A series of Unfortunate Events

The story of my return to the states:)
We left late Friday afternoon the 7th, loaded on buses to take us to Camp Doha, where we would outprocess and go through customs. While going through the customs brief, the SF guy giving it made a couple of references to having Intel and CI standing by. At those, the entire room started snickering, and after the second time he made the statement that we must really have something about intel. My BC spoke up to inform him that we were indeed CI, and the guy blushed. It was very funny.
We then sat around in the sterilized area while waiting to be bused to the airport. We got on the buses around 2300 and got to the airport about an hour later where we expected to board almost immediatly. That was where the first event happened, in that the airplane didn't get there until 3, we didn't board until 4, and took off at 5. Boarding the plane was a bit of an adventure for me, as I don't do stairs well at all. But I got up there, and quickly claimed 2 seats in the back for myself so that I could stretch out. Shortly after that, one of the NCO's came back and told myself and another soldier that there were seats for us up front. We gave him an odd look and he rephrased: The BC had requested our presence in the front. So I got to fly first class the whole way:-D Oh sooooo comfy! We flew to Shannon, Ireland first, and while we did not leave the airport at all, while flying in I got to see a bit of the country side. While coming down it was very foggy, and then the clouds broke and all one could see was GREEN! Magnificent! We then took off for NYC where we landed at about 1400 and got off the plane for an hour to stretch while waiting for it to be replenished. We reboarded the plane to take off for our final destination of Augusta, where we knew we would be later then expected, but not that bad. About 30 minutes out of Bush field, they came on the intercom and informed us that we were now headed to Atlanta, as Bush field had lighting issues. When we landed in Atlanta, we were directed over to the side of the terminals where the plane parked and we were then informed that the plane now had issues with the anit skid. Oh this just got better and better! By this time it was about 2000, we had all been in the plane for a damned long time and we were tired and cranky. We sat in a corner of that airport for a long time and finally took off again for Bush field. We arrived at Bush probably somewhere around 0030 and made it back to post by 0100, where we had our little welcoming home ceremony and were allowed to greet our families. It was a very raucous and emotional time, as we were all greeting our families, but at the same time meeting Cari's parents for what most of us, was the first time. It was very nice to meet them, although a bit hard on most of us as it reminded us again that we had not brought everyone home with us.
That night I got back to my hotel room late, or rather early in the morning and promptly grabbed a bottle of Bacardi Silver:) It didn't take long before I was out cold though:) Saturday was filled with shopping, as I had no clothing here to speak of, and then Saturday night we went out to a night club here in town for a party that they were having for us. lordamercy I got TOASTED!!!!!!!!!!!! Just gone! ROFL.
Sunday I got to go see my sister compete in gymnastics, and having never seen her compete before was a new experience. Egads, the way she threw herself around the air!
The last two days we have been inprocessing back into Fort Gordon, but thats a subject for another post. I am sorry this has taken me so long to post, but it also took me 3 days to write, as I don't have regular access to internet anymore. SOOON though. Love you all, and BTW G. I don't have your number. Email me:-D