Transitioning into Afghanistan means stopping at Manas for gear, briefings, and abuse.

It took about 24 hours of travel time to get here from Baltimore, including two stops lasting a couple hours each along the way.  It was tough sleeping on the plane, and sleeping in the gate lounges during stops was impossible, so we arrived tired and bleary-eyed.

Those with a rank of E4 or lower were ordered off the plane first and made to stand in formation in sub-freezing temperatures while the rest of us deplaned and immediately boarded busses.  Many standing on the tarmac did not have hats or gloves or even proper coats.  These poor souls were slated to unload the abundant luggage from the plane onto trucks.  It seemed cruel and unnecessary to make them stand and wait while the rest of us deplaned; they could have been allowed to stay on the plane until we were gone.

But, Cruel and Unnecessary seems to be the motto here at the Transit Center at Manas.

We were bused to the PERSCO area and ordered to leave all our bags and other belongings (purses included) in a large tent while we attended a briefing in the building nearby.  The briefing was performed at lightening speed by several persons whose only aim was to get through the briefing as fast as humanly possible, with no care or concern for the fact that they went so fast nobody could get the info from the slides.  We were told to make sure we were writing down the information, but most people had left their pens and paper with their bags in the tent across the street.  A couple of the briefers were reading lists of names and appeared downright illiterate as they were unable to pronounce common names.  The whole debacle looked like it was performed by people who had never done any of this before, as if the war had started just that morning rather than a decade ago and they were doing this transition briefing for the very first time.  What a mess!

One of the goals here at the Transit Center at Manas is to make sure arriving personnel DO NOT transition into their new time zones smoothly.  Appointments for briefings and gear issue are commonly set for 10 pm or 1 am.  Tomorrow, I’ll be doing a “bag drag” at 4:30 am.  Cruel and Unnecessary.

Maybe the folks who work here are bitter that they are stuck in a place so ugly, so they take it out on us transients.  Check out the view:

This is the main drag.  Those windowless buildings on the right side of the road are dorms.  They don’t do windows here for security reasons (also why they don’t allow any bags into any public or office buildings).

Here’s a closer look at a dorm building:

I believe these are constructed of stacked shipping containers.  The staff stationed here get to stay in these luxury accommodations, while we transients are stuck in tents.  My tent area is called the Hotel Alaska:

Each tent holds about 50 people and untold numbers of mice (the vermin population is pretty active — as I type this there is a mouse running along the rail of my “headboard” right behind my computer).  Here’s my tent a little closer up:

Here’s a shot of the inside:

Of course, en suite bathrooms are unheard of, so we get to hike across the gravel to the latrine and shower trailers.  They are cramped and not very clean because so much dirt and mud gets tracked in:

The toilet stalls are constructed to be very shallow, i.e. you cannot close the door if you are standing in front of the toilet (you have to straddle the potty).  Similarly, you can’t sit with the door closed unless you adopt the wide stance made famous (infamous?) by Senator Larry Craig.

Other highlights include the Fitness Center:

The Chapel:

The Dining Facility (or DFAC):

The local coffee joint:

And an alternative to the DFAC:

There you have it, the glamor of world travel and adventure courtesy of the United States Armed Forces.  Next stop: Afghanistan!

MM