Headed to Kuwait

Well a few days ago we finally arrived in Kuwait. This after some incredible journey's flying. We first got on a bus from Fort Riley Kansas to the Kansas City Airport. It was quite a scene loading about 150 bags of gear (which included our weapons in a gun case) for the 25 of us but Southwest folks really went out of the way to organize the process. The flight was a commercial flight (of which our group in Army combat uniform) took up about a third. This flight was about 4 and half hours and we got a nice applause as we left the plane (and to be the first ones off). THen we had to get all those 150 bags at the baggage claim and load them onto shopping carts (well the baggage movers) and roll it across the airport to the international terminal. We had about a 2 hr layover then boarded our military flight which was on a 767 w/ a rented crew. I was really lucky and was one of 4 (of the 25) who got to sit in First Class and prop my feet up on the foot rest & enjoy alot more space than others. Our first flight took us to Ramsten AB Germany. It took them 3 hours to balance the plane's cargo & get everyone loaded so by the time we took off it was 2 am then we had a 7 hour flight to Germany. We had a 2 hour layover in Germany for the plane to get refueled then continued on to Kuwait. Germany was really incredible looking from the air. Lots of small farms everywhere among rolling hills. Well it was 5 hr flight to Kuwait getting us into Kuwait at 1 am. We sat in the plane on the runway for 2 hrs then in busses waiting for us for 3 more hours. Finally we drove about an hour to the Ali Air Base here in Kuwait. I thought I had landed on the moon it was so desolate. While you would have thought they would let us sleep by this point instead we had a full day of activities getting checked in and then later doing a MRAP (mine resistant vehicle) turnover exercise where we actually had to unbuckle and safely get out of a flipped vehicle. Once 180 deg upside down & then 90 deg. We all then came back and fell asleep around 6 pm. We're staying in tents with air conditioning but given that its around 120 deg F here the AC doesn't keep up well. Well I'm falling asleep so I better go. We'll be here awhile waiting for our next leg into Afghanistan.