Back in the USA

11 October 2009

I am back in the USA! Technically I've been back almost two weeks now, it's just taken me this long to get on the blog and post it.

The 'day' we left Kuwait was really drawn out into a day of sitting at this post-customs tent area waiting for our bus to bring us to the airport, and then a day of flying. Because we fly chartered flights out of Kuwait to the US we don't go through US customs at the airports so the Navy conducts our customs inspection for us. While we were in Iraq all our equipment was inspected by customs officials (they were Soldiers in our unit who had been trained by the Navy customs inspectors). In Kuwait all our personal gear we were bringing back was inspected. It's not a long or hard process. You drag your bags into this big open area and dump everything out of the bag for the customs inspector to look at. They're looking for any loose rounds that got away, normal things you can't bring through customs like fruit animal products, things like that. Once they've looked at it all then you repack your bags and send them to the truck that takes them to the airport. Once you're through customs you are sent to a holding area which is named 'Freedom Tent' but it's more like no-freedom tents. To make sure you don't get anything that would not pass customs into your pockets or carry-on bag all that is in the 'freedom tent' area are tents with chairs and some snacks, a pizza hut and a coffee shop, and bathrooms. There's no place to take a shower, no place to eat other than the snacks and pizza hut, and no place to really lie down. We were lucky enough to sit in the freedom tents with all it's freedom for almost 18 hours, and we got there at midnight so no sleep was really a welcome perk for being free.

So once our 18 hours of freedom were over we loaded buses and drove to the Kuwait City International Airport. It was reaching 110 when we loaded the plane and there was a sand storm pelting us for the last time with Kuwait sand. It was such a nice send off. It took 26 hours to fly from Kuwait to Fairbanks. We stopped in Germany for about three hours. There's a holding area there with a little German shop and this creepy looking little hot dogs which everyone says are great, they look weird though. Then we flew to Bangor Maine and sat there another couple hours. We were greeted by a couple brave US faces, we got there at 2 am so it's not like half the state was awake to say hi. Then finally we made it to Fairbanks Alaska and as predicted it was snowing a little, just kind of flurries, but seeing as how we had left 110 degrees 26 hours prior 20 degrees and snow was a shock. We got off the plane at an Air Force base just south of Fairbanks and was greeted by our Brigade commander and a couple of the senior officers and sergeants in our unit. We went through our initial in-processing there, it took about an hour to make sure everyone who was supposed to be on the flight was there and that all our equipment was there. Then we rode buses to Ft. Wainwright. Our mini welcome home ceremony was at the Assembly and Holding Area (AHA pronounced like Ah - Ha but not a surprised Ah Ha). We got out of the buses and made a little formation then marched down the building to where all the families were waiting. We stood there for a good 30 seconds while the Ft. Wainwright commander welcomed us back and told us to have a good day. Then we were released for the day, our first day off!

For the next week we had various briefings to attend to re-integrate into Ft. Wainwright life. We had briefings in case we were moving, briefings about legal and financial options, briefings telling us not to drink and drive, briefings about medical. It wasn't too bad. Because I was on the last flight there were only about 100 of us so they went quickly and pretty painlessly, I suppose the first flight had it a little rougher since they were the first, but everyone had their speeches down pretty quickly by the time we got there.

Once we were done with our inprocessing we had a 2 day pass where we didn't have to go to work. Our two day pass ended up being Saturday and Sunday which was a nice treat, so our Commander also gave us Monday and Tuesday off. Wednesday was the memorial dedication for the Soldiers that were killed in our unit while deployed, then Thursday was our Redeployment ceremony where we were welcomed back but the Alaska Governor and the Alaska Army commander. The families off the fallen Soldiers were there, as well as several Soldiers who had been wounded in Iraq.

Since then I flew to Colorado for the first leg in my around the US trip. I have lots of shopping to do for my new place. I have no furniture since this is the first time I'm not living in furnished dorms or Army barracks. I did get a bed, but other than that it's mostly stacked plastic boxes an piles of stuff around my house. I'm going to help boost the economy so don't feel bad if you choose the next three weeks to budget!