Traveling mess

Greetings loyal readers. I've been doing some traveling lately and Iraq doesn't exactly have as much Internet connectivity as you find in the states. As a result, I haven't been able to post anything in a while.  Luckily, I'm done travelling for a while and actually do have Internet where I am now.
 
It's been great to see more than just my little corner of Basra, but there are trade-offs. Allow me to share some of my itinerary from a recent trip to Baghdad:
 
"Lt. Marchik, you'll be flying to Baghdad at 8:00, so be at the terminal three hours early. Your flight to Baghdad will take you to Kuwait, Talil, back to Kuwait, then to your final destination of Baghdad. It's a quick 6 hour flight, so you can stay on the plane the whole time."
 
Finally arrive in Baghdad, tired, but glad we're there.
 
On the way home, we again show up three hours early only to find that our flight has already left. It doesn't really matter though, since we were bumped from the flight. So we fly standby to Kuwait (where we have to stay overnight since there are no flights going to Basra that day). 

The next day, while in Kuwait, we find that we're bumped from this flight too. We managed to get back to Basra, but not until after dealing with the crazy military flight arrangements. I can't blame this on the Army though. This is Air Force and civilians that run this mess. 
 
Needless to say, after this mess, I'll probably never complain about flying civilian airlines.