Kuwait - 2 days of training crammed into 8

After a midnight arrival on the ground in Kuwait, waiting around in a sand lot, and a long curtains-drawn bus ride in body armor, we finally arrived at Camp Virginia, our home for the next week. Rolling right into a 0430 "Welcome, here are the rules" briefing, it was nearly dawn when we got out. We formed a mass working party to unload 400 very heavy sea bags from the trucks, dragged them and ourselves to the tents, and attempted to rest while severely jet-lagged.

The next five days were a lot of "white space". Mass amounts of free time surrounding two or three minor briefings. We worked out, watched movies, read books, wandered around, ate lots of food, and tried not to be bored. Everything was sand and rocks. We were ready to get out of there and get to Iraq!

After the five day interlude, we shifted back into non-stop training mode and spent the next 2 nights, 3 days at the Udairi Range working more small arms training and actual tactical convoy movements through the desert. All of this culminated in a large convoy exercise with hundreds of local "actors" portraying people interacting with our convoy. These last two days were very cool, it is just a shame we had to waste 5 days to get to them.

We shifted from Udairi Range back to Camp Virginia and much needed showers and hot food, only to find out that we would be leaving that same evening for Baghdad...