Returning Home from War - Part 2

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Our chariot was a C-17 cargo plane, full of cargo. The Crew Chief pushed us down the side of a couple of large cargo containers, which look like trailers off of an 18-wheeler Mack truck, and around a couple of Army Humvees to our black canvas troop seats that fold down from the side of the aircraft. These are the same seats paratroopers’ use prior to jumping. It's a five-hour flight to Germany so the 12 of us found room amongst or on top of the cargo to stretch out. I laid down on the steel floor in the back of the plane, and froze. The maintenance personnel who have made this trip before, knew better. They crammed themselves up front underneath the Humvees.
 
The Sweet Smell of Germany
We landed around 2300. it was a surreal feeling walking off the plane, seeing the peaceful snowfall and smelling the sweet air of anywhere outside of Iraq.
 
We head straight to the passenger terminal to inquire about the next flights out to, preferably, Dover or Andrews Air Force bases because of their relative closeness to Virginia. And this is when we learn of “Snowmageddon.” From sand storms to snow storms. Great.
 
There was one flight leaving for Dover with an early morning show time to wait for any available seats. But because of the snow it was likely it would be rerouted to Ohio or Oklahoma, along with the rest of the flights heading Northeast of the United States. I called back to our command in Virginia to give them the update on our progress and when to expect us. The Duty Officer told me that if we made it to Dover to expect to stay there in a hotel. It would be two to three days before the Commanding Officer would allow a duty driver to make the drive to pick us up. I couldn't argue with the logic, but the thought of being so close to home and stuck in a hotel in Dover was almost unbearable.
 
Leaving No Stone Unturned
So what do respectable sailors do in the first “port visit” outside of a combat zone? Hit the closest bar. We were tired and cold from conforming to cargo pallet shaped beds on the plane, and stressed about the massive snow storm standing in our way of the final leg home. But what made all that seem trivial was ordering our first beer in almost five months.
 
At the bar are the pilot and his copilots from the flight that flew us out of Iraq sitting at the bar.  We chat, and I share our adventure of trying to get home. A few beers and some flying stories later, I ask them where they are headed next, and if they had room available. To Charleston, S.C., they said, and, would take me and my sailors if we wanted to head in their direction. An eight-hour drive back to Virginia or a gamble with Snowmageddon and a hotel in Dover was a no-brainer.  I accepted their offer.
 
No Surrender
We mustered the next morning for the 1000 show time at the passenger terminal. The flight was on time, the seats were available and we were excited, especially when we heard our original flight to Dover was rerouted to Ohio. And then about 30 minutes from boarding time, from the dreaded loud speaker came the news that all of the seats on the flight to Charleston had been denied. And due to the snow, there were no more flights scheduled to leave for a couple of days.
 
I was not ready to give up until I saw that C-17 heading to Charleston start to taxi. I told my 11 charges they could go back to the hotel and wait a few days or stay with me as I tried to get on that flight. Five stayed. So I walked between the mission planning building, the mission briefing building and even the hotel lobby, hoping to run into the pilots so I could beg for a ride--with no joy, no luck.
 
And then the loud speaker squawked again. The seats to Charleston had reopened. Don’t know why, don’t care. We had a flight home.
 
Home Again, Home Again
Nearly 13 hours in the air in a noisy, freezing cargo bay, no windows, cargo pallets chained three feet in front of our canvas seats and a refueling stop in Canada. It was one of the best flights on which I have ever been a passenger. We spent the night in Charleston, rented five cars the next morning and drove the eight hours home.
 
My adventure home is nothing out of the ordinary.  In military jargon, it was your standard issue SNAFU (Situation Normal All…you can Google the rest). So why is it we can deploy to war, but are forced to hitchhike home? It's a prime example of how nobody can make life harder on us than ourselves, and the little guy is always the one that suffers.
 
But hey, war is hell.
 
Read more from Matt Persiani on America's war on terror.
 
(Photo credit: Matt Persiani)