Boredom is the enemy. I'm in the rear with the gear this time around, so I have a lot of free time. We work 12 hour shifts, six days a week, and the job I'm doing is actually quite easy and affords me more than enough free time during the day. Too much free time, actually. You know what they say about idle hands, right? Well, ever apply that to an idle mind? Rumors are fun. I don't mean rumors about people, but rumors that give people hope and something to look forward to, and rumors that crush their spirit and morale. Myself and another person that I work with sort of formed The Ministry of Social Terrorism. We've pulled off some good ones, and a few have even made it back to our home station. Some of them won't make sense unless you've been here and/ or are military, so I'll explain the best I can:

-The group that's coming to replace us is actually deploying to Guam, so we'll be here 'till September to cover for them.

-They're building a Chile's/ Hooters/ TGIF/ Denny's in the housing area we live in.

-The Burger King on base has a drive- thru, but you're not allowed to drive a GOV (Government Owned Vehicle). This pisses people off because they hear the drive- thru part and get excited, but then they find out they can't use it because all vehicles over here are GOV's and their morale is crushed.

-The Pizza Hut on base delivers. Call them to order!

-If you go into alterations (run by a bunch of asian women) and ask to buy a $30 phone card, you get taken out back are treated to full service prostitution.

-When we get off the plane back at home station, we'll have to form up, and stand at attention 'till our family members find us. This was actually started by the Chief and coincided with his email saying we all have to be in ABU's for the trip home.

-We had a water shortage a couple months ago, and I made some signs that said, "showers are now open!" and put them on the doors to some of the showers.

-A fake set of orders was "leaked" onto the server showing that we were extended to spend 45 days in Afghanistan on our way home.

-The airline that gets us to and from our home station and the theater went bankrupt (this really happened), and they were only allocating us one C-130 to get us home. Since C-130's only carry about 90 people and only cruise at something like 325 MPH, they were going to have to make multiple trips (there's about 350 of us here), and will go by rank, starting highest and working down. And, since we'd be considered in transit, those awaiting their flight wouldn't be eligable for any of the combat pay, hazard fire pay, family seperation pay, or tax exempt status.

Other things I do in my free time include sleeping, going to the internet cafe (I call it the nerdery), playing pool in the rec tent, and generally avoiding the gym. As much as I'd like to work out, and as big as the new gym is, it's still packed because we're in the middle of a troop surge. It's open 24/7 (most of the stuff on base is), and there's still a line. It's like a freakin' night club or something. Everyone turns into muscleheads over here, too. You'll have these turds that can barely pass their PT test back home suddenly eating only chicken and boiled eggs, pounding protien shakes and taking Lipo 6X like it's candy. And the best part? When they go back home, they'll stop doing all that shit and get fat again (if they even managed to lose any weight while they were here). I'll also ride the bus. There's a bus system here on base that runs constantly, and it's free. Wait at a stop, get on the bus going the route you want to take and enjoy the AC. The seats are quite comfortable, they're usually playing some hajji music, which I think is kind of cool in a novel way- others hate it, and if it's just you and the driver, you can sometimes strike up a conversation in pidgeon English. I talked to one who'd been here two years, driving seven days a week, eight hours a day, and has a wife and three kids back in Sri Lanka. I asked him about the tsunami and he said he lost friends in it. He said it's quite dangerous there ever since because of all the tigers roaming the island (no shit), and that there's a lot of militias that have popped up and have overpowered the local police. Another guy I spoke with was from New Dheli (prounounced "noo'd'lee", I learned). He's the same way- wife and kids back home, been here for about a year, and makes $250 a week. He sends most of it home and they're saving up to move to the States. They want to live in NYC and he wants to drive a cab there. He asked me a lot about America and NYC, and I gave him my email address to look me up when he gets stateside. Really nice guy.

The Army and the Marines keep to themselves and let us "Air Force fatties" do our thing in our area of the base. I had to take a bus somewhere to get a paper signed on my day off and got on a bus full of soldiers. I was in my AF PT uniform because it's what we're supposed to wear if we don't want to wear our DCUs or ABUs, and all of them were looking at me when I got on. I don't mean this in a racist way, but it was like my white ass walking into a black bar. I got the feeling that I really didn't belong there. I think they're actually as afraid of us as we are of them.

Most of the time, you're walking somewhere. The busses are great for going a couple miles, but anything less, you're walking. If the ground isn't covered by concrete or pavement, they've spread rocks on it. I don't mean gravel, but rocks- 2" rocks that you'd put under a driveway or road for drainage, and it really sucks to walk on this stuff, especially when it's 5"- 6" deep. You don't get used to walking on the rocks, but you learn how, and after going 1/2 mile on the rocks and hitting pavement, it sort of throws your balance off a bit. I guess the rocks are spread out all over the place so that when it rains, you're not walking through two feet of mud. The mud here, when it does rain, is insane. It's like this sticky clay stuff that you have to scrape off your boot with a putty knife, and when your boot (or a truck tire) becomes packed with this stuff, it's like trying to walk or drive on ice. The rainy season usually lasts from Decemberish 'till mid March or so. This past February, I was able to bury a Deuce up to its axles in the mud. We tried to pull it out with two more Deuces, but they became stuck themselves, so the Army brought over an M55 and yanked all three out. The whole ordeal probably lasted 10 hours.

