We’re going to be leaving VBC in a little over two hours to head back to Kuwait. We got back so late after a long day and night of traveling that a couple of us just decided it would be easier to stay up and try to post something.

The first couple of days here were spent sticking pretty close to Baghdad and never dealing with flights of more than twenty minutes or so. Today they looked to the edge of the map and decided to send us there. It was the first time we had to catch connecting Blackhawks.

The day started out cold and rainy and with hints of major delays.

The delay turned out to be minor and soon we were on our way in the rain to Al Asad Air Base west of Iraq. I sat up front with no gloves on and enjoyed the view but could have done without the numbness in my extremities. I never really used all of them at the same time anyway.

At Al Asad we were informed that we were VIPs and would be displacing nine civilian contractors from the next chopper run. The VIP treatment began with that and ended with them sticking a bunch of strangers in with us an piling their luggage up so high that what limited mobility we had was taken away. I’ve never felt more important in my life.

Then we flew another hour over the most on-my-way-to-Yuma looking desert I’ve seen out here yet. We finally pulled up a little short of the Syrian border at Camp Korean Village, a wide-open desert outpost that had seen its last five scheduled entertainers get canceled at the last minute because of weather. So they were happy to see us even before the show started.

It was the most remote thing we’ve seen since we got here but a few of the guys out there told me that they kind of like it away from all the politics. And even though it was WAY out there, it still had free Pop Tarts, which is pretty much all you need to get comedians to show up for the gig.

We ate lunch there and did the show in the DFAC again. Since they’d gotten hosed on the previous five scheduled shows, the commander tried to make sure that everyone there had an opportunity to come to this one. It was a fantastic feeling knowing that merely showing up meant something to these guys. I wanted to make sure I didn’t suck.

We performed with an “Employee of the Month” sign as a backdrop, which I think Mark totally deserved.

For the first time all week, we were assured that our Blackhawks would be there on time because the crew that brought us there stuck around for the show to bring us back. They were even cool enough to wait and let us get some pictures with them before we left.

After an exciting trip over sand punctuated by an occasional blown-up tank, we returned to Al Asad, which is more like a small city when compared to most of what we’ve seen this week. We jumped through some security hoops and received VIP badges, still feeling the effects of the last time we were called that at this base.

There was a huge turnout for the show, which was one of the best this week (audience and comedians). Unfortunately, we were being whisked around the base in the dark so not many good pictures were taken. I’ve got some from the show that I’ll pull off of my video camera later but I should probably at least brush my teeth before getting on the plane.

I’m going over notes from the week to post something more coherent than these picture-diary type things I’ve been doing since I got here. Suffice it to say that I can’t think of any adjectives that are too over the top to describe what we’ve seen, heard and felt these past few days. There are some truly amazing Americans over here, many of them so young it boggles the mind. The commander at FOB Falcon made a point of introducing us to an eighteen year old private who he called “the tip of the spear”. I swear that if I’d seen the kid out of uniform I would have thought he was 14 tops.

What’s most stunning is the number of young people here who volunteered for all of this after this all started. I can’t even begin to think of what to say about that.