The Army seems to have purchased our tickets to Kuwat on Priceline. Maybe even Travelocity. This remains the general feeling among my Soldiers and other senior NCOs and officers with whom I have spoken since we left America on Sunday. From the no-name airline which brought us here (pretty sure Howard Hughes might have once owned it... in 1935) to the incredibly confusing layover patterns (once of my NCOs on an earlier flight stopped in Canada, Iceland, Ireland and Germany before landing here) to the total travel time (from Texas to Kuwait, including time change, we spent nearly 46 hours traveling) it had all the makings of a last-minute trip to Vegas where you leave Chicago and have a layover in Boston.
Oh well. Who am I to complain? I am safe in Kuwait and have the balance of the day off to collect my thoughts, secure all my gear, and buy certain items, like towels and soap, which did not make the trip with me for one reason or another. Kuwait is a staging ground for all Soldiers deploying in support of Operation: New Dawn in Iraq and Operation: Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, and also for all Soldiers returning back to the United States from both theatres on redeployment. They do generally try to make you feel at home here; at last count there were seven fast-food restaurants, a very nice gym, a movie theatre and even this internet cafe. In fact I am surrounded by posters advertising a "Battle of the Bands" competition and a sign up for a camp-wide basketball tournament: clear indicatins that the Army has realized a need to decompress Soldiers who are either coming or going. It serves its purpose well though. We all know this nonsense kicks off for real in a few days but for now we are scheduling our training around what movie is playing when and trying to drum up support for a touch football game.
Not much to write. I know Aaron has a few things to say and I would like to take this time to introduce Kyle, a third blogger and future roommate of ours who will write under the moniker "The Quarterback" for reasons as clear as why I am called Goatman Johnny. He is sitting next to me actually, trying to understand why on in this very American internet cafe, on our very American blog, all the tools above the screen and links to certian necessary pages like "sign in" and "compose blog" are written in Arabic. Oh well. Rome wasn't built in a day
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