We arrived in Baghdad late on the evening of January 27, 2004; however, I almost didn’t make it.

Kylie and I had been meeting with Coalition Forces Land Component Command (CFLCC) Public Affairs since the first day we arrived in Kuwait, and we had finally received our marching orders that said to be at Camp Wolfe at a designated time for a supposed time hack of 1300 hours. What this really meant is that we’d show up at the check-in desk by 1300 and wait for four or five hours until we would board a U.S. Air Force C-130 cargo plane for the ninety minute flight to Baghdad International Airport (BIAP).

We left Camp Udari in two minibuses with Capt. Swinder and Maj. Evan Pronger as the senior Soldiers on one bus, while Kylie, Sgt. 1st Class Kardini, and I commandeered the second bus. We were about fifteen minutes behind the first group because we had to scrounge up a couple of drivers for our vehicle, and we should have known that was a bad omen.

Our driver made a left turn out of Camp Udari when he should have made a right turn and we proceeded to drive further and further away from Camp Wolfe and actually closer to the Iraq’s southern border. Our driver, an Army Specialist E-4, argued with Kylie for a couple of miles until I got involved and told him that he didn’t know what he was talking about and to start listening to the people who did.

How did we know that we were going into the wrong direction? Well, when we were back at Fort Stewart, several of the unit’s Soldiers purchased Rhinos at a military store called ‘Ranger Joe’s’. The Rhinos were portable GPS’s that could be programmed for different world regions. Luckily, two Soldiers on my vehicle had Rhinos and we could clearly see that we were traveling due east when we should have been going due south. We were in the middle of the desert with wild camels on both sides of the road, and the only thing we knew was that we were about ninety minutes from our time hack at Camp Wolfe, but we had no idea how far away we were because we were in the middle of the Kuwaiti desert.

My patience was wearing thin with the driver, but after gaining my bearings and conferring with Kylie, we decided that we would continue traveling east where we would intersect with Highway 1 and head south right to Camp Wolfe. We weren’t positive that this would work, but we were relatively confident, and we were a lot more confident after asking a couple of Army truck drivers we drove by for the quickest way to Camp Wolfe, and they confirmed our plans of continuing east and then heading south on Highway 1. The only part of the deal in question was if we would actually make our time-hack and be at the passenger terminal in time.

We had that minibus operating at full gerbil power as we made it into Kuwaiti civilization and Camp Wolfe. We arrived at the passenger terminal with about fifteen minutes to spare, and then the fun began all over again.
Half the unit had been at Camp Wolfe for about an hour. This group, who took their cues from the tandem of Pronger and Swinder, had immediately dropped their gear and made tracks for the outstanding chow hall and commercial food establishments as soon as they arrived. It was clear what their priority was -- eat the good stuff before you get to Baghdad, because lord knew what we were going to eat once we arrived.

We arrived and the enlisted Soldiers on the first bus immediately helped us palletize our equipment with their gear, and we were good to go, except for Swinder, who skipped back to the area raving about the food and for Pronger, who had to get his last bathroom stop out before flying to Baghdad.
The flight into Baghdad took a little over an hour and was a run-of-the-mill military hop until the landing. All pilots landing an aircraft in Iraq implement a combat landing, which translates into sharp dives on the descent and then veering off to either the left or right. It’s like riding a super rollercoaster for about two minutes until you finally realize that you have landed. There are no windows in the cargo hold, so you can’t see where you are traveling, and the combat landing has different effects on people. Kylie and I told everyone not to eat before we boarded the flight, but we still had one Soldier utilize his barf bag. SPC Donny Gerson loved to eat and he paid for it this time.

We arrived at Baghdad International Airport (BIAP) in the pitch-black with a pallet full of equipment and gear ready to travel to our home for at least the next twelve months in the Green Zone (GZ). Unfortunately, we knew nobody, had no idea where we were, and we had no transportation to get us where we were supposed to go. Our ride back to the GZ did not show up, and he did not leave a message or give us any guidance, so we were on our own in Baghdad.

Even though Kylie and I were just as confused as everyone else, we were still the leaders of the unit and we had to get our troops fed and find somewhere to crash for the night until we could find our bearings and get to the Green Zone. We hooked up with an Army Sergeant Major, a complete stranger, who told us he would give us a ride to Camp Flexible, located about a half mile from BIAP, and get us somewhere to crash for the night.

The Sergeant Major walked right into the command tent, ordered some Army specialist to get us a tent and more importantly, a five ton vehicle to get us back to BIAP, load up our gear, and get all the Soldiers back to Camp Flexible so we could get some chow and crash out.

With all that worked out, I headed back in the five ton vehicle, loaded it up at BIAP, and made the trip back to our home for the night. After unloading our gear to our tent, we went to find some much-needed midnight chow and the opportunity to relax and maybe even get some shut-eye before really beginning our tour.

The GZ awaited us at first light.