Arrival in Manas Air Base

We hopped on a DoD Omni Air charter flight from Ramstein Air Base Germany headed for Manas Air Base, Kyghystan. Manas serves as a transit facility for units and individuals entering and leaving the war.

The Omni Air flight originated in Baltimore Washington Airport and was scheduled for an intermediate stop at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey. There were several families and wives traveling with small children for whom Incirlik was a final destination. Many of the children flew quietly, but one little boy - probably two-ish - shrieked and screamed the entire flight, kicking the seat of one of the 95th lieutenants so hard that she had to move.

The aircraft, a DC-10 (who knew they were still flying?) was sorely in need of attention. Many of the seats were malfunctioning, and the interior was worn and dirty. We hoped that the airframe and engines were better maintained.

We landed in Turkey about 1900 hours, and it was already dark. Incirlik, originally a two-hour layover turned into an overnight when we were told that bad weather at Manas (snow and fog) closed the base to incoming traffic.

Naturally, this took several hours of waiting in the terminal to determine. First it was a four hour wait, then that got extended, once again. Finally when it was decided that we couldn't fly that night, we went through a painfully long process of having orders and passports stamped by the Turkish government so that we could leave the terminal. We ended up paying $20 each for the stamp.

Then we were assigned bunk space in large pre-fab buildings divided into 12-person rooms. Some of the buildings were designated all-male or all-female. After being told that the buildings were a "five minute walk" distant we took off. The evening weather was in the low 60s and felt good after sub-freezing temps in Germany. However, being dressed for Germany and carrying gear, when the walk turned into a mile and a half hike, we were drenched with sweat.

A shower helped. Some of the bunks were - to say the least - not quite ready for habitation. One soldier on an upper actually fell through the bunk down to the lower where fortunately, no one was sleeping. The bus scheduled to pick us up the next day at 1100 failed to show, so we trekked back to the passenger terminal.

More waiting and processing. Finally, two hours later than designated departure, we left Incirlik, this time, thankfully, without screaming kids.

We landed at Manas - late at night, having gained three more time zones. The base, located outside of the capitol of Bishkek processes just about everyone going to Afghanistan. Forty-four soldiers were picked from the passengers to unload baggage in the cold. The rest of us piled into busses. We went to a big tent for a long briefing.

After a couple of hours briefing - regulations are odd: Air Force personnel are allowed two beers in a 20-hour period, Marines can drink at the discretion of their commander, and Army Soldiers may not drink. Stuff like this may make sense to some staff officer back in Washington, but for people on the ground is needlessly confusing and mildly irritating.

Following a bizarre exercise in which the truck with baggage was unloaded, then sorted by passengers in a large lot marked with patchy ice spots, we were allowed to remove items from bags. Then the bags were placed on pallets, stored and would not be accessible until just before we were to leave. The process took hours.

Finally, around 0400 we got our stuff sorted and stacked, drew bedding and moved into temporary tents about 200 feel long and 50 feet wide, with scores of stacked bunks. A shower/latrine facility was next door.

Tent is warm, cot is firm, got some chow at 0500 this morning and good to go.

By now we're on a "reverse cycle" where we're up all night and sleep during the day. Expecting a flight to Bagram within the next two days if we're lucky. Only night flights now as daylight ops were drawing ground fire.

More to come as we get closer to the war.