The End

I made if back to Austin last night. It's nice to be home.

The flight out of Kuwait was delayed about 7 hours. From the time I went into lockdown to when I landed at BWI was about 48 hours. We stopped at Ramstein airbase. Not a nice airport. Additionally, it took them many hours to repack the bags on the plane. Two of those hours while we were sitting on the plane waiting to leave. I'm not sure what their problem was.

We landed too late in BWI to make any of our connections. Before we left Kuwait they told us they'd rebook our flights while we were in route. I got a hotel near BWI and called SATO. SATO wasn't helpful. They hadn't done anything. They didn't even cancel our old flights knowing none of us would make the planes. The agent I talked to was very helpful and wanted to book me on the next flight but the Kuwait SATO office wouldn't let her. She even asked her manager if she could override their authority but wasn't allowed. Kuwait insists that we rebook the travel ourselves and pay the fees then submit them for reimbursement. It wasn't a big deal, but the short of the story is that SATO at Arifjan is screwed up and not communicating well with the WTP leadership. Double-check anything they tell you.

We got the next flight to Gulfport at 7am the next morning (Wednesday). A lot of the same people were there from when I came through last year. There is a lot of downtime at NMPS. There are a handful of briefings, medical, dental and PSD. Because they can't schedule them promptly it takes several days to get through. They managed to get us out Friday night though so I'm happy about that. My last obligation is to spend the day at the NOSC on Sunday to finish my out-processing there. I think I have to walk through and visit all the people I in processed with.

WTP - Nutshell

There is a whole lot of downtime here. I arrived on morning of the 29th. After a quick admist brief and weapon turn-in, we're on our own. On the 30th I reported in the morning to clean my weapon and turn it in officially. That took about two hours. Since I didn't have much else to do I took my time scraping carbon off.

The 31st was the actual 'WTP' day. In the morning I turned all my Army issued gear in. I thought it would take forever but it took less than 10 minutes. And it only took that long because I forgot to take some stuff off my IBA. The NAVCENT people here are squared-away. There was another admin brief at 1330 then a three hour group session (with similar rank) to go through the official ppt slides. That session was by far the worst part about WTP because it forces you to stay in a room and listen to people who love the sound of their own voice - especially when they are whining.

The 1st and 2nd were completely off. There weren't any celebrations for New Years but NAVCENT did have a Foosball tournament on the 1st. I didn't go to it however. I used all of my free time to start programming again. Trying to dust off the cobwebs so I'll be ready to get back to work on swtor.

Tomorrow is the last day here. We weigh our gear in the morning then sometime in the afternoon a bus picks us up for customs. From then on we are on lockdown. I'm told they empty out everything for everyone in customs. I mailed a couple of boxes home today to get myself down to one ruck and one backpack.

There are phones and computers. The Navy has a very nice (but small) decompression tent. When those computers are full I head over to the Army MWR tent which is larger but trashed up. I've already spent about $50 at Starbucks. There is a nice gym but I haven't worked out at all. The only thing left on my todo list before I leave is to get a haircut.

I should be back in the states soon.