Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Waiting


It seems that when Michelle Tan and I began this trip 4 days ago what we were really committing ourselves to was waiting. Waiting… It’s a condition that soldiers and photojournalist know better than most “normal” people. I’m not talking about being kept waiting 15 minutes for a business meeting, a half hour for a friend that is late for dinner or even the frustration of waiting on a flight that is delayed for a few hours. We’re talking DAYS of waiting, waiting with seemably no end… We began this trip, a trip to “cover the war” in Iraq, on January 11th. We took a relatively easy 12 hour direct flight to Kuwait City. There was a little waiting at the check-in counter and security, then the flight to Kuwait, a little waiting for our visas and at customs, then for a ride to the hotel and then two days of self imposed waiting at the hotel for our bodies to adjust and to get to the Ali Al Saleem Air Terminal for our flight to Baghdad International. Then the waiting REALLY began in earnest. Things have changed for journalists and workers coming to Iraq from Kuwait. In the good ‘ol days, someone collected your passport and visa at your hotel to get your visa stamped back out and the next morning you took a bus to your flight and bada-bing, the next thing you knew you were stepping onto the tarmac and BIAP (Baghdad International Airport) But, things have changed dramatically in the last few months as they tend to do within the military system. Now you drop your passport at a desk where you’re told to check back for the proper stamps in 6-8 hrs. You’re assigned a tent with a bunk and you settle in to rest. Then once receiving your passport and travel voucher, you pack back up and go to a large waiting area called a PAX (Passenger Terminal) and you put your name on a space available waiting list for a flight. Michelle and our were numbers 186 and 187 on the list. The flights left every 1-3 hours and were posted on a board that meant little since flight times were constantly in flux and your name may or may not be called for any given flight at any time. There’s no way to tell according to Air Force personnel how long the wait may be so you’re advised to be there when every flight is called and be ready to answer to your name, grab your gear and hustle out to the plane. The “process” seemed as foreign to all as some ancient voodoo practice. In the mean time, you’re afraid to go very far for very long for fear you’ll miss that call and be stuck longer than necessary. So, you wait. Michelle and I settled or tried to settle on hard chairs lined up in the hanger between burley contracters and soldiers in every uniform. We tried to sleep and would nod for a few minutes before being jolted awake by someone bumping us or the scraping of chairs on concrete or the paranoia that we might miss some vital piece of information that would allow us to get out of pergatory. We waited like that for 20 hours before “Lee, James” was finally called. We hustled all our baggage onto pallets waiting to be loaded onto our plane and were escorted with about 300 other soldiers and contractors to tents 50 feet away where we were told we could wait for another hour before our plane would depart. There we waited another 4 hours talking to the contractors around us, pacing smoking, reading and watching movies on our laptops. When we finally boarded the huge C-17 the flight took about 50 minutes. We trudged through the mud and waited in the dark for an hour on our lugguage . Then we schlepped each of our 80+ pounds of gear through mudholes and across slick rock to a bus stop, waited 15 minutes to ride from that stop to another stop where we would get on a Rhino armored vehicle for the ride across town to the International Zone (IZ) AKA Green Zone. The wait was another 4 1/2 hours packed into a quonset hut with every chair taken but we were finally told to load up and we made the hour ride across town in the big convoy in silence. In the wee hours of the morning we finally arrived at the I.Z., made a call on a borrowed cell phone and were picked up 15 minutes later by two army Specialists from the Combined Press Information Center (CPIC). That’s where we are today, in relative comfort, having had a hot shower and 2 meals and 4 hours sleep. I’ve finally gotten my creditionals and been assigned a bunk bed in the press center. Here we settle in to wait for a helicopter flight to our first embed. So far I’ve completed two 400 page novels, the entire first season of “Lost”, 5 packs of cigerrettes and 2 cans of tobacco, and I’ve change into my second set of clothes with full hopes of getting to the war in a couple of days. And since I’ve done this before I know what that means, more waiting. Lots and lots of waiting. Waiting on helicopters, waiting on convoys, waiting on patrols to start or end. Waiting on my turn at the power outlet, internet connection or telephone. Waiting for the food, the shower, my clothes to dry. Waiting for bombs to go off or insurgents to take their shot, waiting on the light to get right just hoping to make a few good pictures, tell a few good stories and get home safe.
God Bless those who wait.

1 comment:

barefeetbilly said...

Those sure are comfortable looking cloths. What an exciting life you are currently leading, when you are not waiting at least.