Eagles Landing 9/16/2021

While waiting to board, I began replying to a recently received, lovely long letter from a friend in the UK. A little boy sitting opposite me was intrigued. I wasn't sure if it was because I was actually writing with pen and paper, or because I was writing on airmail paper (Basildon Bond, of course!), thin, with the guidesheet underneath. It's one of those little archaic pleasures that my schoolfriend and I still enjoy.

I'm bemused that the airline announced they had run out of overhead storage space on the flight from Tampa to Dallas, Fort Worth. It begs the questions how and why... if each traveller is allowed one 1 overhead and one personal piece of luggage on the plane, how do they run out of space almost every time?

On the flight from Fort Worth to El Paso, I noticed a soldier clutching a stuffed toy  dog. Naturally, I was curious about the story behind this. The dog is Fido, "The emotionless support dog." Fido was given to Sergeant Hebert and Specialist Buckley by pupils at a school where they did outreach. Fido has travelled with Hebert and Buckley to Iraq, Kuwait, and assorted countries within Europe and the Middle East.

Hebert and Buckley were on their way to Ft. Bliss, and then on to Louisiana - going home early because they had each lost their homes in hurricane Ida.

Lisa, my fellow TR volunteer, (we're known as Greyshirts) had flown in from another TR op in Louisiana - working disaster relief in the neighboring town to Hebert and Buckleys' lost homes.

Barely off the plane and on base at Fort Bliss, my first assignment was to help assemble 20 army cots for our sleeping quarters. I travel for comfort in a casual dress and flip flops ... but, there were cots that needed assembling!

They lied ... We DO have ac!!! - at least where we're sleeping. And it's every but as humid as Florida!

Some team members had arrived in the morning, some the previous week and had been billeted elsewhere, they had all been working in the camp and arrived at base tired, dirty, sweaty and hungry - with stories of the gradual order that was coming to the camp. With the move from one billet to another - this one with no kitchen, we got to know each other over dinner at Chili's.

Lights out at 10pm ... Lights on at 6am.