Cobra Staff member and Golf Entertainer/World Long Drive Champion, Dan Boever, is visiting Iraq on a goodwill tour to meet with the troops. This is the thirteenth in a series of updates from his travels.
December 4, 2009
Today starts our final day in Iraq. It would prove to be like every other day we have had: long and filled with a lot of unknown.
There has been an overall theme for us throughout our days in this country when troops would ask, “Where are you going next?” All we could ever say was, “Hey, I don’t know where I am going to be an hour from now.”
Part of that was security related and part was just a need to be flexible. There are a lot of parts working at once to move us and set up our daily schedule so we had to just show up and be ready. The troops would laugh at us and say, “Welcome to our world!”
I was most impressed with Rick Kell and his contacts with the MWR who made everything come together so seamlessly. Case in point was our final day at Al Asad and our intended time of departure. We ate (of course) and made our way to the airstrip for an 8:45 a.m. departure. At 1 p.m. we were still sitting in the lounge. We got word that the C-130 that was on its way to pick us up had a fire in one of its engines and had to land. Everyone was alright and there wasn’t any trouble, but that did leave us without transportation from Al Asad to Ali Al Salem Airbase in Kuwait.
Believe it or not, no one really had any desire to get in a car and drive there. Well, maybe Simpson, but I am pretty sure he once chased a grizzly bear into a tree, yanked him out onto the ground and made him cry. Twice!
Through the magic phone calls of Rick and our studs and the MWR, we were told another C-130 was on its way and we would be leaving shortly. Sure enough, it flip-flopped into Al Asad and we boarded, eager to make our way to Kuwait for our midnight flight back home to the States.
On this day I would make a few adjustments from our previous flight into Al Asad. Tom Watson prompted me to jump up front with the pilots on the flight deck and grab a seat. I did not hesitate. With the last C-130 ride fresh in my memory, I was going to do anything I could to make sure I didn’t have my breakfast end up someplace it shouldn’t.
As luck would have it, we got the same crew that flew us in on Thanksgiving Day. I made sure I let them know I wasn’t real appreciative of their pitiful attempt at making us sick the last time. They just laughed and said the wind was stronger than normal. All I could respond with was, “YOU ARE BIG FAT LIARS.” I know, pretty nasty, huh? They seemed unaffected by my insult. In fact they giggled a bit.
What do you expect out of 25-year-old guys who have to face the threat of real bullets or bombs coming at them every time they get behind the steering wheel of their fat, slow plane?
Here are the cliff notes of the next 12 hours:
- Fly two hours to Ali Al Salem Base
- Spend an hour getting bags from bag Claim area
- Drive an hour and a half to Arifjan Camp outside Kuwait City
- Stay there two hours
- Drive an hour and a half back to Kuwait Airport
- Take an hour plus to go through security, customs and cavity searches
- Sit for three hours waiting on our 12:30 a.m. flight to Dulles
- Laugh for two hours at Tim Simpson’s (Desert Foghorn) unbelievably loud snoring
- That makes a total of 12 hours leading up to our 15-hour flight to Washington D.C.
Throw in three hours of customs and cavity searches upon our arrival in D.C., a two-hour flight from D.C. to Chicago, a three-and-a-half-hour layover in Chicago and an hour-and-a-half flight from Chicago to Springfield, Mo., and you have one tired little boy.
My family was waiting when I got to the baggage claim area. They said I looked a bit worn out, and even a little different. I don’t know how you couldn’t be different after a trip like we just took.
Once again, I thank you for following along. Meeting all the great men and women in uniform has been an amazing honor. My last blog will be a “finishing touches” recap of our trip.