A Comedy of Errors

A comedy of errors is rarely comedic, which begs the question of why we call it such. Before the thespians in my readership take off to write strongly worded emails chastising my ignorance - yes, it is comedy in the Shakespearean sense, ease up on the coffee. It still isn't funny to be in a comedy of errors, although hearing about others does seem to provide levity. As such, I hope you all find the following far more entertaining than I did.

A few days ago I had another trip planned to one of my small distant bases. Our official flight time was 2200 and we had to be at the flight line early. We got there around 2030 to check in and proceeded to stand around. Standing on a flight line, you realize how much hills, trees, buildings, and even micro-terrain help to minimize the wind. One realizes this even quicker after the sun has set and it's chilly out. Especially after standing outside for 3 hours. The astute reader will find that 3 hours after 2030 is after the flight was to leave, and they would be correct. Schedules in Afghanistan are about as good as the paper they're written on. Considering that schedules are all classified secret, they aren't often printed, so there goes the whole paper concept. Translation - they ain't worth squat.

I tried to go sit inside the building that the air control folks were in. It was large, had plenty of seats and couches and even a TV, plus it was heated. Apparently it was not for use by passengers though, so the big warm room sat unused as I sat on a plastic stool in the cold night.

Shortly after midnight we were told to haul our gear over to one of two waiting CH-47 Chinook helicopters. Turns out that was the wrong one and we hauled our gear to the other one. Of course, that one was full of cargo as it had just landed, and instantly all the passengers became indentured servants. Large boxes of helicopter rotors are heavy and awkward to say the least.

After we all got the boxes off and we climbed on and strapped our gear down, we were all told to cram as far as possible to the front. The crew proceeded to load in boxes and pallets of who-knows-what, one at a time. Some 45 minutes later, we finally took off. I would have noticed how cold it was, but we landed about 30 seconds later at the FARP (Forward Arming & Refueling Point).

At the FARP, we were all told to get off the helicopter. Fueling is a dangerous process as they leave the helicopter running. Because of the cargo, we all had to climb out the emergency hatch which was less than graceful considering the large tactical vest and weapons etc. There is nowhere to wait for the helicopter to refuel other than out in the open, and because the engines never turn off, neither do the rotors. The down-wash from a CH-47 is quite noticeable, especially because it has two very large main rotors. So now we are all huddled outside in the pitch black getting battered by the freezing wind of a Chinook helicopter's rotors. Fantastic.

About 15 minutes later the fueling was complete and we climbed back in through the escape hatch even less gracefully than before; it was time to take off. This is the part where I knew the flight would not be fun. The Chinook has two doors on either side near the front for the gunners to protect the aircraft. These doors obviously have to be open for the gunners to do their jobs, which means plenty of wind gets in. At night in mid/late October at altitude - Afghanistan is a chilly place. I take back everything I said about it being incredibly hot. What a change!

On the up side, I knew we would be flying at night and thought to check out a pair of night vision goggles (NVGs) from the armory. In true military fashion, they had the goggles but not the mount or any way to wear them, so I had to hold them. Thankfully they actually worked and I got to watch the mountains pass by as we flew. Without the goggles you can't see squat as we fly completely blacked out.

The flight was about 45 minutes, making it around 0145 / 0200 by the time we landed. We then had to exit again through the escape hatch and wait again in the cold rotor wash for the cargo to be off loaded so we could get our bags. Off loading was much quicker than on loading as they just pushed it out the back of the helicopter as the pilot slowly pulled forward. After we gathered our gear and the helicopter took off, we were again in total darkness. Most of the outlying FOBs have a very strict no white light rule, and as there was next to no moon, it was hard to see more than a few feet.

Luckily, my trusty NVGs came in handy again (and people made fun of me for asking for them...) However, after powering them up, I was even more confused than before. I will take this opportunity to say that I am very disappointed about something: Hollywood and Sillicon Valley have lied to me AGAIN. Every computer game and movie where a guy turns on NVGs, they make a nifty little powering-up noise. Mine did nothing of the sorts, which made me feel just a little less cool.

In any event - after looking around I had NO idea where we were. I gave the goggles to my Chief and he looked around for a second and then proclaimed that we were at a different base far from where we were supposed to be. Not good. After another look, I saw a building in the distance I recognized and realized that we landed at a different place than the last time we were there - so at least we were on the right base, but not really sure where. However, it was now after 0200 and we were supposed to land around 2245. There was no-one there and we all figured they thought the flight was canceled. We had no idea where we were supposed to go. Luckily, someone showed up and picked us up and took us to our tent. A good turn of fate, however short lived it would turn out to be.

The tent had very nice wooden floors and a forced-air heating system and luxury cots. It may sound like a contradiction but if you read my last post about small beds, at least this cot was about 6'6" long and wider than most other ones. As it was toasty warm, I crawled onto my cot and just used my sleeping bag as a blanket. By the time we got settled and everything was worked out it was 0300.

Around 0400 or so, the heater broke. The fan on the other hand did not. The forced air heating system became a forced air system, pumping in the air from outside. As the FOB we were at was located well above 7,000 feet elevation, the air was VERY cold (below freezing), which in turn meant that the tent was very cold (damn near freezing). I quickly discovered that laying on a thin piece of fabric suspended in the air does NOT provide much warmth to ones unprotected back, and I managed to crawl into the sleeping bag for another 3 hours until we had to be up and ready to go.

The rest of the day went off fairly well, we only got the vehicle stuck in a mountain of moon dust one time. I wasn't driving. They had to get a dozer to pull us out; we were so stuck the pickup truck couldn't even tug us out. Luckily the flight home was far less dramatic.

So there's a little taste of life in Afghanistan... it's cold and dusty and the pace is either full speed ahead or dead stop. As much as I may complain though, I like it here. I like it back home better though.