Boots on Ground

Well, we finally made it to Kuwait. "Boots on Ground" in the combat zone. That means that starting now, I'm "on the clock" and 365 days from now I should be headed home. Actually, I am posting this shortly after midnight so I'll make that 364 days! Time flies! The flight in from Rota was long (about 8 hours) and the last hour and a half of it was in very rough turbulence. A few people got sick. The pilot had to abort his first approach at the runway and circle around for another try. When whe wheels finally hit there was a lot of applause. I don't think I've mentioned what type of plane we were flying. It's called a C-40A in the Navy. Most of you would recognize it as a Boeing 737, with the front half of the seats removed so they could load all our luggage in on pallets. So we sat in regular airline seats, although it was a full flight so we didn't have all that much room. It's nice and cool here, but we arrived late in the evening, so I'm sure that the nice weather won't last. We should have the day tomorrow to do administrative things (travel claim, get all our special pays started, etc.) and rest up for the upcoming training in the desert. I'm off to get some chow (Midrats, as they call it, for midnight rations) and then some sleep in my tent that I'm sharing with 15 of my best friends.