Hi there. I flaked again. Let's get past that.
Recapping the last month will be my focus of the next few posts, and this time I
really mean it, I'm going to post frequently. Already got a few in the hopper.
I recently took my much anticipated 4-day vacation, representing the first and only days I've had off so far. Deployments are tough no matter what you do - even chairborne rangers like me who sit a desk the majority of the time tend to do so in 12 hour blocks, 6.5 - 7 days a week. With every day you're not traveling or on a mission being pretty much exactly the same, it can wear on you after a while. To account for this, the military has a universal leave policy for everybody in theater - every 6 months, you're eligible for a 4-day pass to a military run R&R location either in Iraq or Qatar; for those deployed 270 days or more (my orders are 257 - JUST missed it) two weeks of regular leave to anywhere in the world. Though the facilities in Iraq are actually pretty nice (known as "Freedom Rest" locations - we've even got one here on Speicher), I wasn't about to give up an opportunity to see a new country. Even though the travel to Qatar is a ridiculous cluster and a lot of people choose to just go to Freedom Rest to avoid dealing with it, it was actually a pretty easy call to make for me...
You get beer in Qatar.
Sold.
Travel sucks?
I'll walk.
So - my trip started with a completely unnecessary trip down to Baghdad courtesy of TF 134's raging inability to acknowledge the existence of any of its personnel not sitting nicely under-thumb on Camp Victory. Speicher is an air base. We have all kinds of these big things called C-130s, and they go all kinds of interesting places like Qatar. But Baghdad has BIAP, and booking everybody through their airport is apparently easier than knowing where we all live, so back to the helo pad I went. To be fair, I didn't really mind. Blackhawk flights are probably my favorite thing to do here, so I can't complain too forcefully. Not that my gentle disposition is any excuse for poor planning...
And speaking of poor planning, they had me report a day late for my flight. Thanks again guys. You're really good. Thankfully the folks at the airport took pity on me and stuck me on the next thing smoking south and all was well. Well, relatively well. I'd originally planned to go with a few of my buddies that I haven't seen since we arrived in Iraq back in May, but due to some more egregious TF 134 half-assery and a few unfortunate incidents on the road in Baghdad, my party of 5 became a party of Mike, and everybody else stayed home or went to Freedom Rest. Luckily at the last minute a friend of mine was bumped from his scheduled dates due to yet another TF 134 fart party, and he was added to my flight at the last minute. So it worked out OK in the end.
I'll keep it brief here and just tell you the travel did in fact suck. Both ways, full days wasted. Sitting around for hours going through Qatari customs and waiting for police escorts and all kinds of nonsense. Just one big suck.
But it ended eventually and we arrived at
Camp As Sayliyah, just outside the Qatari capital city of Doha. The base played a big role in the build up and early conduct of the Iraq war in 2003, but now it also houses the main R&R program for all of CENTCOM. I can't post pictures of the base, as there are some other things going on there, but I can say it pretty much looks like a cleaner, more civilized version of Camp Virginia in Kuwait. More pavement, less gravel. I must say orderly civilization felt pretty good.
What didn't feel good was the weather. Good God. 115 degrees. Which I was totally prepared for, having spent about 3 months straight at that mark here on Speicher and topping it by more than 10 degrees a few times. But
it's a dry heat here.... not so much in Qatar. 95% humidity. So unbelievably foul. Kind of awesome in its sheer unpleasantness though. I appreciate extremes, and this weather was definitely that.
My timing also sucked, as it was the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which means no fun for us gringos on holiday. Long sleeves and pants off-base, no eating or drinking during daylight hours. Unreal. Usually there are a ton of trips off base to take and lots of people around, but due to the religious restrictions in was really dead on base and all but three of the trips were canceled.
In short - I drank some beer, which was glorious, and goddamn I'm a cheap date all of a sudden. I got some good Xbox time in at the USO. I ate at a real-live Chilli's, and though I have no particular fondness for Chilli's it was cool to eat at a restaurant and feel like a real human being again. Although I don't remember Chilli's food as being horrifically greasy, and I know objectively the food I ate there wasn't, but I've been eating essentially nothing but chicken breast sandwiches for 6 months thans to the fine dining choices at the DFAC and I think my taste for regular American food may be ruined. Not the worst thing in the world... so long as I can still stomach my beloved
California Burritos.
Two trips I was able to go on that were cool included a beach day at the inland sea known as the
Khor Al Udeid. Click on that link for pretty telling background info direct from their tourism authority - it's late and I'm going to cut to the chase. That trip was the most dangerous thing I've done on this deployment thanks to our driver, and I don't think he was even really trying to kill us. Plenty of people here are, clearly, so topping their effectiveness on accident was quite a feat. Some pictures below to tell the tale. Overall, very fun. Went snorkeling in the comically salty bathwater that is the Khor, ate an awesome local lunch and didn't get sick, and...... drumroll..... rode a gigantic camel. Big time.
Second trip was to the Villagio mall. Modeled after the Bellagio Casino, of course. Qatar isn't totally oil rich, but they have a buttload of natural gas (I just realized that's an unfortunate pun but there's no way I'm changing it. Too perfect in its nerd beauty) and they appear to be doing quite well financially. The floor has gold in it. Pretty sweet. Also, I bought a
Dishdash and headgear.... pretty much
these guys' twin. Party.
With travel complications, my 4 day pass wound up getting me out of the office for 10. Not a bad deal.
I'll let the pictures speak for themselves, because it's past my bedtime. More soon.
43 days left. Yes.
Kind of surreal... more so than Iraq for some reason... maybe because this scenery fits some kind of preconceived American notion of the middle east, and the overall reality doesn't.
USO. About to shoot the blurry guy in the face and bring him great digital shame.
Somewhat nicer than I'm accustomed to.
Aaaaaaaaannnnd we're approaching ridiculous...
All the way there.
Some familiar faces made the trip... although I was disappointed they went with Hardee's instead of Carl's Junior... just felt totally foreign.
I bit on the Coldstone, and much to my dismay the cookie dough was shockingly awful. Though the entire staff did sing some kind of Engrish tribute to me when I gave the cashier a 30 cent tip, so that was something.
The sand was so hot that all geniuses who didn't bring sandals had to sprint from one shade spot to the next all day. Those guys were real idiots.
My feet hurt so bad.
I'm not sure words are necessary here.
Just a couple of badasses, owning the beach and letting everybody else know they're inadequate.
A more comfortable convoy than I've become used to, but I didn't know that these...
... were good for this.... in a 30kph zone, no less... I didn't think it was possible for drivers to be crazier than I've experienced in Mexico...
...but all things are possible when you give a random Egyptian psychopath the keys to a powerful American vehicle.
But this guy was not Egyptian and his vehicle was not American. His tires were perfectly fine until he spun completely sideways going about 90 MPH on the sand. Thankfully the tires just exploded and the sand absorbed the shock, keeping the vehicle from rolling. No kidding, we pulled all of the passengers out of the down truck and left orange shirt guy an hour into the desert by himself with his ruined vehicle. Harsh company.
