The long flight to the desert

Our combat training completed, we had a date with an airplane on Thanksgiving night. As is common for these chartered flights to Kuwait, we headed to the Columbia, SC airport late in the evening, with an expected take-off around midnight. We had a nice surprise when we got to the airfield. Despite the wonderful Thanksgiving meal they had already put together for us, the outstanding civic groups of Columbia all showed up to send us off. They set up food, drinks, goody bags & other giveaways, and generally made us feel at home while we waited to fly out. As we all lined up to head out to the plane, they stood in a long line with American flags to shake every one of our hands and thank us for our service. It was awesome, but at the same time we were all humbled by their profound support. Americans can be wonderful people when they put their mind to it.

Despite the long hours in the airplane, I won't complain about the flight at all. As one of the senior officers, I actually got to sit in business class, which was very nice, especially for sleeping. Back in Coach, Sailors O-4 and below were crammed together 6 across because a couple hundred of our seabags had overflowed the cargo compartments and were filling the last 15 rows or so. It was not a very pleasant flight for them at all.

Halfway through the flight, we made a fueling stop (about 2 hours) in Shannon, Ireland. Looking out the window as we made the approach to land, I finally got first hand knowledge of why I've always heard about the "green hills of Ireland". It was beautiful country and is now high on the list of places to someday visit. Once on the ground, we were able to roam the terminal, shop, make phone calls, etc. While there, we actually ran into the Secretary of the Navy who was heading back to the U.S. Some of us got to talk to him for a while after he figured out we weren't Army guys and that the tags on our "Army" uniforms said U.S. Navy. Then it was back on the plane for the final leg to Kuwait.

The time difference to Kuwait from the East Coast is +8 hours. So add about 16 hours of flying and layover and you get there a "full day" after you left. We landed just before midnight on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Our body clocks were pretty messed up! We had arrived.

You're in the NARMY now...

Since I started this blog well after my stint of combat training, I'll use this one post to capture the entire experience. Before the Navy sends one of its Sailors over to support the Global War on Terror (GWOT), it sends us through the Navy Individual Augmentee Combat Training (NIACT) course. This is a three-week course taught by Army Drill Sergeants at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. They run the course every 3 weeks, training about 200 Sailors from E-4 to O-6 each time. Multiply that out over the year and add in similiar courses taught at other Army bases and you are quickly dismayed by how many Sailors are augmenting the Army in support of the GWOT. More than 15,000 Sailors have been through this course and deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa and other locations. Since the training is Army-led and Army-focused, someone long ago christened those who go through the training as the NARMY - short for Navy-Army. The joke goes so far as to paraphrase Army sayings, like "NARMY Strong". I came up with a new one: "An Army of One...plus a few Sailors."

While at Fort Jackson (actually Camp McCrady in the far corner of the base), we all lived in old-style 40-person barracks, complete with rows of military bunk beds. We had some serious snorers in our class, but with ear plugs, you get used to it fairly quickly. We were also generally so tired at the end of each day that the extra noise wasn't an issue. It was quite an adjustment from shipboard life though.

Given the Navy's shipboard, non-ground combat focus, the bulk of the training is designed to build familiarity with small arms, body armor, combat first-aid, and tactical convoys. Once they issued us our M-16 rifles and M-9 pistols on the 2nd day, we were required to take them everywhere with us, including meals. The idea was to rapidly increase our comfort with the weapons and get us prepared for that same requirement to carry them at all times in the war zone. During the training, we had a ton of range time with the weapons, firing more than 600 rounds each in familiarization, grouping and zeroing, known-distance, qualification, reflexive fire, and stress fires. I shot very well and was able to qualify Sharpshooter with my rifle (missed Expert by 1 shot) and Expert with my pistol. It was all pretty intense non-stop training and our war-experienced Army drill sergeants were outstanding. We did eat far too many cold battle-ration Meals Ready to Eat (MREs) though.

One of the nice parts of the training was the people of Columbia, South Carolina that "adopted" us while we were there. The civic organizations put together a huge Thanksgiving meal and entertainment for us on the Sunday before Thanksgiving. The food was very good, the desserts incredible, and the people were supportive and heartwarming. The day was made even better since my parents were able to join me for the dinner, to experience the support with me and also meet my new Navy friends from training. My parents had come down from Charlotte to see me for the weekend with my sister and her family and were able to stick around for the special dinner too.

A few short days later, our combat training was over, it was the real day of Thanksgiving and it was time to head to the war zone...