Field trip to Afghanistan

I was going to do a big ol' blog on the DynCorp in-processing ordeal, but I'll save that for later. For now, here's a brief synopsis of my field trip from Ft. Worth to Kandahar!

I left Tallahassee on Sunday, 11/7 at ass o'clock in the morning (lots of love to Tess and Rusty for coming to see me off ... I put on the necklace Tess gave me and it's still on ... may never come off). Quick flight to Atlanta, slightly longer flight to Dallas. Picked up my bags and caught the shuttle to the Marriott Hotel and Golf Club across from the Texas Motor Speedway. I got to hang out with Kevin and Lindsay a little bit, so that was awesome.

We found out Wednesday evening we were flying out Thursday for Dubai. Checked out of the hotel at 1pm Thursday the 11th, went to the airport, and got everything checked in and through security with only 3 hours to spare before our flight. So, naturally, we rode the train around the airport! It was a couple hour flight from Dallas to Dulles, where we all boarded a nice comfy Boeing 777 for a 13 hour flight to Dubai. Of course, the 13 hour flight was made more fabulous by the hour and half we sat on the plane while they were trying to run a software update on the navigation system. It's not like we really need it. Just head east for a long time ...

The flight to Dubai was surprisingly nice. They were showing about 6 movies I wanted to see, but I saw exactly none of them, as I was either sleeping or reading the Hunger Games series. Awesome trilogy that Rusty recommended to me. Because of the 90 minute delay leaving, we were 90 minutes late arriving, and so I got to see pretty much nothing of Dubai, except the airport, which is really nice!

We stayed at a hotel called the "Dubai Grand". It isn't really all that grand. In fact, it kind of sucks. There was only one other female in my group, but instead of giving us a room together, they put us in separate rooms with other females that were already there (all from DynCorp), so we had the pleasure of waking strangers up at midnight. That was nice of us. Grrr.

Up early the next morning to be downstairs to do timecards at 0630 (why? yeah, I don't know either) and then check out at 0730. Left for the airport around 0800, got checked in for the flight to Kandahar, and ended up with 2 hours to kill, that quickly became 3, when the flight was delayed! So the 4 fire department folk (me, an admin assistant, an assistant chief, and a firefighter) all cruised the shopping areas (found my next laptop ... didn't buy it, but will soon), where I found a Crunchie bar that I did buy (they were selling cases of them, but I didn't have room in my carry-on) and then we decided it was lunch time. There is a nice Irish pub in the Dubai airport that serves Magner's Irish Cider on tap, so I talked the boys into drinking cider with me (which they appreciated, because they really liked it) and we ate our last non-dining facility meal. For me, it was bangers and mash. Yummy!

The flight to Kandahar wasn't bad. Flying over the Middle East into Southwest Asia felt a lot like flying over the American Southwest. Lots of dirt, with mountains interspersed periodically. I'll admit, I did think about how much it would suck if the plane was shot down over Iran ... but since I am typing this several days later, it obviously did not, so no worries.

We ended up arriving in Kandahar around 4pm (local time) on Saturday the 13th. Not really sure where Friday went, but that's the miracle of flying around the world!

SO here are my first impressions of Afghanistan:
- Holy crap it is dusty up in here.
- I not a fan of camping, in general, so this whole tent thing is going to take some getting used to.
- How bad can a place really be, if there is a TGIFriday's?
- I never knew that chow halls could actually serve decent food! Kwaj ... take notes.
- I am a HUGE fan of not having to walk outside of my sleeping area to use the toilet, or to shower ... guess I'll have to get used to that too.
- They still make cell phones without cameras!
- The first time you hear the "rocket attack" siren, you're heart will pound as you hit the floor.
- Sitting in a bunker is boring.
- Khaki is the best color for this area ... you can't see all the dust on your clothes, unless you shake them out!
- While I may be in a war zone, I feel quite safe with the thousands of Soldiers, Airman, Sailors, and Marines walking around in uniform with rifles. And those are just the US troops ... hurrah for: the UK, Canada, France, Slovakia, the Netherlands, and several other NATO countries hanging out around here.

That's about it for now. I should go and pretend to do something productive that could be considered work related! I'll tell you more about what I will be doing in a later post.

Oh, and if you feel the overwhelming need to actually talk to me, or to send me a text, I got an Afghanistan phone number! It is: 079 735 1949. No idea how much it'd cost you to send me a text or to call, but incoming calls are free for me, and I can text you back. Please keep in mind, I am 9 1/2 hours ahead of EST and 12 1/2 hours ahead of PST. So your best bet is to call or text when it is late at night for you, wherever you happen to be.

