Greetings from Africa (again)

Hello all and welcome if it is your first time, welcome back otherwise.

As most of you know, it was time to deploy again (it had been over 2 years since my last one, so not too bad). I was sent to the Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) in Djibouti City, Djibouti, to serve as the Deputy Director of Strategic Communications.

Strat Comm is defined as: Focused US Gov efforts to understand and engage key audiences to create, strengthen, or preserve conditions favorable for the advancement of US Gov interests, policies and objectives through the use of coordinated plans, themes, messages and products, synchronized with the actions of instruments of national power.

I can tell you that it has been quite a journey in the making. I detached from my previous command on 11 Jun to the Deployment Processing Center in order to begin and complete the required predeployment training. I had most of it done before I reported in so I had lots of half days/days off.

I thought I would be leaving around 25 Jul for Africa but the best the Marine Forces Africa Liason Officer could do with booking tickets was 5 Aug. There was really no "work" for me to do as I was simply awaiting travel. This meant that I just had to call in every day to let them know I didn't die in my sleep and was still ready to go.

WOW! 11 days of free vacation. I can say that it was time well spent in Sneads Ferry. Made a point to eat at places which I enjoy because it would be a long time before I got to eat there again. Additionally, I got to swim in the community pool which was supposed to be open at the end of Jun.

Ok, vacations over. Time to deploy.

I loaded up Jodi's vehicle with all my bags and we were off to the airport to catch a flight at 2:20 pm. Jodi sat with me at the airport for a bit and she then went on her way after a tearful goodbye.  Well...we didn't know it was raining in Charlotte, NC, where I was headed. My flight was cancelled which meant I would miss my connection to Paris. The entire itinerary was shot.

I called Jodi and told her what happened. She was really pissed having just gone through shipping her husband off for six months. Mentally, she had prepared herself and this was just screwing that up.

The flights I had were for a Fri and the trip got rebooked on the following Tues for Thurs (11 Aug) travel. I was again ready for travel that would span 3 days and 2 nights.  I left Thurs with a slight delay in Charlotte. I had a short layover and then an overnight flight to Paris.

I landed in Paris this past Fri morning and had 15! hours to kill.  Thankfully, I am friends with the Commanding Officer of Marine Security Guard (MSG) Region 5, which covers Paris. I contacted him and he put me in touch with the MSG Paris Det Commander. The Det Commander told me that they would be more then happy to host me for the day! I grabbed a cab to the Marine House where they all stay and was met by the Deputy Commander who was serving as my escort officer. He showed me to my home where I took a much needed shower.

After my shower, he told me he had about 45 minutes of work to do at the US Embassy and after that, we would be off to see the city. The embassy was really cool, if nothing else to say that I was there. Turns out that that it is pretty quiet there and nothing like what you saw in the Bourne Identity.

The guided tour of Paris was unexpected and we covered a lot of territory in less then 6 hours. Got to see Notre Dame (construction began in 1163), the Paris Opera House, The Eiffel Tower, the Arch de Triomph (the same one that division of Nazi soldiers paraded thru in 1940) and, of course, The Mona Lisa at The Louvre. The Louvre is huge and it would take you weeks to even glance at everything in there. The Mona Lisa was the rock star in the building with hoards of people surrounding the exhibit. The crowd must have been 25 people deep.

After a whirlwind tour of Paris, it was back to the airport and back to reality. I left on an overnight flight to Ethiopia and arrived at 0700. The airport was not as crappy as I recall but I think I was in a different terminal. Had a beer and cheeseburger for breakfast (you quickly lose the concept of morning, noon, night after spending a couple of nights on a plane where I get very little sleep).

I arrived in Djibouti around 1:oo pm and was happy to see that my ride was waiting for me (couple of guys from my shop showed up). After a short ride from the airport (Camp Lemmioner is on the other side of the runway), I had arrived at my home for the next 6 mos. It was getting late in the day so there really wasn't much time to do anything except get my room and get unpacked.

As a LtCol, I rate a single room with my own shower and toilet. I was shocked to find out that there is a 3 mos waiting list for this type of room. I'm on the waiting list for an appropriate room but a little pissed that any incoming LtCol is not slotted above the highest Maj no matter how long they have been on the list. I would gladly give up my room to house the enlisted Marines I lead but I will be damned if a Maj is going to have priority over a LtCol.

I am sharing a room with an Air Force LtCol . The room has no running water, so no toilet either. It measures 7'x18' for a grand total of 126 sq ft.  Research indicates that an average sized prison cell is 8'x10' for a total of 80 sq ft also shared by two. HOWEVER, a prison cell has a toilet, a pretty good trade off at 2 am when you have to take a leak.

How could things get worse I asked myself. That question was answered when I was making my rack (bed). As I unfolded the sheets, they just didn't feel right. I looked at the tag and sure enough...cotton/polyester blend. So long 600 count Egyptian cotton, hello cotton/polyester. What happened to the days of "only the best for our American service people??

So, as you sleep soundly tonight on your 100% cotton sheets, know that deployed service people everywhere are sleeping on cotton/poly blend.