A jaunt through Kuwait.

I had to process my first casualty on Saturday. One of our Soldiers was practicing for his flag-football team. He caught the ball, and turned around to run with it, and had a head-to-head collision with another Soldier. One's face hit the other's forehead. The Soldier whose face was hit, went to the Troop Medical Clinic (TMC), and was cleared a few hours later. He had significant swelling, and was put on two-day quarters ie he didn't have to show up to work for two days. The swelling was getting worse and worse, and he went back to the TMC. They did an X-ray, and found bone fragments floating in the swelling; he had fractured his bone above his right eye. The TMC in Kuwait can't work on that, so he was ordered to be MEDIVAC'd (Medically evacuated) out of Kuwait and to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. He had the option of taking the TMC shuttle, or having two Soldiers he knew escort him. He chose the latter. Since he was leaving our AO, and since I'm the CASOPS OIC, I was one of the Soldiers who went with him. The other was my NCOIC, SSG Schmidt.

We had to drive from Camp Arifjan to Ali Al Salem Air Base. Kuwait is a small country. Arifjan is about half-an-hour away from Sauid Arabia, and Ali Al Salem is "far north," but only takes about an hour to get to; it's 30 miles or so south of Iraq. SSG Schmidt and I were excited to get off post. Kuwait is an allied nation so there is not danger, really. We didn't carry weapons, and didn't have protective gear. It was exciting for us to just get out.

We spent most of the drive shadowing the outskirts of Kuwait City. The city, from what I could see, looks fairly nice. It's pretty huge because there were few times along the drive where we couldn't see it. The rest of the country is pretty freaking ugly. It's a desert. The whole freaking country is a desert. On top of that, there is a decent amount of garbage everywhere. If anyone has ever been a part of the Adopt a Highway Program, you know that the sides of American highways are pretty nasty. However, we have the luxury of tall grass to hide it. The desert doesn't have that luxury, and you can see the garbage everywhere. It doesn't pile up, but it's ubiquitous.

We were told that Kuwaitis were terrible drivers. They are. They don't use their turn signals, they swerve in and out of traffic, they go twenty or KPH over the speed limit--which is already a generous 120 KPH. We had Kuwaitis in the left lane cross in front of us, at speeds in excess of 120 KPH, and then cross over two more lanes to exit. Who needs blinkers? It was crazy.

We arrived at Ali Al Salem, dropped off our Soldier and wished him well. We might not see him again because he will have surgery to remove the bone fragments so we wanted him to know how much he will be missed. We said our good-byes, ate at the DFAC, which was really nice (The Air Force really knows how to live), and went on our merry way back home. It was a nice diversion from the usual office day, and a cool experience. I posted pictures from it on my FB so check them out.