We have met the enemy and the enemy is us

Have you ever seen Heartbreak Ridge? The Clint Eastwood cinematic tour de force, in which he stars as a Marine Gunnery Sergeant, Medal of Honor winner, Korean War hero trying to survive in the Corps of the 1980s. After one abortive mobilization exercise, the crusty Marine general asks Gunny what he thought of the exercise. Eastwood replies that it was a clusterf@*k. For network TV broadcasts, that term becomes "clusterflop." The beginning of this deployment was a clusterflop par excellence.

So I get to BWI Wednesday night ... sorry, the flight is postponed 24 hours. Good in a sense, but bad for separation anxiety. I return Thursday night to find myself waiting in line for two hours just to check my bags. We finally get airborne around 1AM on Friday enroute Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany. After being on the ground for two hours, time to go back to our newly cleaned aircraft. And we have to go through security again! Apparently, the USAF now kowtows to TSA security standards.

We leave Ramstein for what is supposed to be a 55-minute flight to Aviano. Wrong. We do a couple circles over a cloud-covered Aviano, only to find that their ILS -- Instrument Landing System -- ain't working, so we go back to Ramstein. Another wait, when we find we'll be boarding buses for a 90-minute to Bitburg for overnight lodging. We got to Bitburg around 11PM local time, then got some dinner, followed by a couple beers. And thence to bed. Our buses depart tomorrow morning at 9:30 for Ramstein, when we'll make another attempt at landing at Aviano. We shall see.

Saturday afternoon, 5PM local. We're back at Ramstein, still waiting for a decision. We hauled ass here from Bitberg, only to sit and wait, go through a security checkpoint that TSA would be proud of, then sit and wait again. At 3:30, we were cut loose to go to the PX across the street for a bite to eat, with instructions to be back in an hour. At 4:30, another hurry up and wait message. Aviano's ILS is still Tango Uniform, and the civilian pilots won't use alternate landing methods. I hope the Ramstein bubbas have the buses on tap for an earlier delivery to Bitburg. I'd rather not eat dinner at 11PM again.

Do I sound bitchy? Whiny? I guess so. I'm frustrated, I signed on to do a job in Afghanistan, and the Air Force can't unscrew itself long enough to get us into the theater. I, like 200 or so of my closest friends, am tired of sitting on my ass, waiting, waiting, waiting.

Sunday, 7AM. Reveille at the hotel in Darmstadt. Yup, another delay yesterday. They swear we'll be off the ground today. Our buses took us here to a convention hotel, which at least is bigger and much nicer, with better amenities, than the place we stayed at Friday night. Still an hour-plus ride to get here. And we have to muster fir a 9AM departure back to Ramstein. Hope to God the ILS is fixed ... or, better yet, not necessary.

On the plus side, we had a very nice buffet-style meal, followed by a couple local pints (oops, half-liters) quaffed in the smoking lounge next to the bar. I fired up and thoroughly enjoyed an Opus X Shark. Potent little booger.

I also got to talk to my bride on Skype, its first operational use since we downloaded and tested the service. Works quite well ... let's see if it's as good from Afghanistan.