Finally Here

April 5th, 2008

I have finally arrived in Kuwait. We departed from Indianapolis on March 30th and got to Kuwait April 1st. One of the first things that I recognized when stepping off the plane was the smell. There is a distinct smell to the air in Kuwait and Iraq. I think that it has something to do with the dust. While this trip was very similar to the last deployment I had there were certain distinct differences that help me to differentiate this deployment from the last one. For one, I didn’t have baggage detail, which meant that when I got off the plane in Kuwait and on the bus I wasn’t hot, sweaty or tired. This meant that I was much better prepared to attend the 3 hr briefing we had to go to as soon as we got to Camp Arifjan. A lot of the sites that we visited along the way to Arifjan all look the same. The highway and of course the desert look unchanged which is exciting in ways to just be around something familiar. I think that everyone was excited to get out of Camp Atterbury, and into something different.
The change of weather wasn’t so bad we arrived at midnight so the air was fairly cool and we stayed out through most of the morning so it was easier for us to adapt to the gradual warm-up during the day. It’s already 119 F during the afternoons here in Arifjan. I think that within the past few days I’ve drank more water here than I did during our entire 3 months in Atterbury.
The people here wasted no time in getting us situated into our barracks and into our trucks. The barracks that we have aren’t the best in the world. It’s basically a warehouse divided by footlockers and bunk beds. The buildings we’ve been provided house between 50-60 soldiers. They have tried to divide the room up into groups of four people with the footlockers but really we are living in a huge 60 man open bay. As far as the trucks, the 1175th(the unit we are replacing) hasn’t turned the trucks over to us just yet, but we have started training on the vehicles performing more or less the same exact tasks we had to do in Camp Atterbury only I think this time everyone is getting the opportunity to participate hands on the equipment and I think the excitement of being in a new place, finally in the middle east is motivating everyone to be proactive in training and everyone is in a much better attitude.

There are so many small differences between this deployment and the last its hard sometimes to remember that this is going to be a totally different experience from last time. The atmosphere here seems to be way more chill than in Iraq. It was weird walking out the other night watching people play basketball in civilian clothing. What made it really different for me was when I saw girls in civilian clothes playing basketball outside with the guys. I felt like I walked into the rec center at the UofA when I walked past the basketball court and into the gym. Very surreal. People here have cell phones and wireless internet. There is a Starbucks here and they have Karaoke night! Not all of these things are foreign to my deployment experience. They had some things like this the last time but I guess it feels weird being around all of it this time around. Last deployment I was always on mission so I never really saw or participated in any of these amenities. I’m not sure I like it. It seems unreal I suppose and I’m eager to leave this place for the ruggedness of the FOB(forward operating base)’s up north. I must be crazy not appreciating the gross amount of freedom/garrison that we have here.
One of the crazy things today was that I ran into my platoon SGT from my last deployment. I was walking to the training field and I saw him out in the distance and I guess he recognized me too cause he called out to me. What a small world! He’s back here running gun trucks! He said that I could join up with his crew cause they are looking for people to run guns. He also said that we need to replace the people doing gun trucks for our company. But that most likely won’t happen. Yesterday they transferred out this one kid from my squad into the gun platoon. Our captain and plt sgt came by and said they wanted to talk to all the people that wanted to volunteer for gun trucks. Zach, Seth and I all rushed up to the front to volunteer and talk to them but they ignored us. We were standing right in front of them and they talk to the other people around us then put Miller in the gun platoon. Kind of messed up. But they told our squad leaders that they wouldn’t let us go because they can’t afford to get rid of good soldiers. So I’m pretty much resigned to just staying with the 257th for as long as they are here.

Anyway, we have training going on tomorrow and will be out in the field the next week but…
Just wanted to let ya’ll know that I’m out in Kuwait and doing well and give you a little update about what’s going on out here.

My address is:
Salomon, Timothy K
257th Trans Co (HET), 2nd Plt
LTF 10
APO, AE 09366