CRC
The Continental
United States (CONUS) Replacement Center (CRC)…ah, everyone’s dream. It’s somewhat of a panacea in the defense
department that manages to cram one acronym into a newly formed acronym; I’m
sure there’s an old retiree bumping around telling the story about how, when he
was a colonel, he earned an award by developing a new acronym that contained
another acronym... People, for their own
reasons, may look forward to a deployment, but no one, not a soul, looks
forward to CRC, or traveling to Fort Bliss/El Paso (i.e. Juarez Norte), at
least none that I have found.
Anticipated are long hours, nasty immunizations, inevitable delays, and
yet another week away from family without yet being deployed. Destinations vary for individuals and folks
move through there to deploy to Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Egypt,
Qatar, and the list goes on.
Leaving
was the hardest part. The airport was
nice enough to let my family come back to the gate with me, which is great…or
is it? I believe that I have to be the
strong one in these situations…I could only imagine the impact to my family if
I completely lost it getting on the plane.
Instead I had to stand by and watch the pain that my family was going
through, knowing that I was the proximate cause of their pain…great. Even better, Southwest’s brilliant seating
plan formed two lines of spectators.
Dana and Katie Beth crushed, George confused, and me left to my solitary
long walk down the jet way.
As we
taxied away, I was left staring at a mirror like reflection in the terminal
which spared me the last heartbreaking image of the fruits of my action;
although I would have preferred that heartbreak. No longer theoretical or anticipated, this
was now very real pain for the whole family.
One of
the poor folks stuck in line right behind me, with a front seat to the Hall
family show, was a major in uniform. We took
the flight, and caught the same van ride to the CRC. There, we were issued rooms, and wouldn’t you
know it, two majors, signing in at the same time ended up roommates. Luckily, this wasn’t the first rodeo for
either of us (living in barracks with a roommate, traveling to nasty places, or
making Army life as comfortable as possible).
We got along pretty well and that made the whole experience easier.
The
barracks were somewhat of a surprise…and not the great kind. The normal barracks were under renovation,
which is great…if you were going to come in after my class, not so great for
us…we were in barracks like the ones that we quit using at Fort Campbell in
2000. The classic, three to a room,
crappy smelly bathrooms down the hall, tile falling apart, barracks. Well at least we could go out and have a
beer…not so fast. General Order #1,
originally passed under the guise of not offending Muslim nations, now used as
a convenient form of behavior control applies upon signing in…in Texas, so no
one is allowed to drink, and additionally we were confined to Fort Bliss.
Fort Bliss, how I love thee, let me
count the ways…and I’m spent. That area
looks surprisingly like my destination country of Afghanistan…it even sits at
4500 ft above sea level, giving a quick start to being sick of living in high
arid environs… Luckily, since El Paso
evidently has so little to offer, they’ve put considerable effort into making
an extensive shopping and dining area.
The
CRC, run by reservists out of Kentucky and Tennessee primarily, was relatively
impressive because they anticipated the needs for soon-to-deploy folks. The shuttle took us to the post office to
send, just drawn, but completely unneeded equipment home. They made sure that we got the stuff
accomplished that would allow us all to launch in good order.
So what
are these critical tasks that everyone must learn…ninja throwing stars, jumping
out of airplanes, calling in aircraft to kill the enemy from 30,000 ft,
fighting deceptacons…no try Sexual Harassment/Assault Rape Prevention, a little
first aid, how to identify something before it blows you up (here’s a hint, you
can’t), how to wear your body armor for when you do fail to spot that thing
before it blows up, and not how to prevent, but that our allies may actually be
our worst enemies in Afghanistan. Add of
course, the medical screening required for sending us to one of the most
backward, medically archaic countries in the world.
The one activity that might fit the
perception was weapons qualification, but with the majority of folks only
having Berretta M9 9mm handguns, that qualification only consisted of all of 50
rounds per person: 10 rds to familiarize
ourselves and 40 rds for qualification.
No moving, no hostage targets, no Mel Gibson Leathal Weapon combat role.
This qualification, of course, was done in full combat uniform (helmet,
body armor, gloves, etc), not in the uniform that I would most likely be in as
a staff officer; sitting at a desk…drinking chai with an Afghan in a meeting…that’s
where the insider threat (Afghan ally- on-American violence) not in the
“crouch” position and firing at a stationary silhouette at 25 yards…but still
some didn’t make it. Of the 60+ folks
trying to shoot the handgun…all in the Army, most pretty senior, a dozen or so,
in an entire day of trying, couldn’t manage to put 24 rds out of 40 into the
target. Huh, what? That’s right…for some, it might be time to
choose another profession.
One of
the big tasks was to issue us our equipment.
All new uniforms in Multi-Cam, which the Army refers to as the Operation
Enduring Freedom (OEF) Camouflage Pattern (OCP:
remember what I said about acronyms inside acronyms). Now, the general consensus is that this new
pattern looks a lot like the old pattern (pre-2005) when it was faded by the
sun. I often joked that I only needed to
go back because the Army is finally ditching the Army Universal Camouflage,
ACUs, and I want the free uniforms. I
hated the uniforms that only blend in with gravel parking lots. My daughter says they “they do not sound
comfy” as they crinkle and swish walking up the stairs to take her to bed. At least the OCP uniforms, cut in basically
the same pattern are more comfortable.
