February 2003 to August 2003. After returning from Uzbekistan and spending about two and half months in the States it was time to be redeployed. Destination Baghdad City, via the lovely countries of Kuwait and Iraq. The first part of the journey would be by air, and then by land with use of the public transportation highways of Kuwait and Iraq. Not all of the roads I traveled were public roads, and not all of the roads I traveled were roads at all, and many of the roads had surprises in them you didn't want to find. Our deployment started two weeks before we left Ft. Huachuca, we packed all our gear and vehicles up and prepped them for flatbed and rail transport. The vehicles were taken by flatbed to a rail station and then from there to a ship, and were shipped to Kuwait along with the vehicles of many other units. Now with no gear, no equipment, and no vehicles you would think that there was nothing for us to do, and with a deployment coming up our commanders might decide to take it easy on us and let us get some rest and some time off before the deployment. Well, that's just not the way the Army works. We stayed at Ft. Huachuca for about two weeks after our gear and all had been shipped off and then we were flown to Kuwait and then bused to camp Arifjan. Once arrived in Kuwait our vehicles and equipment hadn't arrived yet, and it would take them another week or so to catch up with us. When they finally did arrive I along with several others from my company were selected for the detail of off loading all the vehicles on the entire ship so that we could get to ours. You see vehicle transport ships only have one way on and one way off via a loading ramp on the top storage level. The ships are loaded from bottom to top with vehicles packed bumper touching bumper and no more than 6 inches to a foot of room to either side. The only way to get to our vehicles, was to off load all the ones before them. Surprisingly for all the hundreds of vehicles that we offloaded it only took about 5 hours from the time we started. As a rule it was pretty easy, start the vehicle drive it up a series of ramps and then off the ship to a staging area. Once we had our vehicles it was a matter of days before we got our orders to move forward. Our next stop on our way to Baghdad was Camp Virginia Kuwait. Camp Virginia is the very essences of what a desert is, exceedingly hot, no plant life to speak of, fine soft sand, and nothing to see but flat sand as far as the eye can see. Sand storms were a constant, making it hard to see during the day, and impossible to see at night. Sand became a matter of life, it was in your food, your water, your clothes. If you had it; sand was in it, and there was nothing that you could keep the sand out of. At first the sand drives you crazy because there is no escape, and because sand in your drawers, socks, shirts, boots, isn't all that comfortable, but you do get used to it. As sand storms were so common you learned ways to help keep things "more clean" than they would be otherwise. A tent offered some protection but you learned that if you didn't cover your sleeping bag with your poncho that you would be sleeping in sand. If you left the hood to your poncho laying in the wrong direction you would have a pile of sand in the middle of your sleeping bag. Anything you didn't want to have a layer of dust on it went under your cot which was protected by your poncho that was draped over the sleeping bag and cot. Cleaning your gas mask was a daily to twice daily chore unless you wanted to be breathing sand whenever the NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical) attack alarm sounded. Which for a month or so was pretty much at least a once a day affair, and quite often twice just for more excitement. The satellite team that I was originally sent over with was a two man team, and we quickly became the bastard children of the 86th Signal Battalion. After we had been at Camp Virginia for a short time my team was attached to another unit and it was our job to provide communications for them instead of our own parent unit. Even though at this point we were still on the same base as our parent unit; as we were attached to another unit, our parent unit stopped supporting us, as our "adopting unit" was supposed to support us. Our "adopting" unit didn't think that they should support us because our parent unit was still on the base. Fortunately the base had a chow hall so we had no problem getting food, but getting bottled water, fuel, repairs, and other supplies was more of a challenge. We managed to survive though and adopted some interesting techniques to do so.

Camp Arifjan Kuwait

My system set up at Camp Virginia Kuwait.

Sand storm at Camp Virginia Kuwait.

These sand storms would get so bad that at night people would get lost walking from one tent to another, and on more than one occasion someone would walk into my concertina wire and get themselves tangled up, despite me having ran a large white ribbon along the wire to make it more visible at night.

Not much to see I suppose, but in the center there are four Satellite systems all clustered near the bases command center.

For all the dirt and dust in the air the sunsets were remarkably uninspiring, giving little more than a dirty haze and faded colors as the sun sank below the sand horizon.

Heat and sand took their toll on our equipment and repairs were a bit more common than we would have liked.

Saddam kept insisting on shooting scud missiles at us, and after a few days of having to run a quarter mile to the nearest bunker and then getting into MOPP 4 gear. I decided I could build my own bunker right next to my system and not have to run anywhere. Now I've been criticized by several people saying this hole is not deep enough. ok let me explain some things to you. first the hole is deeper than it appears, I made it with steps leading down, and I am standing on the first step. Secondly this bunkers primary purpose is to protect me from from fragments from exploding scud  missiles and to protect me from chemicals that the scuds deliver. it is not intended as a fox hole, and its not going to stop a direct hit and no mater how deep I dug it it still wouldn't have been a fox hole and still wouldn't have stopped a direct attack. as it was my bunker was better than most on the base which were really just short trenches that were open at both ends, that people were supposed to run into when the scud alarm went off. My bunker had twice the necessary 4X4's twice the 1X plywood, more dirt on top than any other, and a entryway that limited exposure. so I think I did a fine job. If you still doubt me, well I lived didn't I.