Am back in Yemen for the home stretch – the last quarter of my 13 month odyssey. The remainder of leave was very nice, and though it was not easy to leave home, it was much easier than the first time. It also made me look forward to coming home for good – 15 days at home was long enough to get into a groove and realize how much I miss family life. I also stopped in at my employer and talked about me returning to work. Though I will not get my EXACT job back (they had to replace me and it made zero sense to put an ‘interim’ person there for a year plus!) I will get a position – just not sure what yet. My visit was intended to get the ball rolling.
The trip back was not too bad. The Army had me booked for a 7am flight to Atlanta to catch the charter back to Kuwait, but I decided to change it to a 1pm flight instead. Though I was technically supposed to be in Atlanta at 1pm for a muster, I took a small gamble that there would be no issue with me arriving at 4:30 pm instead – and I was correct. Instead of hanging out in Atlanta airport from 10:30am to 9pm, I was able to see the kids off to school and get dropped off at a civilized hour – and only have to wait a few hours in Atlanta. Also, it turns out there were two charter flights that day – I was booked on the second, less full one – had an aisle seat with the middle seat open! Much nicer than the jam packed flight on the way home. We stopped in Shannon, Ireland for fuel, and then landed in Kuwait at 10pm local. Since I had a 7:45am commercial flight to Bahrain, I lobbied to be left at the airport rather than take the two hour bus ride back to the Army camp, then turn around and hop another bus back to the airport, but… that was too hard for the Army weenies to understand. So, the bus left the airport at 11:30pm, arrived at the base at 1am, and I scrambled to catch the 1:30am bus back to the airport, arriving at 3:30am. I hung out in the airport with some other Navy friends until our 7:45am flight.
Summary – I loathe the Army and am sooooo glad that I should never ever have to deal with that organization again! Or, to paraphrase the Army slogan, ‘There is Stupid, and then there is Army Stupid’. Indeed!
Navy did not exactly thrill me, either – they had me stop over in Bahrain on the way back from leave before heading to Yemen. At the time (on Sunday – three days earlier) it seemed prudent, since the embassy was closed, but by the time I was checking into my flight at Kuwait International on Wed morning, the embassy was open and there was really no good need to stop in Bahrain. However, I cancelled the second leg of my flight (to Sana’a, Yemen) and did indeed report to the HQ, just to find that it was in fact OK for me to go to Yemen. Net result – I spent one night in Bahrain (pretty much just caught up on sleep) and then caught a flight to Yemen the next day. Just a bit of hassle.
As I have been telling somewhat concerned family and friends, despite all of the news time being spent on Yemen, nothing has really changed here, except the government here launching a few attacks on AQ. Though that is significant, the rest of the story is old hat. And, just to give a bit of faith in your government and military, all of the stuff the talking heads and ‘experts’ (most who have never been here!) are saying is stuff that has been long known and been working. We know AQ is here, we know there are issues with the country, and we know that we have to help. All of the talk of increasing aid was mostly a done deal before Yemen became newsworthy. Indeed, even the visit by Gen Petraeus was planned before the Xmas incident – it just had to be postponed due to a schedule conflict. So, the news makes it seem like we suddenly realized that Yemen has issues and we should focus on it, but in reality we already were well aware and working it. Unfortunately, it also means that lots of people in DC, the Pentagon, and our big HQ in Tampa will start thinking that they need to ‘help’ us more, which usually means more short-notice taskers that add little value. And my first full day back validated that – they had us come in over our weekend (on Friday – which is our Sunday) so we could have a document in their e-mail on Friday morning in the US (Tampa) so they could look at it and process so they would not have to come in over their weekend. (we are 8 hours ahead of Tampa….) Pricks….
Finally, a couple of signs that my tour is drawing to a close. First, after I leave here, I have to spend a week in Gulfport, MS to ‘demobilize’ (transition off of active duty) then I have to spend a few days at my reserve center to become a reservist again, and then finally home! A year ago, I drilled in Fort Worth, TX so I went through there in March, and my orders had me going back there after Gulfport. However, since then, I changed reserve units / centers to one within an hour of my house. I was able to lobby the Navy to change my orders to send me there for the last few days instead of Ft Worth, so the net result is that I will arrive home almost a week early. It saves the Navy money, too – one less plane ticket, and no hotel bill. Can’t imagine the Army applying common sense like that.
Secondly, I booked my ticket from Yemen to Gulfport today! I now have an exact time and date – makes the end very concrete. So, still lots of work to do in the next couple of months, but I see the light at the end of the tunnel now!!!
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