Back and Settling In

Well, I've now been back in the US for almost a week. It's kind of strange to think, I mean I've been out of Afghanistan for almost 2 full weeks now by the time you count in the Manas layover and the 4 day odyssey to actually get back home. Being back in the US is great, I can't argue with being here, however, some of me actually misses being over there. That or I just miss the people I know who are still over there. I never ever, in my wildest dreams, thought I'd be sort of sad to have left early, but I am. I guess its like anything though, there's always something sad about a chapter in your life ending, but there's at least excitement in the new chapter that's about to start that should help to make up for it.
So, as far as my new chapter, I'm in the process of settling back in to Ft. Drum. Well, considering I was really only here about a month before we deployed, I don't know if it counts as settling back in, or if its settling in for the first time. I think I've got an apartment lined up that is super close to post. Granted, there's more fun areas, but I think given how busy I'll be this year, it's probably a good thing that I'll only be about a 5 minute drive from post instead of 45 minutes. Once I get that all signed, I've started looking at furniture, I feel like a bona-fide adult, it's kind of cool. But, everything is sort of on hold until I have the apartment all figured out.

Never Doubt the Power of 1 Idiot

I'm sitting here, still in Germany writing. We've been in Germany almost 24 hours now. All I can say is that if anyone has ever doubted the power of an individual to affect a whole lot of people. We were delayed taking off from Ramstein yesterday because there was a thunderstorm in the area with lightening, so they couldn't refuel the plane. That wasn't too big of a deal, it added a couple of hours, but nothing too terrible that had anyone upset.
Well, they finally cleared us for take-off, and we're sitting on the plane, when some junior airman straight up passes out two rows ahead of where I'm sitting. I mean the guy was gone. Turns out that he had taken 2 Ambien on an empty stomach. They couldn't get him to respond, he was practically comotose, so they decided to call in the ambulance. It took a good half an hour or so for the firefighters to get on board, during which time a doctor on board examined him and found he was pretty much totally unresponsive and his vitals weren't the best. Meaning, when the firefighters got on board, they decided they had to evacuate him off the plane and take him to an emergency room.
Of course, given current flight regulations, if he wasn't going to fly, his bags couldn't fly either, so they had to offload his bags from the cargo hold. Well, when they started to close the cargo hold, some strap got stuck in the door, so they couldn't seal the door. We sat on the plane for almost 2 more hours waiting for them to try and fix the door. Finally, they decided to de-plane us and see if having all of the weight off the plane would help fix it. No such luck. We sat in the airport for another 3 hours before they finally decided they weren't going to be able to fix it that night and decided they'd put us all (280 some-odd passengers) up in hotels around Ramstein for the night. Wunderbar. Except that trying to actually get us to the hotels took well over 2 hours. So at 2 a.m. local German time, we finally arrived at a hotel, where we got to take a shower and sleep. And now we're sitting back in the airport, waiting to hopefully take off. Lovely. It's now been over 32 hours since we left Kyrgyzstan, and we haven't even crossed the Atlantic. Hopefully we'll get back to the US soon.

So Close, and a Quick Update

It sure is a pain in the rear end (literally) trying to get back to the US. We've been travelling for over 12 hours at this point, which has seen us leaving Manas, Krygyzstan and arriving at Incirlik AB, Turkey and now Ramstein AB, Germany. We've loaded the plane twice now, and will shortly load for the 3rd time. Of course, the over head bins are super tiny, and everyone has monster carryons, so it's fun every time. Good thing most people are being super accomodating to others since we're all excited about almost being home.
I left Bagram on Monday to head to Manas for what was supposed to have been a Thursday rotator flight back to the US. However, in keeping with the phenomenal flight luck that we had while on pass in Qatar, the flight was delayed twice. Meaning that I had almost a full week in Manas. Translation, for almost a week I had nothing to do but eat, sleep, go to the gym and do whatever I felt like doing. But, considering the entertainment options available at Manas, that translated into reading or watching movies, although of course that meant having to buy movies at the AAFES price (gotta love their monopoly over here).
It's strange, we picked up several families in Turkey (and more here in Germany), and having little kids on the plane is weird after 6 months of just being around adults. I have to wonder what these families think since 2/3 of the plane is soldiers/airmen returning from OEF. Oh well, I'm sure that most of the people we're picking up along the way have been over there or will be at some point in the future. It's the reality of military life right now, so it's probably not as unusual as it might seem at first.

Out of Afghanistan

Finally out of Afghanistan. It came a lot sooner than I planned on, since they're sending me home at 6 months to get a platoon, but it feels as if I were there forever, I can't imagine doing a full year. I'm in Turkey en route back to the US, and since I finally am not blocked from the blog, figured I'd go ahead and update. I'll write more about Afghanistan once I get back, but for now I'm just enjoying knowing that within half a day I should be back in the US.