Chris' Deployment Journal

Here's the skinny on what I know about when we will leave here (keep in mind that this can, and probably will, change at anytime):

I hear that as the 'heavy lifter' for this brigade (a line unit, the only one still actually living out in sector at a patrol base, the one doing the bulk of the work, etc.), my company should be one of the first ones out on the first C-130 transport planes out of here, possibly/probably in late October. Supposedly all 4,000+ people in the unit will fly out over the course of just a few weeks and there will be about a C-130 flight per hour or so for those weeks to get every one down to Kuwait.

Once there, and again because we are a frontline 'heavy lifter' company, we have a so-called 'express ticket' through Kuwait so should stay there only a few days. (Other, rear echelon units may be there a few weeks as Ft. Lewis, our 'de-mobilization' station, can only handle X number of soldiers per week.)

And we should be at Lewis only about a week or so. Allegedly, if all works out, this should make us one of the first groups to board the first of the one-hour flights to Boise sometime in mid- to later-November. Thus any 'let's welcome the troops coming right off the plane' celebration will be there for us, not some friggin' POGS who sat at a desk all year, in air conditioning, and played softball at the KRAB. So that should happen and I should (should) be home for Thanksgiving.

And the entire unit should be back by January for all the official welcome home parades and shindigs and whatnot... unless of course we get extended for the elections. However, the Brigade Commander, General Gayhart came to visit our base a few weeks ago and said that he highly doubts that we will be extended. But of course... that could always change...