“You are going to LOVE VBC!”

Sure I am.  No doubt about it!  How could it be otherwise?  This is the main camp, Saddam’s palaces, his lakes, the supreme place of the former Baaa’th party (although they could’ve used a few more baths…yuck yuck guffaw!)

My flight is scheduled for 1030, rescheduled to 1230, rescheduled again to 1330 and then a third time to 1915.  Then I get the call that our plane (helicopter) leaves at 1745, so we hustle our stuff into the truck and get down there.  Of course the terminal isn’t expecting us but we check in.  Like the catcher in Bull Durham he says, “Who are you?”  And we reply, “We are the passengers to be named later.”  15 minutes later our winged chariot arrives and out we go.  Twenty minutes or so later we are landing at VBC (Victory Base Camp) pad. 

I am unimpressed.  Taji Terminal, for being a backwater location is the closest thing to a real FBO that I have seen so far anywhere in the middle-east.  Nice sign, hurricane (chain link) fence, concrete pads and people to direct and greet you with internet access, telephones, clean waiting area with a television and airport seats.    

But don’t let first impressions fool you.  It gets worse…a nightmare actually.  The LNO (Liaison Officers) pick us up.  The outgoing 1^st CAB Major and I meet our LTC Ray “Hey!  Why don’t I take your bag and you show him how to scan in!” he says to my counterpart (MAJ Greg Gabel).  “Okay!” he says, and I am thinking there must be a special procedure.  We walk around a T-wall, up some steps, through a door and there is a scanner.  Nobody to watch it, control it or anything; you just walk up, scan your card (like we do for every meal) and now the army knows we are in VBC and not in Taji anymore.

VBC is where the Generals are thick as Iraq summer heat.  There is EVERYTHING here; But not a room for me.  “I told SPC Hananez whatever you do, don’t lose this key” LTC Ray was explaining to us, “but what does he and his buddy do?  Lose the key!”  It is now after 1800 and there is nobody who can unlock the room, (for me) or give me a room and my counterpart and I both look at each other.  And it doesn’t look good (in fact we both look kinda ugly, especially with these haircuts…)

Tent City for us tonight (and maybe the whole four days), but how bad could it be?  I stayed at Buehring in a big tent.  I have slept under the stars in Boy Scouts.  But what did I know?  “You just have to have more pain” MAJ G. says as we walk into the tent.  The tents are all surrounded by T-walls.  They have no exit signs which provide a light to see by when you have to get up to go through two sets (around actually) a whole second set of tents but inside the T-walls.  It is dark as dark can be because the tents have a cover over them of some sort, probably for sun protection in the summer.  There is gravel beaten into the dirt so it is hard packed but the tent ropes are to your left and the walls are to your right and you have no idea really where you are. 

The locations aren’t as friendly as Disney land; "Remember!  You are parked in Goofy A-21!”  No, it is Pod 5-A.  And off you go searching.  I think it is over here, no maybe it is over there?  Do you have a flashlight?  Open the door and you see a low roofed tent and rows of cots.  Some have mattresses on them and most are just a cot.  It ends up being just three of us in the tent instead of 50.  But when you are over 50 you want some better amenities... Did I tell you how much I LOVE my 5-star room in Taji?  Oh how the mighty have fallen!

I need to walk and gather my thoughts and call my beautiful bride, so I head off for the PX.  Paved streets and sidewalks?  I must have missed that part.  Dusty road turns into a side gravel road that heavy trucks have packed the rocks down hard.  Sidewalk?  How about roadway?  The PX is like any PX; limited in selection except for televisions.  The AT&T call center by the tent was locked up and the one at the PX was vacant with phones on one side and the rest had been removed.  Things must be slowing down even here.

We wake up early and get a shower (walking about 100 yards, past two tent sets, across a road and then one building for a toilet and a different one for a shower), hustle back to pack, dress and walk to the DFAC on that side of town.  “I thought they said it was close!  This is not what I call close” said MAJ G.  “I don’t like to walk, especially this far”.  I had to laugh.  I laughed at the tent city and the darkness and the latrines and the road.  I don’t have the energy to cry.

LTC Ray picked us up at the “other side of the tracks” DFAC, drove us back to pack the minimum stuff (our laptops) and we went off to the palace.  After our duty that day LTC Ray finagled us a CHU but it was only for one.  We went back picked up our stuff we had left there unsecured (who wants some tennis shoes or sheets, as beautiful as mine are…) and “acquired” a cot.  MAJ G. looked at it like it was a Rubik’s Cube, so I showed him how to disassemble it, pack it and then he carried it out to the car.  Coming into the CHU area there were some abandoned mattresses standing by the bedding center (where they replace old ones with new ones as needed).  MAJ G. “acquired” one of those and now rests comfortably beside me in the CHU.

Feed the hungry, help the widows, orphans and house the homeless Majors who just want a place to sleep.  I think that is Biblical.  One out of five ain’t bad (it is all I can do tonight).

Six days and a wakeup and he will be heading home the last guy to leave (flying a UH-60 with the BDE commander, COL Muth).  So this just makes his trip home that much sweeter.  Me?  Well maybe after a few days I will say, “You are just going to LOVE VBC (Victory Base Complex)” but so far I just want to be back home in Taji.  

Jeremiah 35: 10