OIF 1 The Beginning

I was assigned to a combat engineer battalion as senior medic for the deployment to the "undisclosed location in the middle east" from a medical training unit. I had put my name on the list as a willing volunteer to be deployed earlier in the political events leading up to the invasion. I knew this would be my last chance to get in the game before I clocked out at 20.
Pre-deployment was a rush job from mobilization to boots on the ground was 32 days. That is very fast for a National Guard heavy combat battalion considering the number of people and the amount of equipment to be moved. Nevertheless we got all of our check marks from the MOB BN and away we went for acclimatization while awaiting our equipment to arrive by sea.
The surreal experience of landing in the middle east was tempered by the thoughts of my family and the issues left undone. I was finally here. After 16 years of preparing I was going to get in the game and to top that off I was in the starting lineup. Operation Iraqi Freedom 1, OIF 1, (although at the time we didn't know there would be more that one OIF).
As we exited the plane into the bright desert light the wave of heat was impressive. At first my impression was that it may have been just the heat from the engines after a long trans-Atlantic, Mediterranean and Arabian desert crossing, but as we move further and further away from the aircraft I quickly realized that the jet engines had nothing to do with the oppression I was experiencing. Within a half and hour we were already beginning to look for water and by the next morning I had started my first IV in the "war".
Next came the official Swipe In to the theater to prove each individual was there, the only problem was that very few of us had the high speed CAC card needed to digitally enter the country so the admin remfs had to manually key all our information in. Boy were they pissed. Here we are taking up their valuable time by not being high speed enough to have the digital cards. Damn National Guard Pukes! I couldn't help but notice they were sitting in an air conditioned Toyota Landcruiser with the window cracked just enough to slide an ID card in and that we were standing in the sun wearing enough gear to weight down an Army mule. Not to mention that we had on body armor, kevlar and had our weapons. The closest thing to a weapon I saw any of them wield was the mighty stylus of their laptop signature pad! HOOAH! Welcome to the war boys and girls!


TBCL8TR......