At the
end of this all important week, everyone gets their flight to wherever their
headed (if they managed to get through all of the requirements…and qualify with
their weapon). The majority load into a
contracted air flight bound for Kuwait.
Finally, I am past the pre-qualification stage, and in to the actual
deployment…or am I.
Traveling with the Army as a Travel Agent
So we
all loaded up on a large airliner like you would for a normal commercial
airline with a few notable differences.
First, the aircraft, seems to be at the end of its service life, 12
years of war has left these aircraft
(and in some cases the flight crew) battered and torn…but hey, better than a
C141 across the pond. Next, no one is
allowed knives (TSA style), but every single person has a flippin’ gun. Really, knives = prohibited; guns =
mandatory…ah, what a world we live in.
Remember how you normally put a bag on a conveyor belt and it magically
appears (and sometimes doesn’t) at your destination…not here. “Volunteers” are taken, for the infamous
“baggage detail.” They load the bags
from where we drop them onto a truck, lay them out for the bomb dogs to sniff,
load them all up and take them to the airport, and load them into the plane…no
airport ground crew here to cast movement spells onto your checked bags. Also, we walk to the aircraft, no jet-way for
this crew of malcontents, just like you did a few decades ago. Everyone doffs their hat and walks the long
walk across the southwest Texas flightline to a staircase up into the body of
the plane.
Luckily for all of us, there were only abt 90 people on a plane with 180 seats…some ability to spread ourselves out…which we would need over the next few…dozen hours. We departed about 12:30 pm CST on 28 October from El Paso and flew first to the former Pease Air Force Base in New Hampshire arriving about 6:30 pm EST. Since the disbandment of Strategic Air Command with the fall of a peer nuclear competitor, the Air Base has become a commerce hub in the North East. It sits so close to the coast that the plane actually turned over the Atlantic before coming in to land. Unbeknownst to us, a small army of patriot citizens was already waiting our arrival. As we walked into the parochial airport, about a hundred citizens from the area greeted us with handshakes, high-fives, and motherly hugs. It turns out that the Pease Greeters, 4200 strong, greet every military group that comes in, and had for 648 flights before ours…rain, snow, dead of night, or time of day. Coffee, candy, pizza, and soda were everywhere…and so were people. God bless ‘em, but it was difficult to get a moment to think, with a veteran of the A Shau Valley, or the Navy, or the Air Force, or a caring woman who trains service dog inhabiting every nook and cranny of the tiny Airport. They took a few moments to hold a short ceremony where the senior organizer of the event, a Korean War Marine Corps Veteran and member of the Marine League spoke to us. He finished the ceremony with a simple statement:
“We, the old warriors, salute you, the young warriors. The road you travel is a toll road, but we thank you because without you we could not sleep peacefully at night.”
They
sent us away fat and happy, and frankly touched by their words and
gestures. Everyone went away with some
Lindt Chocolate, a knit cap, and the opportunity to receive a CD of all of the
pictures that they had taken. Needing
only to sleep off a pizza feast, the flight crew made sure to offer us the same
pasta or chicken twice during the flight, bringing up the cabin lights each
time. A few scattered minutes of sleep
were achieved by most during the hop across the Atlantic.
Next
stop, Hahn, Germany, but it would not be until the 29th at 9:35 am
local. The irony of receiving German
Chocolate in New Hampshire on an outbound flight to Germany was not lost on me,
but it turns out that Lindt has a factory in New Hampshire. Hahn, another relic of the cold war, had an
airbase of old Air Force buildings overgrown with vegetation and one newer
building where we were dropped and left for the next six or so hours. A good brat with sauerkraut later and we were
on our way, finally, to the Middle East.
Departing 2 pm local we boarded our prison once again.
By the
time we touched down at Kuwait international airport, it was already 9:30
pm. As the plane descended, I detected
it…what is it? It is the smell…that
smell that only exists in the Middle East…at least that’s the only place that
I’ve found it. A flood of memories
returned, sitting in the Kuwait International Airport following Christmas of
2001 for more than 24 hrs combined, living in various dumps, warehouses, and
movie theaters…hot days, stinky shower water, and odd customs. This is the point where the deployment became
real and present for me.
Army efficiency has us sit in a
dusty open rectangle of port-o-johns and cement barriers next to a dusty
parking lot for two hours waiting for…something…that’s the thing about
deployments, there’s a whole f’ton of waiting.
Never is there a direct route to anything, and travel is the worst. Theories floated around about why were there,
but most quietly accepted it, eating a couple of their chocolates, drinking
some water, or smoking cigarettes. One
prevailing theory was that, now that deployment benefits are pro-rated by day
instead of lumped by month, they were holding us to avoid paying 90 people
their benefits for one additional day.
The Kuwait government must have
some restrictions on the U.S. that doesn’t allow the use of ring roads around Kuwait
City because the next leg, which I have driven in about an hour, took more than
three…
No comments:
Post a Comment