Getting home was yet another adventure, and it didn't go smoothly. However, it went more smoothly for me than for the other half of the family. We were split into two groups and my group of about 50 got stuck at JBB for three days due to bad weather in Kuwait. The Air Force and Army do not like to fly if they can't see. The first group of 180 left from JBB at 9 in the morning on Feb. 22nd (I think) to fly to Kuwait only to have the pilots say they don't want to land in Kuwait because of the sandstorm. So they flew to Qatar instead. This all happened in the air as they were circling Kuwait.
That group ends up in Qatar for three days going through one of the biggest goat rope clusters ever. By the time they flew out of Qatar to Kuwait they had waited on the plane for six consecutive hours, gone through immigration three times, turned in their weapons (because weapons are not allowed in Qatar) three times, had one shower, and slept in transient housing for about four hours.
Meanwhile back at JBB we went to the "airport" three different times with the intent of flying only to be denied. We loaded and unloaded our bags at least four times and got the opportunity to sleep in both transient housing locations at JBB.
Once we got to Kuwait we made it out pretty easily. Customs went smoothly for me cause I was the last one in line so the guy didn't even look in my bags. Awesome. 10 hours after we left Kuwait in a plane we were in Indianapolis Indiana. We arrived stateside on Feb. 27th and spent the next five days at Camp Atterbury in Indiana.
It was five days of briefings and checking the block so we could go home. The family had a blast as always though. We started filming even more of our life while we were there and we got some great footage of what its like to hangout with us. The ridiculousness of our conversations, logic, and actions.
We left Atterbury on Mar. 4th to fly home, or ride the bus if you are from Little Rock. The airport was amazing. MSG McAllen, Rogers, LT Morgan, Chappy, and myself all drank our first beer together in airport. I had a Blue Moon with a slice of orange and it was amazing.
We all went our separate ways after that and now I am home.
It's hard to believe its all over. For me it flew by. It was eight months of my life that I will never forget for so many reasons. The main reason being the people I met. The family that I made over there...well they are amazing. For eight months when stuff went wrong (and stuff went wrong a lot) everyone would make snide comments about how the 90th can't do anything right, how ate up the 90th is, etc. Well just for the record, I am thankful for the 90th and that I deployed with them. A little over a year ago I found out I was going to deploy with the 90th and I was scared, anxious, and pissed off about the whole situation.
A year later, I would not have changed a single thing that happened this past year.
