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Someday I’ll get back and stay a little longer - actually see the country.

The flight going to Saudi from Frankfort took 6 ½ hours. The new crew on the plane was almost all guy flight attendants. The women who were on board were older. They showed 3 movies, but I didn’t watch any of them. I slept for most of that part of the flight. I woke up when they served breakfast, but I felt as though I was “sleepeating”! I went back to use the bathroom near the end of the flight, and I looked out the window - it reminded me of the first time I flew into Arizona - brown, brown, brown!

We landed at 0530 EST, 1330 local. We pulled up, and as we taxied in, we saw row after row of fighter planes with bombs and missiles lined up next to them. We saw lots of helicopters and large transport planes too. We got off the plane wearing our helmets, flak jackets,
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Protective masks, LBE, and carrying our weapons. We lined up on the runway, and although it was 90°+ out, it wasn’t too bad. We then marched over to an area where there were tents. We were given a 1.5 litre bottle of water, then sent into a tent where we took off our flak jackets and helmets, put on our soft hats, and drank the water. After about an hour, I started feeling sick - light-headed, stomach hurting; I went to the latrine twice and had diarreha (sp?). Then I had to keep going to get rid of all that extra water! Some buses pulled up with civilian drivers - Saudi men. The buses had signs - “Men’s section” (the front) and “women’s section” (the back). I sat in the front - ha ha! (That doesn’t apply to us). Then we rode for about an hour to a cement plant. Half of it has been taken over by the Army. The are about 6,000 people living in a huge city of tents here. They call it CEMENT CITY. We got here and were assigned out tent. Our gear arrived from the plane, and