Military Movement, with precision

Movement from Camp Stone, Herat two weeks ago was, of course, an adventure only possible in Afghanistan with the Army. Leg one: Stone to Phoenix. Lugging 6 bags of crap that weighs over 500lbs (an exageration, of course but it sounds good) to the pick up point. I have to wait an extra 45 minutes because the convoy's trailer is already full of other people's stuff. Then it was of to the airport to wait for another three hours for the flight. The flight across country was actually enjoyable because we got to spread out and take off our gazillion pounds of body armor. Once I landed is when the fun began. Again, I was lugging around my 500lbs of crap. Of course every step of the way I had to cart this stuff around so I will not mention it again. Landing at Kaia is always fun because Camp Phoenix where Americans live is a 15 minute ride away, and the convoy only comes twice per day which means hours and hours and hours of waiting for a ride. If you're lucky, you can thumb a ride with civilians or military convoys passing through. I had no such luck. I'm glad I had my Kindle with me.

Twenty minutes before my ride got there, a flight of about 1000 people (again an exageration) arrived, and assumed that the convoy that showed up was for them. They really didn't care that there were five of us that were actually on the manifest, and they basically stole our seats and cargo space! Oh, I was hot! I had been waiting for 8.5 hours for my ride! This means that I had to wait another hour for the convoy to come back for me. Not a good day for Steve-O.

Once I got to Phoenix in Kabul, that's when the fun began. To keep it short: Hopped a mail convoy to the south side of Kabul to Camp Blackhorse where I stayed for one day, hitched a ride to the North West side of the city to Camp Dubs where I stayed for two days. A group of us bound for Bagram Airfield sat on the heli-pad for four hours waiting on a flight until the officer in charge discovered that the showtime for the flight was actually 24 hours later. The following day we conducted a convoy (still with 500lbs of crap) back to Camp Blackhorse to catch a helicopter ride to Bagram Airfield.


All in all, the trip took about a week where I could have just flown from Camp Stone directly to Bagram and been there in less than 3 hours. Now that's military precision!