Here we are, the second to last installment of the Round 3 series. Released one year to the day that I left Boston on the way to my third deployment. Links to earlier articles will be scattered throughout if you would like to get caught up on the lore. If you would like to support, the store is back open as we finally have gotten more or less set up in our new house in Hawaii. Please allow a little more time for me to find my supplies and ship them to you. Enjoy this penultimate installment, and be looking for the finale soon.
Over a month before my replacement reported to the 332d ECONS, I was forced to move out of my cozy, tin RLB to a huge, airy tent sporting a familiar black triangle. Another member of the 332d ECONS, Matt, had to move into this tan piece of camping equipment with me. Matt and I both had fallen victim to a questionable new lodging policy, which was even more questionably enforced. The upshot was that there were a dozen beds in our tent. Having such a large bed-to-person ratio allowed Matt and I to spread out our stuff all over the tent. Laying our gear out in the tent was a tactical move, intended to make an unwelcome potential tent-mate believe more of the beds were full so they would move on to another living space. The downside to living in the tent was that it was blistering hot during the day and below freezing at night. Plus, we were out at the far end of the base, the Wi-Fi was terrible, and there wasn’t a shower or bathroom anywhere near us.
Right after the base New Years Eve party, the 332d went through a brief COVID-19 outbreak. Most of the affected Airmen were put in the “Quarantine Zone.” The 332d’s Quarantine Zone was a far sight less ominous than Al Udeid’s Quarantine Area that included barbed wire, guard shacks, and a general “Federal Penitentiary” vibe. Our Quarantine Zone was simply a large cluster of tents roped off with yellow caution tape, and it was easy to miss if you didn’t know what you were looking at.
My assigned tent was a few columns of tents past the Quarantine Zone, about as far from the ECONS as possible while still remaining inside the American side of the base. Living there was less comfortable than the RLB for sure, but it wasn’t all bad. I already mentioned the increased living space, and it was just one more reminder that we were close to heading home. All we had left was to get our replacements and hop on a jet headed West, back to America.
On the morning my replacement was scheduled to arrive, I woke to the faint sound of sirens blaring in the distance.
“Hey Matt, do you think that’s real-world?” I asked of my tent-mate. Master Sergeant Rowe and I laid in our respective cots and listened carefully. I had to strain to even hear the sirens, and I couldn’t hear the Giant Voice system’s distinctive robotic drone declaring an alarm or an attack.
“I think it’s just a firetruck,” Matt said, “go back to sleep.” The sirens did sound like that of a firetruck, but just wrong enough that instead of going back to sleep, I strained my good ear to listen a little more closely.
“Do you hear the Giant Voice?” I asked from inside the warmth of my blanket. Now, in addition to the sirens blaring across the base, I thought I could just make out the faintest voice saying “Alarm Red, Alarm Red, Alarm Red” over and over again.
Matt listened, checked his phone, then sprung out of his bed. “Just got a text from Joe, get to a bunker!” Then, in a flash of athletic shorts and pulling a t-shirt over his head, Matt dashed out of the tent and headed for the bunker behind our tent. Which is what you’re supposed to do.
What I did was sit on the edge of my bed, listen real closely for the sounds of an attack, and remember the stories of people being hunkered down in bunkers for days at a time. I didn’t hear any explosions or gunfire, and it was cold, dammit. Rather than follow my Senior NCO’s lead and run right to the bunker, I took a few moments to pull on some jeans, put on my boots without socks (to save time), and dig through my duffel bag to find my jacket with my rank and name on it. Then I quickly sauntered to the bunker.
Joining Matt in the bunker, we (possibly) calmed the wide-eyed airman sharing the sandbag-reinforced concrete bunker with us by joking about the situation. Still not hearing gunfire, grenades, or explosions, I took the opportunity to crack open the old .50 Cal ammo can holding the bunker’s First Aid kit. I popped it open to find that we had almost everything I expected, plus an empty beer bottle as a bonus. Matt and I made a joke about how we had left our body armor, gas masks, and trauma kits in the squadron, and therefore as far away as possible without leaving them on the runway, then we settled in to wait for the all clear.
The alarm turned out to be nothing, and we exited the bunkers relatively quickly, but it was just one more thing that the 332d had to throw at me while I waited for a ride home. What I was most concerned about that morning while I sat in the bunker was that my replacement’s plane would get turned around and I would have to stay longer while the Powers That Be tried to reorganize air travel back to the 332d.
Possibly due to my good, clean living, my replacement’s jet did arrive, and only a little bit late. When he walked out of the passenger terminal, I could feel the effects of my advanced age (30) hit me like a ton of bricks. My replacement, Capt Haijsman, had been a Doolie (Freshman) in my cadet squadron at USAFA when I was a Firstie (Senior). Seeing him again, all grown up and married with three kids, really made the remaining hair on my head turn grey and/or abandon ship.
Having your replacement arrive to take your place at a deployment is an incredible feeling, one that is only surpassed by touching down back in the U.S.A after a series of long flights back from the desert. When the new blood pumps back into the squadron, the atmosphere changes. The old, crusty bastards that have been hanging around for six months or more have the end in sight, and the new, doe-eyed new kids have the energy and optimism required to tackle the upcoming challenges. The new folks also have just the right amount of naivete to believe they might just win the war, or at least solve all the problems the previous rotation had given up on out of frustration, lack of resources, or a combination thereof.
I still had about a month to go before heading home, but I wasted no time training up Haijsman. Within hours I had my email set up to send an automated message that Captain Haijsman was now The Man for all things AFCAP and Base Support Flight at the 332d ECONS. A few days later I had him sitting at the table in all of our meetings, while I hung out in the peanut gallery to observe and answer any tough questions. By the time Haijsman had been there for a full week, I was taking twenty minute smoke breaks every hour and just hanging out in the smoke pit with a crusty Chief Master Sergeant, whose replacement was also on the ground.
The new 332d ECONS was younger and less experienced, but there wasn’t much for the “old” rotation to do but sit around and wait for their questions. Whether they didn’t know to ask questions, I appeared grumpy and unapproachable, or they were that confident I do not know. What I do know is that I did a whole lot of waiting and not a lot of answering questions. To fill the time, Dan, Joe, Justin (even though he still had three months left), Matt, and the rest of my rotation of ECONS spent our afternoons and evenings sitting in the bar and talking about politics, guns, meat, and music.
Or at least we would have, except that the aforementioned COVID outbreak meant that the bar was closed, though they would sell us alcohol to consume outside. So we sat outside in the cold, drinking our three beers and bourbon and talking about politics, guns, meat, and music until we couldn’t stand it anymore and retreated to the relative warmth of the tent.
As the days ticked by, the people on my rotation started to redeploy in small groups and pairs, leaving just me, Joe, and Justin. Eventually I left Joe and Justin behind, finally heading home myself. Early one February morning, I lugged my battered duffel bag over to the passenger terminal, said my goodbyes to the remaining ECONS personnel, wished good-luck to Captain Haijsman, and boarded a C-130 to head home. I still had one more stop to go, but I was that much closer to home.
