Well, at least for now no one has my blog address, because it’s kind of pathetic how little I’ve put in here so far. I keep meaning to do better with it–write more often, about what I’m doing to prepare for my deployment, that kind of thing.
I was inspired today by an NPR story that I heard about military bloggers and how they’ve been putting a different face on this war that we’re involved in around the world. I haven’t had too much time to explore the site yet (I only spent two hours surfing around so far, here at home!), but it’s really interesting. This is particularly the case because I’m going to be heading over to Baghdad in about two and a half months. In the interim, I’ll be taking leave this summer, doing a lot of training, and otherwise preparing for being away for a long time.
This week was an interesting one in the office, since we were testing one of our wargames before sending the whole package down to Australia. Yeah, tough assignment for the people tasked for it, eh? Of course, I hear that nothing ever tends to work properly, so all the people who are working to administer the game run around frantically trying to make things work. This, of course, makes the higher-ups less than thrilled, and it usually means a somewhat dismal time for those poor people who are trying to patch it together on unfamiliar computers. Since I’m not one of the all-knowing computer coders in the office, anyway, I’m not of much value in this regard, so I’ll be staying here in the States while the game goes on.
Actually, I think I’ll be doing my mobility training when it’s happening. Running around in the woods playing guns and learning how to be in a convoy, from what I hear . . .
This whole notion of deploying seems quite novel to me. I’m an “Analytical Scientist,” which they’re now starting to call “Analyst” as my job title for the AF. This generally means that I’m a math nerd who sits in a corner and types on a computer all day. There aren’t too many of us, and we’re almost never put in charge of anyone. Normally there are only one or two in any given office, and if you make it to major or lt. col., you might be tasked to supervise a couple of Scientist subordinates.
Concomitant with this is a tendency for us to never be deployed. There are only a few “Analyst in the AOC” slots overseas, and those generally take volunteers instead of tasking people who are set up in AEFs. (Air Expeditionary Forces–the group that has a particular “slot” of time that you’re assigned to, so that you know when your “window” for deployment comes up.) Anyway, even though the whole Air Force is supposed to have slot numbers by now, for each of the 3 non-scholastic assignments I’ve had, the answer has been “we have too many Analysts for our AEF slots, so you’re not going to be assigned to a line number.” Now, I don’t mind this in the least–it’s not really my favorite idea to think that at a moment’s notice I could be told that I’m heading off to the ends of the earth.
And yet, when an email came out early this June that mentioned 5 overseas slots for Analysts, after a day or so of thought about it, I found myself volunteering. I’d never really meant to do it. However, it sounded interesting–by this point I’d met several people who’d been over in “the sandbox,” and it sounded interesting. I volunteered for a position at Al Udeid (which I hear from everyone is tremendously nice–a headquarters, set up well, all that), and thought I had a fighting chance at it, because I’ve got a good security clearance and I had just finished up a master’s degree in operations research, which they stressed was particularly what they were looking for. Actually, it turned out that my school actually was a bit of a help to me in getting a slot, but more on that later.
Before I did anything for real, I called my parents and told them I was pretty sure I was going to do this. My dad (being retired AF himself) was excited, jealous, and generally positive, but my mom was–hesitant. I talked up Al Udeid, though, and said a couple times “It’s not like it’s Baghdad, after all!” I mentioned that it was quite likely they’d have too many volunteers anyway, so I might just be staying here as it was. ”Anyway, it’s only four months!”
So after getting blessings from my chain of command, I submitted my “I wanna volunteer!” letter to the listed POC (point of contact, for those of you not well-versed in military acronyms), and sat back to wait for a response. A day after the suspense (deadline), I got a call from DC. “I know you said you wanted to go to Al Udeid, but would you consider the Tyndall position?” Now, there was one position where you “deployed” to Tyndall AFB in Panama City, FL. The AOC (Air Operations Center) there keeps track of stateside operations, things like coordinating air assets in the Katrina/Rita aftermath last year. Deployments there are quite sought-after, because they reflect well on you, being real deployments, but don’t require quite the amount of hardship that other parts of the world might. However, since I’m living in Alabama right now, the thought of “deploying” 250 miles away from home seemed–lame. But if that’s where they needed me . . .
I said “yes,” of course. However, the next week–I was in Colorado Springs at the time, attending a conference about Operations Research and catching up with all my former classmates who were there–I checked my email from my hotel room and noticed an email from my DC contact. “I know you said you wanted to deploy to Al Udeid,” it said, “but would you consider the Baghdad position?”
Hmmm. This took me a little longer. The position in question was a six-month rotation in, of all places, Baghdad. All those recurrent news stories I hardly listen to: “two soldiers were killed in Baghdad today” and: “a car bomb exploded in a Baghdad street today” raced through my mind. Actually, it was more like a montage . . . something video-edited.
Anyway, after about ten minutes, I realized that, though going to Baghdad instead of Al Udeid for six months instead of four was slightly daunting, it would be silly of me to say “no” because the danger was too real. I’m in the military, after all! I talked to the recruiter on September 13th, 2001 because I wanted to do something that really made a difference! Now, when I actually had a chance to do that, was I going to shrink back away from it? Never!
So I said “yes,” of course. 
There’s a certain symmetry to this tale, isn’t there? After that, for about a week I didn’t hear anything. Or was it two weeks? I still figured that it was probably going to be Al Udeid, though I had a feeling, for some reason, that it might be Iraq. I called my parents to let them get used to that idea.
And I finally heard (and was apparently the last one to hear it–the release of the names had been sent to the whole Air Force except me, apparently, several days before) that I was going to Baghdad, for the 179-day tour. Well.
I was excited, if a little overwhelmed by the notion. I called my dad, who was excited for me and jealous that I was going to get to do something over there, and admitted that I was a little–concerned–about breaking my news to my mother and my grandmother, particularly. He said grandly, “Don’t worry about it–I’ll take care of it!” And he did, though I’m not sure that either of them really liked to hear it from him. Though of course they wouldn’t have liked to hear it from me, either. After all, I’ve been assuring them for four years, “Don’t worry–I’m a math nerd. There’s no way they’re going to send me anywhere dangerous! I’ll work in the States the whole time I’m in the military!”
Oops. I didn’t intentionally mislead them–honestly, I never thought I would do something so odd as to volunteer to go over to Iraq! And yet here I have. And I’m very excited about it. Any initial hesitation that I felt to begin with has melted away–I’m sure that once I’m there I’ll have a different perspective on this, but for now it just seems really thrilling to know that I’m going to be over there, in the thick of things, doing something real. Doesn’t it feel, sometimes, as though you’re sleepwalking through your life? Well, here’s one way to not be doing that.
I’m not sure what I think I’ll be doing over there. I hope that I’ll be helping to make the world a better place, and a thousand other cliches. I think that, maybe, since I really do enjoy being involved in this sort of thing, it is good for me to do it, because it means that someone else (who has a family, maybe, or who needs to be in the U.S. for other reasons) doesn’t have to do it in my stead. I suppose I haven’t fully articulated why I want to be doing this. But I do want to.
This is getting long–I didn’t intend to write this just now, but it seems to have happened, and I’m happy with it, so I’ll leave it. I’ll write more later about some other pieces of the process and what my job will be over there, and that kind of thing.
Posted by Kjirstin 
