A short stay in Kuwait

I was only at Camp Buehring, Kuwait for a few days and the only pictures I took were taken in the last couple of hours before flying out.  This is mostly because Megan chewed me out for not ever taking enough pictures. 

So this is the barrier that my brigade painted.  Mine is a cavalry brigade so the red and white is meant to replicate a cavalry guidon.  You see that same theme a lot.

This is the same picture I posted on Facebook.  It suprised me the effect finding this barrier had.  Sometimes I think I'm sort of over Bryce's passing, but then I find something that reminds me that I'm not.  We got into Camp Buehring late at night and I looked out the window and saw all these painted barriers and I remembered that Bryce's unit had painted one.  I wondered if I would be able to find it.  I knew I only had about three days and no wheels and I probably wouldn't be able to so I dropped the idea.  The day before I left I decided to walk a different way than I normally did and there it was.  It ended up being just across the street from the brigade HQ tent.

This is representative of the tents at Camp Buehring.  This particular one housed the battalion HQs (plural) for the brigade.  (Brigade = 6 batallions)

This is a shot of the tent city I lived in for a few days.  You can see the ends of about six tents here.  It also gives you some idea of the amount of barriers there.  It's even worse in Iraq.  There are barriers around everything.

This is a shot of Eisenhower Road heading toward the main part of the camp.  This camp has been there for the duration and it is a very busy place.  I can't imagine how this was during the surge.

This is a shot of the dining facility (DFAC).  What I wanted to get in this shot was the barriers.  Most every unit that comes through here paints a barrier.  It's sort of humbling to see the number of troops who have come through this place and to know that each painted barrier represents 100 to 4000 Soldiers who were going into harms way.

This is the inside of the PX.  This was a pretty good facility with a lot of stuff.  I made the mistake of setting my hat down on the shelf next to the Kool-Aid and they made me buy it back.

This is the USO tent.  They provide a really good service to the troops.  They had free phones and internet that made it possible to call home.

This is a shot of the inside of the USO tent.  The phones are in the foreground, computers are further back, and the TV's are video game stations.

This is where you can check out earphones and sit and watch movies on nice couches.  It is a very nice facility and I was thoroughly impressed.

This enormous tent is the gym.  I'm told it is world class. . . I didn't go in.

This is the edge of the camp and if you take out all the stuff, this is what Kuwait looks like.  Sand and nothing. 

This is the door to my tent.

A shot from inside.  This was about 9:30 in the morning and all the bunks have people in them.  My unit got in late the night before.  I, being the benevolent commander I am, allowed them to sleep in.

These are representative of strange little busses all over Kuwait and Iraq.  We call them Scooby busses.  These were Toyota Coasters.  I made a note of that because this is what I'm going to have to buy if we keep having kids.

We loaded on busses and moved an hour south to Ali Al Salem Air Base.  Here we are loading our bags onto 463L pallets for transport on a C-130 airplane.

The guy standing up on the pallet was wearing pantyhose-like sleeves.  I thought that was funny.  At first I thought he was tatoo'd, but upon closer inspection we has wearing hose on his arms.  Fashion or function?

This is the terminal where you watch bad TV, load ammunition into your magazines and wait for your flight to be called.  This is when the thought crossed my mind that I really was going into a war zone and it might be dangerous.  They told us that if we took any pictures from this point, the flight would be cancelled so I didn't get any pictures of the plane or the flight up.  Frankly, I don't really want to remember that experience.  We packed into the back of this plane and strapped in to these odd net-seat things which are designed to make your butt go to sleep in less than five minutes guaranteed.  Then they loaded the pallets on behind us.  We flew to Balad and shortly after we landed they opened the back door and drove the pallet handlind lift thing up to the back of the plane and stopped and just sat there.  I was ready to hurt someone because my tail was on fire because I was sitting on a bar in addition to the crappy net and it had been a two hour flight.  The crew cheif was saying something over the loud speakers but I couldn't understand him over the idling engines.  Finally, in frustration, I told the guy next to me that apparently the Air Force didn't get the memo on torture being against the rules.  He said the crew chief had just announced to sit tight because the base was taking incoming rockets.  I never heard or saw anything, but at that point rockets seemed a better option.
Anyway, we flew from Balad to Baghdad International and then loaded into armored suburbans for the ride about ten miles to FOB Prosperity.