The Planned Departure

My time in Basra is down to less than a week. I packed all of my worldly possessions and began mailing them to my brother in Alabama. In all, four boxes of stuff. The modest quarters I have occupied for two years looks barren. It looks bigger than it lives. I have grown accustomed to the compact space – good training for the Airstream.

The State Department is requiring that I out-process at the Embassy in Baghdad before flying to Washington to out-process at Main State. Next Sunday, I will fly to Baghdad. The entire process there should take less than a day but, naturally, I will be stuck there waiting for flights out for a week. The only advantage to being at the Embassy is that they sell alcohol in the Embassy store. And, because State Department folks are accustomed to high quality stuff, I will have a good selection of Scotches and wines. It should be a restful and relaxing few days.

If all goes well, the last leg of my journey home ends when the United Airline’s flight touches down in Atlanta on Monday, 17 May.

My brother, Tinker, will pick me up at the airport. Next day, he will driving me to take delivery of the truck. Sometime in the subsequent days, I will take delivery of the Airstream.

One thing I have learned while in Iraq is that precise timetables and elaborate plans are fool’s play. (Don’t believe the movies that depict precision military planning – at best, the Army guesses at the flow of events then tries to adjust to reality as it unfolds.) I have a plan with definitive dates but maintain an optimistic good nature, recognizing that when things work as intended, it is serendipitous.

The keys to being good natured are flexibility and surprise that things worked.