“Baghdad International Airport, January 2006. Iraq is shitty enough as it is, but getting out is pure hell. It was the end of my cav squadron’s deployment and my platoon got bumped from our flight because everyone in our troop packed too much shit. The weight from the cargo pallets in the rear of the C-130 would have knocked the CG out of limits with my platoon on board. We were supposed to catch the next flight out, but someone else had priority so we got bumped from that flight as well. We ended up getting bumped from flight after flight for FIVE DAYS!If you thought you were in hell getting stuck overnight in Atlanta Hartsfield then let me take you on a tour of the military terminal at BIAP. Being made by the military, the “terminal” is essentially a complex of gigantic unheated, unair-conditioned tents. At least ATL has walls made of something thicker than fabric with central climate control. Amazingly enough, the terminal had bench seats like you’d find in most international airport, except these seats were the seats that were thrown away by some other respectable airport 20 years ago during a renovation. The padding was long gone and the seat backs felt like they leaned forward. Don’t bother trying to sleep on those benches because they had permanent armrests. Yes, there were cots (this is the military, after all) but the number of cots was far less than the number of people in our platoon and once we started to set them up we realized that there wasn’t enough room in the tent with all of those heavy bench seats taking up all the room.It’s not like you could get any sleep in that tent, anyway. Every 15 minutes or so (aka right at the point where I would begin to doze off) someone on a PA system cranked up to 12 would announce the pending departure of a flight that we wouldn’t be on. You want to bitch about airport food? Try MREs. The deuce that I dropped a week later had the density of pure neutronium. Speaking of dropping deuces, at least ATL has running water. Portashitters for us. After day 3 I would have loved to take a bath in a sink at ATL.Let’s see, is there anything else that I forgot? Oh yes, boredom! When you get stuck overnight in ATL, at least you can Instagram your “horrible” experience to your friends. No wifi (obviously) and absolutely no power outlets, so the handful of electronic entertainment devices we had ran out of power within the first few hours. By day 4 our LT was seriously looking into getting us a ride on a southbound convoy and none of us thought this was a particularly bad idea. Running the risk of getting ambushed by IEDs, RPGs, and small arms fire was preferable to spending another day in that shithole.”