I'll give you more job, location, etc detail next time. But not too detailed, as that would be against the rules. :)

DynCorp Recruiting

I suppose there are bound to be bumps in any recruiting process, and DynCorp is no different. It hasn't been bad, but sometimes they are not as clear as I would like them to be.

When I got the offer, I had 24 hours to accept or decline. (Obviously, I accepted.) Then you get an ungodly amount of paperwork to fill out, along with several medical/dental requirements. They send a checklist that gives requested return times for all the documents. Personally, I think it is wholly unrealistic to expect to get the medical and dental paperwork back within the requested 5 days. It took me a while to find an opening with a dentist, and it ended up being someone not on my insurance, so I had to pay out of pocket, though allegedly, DynCorp reimburses, up to a certain amount. I say allegedly, because I have not had the opportunity to submit for reimbursement yet, and therefore, cannot confirm through personal experience.

Part of the paperwork process is security stuff, so make sure you know where you've lived and worked over the last ~10 years. Sometimes it's just 7 years, but it's good to have 10 on hand, just in case. Also have 3 people that can vouch for you. If you can find people that already have clearance through the same agency (in this case DoD), I am told that makes things a little easier, because they don't have to question the legitimacy of the people you've put down. Oh, and if you are naturalized like me, make sure you have your certificate handy for the numbers on it.

Once you get all the paperwork done, you'll get cleared (or not) to head to Ft. Worth for in-processing. Before you get to Ft. Worth, though ... there's online training to do. If you've been in the contract world before, most of it you'll already know, but some of the country specific information is really quite interesting. They give you information on customs, traditions, etc of the coutnry you will be working in. My personal favorite part was the Hostage series. What to do if you become a hostage, etc. I was pleased to learn I knew almost everything they talked about from TV and movies. Turns out that Hollywood gets some stuff right.

And in addition to the online training, there is ... yup ... more paperwork! Woohoo! But this paperwork is kind of important ... who to contact in case something bad happens, etc. Obviously, important stuff.

I suppose the only thing that is bugging me at this particular moment (I'll be in Ft. Worth in 48 hours), is the fact that I don't know what I'll be doing in Ft. Worth, or how long I'll be there. I have a vague idea of what to expect, but nothing concrete. I like having things spelled out for me. I like knowing what to expect. I'm pretty flexible, but how can I plan and anticipate if I don't have the information I desire?

Meh. I suppose all things considered, it hasn't been a bad process, I would just prefer a little more information. Oh, and I would really like my flight to not be at 5:38am, but I suppose there is nothing I can do about that now.

So, why Afghanistan?

So after I left Kwajalein, I got a job as a 'Training and Education Specialist' with the Florida Division of Emergency Management. My informal title was 'State Training Coordinator'. I got an office, and business cards, and it was cool. Long story short, the state doesn't pay worth a crap and I was only able to keep the job as long as I did because of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, because we were getting paid OT. There was also some political BS within the Division that I couldn't stomach, so I started looking elsewhere.

I had been looking at various contractor sites and ran across the posting for a 'FACC Specialist' with DynCorp, International in Afghanistan. (An FACC Specialist is a fire department dispatcher.) I had had a particularly frustrating day at work, so I applied for it.

43 hours later, they called and offered me a job. That made me feel kind of good. Of course, the night before, and earlier the morning they offered me the job, I had said, in a fit of frustration, "I swear, I am taking the next job I get offered". Did you know I ended up on Kwaj because of a dare? So, yeah, I have a history of doing stuff like this.

So ... here I am, packing to head to Kandahar, Afghanistan. I leave for in-processing in Ft. Worth, Texas on Sunday, November 7th. Wanna hear more about the DynCorp recruiting process? That'll be a later post.

Yeah, so ... um ... hi!

Well, I suck at keeping things up to date. Unless we're talking about Facebook and Twitter. Blogs, my website, sending emails, or, gods forbid, actual paper letters ... yeah, total crap.

There is an excellent chance, though, that this blog will be updated more regularly for the next year or so. I plan on making it a sort of diary/journal of my time in Afghanistan.

We'll start with a little backstory in the next blog and continue on from there.

So there will be an attempt. Probably not daily, but at least every few days. It's a frickin' warzone ... there has to be stuff going on pretty regularly!