Laundry Day (Part 3)

Part one of the story is here. Part two is here.

He stared across the counter with unmistakable look in his eyes. The guys voice cracked a little when he repeated himself.

"We can't allow anyone to fly in to Iraq without body armor."

"I just flew out of Iraq without body armor" He replied, calmly.

Another guy behind the counter stopped pushing his broom and joined the conversation. "The rules are you can't fly into Iraq without body armor" To this day that guy has no idea how close he came to flying into Iraq without an airplane, much less body armor, and with a broomstick rammed up his

"We have armor you can use sir" Said the first guy, saving his partner's life, and sparing himself from having to finish sweeping with another broom.

A few hours later he found himself flying to Iraq, a 4-sizes too small flak jacket under his seat, in the company of one hundred GIs making their first trip in. They were cool, not nervous - they seemed more bored than anything, though a few were excited about their first ride on a C17. He checked his watch. The sun would rise before they landed and be well up in the sky when they took off again. Balad Air Base was one of the many places the inhabitants unofficially called "Mortaritaville" due to the number of shoot and scoot insurgent rocket and mortar attacks. Night would be better, but a jet-powered big bird was probably safe.

But if the plane was shot down there was one thing he could count on. If a pillow fight broke out as the big bird plumetted earthward he could don that flak vest and be protected from the sharper feathers.

It didn't happen. No one so much as reared back with a pillow that trip. They landed safely. Everyone else got off, he spoke with the crew.

"I'm flying on to Germany with you guys"

"Yes sir. But we need you to leave the plane while we do our stuff..."

"No problem" he said. He got off the plane and on the bus for the 200 yard ride to the pax terminal. There he held back outside and spoke to the lady who met them at the plane and seemed to be in charge.

"Hi. I need to get back on the plane. I'm going to Germany, but they said I had to get off first..."

"You need escorted back out? Come on let's go." She started walking back to the plane. He followed.

"I don't know if they want me back this soon..."

"It's okay," she said. "Let's go."

She had an Eastern European accent but he couldn?t place it. "Where are you from? I can't place the accent."

"Romania" She replied. Iraq was a magnet for non-timid souls from all over the world. That was something many folks never saw, the international face of the Coalition. They arrived at the plane. "Go on in." She said. He almost got a foot up on the first step when the sirens went off.

"Alarm red." She said, matter-of-factly. Meaning mortar rounds or rockets might have landed somewhere on the base.

"Are we supposed to hit the ground?" He asked.

"No." She replied, walking. "Come on we have to go in to the nearest building."

He looked. It was 200 yards away. "Can we make it before the all clear sounds?" He asked.

"Oh yes. We'll stay red for a little while. This is an every morning thing."

They had a nice walk back to the building. A truck came to the plane and picked up the crew and took them to a building in another direction. "See?" She said. "Everyone must go inside the nearest building."

It made perfectly good sense to him, in an absolutely senseless way.

They got there while the sirens still warbled. In the foyer he met a group of folks that were going to fly out on the same plane. Balad was home to the largest military hospital in Iraq, and the flight out was going to be a medevac taking the wounded to Ramstein for transfer to Landstuhl. The all-clear sounded, he rode with them back out on the ramp, then stayed out of the way as the ambulances delivered the other pax and they were loaded on their stretchers into the plane.

He'd traveled all night on little notice. Had a bag full of wet clothes. Had hours of travel ahead of him. A great trip compared to the ride these guys were getting.

Its all relative.

The jet engines fired up again, and he left Iraq for the second time in 24 hours.

He called her from the pax terminal. This was the scary part, he hadn't had time to let her know he was coming so he decided to go for the surprise attack. Would she be there? She answered.

"Hey... you busy?"

"Where are you?" But he knew from the tone of voice that she knew.

"Pax terminal at Ramstein." He said. "And I've got laundry that needs done..."