A Year In The Sandbox

Well I finally made it to Qatar. My post about leaving on a jet plane turned out to be overly optimistic. The flight from Jalalabad to Bagram was on a tiny twin-engine Casa 212.

I had a 0400 show time at the PAX terminal in Bagram on Monday morning, so after a couple hours of sleep I got up and packed my stuff. Sunday one of the Civil Affairs guys showed up on his way to Qatar too, so I wouldn’t be going alone after all. We got to the terminal at 0345 and heard an announcement that there would be a fallen comrade ceremony at 0400. We didn’t know what that was, but after asking around it turns out they hold one every time a service member is killed in Afghanistan. The body is flown home from Bagram and they have everyone on the base come out and line the route that the processional takes on it’s way to the flight line. We stood out in the freezing morning and rendered our respects as the HMMWV carrying the casket and the pallbearers drove past us onto the flight line. I don’t know anything about the person that was killed but it was a very moving experience.

Our flight was delayed several times, I think we ended up getting on the plane some time around 1000. It was a C17 and was only about half full. They had it configured with the fold-down seats along the sides and down the center instead of with the palletized seating that looks like commercial aircraft seats like we had on the flight from Manas to Bagram. After about 10 minutes on the plane they told all the people in the center seats to move to the sides because they had gotten some more cargo put on our flight. We waited while they reconfigured the aircraft and stowed the center seats, then loaded the pallets on. The crew was a pretty unusual crew, both loadmasters were females, one a SrA and the other an A1C. The senior pilot was a female captain, the co-pilot and nav were both maile 1LTs. Right after they started breaking down the seats in the center, the two guys left to get chow for the crew and left the 3 girls to finish the work. They busted their asses getting the plane ready, it was impressive. The guys got back with their chow right about the time they got the last pallet secured and we finally took off.

It was a pretty uneventful flight, about 4 hours total from the time we took off until the time we landed. We went through customs and the liaison officer picked us up and took us to Camp As Sayliyah. Camp As Sayliyah sole reason for existence is as an R&R destination. There’s a PX, swimming pool, Chili’s, a couple bars (3 beer limit per day), and really nice chow hall, and a huge hangar building that has a movie theater, coffee shop, games, pool tables, bowling alley, wireless internet, a few more bars and restaurants, all kinds of stuff. They also offer daily excursions to different places around the area.

Since we got here late on Tuesday (1700 or so) they had already sent up the paperwork for new arrivals. That meant that Wednesday would be our arrival day and our 4 day pass would start on Thursday so we got a bonus day! We went to the PX Tuesday night then to the Oasis restaurant and had our 3 beers. After not drinking for 7 months 3 beers was a pretty good start. We went to bed pretty early that night.

Wednesday we went on a tour of Doha city. Our first stop was at one of the Souqs, which is just a big market area. We walked around there and had some coffee and a pastry, then got back on the bus. Our next stop was another Souq, but it was all jewelery stores and pretty boring. Next we drove around the city a little bit and our tour guide pointed out different buildings to us, like the Emir’s house and some cultural museums. There’s lots of construction in Doha, our guide told us it was because Doha is trying to meet the minimum hotel room requirements to bid on hosting the Olympics.

After we drove around the city for a little bit we stopped to eat at an Iranian restaurant. The food was really good, it was lamb and chicken kebabs with rice and some vegetables. Then we went to the City Center mall. The mall is gigantically huge. There was a big Carrefour (like Walmart) and a ton of other stores. We walked around for an hour and a half and still didn’t cover the whole place. We were in a home decorating store so Dan could buy some stuff for his wife, and when he went to pay he was a few Riyals short. The shops also take US dollars, so he paid with that. The total was like $87 or something like that and he paid with 4 20s, a 5 and 2 1s. The cashier studied each bill closely, then gave the 5s and 1s back because they were too old! Apparently they only take US cash with a date of 2004 or newer. That cracked me up.

Today we just slept in and bummed around the camp here. We signed up for another trip to a different mall tomorrow. It’s called the Villagio and it’s supposedly based on the Venetian resort in Las Vegas, with an indoor canal and gondolas and stuff like that.

I didn’t bring the cable I need to connect my camera to my computer and the card reader on my computer doesn’t read the SDHC card that I use in my camera, so I can’t get the pics I took off the camera I’m going to pick up an external card reader next time I’m at the PX and see if that’ll work.