Flying to Kuwait

The next evening, 1 NOV, we said goodbye to our drill sergeants and McCrady Training Center and boarded buses to Columbia Airport where a chartered MD-11 waited. We had a final good bye from the Task Force Marshall Company A commander, an aged Army Captain with bushy eyebrows, gray hair and a distinct Southern Carolina accent who quoted from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar:

Farewell! And whether we shall meet again, I know not.
Therefore, our everlasting farewell take:
For ever, and for ever, farewell!
If we do meet again, then we shall smile;
If not, ‘tis true this parting was well made.

We loaded our four to five sea-bags plus personal luggage into the plane and took off at 2245 local. Our itinerary took us to Bangor, ME for refueling. We arrived nearly at 0200 local and were met by Troop Greeters from the local Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) post. They were lined up, six or seven deep, and shook everyone’s hands as we deplaned. Most were Vietnam vets but there were also some were graying World War Two vets who, to a person, greeted us using army ranks (after all, not many planes arrive solely carrying Navy personnel). Although we were tired from just a few hours sleep, it was very touching indeed to see these vets who clearly cared deeply about what we were headed out to do.

We were ushered into a large waiting area which had open restaurants, coffee shops, and souvenir stands, all for our plane. I chatted for a time, with a Troop Greeter about local resident/philanthropist Stephen King; the Troop Greeter wore a black baseball cap that featured an LED flashing American flag. As I’m not a Stephen King fan, per se, the flashing flag served to keep me focused and awake. He was nice enough guy who, I’m sure, had better things to do than hang out at the Bangor Airport at two thirty in the morning.

After about an hour plus layover, we re-boarded and flew across the Atlantic to Leipzig, Germany. I managed to sleep through two in-flight movies but caught the hot meals. We landed some six hours layers in a light drizzle. My only other time in eastern Germany was in 1991 when I drove with my college roommate, Victor, in a rented Fiat Tipo from Paris to Prague. Sadly, all we saw on this visit was a special Leipzig/Halle airport lounge that caters to transient troops. It also featured a souvenir shop and beer, which we were not allowed, of course, to partake with.

After another hour, we once again re-boarded and flew another six hours to Kuwait. We enjoyed two more hot meals and two more movies (Live Free or Die Hard and Blades of Glory). As we got closer to landing, I noticed lights in the darkness below, my first view of Kuwait. Upon closer examination, I saw they were not lights at all but licks of flame coming from oil wells, natural gas burn off. These were same wells infamously torched by Saddam Hussein’s army as they retreated from Kuwait in 1991.