag. However, I took some advice from Sergeant First Class Boylan: Let everyone else look for their bags, first.

After we moved our gear into the tents, we walked to breakfast about a quarter mile away. By that time the sun had come up and I really had a good look at the surroundings. Everything, I mean everything is the color of sand; tan. What a shock to not see any other color. Even in the Arizona desert, there are cacti and other shrubs but this place takes the cake.

The dining facility was very nice and very clean with lots of great choices. Since we hadn't had dinner, all of us were especially hungry and the selection of food was amazing. No Grape Nuts, however! I had a Perkins style of breakfast with a made-to-order omelet, skillet potatoes and bacon. After we looked around, we went to lie down for a while but we were instructed not to sleep past noon or we would have a hard time adjusting to the time change.

We didn't have anything planned for the rest of day. Not working and having time to think about this deployment....reality has definitely sunk in.


Where do the boots end and the sand begin?


The really nice toilets.


Notice a theme on the color?!


My favorite coffee establishment! Thank God for the small things in life! Notice the Haskell barriers around the perimeter.