Iraq + Kuwait = Iwait

“Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday.” - John Wayne
Kuwait is the only place in the world that makes me miss Iraq. The best view of Kuwait is in the rear view mirror. That's a true statement coming and going. So now comes the catch-22 of my command - it now includes units working out of Kuwait and Iraq. I still hang my hat in Iraq with my HQ. However, there is now an ever-increasing amount of my time that must be spent focused on our operations in Kuwait. Due to the ongoing retrograde from Iraq my higher HQ has relocated to Kuwait as well. The end result of all this? I now have to travel to Kuwait periodically to attend meetings and see our operations there first hand. Unlike Iraq where time flies by at a moderate pace, days in Kuwait seem like months. Traveling from Iraq to Kuwait for a few days causes a distortion of the space time continuum that is the operational tempo of my mind. It causes a "start-stop" effect everything. The engineer in me came up with an accurate mathematical model to describe this effect - Iraq + Kuwait = Iwait (a complete disruption of the operational space-time continuum of commanding a battalion that includes units in both Iraq and Kuwait).

This past week started with good news. I learned that I've been selected for promotion to Colonel (O6). That definitely got my week off in a good way. Army War College reared its head too in the form of a graded online forum, which required me to log in daily and provide my input on the Joint Strategic Planning System. It was this stage that served as the backdrop for a foray down to Camp Buehring, Kuwait. I had been summoned to attend a Commanders' Conference. I used this as an opportunity to also visit with my Soldiers who now work out of Kuwait. I left COB Adder on a late night Blackhawk. The air was brisk and I was relieved to find the crew had put the plexiglass back on the doors. What I didn't realize was how many stops we would make prior to arriving at Camp Buehring. Over the next three hours we landed at Basra, Um Qasr, Ali Al Salem, Camp Virginia, and, finally, Camp Buehring. It was after midnight and I was surprised to find it colder in Kuwait than it had been in Iraq. Darkness obscured the changes to the place since my previous visit. Fortunately, it didn't take long to get situated in a CHU and hit the rack. An early morning awaited.

The next morning I was immediately struck by the amount of changes I saw. Camp Buehring was not the same place we had deployed through back in early April. New tents and structures had sprouted everywhere. The reason was the retrograde from Iraq. Many Soldiers had relocated from their homes up north to this sleepy camp in Kuwait. It was overcrowded. I did not recognize the place. It took me a full day to finally get oriented. In the meantime, I attended a meeting that did nothing but remind me why most staff officers are staff officers - they don't know how to command. It is frustrating as a commander to sit and listen to indecisive staff folks debate relatively mundane stuff and then never arrive at any conclusion or decision. After several hours of listening I realized I had gotten absolutely nothing out of attending that I didn't already know. I was very grateful when the meeting adjourned. At that point I went to visit with my Soldiers. They were living in open-bay tents and sleeping on cots. That's all that was available. But they still had excellent morale and the "can do" spirit I've come to admire. They are also aware that we are now hitting the final phase of our operations in Iraq. That means mission success for all of us is near. Going home is not long after that. That night I had the pleasure of attending a dinner hosted by the Deputy USF-I Commander, a roughneck Lieutenant General who freely dropped the f-bomb in his plain talk discussion of the way ahead. It was entertaining if nothing else.

The next morning I took advantage of one of the amenities found at bases in Kuwait - Starbucks. The line snaked all the way outside. Since I was there already I decided to wait. They had Christmas decorations up already. The house coffee was the "Christmas Blend". It was only Veterans Day. I share this so folks back home know that it isn't only the retailers in the U.S. who do this. I'm typically not a big fan of Starbucks, but, the cup of coffee I bought was excellent. They even had whole milk and raw sugar - my preferences. I took my time and enjoyed the cup while reading Stars and Stripes. As could be expected, I ran into an old acquaintance. He is now a Chief Warrant Officer, having made the jump from the Noncommissioned Officer ranks a few years back. We swapped a couple of deployment stories and caught up a bit then bid each other farewell. Then I headed out to visit more with my Soldiers. Although I was only in Kuwait for two days the time seemed to stand still. The sun never seemed to move. But it did. Eventually it became dark as evening fell. That was good because I was flying back to Iraq. Some people may not understand this but I was happy to be headed back to COB Adder. I wanted to be back in my own rack, in my own CHU. The Blackhawks were on time and made only one stop along the way. The flight was much shorter in duration than the flight down two nights previous. Much of the way we were basked in an eerie glow from the oil flash fires coming from the refineries north of Basra. At about midnight we touched down in Adder. Time quickly resumed at normal pace. Life returned to deployment normal again.