Movement

You’d think that, since we’re living feet from an airfield overfull of military assets, and being employed by the Department of Defense, that we’d be able to catch a flight from one base to another. Not so, but that won’t keep us from trying.
It took us three attempts to get from here to Camp Marmal. The first time, we sat in a couple of pickups adjacent to the rotary apron in the rain for two hours before we were informed that the helicopter we were scheduled to ride had never left Kabul. Nor would it leave that day. Our second attempt was a little more successful, in that we actually got on the bird and were in the air for nearly an hour before our pilots found the passes socked in and turned us around. The third attempt was on a much clearer day, and we finally got delivered.

Camp Marmal to PRT Kunduz was a German Air Force flight. It left on time, and delivered us on time.

Our first try from Kunduz to Bagram would have taken us through Kabul. We were strongly hoping it would be “through”, and not “to”, as we had our fears that we might get dumped in the capital and have to wait days for our second leg. Fortunately, this flight was cancelled, and our flight the next day was a fixed wing, just for us, and non-stop. I had my doubts about the stopping when we were waved off on final approach, but one more cruise around the airfield had us safety on the ground.

Yesterday, we made our second attempt to get to FOB Shank, the first try being met with a full manifest. Since we had to be at the rotary terminal at 0400, the alarm was set to 0300, so I could download a couple of emails. We made it awake and to the terminal on time, then waited 45 minutes to reach the counter, where we were informed that our “itinerary was not supported”, which I’m pretty sure meant that we were not going to get out. By this morning, we had completely given up on another side trip during this tour, and have resigned ourselves to, now, twenty more awful meals.