Ed,
Congrats on going home, I am sorry I didn;t get to meet you. I am heading back to Balad to work at the TMC here in a couple of weeks. Al Asad is mind numbingly boring. Please keep posting when you get the chance and let us know aboutthe redeployment process and I am especially interested in hearing what you go through personally after spending a year in "mortaritaville". Enjoy being home thanks for all the posts and the info.
Chris

Ed,

Glad you made it home safe. How did you get to go home before your 1 year "Boots on the Ground" was up?

Just curious. Looks like I'm going to be in Al Asad until October

I got out of the theater because my unit finished its tour and I manifested on a flight with them. I had all of the other DCS requirements completed so my paperwork was in order but we/I did not go out of my way to let anyone in Kuwait know I was an IRR individual augmentee. We wagered that there were few checks in place to capture IRR's leaving with units and the bet got me out of Kuwait without any difficulties. Now the hard part: clearing the Army with gear from Ft Bliss. I start the reverse SRP tomorrow. We'll see how this goes.

One of the other IRR officers in our brigade left before me and got stuck in Kuwait for more than a week because he didn't have the general officer memo required to leave the theater. That memo differs from the general officer memo that states you completed your mission and are no longer operationally required. While he was waiting to get everything straightened out, other units short officers attempted to pull him into a new mission in Iraq. As this was my greatest concern, the benefit incurred by flying to Ft Lewis greatly outweighed risking an additional six months or more training Iraqi cops in Ramadi or some other great location.

Glad to hear you made it home. During my redeployment and outprocessing at Ft Bragg in January, I turned in all my gear (including what I drew from Bliss -- even my weapon) at Bragg. "They" (my unit or the folks at Bragg or both - not sure exactly) had a plan to account for everything and/or transport it to Bliss. I think for CIF stuff they were just going to do a paper transfer, and for the weapons they were going to have somebody transport them all at once after the whole brigade had outprocessed.

At any rate, there were a bunch of people outprocessing at Bragg who had drawn stuff elsewhere, and as far as I know nobody had to go anywhere else to complete their outprocessing.

Ed,

I'm very happy you are back. I don't agree with the war any more then you do, but I do want you to know that I greatly admire your bearing with how you handled what was politely worded a "non-optimal" situation.

You carried yourself from an outside view with poise and honor, and even though I'm still pissed you got sent, it gives me hope to know that honorable men like yourself are the ones who are out there representing outr country in one of the worst situations in decades.

Welcome back!

Anyone know where there is a site to communicate with civilian contractors living/working on the Balad Airbase??? Family member there w/o computer, but would like to learn more about his job & environment. Can't seem to find anything.... ??????

Thanks

If he doesn't have an email address I really don't know how you would go about contacting him. If you know the company he is working for it may help and you may be able to track him down be that route. Internet cafes are generally open to civilian contractors so with an email address he could stay in touch. There are also good telephone centers on the base so communications options are available.

Mission Accomplished (mostly)ooeess