This place does weird things to people. For those of us that stay on base, our biggest enemy, other than boredom, is "desert madness." I'm not sure what causes the madness, but people definetly act differently here. People just go nuts after a while. It may be the monotony, it may be that you're constantly around people and that the only time you only get some privacy is when you go into the portashitter, or it may be the family seperation. For me, it's stupid people. I don't mean that in a way to be mean towards someone that pissed me off, but rather in the way you read it. Stupid fucking people. People that actually lack what is referred to not- so- common common sense. People that would be fired in a heartbeat in the outside world. The most annoying thing about the USAF is that it's so goddamn hard to be kicked out. You can be a total retard and fuckup at work and still make rank and "succeed" in the USAF. This is what probably drives me nuts the most here are stupid people that I have to work with. Yeah yeah, there's dumb people everywhere, but they usually last a month and are fired. Here, I have to call them sir. The fuck.

Things I miss in no particular order: Clean air. A bath rather than a shower. Cold milk in a real glass. Real scrambled eggs. Steak that's brown on the outside and pink in the middle instead of grey all the way through. Metal silverware and something other than a styrofoam to-go box or plastic plate. Working 40 hour weeks. Vagina. Listening to music on something other than a pair of earbud headphones. Being able to drive more than 35 MPH. My guns. Wheeling. Booze. Sleeping with the window open. Having a window in the room you sleep in to have open while you sleep. Not walking around with the knowledge that a mortar could land on you at any second and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

My last duty day was a couple days ago, so we should be out of here pretty soon. It's such an ordeal getting here and going home; it's probably the worst part about it, honestly. You spend five months here, are mentally drained, on the ragged edge of politeness, and then they throw this at you: Not knowing when you're leaving 'till a few hours before show time, scrambling to get to PERSCO and through customs, and then waiting five hours or so while they do the paperwork, load everyone's shit onto pallets and for the AC to arrive. Then it's a mad dash to get on the plane. We fly C-17s from here down to a base on the Persian Gulf, and I pity the poor bastard that's not one of the first 65 people on the plane. The seats on a '17 are set up so that there's a row going down either side sideways and then four pallets set up with airline style seating. These people sitting there are the suckers because the military has a knack for cramming five pounds of shit into a two pound bag, and this includes people- those airline seats in the middle have exactly 10" between the front of the seat bottom and the back of the seat in front of it. Did I mention that we have to wear our body armor and carry a 72 hour bag with us? The seats on the side of the plane aren't padded, but you have about 4' of legroom. So anyway, mad dash to get on the plane. We're taken out to the ramp on busses, form up, wait for the go ahead and march onto the plane. Don't forget to be one of the first 65 lucky bastards to get on! Last time, what is normally a two hour flight took almost twelve hours because we stopped at every goddamn air field between where we left and our destination. The worst part was that while the plane sat on the ramp at all the stops, loading and unloading people and gear, we had to stay put. It was so hot; the back of the plane has a big hole in it when they're loading and unloading stuff, and the AC can't keep up. Once we finally get to where we're going, we have to inprocess that base, even though we're transient personnel, and then get our tent assignment and finally pick up linens. Between getting the word that we're leaving and picking up linens and making our bed, it's probably close to 30 hours. It just flat out beats the shit out of you. It's not over, though, since it's about 120 degrees and 99% humidity. Last time we were there, it was so hot, the door to our tent wouldn't stay closed, so it would just swing open in the breeze and the tent would get insanely hot. I'm talking so hot you'd break a sweat laying on your bed in your underwear. I hid from the sun and heat in the library for three days, basically. I slept on the couch and read books and watched movies the whole time we were there. And then you get word that it's time to go, so it's another mad dash to pack your shit, hand in linens, outprocess, go through the PAX terminal, get your tickets and then... WAIT for hours for them to do paperwork and load all our bags onto the plane. For the trip back to the states, it'll be a charter airline- usually a DC-10 or L1011 or some other widebody trijet Here's another seating tip: Be sure to volunteer to be a thrower! They'll ask for six or eight volunteers to load the bags, and if you're one of the chosen elite, you get to put your bag on the plane and then throw bags while people get on the plane. It's hot as hell and it's heavy work, but you'll have an ear- to- ear grin because you know your bag is reserving a seat in the front row for you, so that when the plane lands at your home station, you'll be the first off the plane. When you get home, there's a throng of people on the ramp waiting. All the families of the deployed, plus news media are all waiting on the ramp for you to get off the plane. The stairway is brough to the plane, the door opens, and you go down the stairs, pass through the "shake and grin gauntlet," and then look for your loved one. You'll have to turn in your paperwork, medical documents, sign a few things, find your bags, and then you're free to go home. You'll have to come in a couple days later to inprocess, have some blood drawn, and be brieft by the base commander, and all that only takes three or four hours. And then you're released for two weeks of non- deductable leave.

Once again, I've been typing for a while, so that'll end this blog. I'll write more if the interest is there, but I won't post it for a while; maybe a month. We're out of here soon, and then I'm going to be pretty busy 'till early July.