Round 3: Doha Briefly

Here is the second article in my series on my third deployment. You can check out the first article here to get caught up or to refresh your memory. Also consider swinging by the shop to pick up a book or a sticker. Any support lent goes a long way towards getting future projects out for your consumption!

The bright spot in being tasked with another deployment was getting to see Jenny again a bit earlier than had been expected. Many of the military flights to Southwest Asia have a long layover in Qatar, where service members sometimes sit for weeks waiting for further air transportation forward. During a normal deployment, this impending week-long layover would be a massive annoyance. Since my deployment tasking meant Jenny and I were going to be extending our time apart by four to five months, I viewed another short stint in Qatar as a small blessing. First I had to get there, and the flight(s) from Boston to Qatar are extremely long.

A couple hours before my departure from Boston-Logan airport I dragged my bags down the stairs and into my friends’ waiting car. Jenny’s sister had graciously agreed to watch Jenny’s Husky, Zander, and I had dropped him off the week before. Calvin was staying with some local friends, so he watched me load my bags. I gave Calvin a long hug, and I could tell that even that dog, with his big head and no thoughts, knew something was up. We drove off, into extremely light traffic. A rarity in Boston, as if the city really wanted to facilitate my departure.

My friends dropped me off on the airport curb, a couple more hugs and I headed off to check my bags. Boston to Baltimore passed quickly, but the hours in the Baltimore airport dragged on. Finally settling into the familiar contract passenger jet, I braced myself for a long series of flights to Qatar. I had been hoping to sleep most of the way, but it would turn out I was not so lucky.

The fellow airman sitting directly next to me managed to sleep most of the flight(s), but that was the problem. Not only did he snore, loudly and with force, I also think he had some sort of sleep apnea. Every once in awhile he would just stop breathing and then suddenly gasp back to life. I spent the whole flight worried he was going to just up and die in his sleep.

During one of the layovers on the way to Southwest Asia, I connected to the airport terminal’s Wi-Fi to message my family and Jenny to let them know my travel was progressing as planned. With the remaining hours of my layover, I perused social media, consuming pictures of guns, dogs, and wildlife. Eventually, my thumb scrolled to a photograph that made my heart leap into my throat. A newborn baby girl, named after her Marine daddy who had just been killed in the Kabul bombing.

The picture saddened and angered me. Here was a little girl who would never know her father, and for what? Her daddy had died trying to help people flee a country that may have been irreversibly fucked, but why had we let it get that far? By this time, rumors that U.S. Intelligence assets had identified the bomber on the way to the attack, and an overhead drone had him dead to rights, but the powers that be had denied the clearance to strike. It was as if the U.S. leadership was stacking bad decisions like cordwood, with no intention of slowing down. And then, of course we used a drone to accidentally kill ten civilians in Kabul, but all that wouldn’t be released for a few more days at that point.

I shut my social media apps, turned off the Wi-Fi to my phone, and just sat in the terminal until my next flight boarded. There was absolutely nothing I could do about anything, so there was no point in just getting mad and raising my blood pressure for no reason.

A day and a half after departing the Air Mobility Command terminal in Baltimore, my flight finally touched down in Qatar. The huge, unavoidable military hub out in the desert. As soon as the door opened, the oppressive heat, humidity, and odor rushed my senses and brought back all the memories. Even at midnight, the heat was enough to make me start sweating heavily. The jet’s passengers trudged out onto the tarmac, walking to a series of buildings to start getting into the base.

It was one of the times in my Air Force service that felt designed to test my patience. Deploy my fiancé for six months, then task me for a deployment four months in and bring me to within a stone’s throw of her to just sit there and wait. It is selfish thinking at best, but given the circumstances, I make no apology.

So I and about a hundred of my closest friends just sat there, waiting for the Qatari customs official to “get ready” (read: wake up). We waited so long that I started to get nervous that I wouldn’t get to see Jenny at all, that I would be put on my next flight immediately. My anxiety rose as I worried that the one silver lining to back to back deployments would get stripped away by bureaucratic incompetence and apathy.

My fear would go unrealized, and I would eventually wander through customs under the not-so-watchful eye of a yawning customs official who could barely be bothered to lift his nose from his phone. A bus waiting outside dropped me off a quarter mile from my temporary room. I dragged my bags over the rocky, uneven terrain to a dilapidated trailer, tossed my belongings on the bed, and walked across the base to go find Jenny.

It was now five AM, almost six hours after landing and time for breakfast. The sun was rising quickly and scorching the rough Qatari sand. By the time I walked from one end of the base to the other, I was soaked in sweat. I could almost smell myself over the general stench of the desert, but I knocked on Jenny’s door anyway.

She cracked the door, bleary eyed and with messy hair. Jenny whispered “Shh, I have a roommate. Let me get changed,” before closing the door quietly.

I only saw her for a moment, but she was as beautiful as I had ever seen in that moment. My heart swelled, I was so happy to see her again after so many months. We hugged quickly, and then walked to have breakfast together.

It was only the Al Udeid dining facility, but our breakfast together was better than any I had eaten in months. Chatting and catching up, finally getting to see my fiancé. It almost made the next six months worth it. We made a couple plans, but first I had to shower and take a nap. Jenny needed to head to work anyway.

Jenny went to go get ready for work, and I went back to my room. I changed into my shower gear and walked to the shower. With the dust, grime, and stink scrubbed off of me, I laid down and took a couple hour nap.

I got to meet Jenny’s office after lunch, and we made some optimistic plans for the days we had together. I had already checked the outgoing roster, and I wasn’t scheduled on any flight just yet. Most people looked like they had been on the roster for at least three days, so I figured I had a couple days with Jenny.

Jenny went back to work for a bit, and was out of reach in her secure office. I tried to lay down for another nap, but bad news came: the unit I was deploying to had managed to get me scheduled on a flight that was leaving the next morning. When Jenny finished work, we had less than 12 hours left together.

We made the most of our time, getting dinner together, watching a movie together, and just being in each other’s presence. It took all I had to keep from crying, and I was not wholly successful in that endeavor. I had felt like I was on the verge of frustrated, angry, exasperated tears for months. Jenny’s deployment, meeting the Air Force Contracting Officer’s Board, my deployment tasking all combo’d up. I tried to keep a positive attitude, just enjoy her presence, her voice, her hand in mine, but the weight of it all was growing to be too much.

I didn’t sleep at all that night. Jet lag and all the bullshit just crowded my mind. I couldn’t stay with Jenny, she had a roommate, and she couldn’t stay with me, the room was disgusting and small. It looked like third-world whorehouse in an action movie. Instead of sleeping I walked to check out of my room, took a shower, and repacked my bag. Then I just waited for Jenny to pick me up.

She picked me up promptly, and we made our way to get one last breakfast together. I dropped my bags off to be loaded on the waiting plane, and we went to get a coffee. The two of us just sat and talked as if nothing was different. As if we were sitting around our table at home and not a dusty picnic table in the desert.

We sat together as long as we possibly could, violating the COVID distancing rules the whole time. Seats in the terminal had signs on them, attempting to keep people from sitting next to each other. Nobody bothered us, probably because few actually gave a shit about the rules, and fewer still were willing to enforce them.

Eventually the plane was ready, and I had to leave. A final hug and kiss, regulations be damned, and off I went. One more plane ride and I was to my final location.