The Air Force gave me one of the best birthday presents a guy could ask for: A ride out of a combat zone that will eventually take me home (fingers still crossed). It may have had a slightly delayed T/O for weather at our destination taking it to the 20th instead, but hey.
It was kinda weird getting ready to leave, suddenly things annoying as sandpaper toilet paper weren’t that bad. One Army Lt we saw often in the gym (on a 15 month deployment) couldn’t believe it. When I told him, he just stood there staring off into the distance repeating “WOW” over and over. He never stopped, I finally had to walk off and leave him in his own world of disbelief. Its funny how quickly you create a bond with TCN’s (third country nationals that work on base, mostly from India) you could easily note the tone of longing for home in their voice as well. We have it very nice in the Air Force, I am extremely thankful.
We hit up the capital of Hungry for a gas stop (geography quiz for the day) on a divert from what was our primary stop due to the same poor weather. Brian sent me an email asking if I was ready to trade blowing sand for blowing snow. I thought he meant Cheyenne/Ft. Collins, little did I know he was psychic and knew we would be sledding down a snow covered taxiway. It was so powdery my head had a hard time convincing my eyes it wasn’t sand. It was odd being inside a clean hard walled/floored building again with restrooms big enough to turn around in. We hit the sky again on our way to our next stop and I quickly became educated in the amazing 20* temp change from the top to bottom litter in the back of the plane (four high bunked cots we snooze on). At one point my face was almost sweating while my feet were going numb. Upon landing we received the best news you can get when trying to make it home for Christmas “Your plane is broken and won’t be able to fly tomorrow, maybe longer since getting the part could take awhile considering the weather and time of year.”
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