Finally Got a Flight Out of Manas

Another day at Manas, Kygrystan, but good news is that we got booked on a flight with the members of the 95th MP Battalion, 18th MP Brigade, with whom we have traveled since Ramstein. In fact they have taken us as a mission and made certain that the Air Force managers knew that we were to fly as a group.

Our departure time is now in the wee hours of Monday morning for about a two-hour flight time to Bagram. Aircraft will be a C-17 Globemaster, a large 4-engine jet with a generous cargo capacity. Due to the surge cargo now has high priority and we suspect that we will be among the relatively few pax on the bird along with many pallets of cargo.

The requirements are to show up for "bag drag" 7 hours prior to block time. We'll retrieve our bags that were stored on the night we arrived, and pack all group equipment onto a pallet that will be netted and placed on the aircraft. Ought to be significantly less of a goat-rope than arrival, but given a certain military proclivity for complicating the already complicated, one never knows.

At Manas we're losing our great friend MP Lieutenant Colonel Lance Stratton who is going to an assignment elsewhere in Afghanistan. We intend to keep in touch and if possible visit him later at his base.

Got good news from the 95th Battalion executive officer yesterday by email in which she told us that the liaison elements of the 95th posted at Bagram are ready for our arrival. Looks like we'll have at least a day of in-country briefings scheduled concerning things like IEDs, customs and the like.

We're then scheduled to fly to FOB Salerno, home of the "landowner" of the area we'll be covering, the commander of the 3rd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault). This is unexpected but welcomed. Apparently we'll be there a day or two then fly to FOB Lightening, home of the 95th Battalion.

It will be good to get to a "permanent" home for awhile. Living out of carry-on and communal life in tents with other transients is wearing.

Otherwise Manas has been interesting. Yesterday broke clear and cold and the mountains in the southeast stood forbiddingly tall and snow-covered in the distance. From here the range continues to grow until it becomes the Himalayas.

Most of the NATO soldiers pass through Manas. At the moment a Croatian infantry unit, previously stationed at Masir-al-Sherrif is here, getting ready to head back home. We see lots of Brits, Germans, and other nationalities wandering about.

Expect that our next post will be from Bagram.