Old Things Now New

After my Gryphon Air Lines flight out of Kuwait received clearance to land, once communications were restored with the tower, we touched down at the Kandahar Air Field (KAF). We taxied down a runway that was once upon a time to short for larger aircraft like this passenger plane to use and so pot marked with bomb craters and 20 plus years of neglect that the Air Force had to spend months repairing it under the hostile conditions of a combat zone.

The last time I landed at this airport, back in January of '02 when this runway was still next to worthless, we did it under cover of darkness inside the belly of a U.S. Air Force C-17. I sat along the hull in a jump seat with a nylon net back. I wore newly issued desert tan and brown BDU’s, my own flak jacket, and Kevlar helmet. My rifle between my legs with the barrel pointed down towards the rapidly approaching earth. My unit’s vehicles ratchet strapped to the deck, slowly swayed back and forth with the movements of the plane. The constant drone from the plane’s engines was so loud that we would have to yell instructions and acknowledgements to the other soldiers seated next to us in a dim red light.

About 15 minutes before the plane landed the aircraft’s exterior and interior lights went black with only the red emergency lights of the interior to illuminate the inside. At each corner of the plane a window was soon manned by the Air Force flight crew as they donned helmets, flak jackets, and night vision goggles to peer out into the darkness of the Afghanistan country side. They were looking for incoming small arms fire, rockets, and surface-to-air missiles which never came. The plane landed as smoothly as a plane can land in conditions like this, and then it taxied to disembark its cargo of soldiers and tactical satellite vehicles. A whoosh of noise and cold wind hit me as the back of the plane opened up like a giant mouth to spit us out into a brand new war only a few weeks old. Outside there was no moon this night, and I could see millions of stars from horizon to horizon, more stars then I’d ever been able to see in my life.

As we off loaded the trucks and gear an explosion lit up the night with a boom so loud that I jumped back, bringing my rifle to my shoulder, expecting the enemy to over run our perimeter at that very moment. I soon learned that the explosion was a controlled detonation by the Explosive Ordnance Disposal team (EOD). They had found an improvised explosive device (IED). Explosions along with small arms fire and an ever present heightened state of awareness were to become a part of my new life.
Throughout the night and the next 2 days I worked without sleep setting up the communications backbone for the Marines already at the base and the soon to arrive 101st Infantry units scheduled to arrive within the days and weeks ahead.

Disembarking the Gryphon Air Lines passenger plane in broad daylight was a completely different experience. After a pretty typical flight from a pretty typical air port we off loaded on a flight line not so typical. Civilian escorts arrived, surrounded us, and kept us in a single file line. We removed any head gear or hats we may have been wearing as those aren’t allowed on the flight line. They get sucked into aircraft engines and cause problems. We shuffled down the tarmac past shipping containers and vehicles both arriving and departing this air field. To my right I spot the black mangled wreckage of Chinook helicopter. Its abused hull and bent rotor blades pointed in wrong directions. The glass of the cock pit busted and missing. The landing gear damaged and bent. It had obviously crashed hard and was now not much more than scrap. I wonder how many troops and contractors were on board or worse; hurt. I stared at it wondering how many times I’ll have to catch a ride on helicopter exactly like it in the years to come.

Minutes after we’ve landed the cold reality of where I’m at has already shown itself.

I never thought I would be back here.