I arrived in Frankfurt on the 5th of December and spent a couple of days at Rhein-Main AB where I received SFOR training. Still recovering from a little bit of jet-lag, I was looking forward to a few days at Ramstein AB prior to departing down-range. This however was not to be... I learned that we would be departing immediately following training, which meant I was to arrive at Tuzla, BiH almost 5 days before my required in-place date.
We departed Rhein-Main at 0400 on what should have been about an hour and a half bus ride to Ramstein for the flight out. About 45 minutes into the bus ride, our bus broke down... we waited for almost two hours for a replacement bus. We unloaded our baggage off our bus and onto the new one (about 80 very heavy bags... you'd have thought we were moving!) Upon arrival at Ramstein we learned that we had now missed our flight and that we would need to come back the next day; problem is, not everyone on the bus was coming to Tuzla so we had to off-load all of our baggage so they could find theirs, only to reload the bus so we could head back to Rhein-Main...
I finally arrived here in the early evening on 8 Dec. Already dark and very cold, I was kind of excited to be here. While we inprocessed at PERSCO, unit members picked up our bags and took them to our rooms and we headed to the Dining Facility, better known as the DFAC (there has to be an acronym for everything!) The food here is exceptional, and I don't even need to qualify that with "for Army food".
I met with my predecessor the next day (who was very happy to see me) and we spent the next couple of days discussing the various details of the job. Not too much really, but very specific in content. I also learned that in addition to being the Liason to the Russian Air Forces Commander Tuzla, I was also the Group Vehicle Control Officer, Historian, and Protocol Officer... ahhh, additional duties, ya' gotta love em!
Just before I got here, Tuzla received a visit from Jessica Simpson. Damn!
