Deployment: Day Three

After a few hours, I was finally able to grab a shower and get some sleep.  I wound up not sleeping as long as I wanted because the cleaning crew came into the tent.  I have an idea of when the unit is departing for our final destination, but I’m not posting that information on here due to OPSEC concerns.

Manas Air Base so far seems to be a nice place to be, relatively speaking.  I don’t have too much to say about it quite yet; that may change once I’ve explored it a little more.  I’m actually able to get a cell signal on my iPhone and made a couple of calls last night.  I’ll probably regret that once I see the phone bill, but speaking to my cousin Jake was more important than worrying about the cost of international roaming.

The weather here is pleasant.  It’s not cold today and the sky is clear.  My understanding is that there were a couple of feet of snow a few days ago and the temperature was around 18˚.  Thankfully, that’s not true for today.

The time difference between here and Fort Huachuca is 11 hours, but I’m not feeling any affects from jet lag.  That’s probably due to having slept on the flight and to being used to traveling by plane so often.

Deployment: Day Two

After taking off from Bangor, we headed to Leipzig, Germany and landed there about 10:30 am local time. We spent a couple of hours at the airport before we departed again. After a few more hours, we landed in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan around 11:00 pm local time.

Now we’re awaiting inprocessing briefings. Will probably be up for a couple of more hours before we’re bedded for the night. At least I was able to get plenty of rest on the plane.

Next stop in a day or two, Afghanistan.

Deployment: Day One

Today is the first day of my deployment.  I’m currently at Bangor International Airport while the plane refuels, then we’ll be making one more stop before we arrive in Kyrgyzstan.

Yesterday, the company held formation at 0600 to put out information about what would happen today, then we were released.  What was supposed to take place, was we would form up at 0300 today to draw weapons, then start the usual hours-long process of getting onto a plane.  What ended up happening, was formation was rescheduled to 0600.  Of course, no one notified me of the change, so I ended up going to the company at 0230.  Naturally, no one was there; I had to call one of the other NCOs to find out what was going on.  I’m just glad that the formation hadn’t been rescheduled for earlier instead of later.

Aside from that minor hiccup, things went well.  I went back home and spent some more time with my cousin before I had to go to the company again.  It took about an hour to get my weapon, then it was almost another hour before we got to Eifler Gym where we could spend a couple of final hours with family and friends.  We boarded the plane around 1230 and took off not long after.  Now, I’m relaxing before the next leg of the flight, which will take us over the Atlantic; having flown that many times before, I know that’s going to be a long flight.  Sleep sounds good right about now.