Transition

When we flew out of Ft. Bliss I felt like I was buzzing. I was excited and nervous and feeling the weight of the moment. We loaded up on a chartered commercial flight. We landed first at Bangor International Airport in Maine where we were greeted by a long line of senior citizens and Girl Scouts who shook our hands and thanked us for our service. I plopped down in the small coffee shop in the terminal and Skyped with my parents for about 45 minutes before we loaded back on the plane. They fed us frequently on the plane...pene pasta and chicken and other dishes which were surprisingly tasty in my opinion. Our next stop was in Germany. You could buy internet use for 10 dollars or something so I did and chatted with Tad for a while and attempted to load a video to watch on the plane but was relatively unsuccessful at that because I didn't bring my charger into the airport and my computer was about to die. We loaded back up and were on our way.

Our last stop before getting in Theater was Manas International Airport in Kyrgyzstan. We stayed there for a few days to do some training and because the weather was too bad to fly out when we were supposed to. Manas was like a nice little heaven before entering Afghanistan. Hot showers, free candy (the good stuff...M&Ms, Twix, KitKats etc!) in the DFAC, free internet, a shopping area that had a massage parlor and so on made it a great place to be stuck for a few days.

 The weather was extremely varient at Manas.  It was warm and sunny when we arrived and one morning I stepped out of my tent around 4 a.m. and was greeted by a blizzard! I just stood there in my flip flops and summer physical fitness uniform staring at it in awe before I took a picture and hurried to the latrine. I had brought my fleece cap with me because at this point I had shaved my head and was adjusting to the coldness of it (that ordeal deserves its own post I will have to write later!) and I set it on a ledge which happened to be right below the air vent (a big open hole with a giant duct attached to it) while I washed my hands. There I was minding my own business, washing my hands, staring at my new hairdo when the vent suddenly turned on and sucked my watch cap down the vent!  It was crazy! I didn't even know those vents sucked air out I thought they only pushed air in but apparently the do that when they first turn on. Anyway, I was very upset about losing that hat in such an absurd way. I even looked to see if I could unscrew the duct from the air conditioning unit outside but it was useless unless I wanted to go find a mechanic and the snow was enough to discourage me from doing that.

Manas was also an interesting stop because some genius decided to put all of the female in a tent on the opposite side (literally the opposite...completely across camp) of the camp from the males. Needless to say, the males kept forgetting we existed and consistently forgot to send a runner to update us on what was going on and when they were having formations. I don't mean to sound like I'm man-bashing but, hey, I'm telling it how it is! The females would not have forgotten to let the males know what was going on had the situation been reversed. The funnier thing was getting yelled at for not being in a formation that no one told us was even taking place. "Oh no, nothing is planned, we will send a runner to let you know if anything changes." Gotta love the Army ;)

Soon we got the word that it was time to get packed and ready to go. Next thing I knew, we were on a C17 Globe Master (I found it so interesting I was riding in one of these because Green Hill Prep School used to have a case in debate about how the Army needed more C17 Globe Masters to maintain hegemony. Who knew a few years later I would be riding in one on my way to war) to Afghanistan!