Hogan's Goat
Sorry for the long delay in updating. As it is now 2330 our time, and has been another long, long day, I will try to be as complete as possible, but need to get to bed soon.
When last we left young Team Med-fah, we were about to head to the airport to fly to Taji. This did indeed occur, but is was a bit of a cluster (reference the title). Waited for two hours at BIAP, played the "wait, wait, wait, HURRY UP! HURRY UP!" game for about an hour. Staged on the runway looking right at a CH-47, were told that the next bird would be ours, and then were told that HURRY UP! this was our bird after all. Got dumped at the flightline in Taji about 2230(?), and... nothing. No one there to pick us up. Turned out that the trucks and two Marines there to pick us up were at another part of the runway where they'd been promised, but man, there is just no feeling like standing in the dark on the edge of a runway not knowing where in the HELL we were and not even knowing where to go to do something about it. They found us after a few minutes, got us to bed, and we started training the next day. Finally met the CO and 1st Sgt of the MTT (turns out that is pronounced "Mitt" by folks here); seem like really good Marines, and while happy to see us (no kidding), they seem just as dedicated to making sure they give us a good turnover. Their turnover when they arrived sounds like a classic nightmare scenario: three days here, then married up with their battalion in Fallujah last fall in the middle of combat operations, where they received the most cursory of turnovers (a classic one-hour "high five") and were then on their own. We are at least getting a good turnover from them. There are other areas which we realize were lacking, but it is now too late to really do anything about it. A day with the guys were relieving = a week of training anywhere else with anyBODY else.
Gotta go; am fairly awake because I still have some CONUS time in me, but will be starting another day in... six hours.
At a minimum, I will post once more before we hit the road to Habbiniyah.
Peterson out...
When last we left young Team Med-fah, we were about to head to the airport to fly to Taji. This did indeed occur, but is was a bit of a cluster (reference the title). Waited for two hours at BIAP, played the "wait, wait, wait, HURRY UP! HURRY UP!" game for about an hour. Staged on the runway looking right at a CH-47, were told that the next bird would be ours, and then were told that HURRY UP! this was our bird after all. Got dumped at the flightline in Taji about 2230(?), and... nothing. No one there to pick us up. Turned out that the trucks and two Marines there to pick us up were at another part of the runway where they'd been promised, but man, there is just no feeling like standing in the dark on the edge of a runway not knowing where in the HELL we were and not even knowing where to go to do something about it. They found us after a few minutes, got us to bed, and we started training the next day. Finally met the CO and 1st Sgt of the MTT (turns out that is pronounced "Mitt" by folks here); seem like really good Marines, and while happy to see us (no kidding), they seem just as dedicated to making sure they give us a good turnover. Their turnover when they arrived sounds like a classic nightmare scenario: three days here, then married up with their battalion in Fallujah last fall in the middle of combat operations, where they received the most cursory of turnovers (a classic one-hour "high five") and were then on their own. We are at least getting a good turnover from them. There are other areas which we realize were lacking, but it is now too late to really do anything about it. A day with the guys were relieving = a week of training anywhere else with anyBODY else.
Gotta go; am fairly awake because I still have some CONUS time in me, but will be starting another day in... six hours.
At a minimum, I will post once more before we hit the road to Habbiniyah.
Peterson out...
posted by Sisyphus actual at 11:37 PM
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