Army Stupid, but home for the Holidays

Am posting on holiday leave from home, enjoying the cold weather and the chaos that is my home. Had a great Christmas and New Year's - was a blessing to be here - and now am just enjoying the remaining day of vacation with the family. My parents flew out on Xmas day - somehow avoiding the 'blizzard' that hit much of the country - and spent a couple of days, which was a nice touch. Les and I were even able to get away for a night to relax and recharge. So, all in all, has been a great time.

Being home on leave reminds me of being on vacation, actually. You know that feeling where you are really enjoying yourself, yet you know in the back of your mind there is a clock ticking and in a few days, you will be getting back on the plane for reality. I want to fully reintegrate with the family, etc, but everyone knows that in a few days, I am back in Yemen and we will have to endure another three months of this. However, the upside is that this is the final goodbye - have done three of them already (two more than most people get!) so should not be so bad.

Another interesting side to this is that this leave is the longest I have been at home in many many years - cannot recall the last time I was at home for 15 consecutive days. Though Les and I are glad to see each other, going from 9 months of separation (with two visits in there) to 15 days of togetherness has not been entirely frictionless... On the balance though, it has been a great two weeks.

Getting here was a pain. The Army motto 'Army Strong' should be 'Army Stupid' - because the Army rises to a whole new level of stupidity. The Army runs the theater leave (R&R) program, and it is designed for folks in Iraq and Afghanistan. Basically, I left my apartment in Sana'a mid-day on Thursday the 17th. A Gulf Air flight to Bahrain, followed by another to Kuwait International was step one. After arriving at Kuwait, a bunch of us were met by an Army dude who loaded us on to busses to Camp Ali Al Salem where we spent the next 22 hours wasting a LOT of time, in true Army fashion. Then, a charter flight to Atlanta, via Leipzig, and then a Delta flight home - I arrived home at 3pm on Sat the 19th (EST) - almost 58 hours from door to door versus the normal 20 or so hours via commercial airlines. I also got very lucky. The Army books a commercial flight for you from Atlanta to home airport - I was booked for a 6pm flight - but I called from Kuwait and moved it up to noon (we arrived in Atlanta at 8:30 am...). A good thing I did it early, because when we landed, a snowstorm had closed airports from VA to New York, and the rebook lines were HUGE! As it was, my airport was still open, and my completely full flight made it on time.

Finally, I have noticed that Yemen has been in the news a lot since I have been home - very interesting hearing about it. Suddenly, my job makes for good party conversation, as nobody really knows about Yemen (nor did I know anything until a few months ago....). Just read some news that the embassy is closed today due to some threat, so maybe I will not be going directly back to Yemen. We'll see... will be an exciting last few months there, that is for sure.