Kuwait

Sorry it has been awhile since I last added anything. During my travel, there were delays and I didn’t have access to the internet for about a week. Now I am settled and can back tract a bit.
We left Fort Bennings in the early evening. It was so secure it was almost eerie. Our plane was the only plane on the runway, for that matter the only plane in the entire airport for what I could see. We waited in a supped up hangar that was very nice. It had carpeting, lots of TV’s, big screens and an eating area. We landed in Shannon, Ireland to stretch our legs a bit, then onto Kuwait.
In Kuwait we spent about 3 days with training and presentations about cultures, things not to say or do. For instance to the Arabs, giving them the thumbs up is equivalent to giving them the middle finger. So that is a no-no. The OK sign is also bad, I don’t remember what it means, but I remember not do it.
I have no idea why anyone would want to live in Kuwait. I stayed at a camp that literally had nothing but sand and rocks. There are big burms all around to protect the place. I swear for the first 20 miles out of camp, there is not single vegetation around. No trees, scrubs, weeds or even a single blade of grass. At camp everything was dusty and hot. They did have a nice workout area though.
Very interesting, on the way to the airport, our rode crossed over the famous “Highway of Death” from the first Gulf War. That was the highway that the Iraqis tried to retreat on that our boys bombed the hell out of destroying everything that moved. That was about 1991 or so. In one section there is still a lot of twisted metal, parts of vehicles, rubber tires and scraps lying around. They are slowly scavenging these parts, but I am amazed how much still remains in certain sections. They just built a new road around the old blown up one and left the remains. At least I didn’t see any dead bodies still lying around.
At least the camp had some saving things worthwhile. Somehow, it the middle of a fickin desert, they built some American institutions. One place had great coffee. The other, well even though I couldn’t read the words, I knew what it was. Only Americans could have something like this in a desert.
Oh by the way, under lessons learned in Kuwait, I learned that don’t put a slice of cheese in your pocket for a snack later when it is 115 degrees outside. It turns to cheese spread real quick.
I will do another section about my trip from Kuwait to Iraq later.
Tom