THE TRIP FROM HELL

22May07. Tuesday. What an interesting time to say the least. Got to the Airport at 4:30AM to "Show-up". After roll-call, they dismissed us for another 3 1/2 hours. After that, we waited another 3hrs for a flight on a C-130. Made the hour-long trip south only to have the plane breakdown. Oh, as we approached the airfield, we hit an airpocket. Dropped the aircraft ~400ft of altitude. We literally became airborne for a long 20 sec count. One of the pallets became dislodged (we had to tie it back to the aircraft), one of the aircrewmen and passanger were ejected from their seats. Quite a Ride. Told my buddy this was the second time it has ever occurred to me. And, it was either due to turbulance of evasive maneuvers from a missle. My money was on the weather. After finally landing, we waited, and waited, and waited. The C-130 was hard broke and not going anywhere. Reagrdless, a C-17 Cargo Plane was slated to land within 2hrs. All 50 or so folks decided to get manifested on that aircraft. That place was quite late (by about 3hrs). It landed, we boarded and into the air we went. We successfully landed in Doha, Qatar about 3hrs later. Total Travel time 20hrs. Gotta love the military.....