DISCLAIMER: I'm back after a long and very enjoyable summer and my goal is to catch up on the blog filling you in on everything from Graduation to 60 Days to reporting to Columbus AFB, MS. It may seem a little out of order, but I promise, I'm gonna try to put it all up here!
Now, here we go! From the beginning we always knew we would do Space A military travel. For those of you who aren't aware of what that is, I'll give you a short rundown. Once you become active duty in the military (any branch), you can use military aircraft to travel anywhere. That's right...pay almost nothing or nothing to travel the globe, the states, wherever you want to go and wherever the US military is going. As soon as you are on leave, you sign up based on your level. There are 6 different level/categories you can be placed in, but all you need to know for now is that 1 is the highest and 6 is the lowest. Once you sign up, you pick the base you want to fly out of, go there, and check in. Once you check-in, you wait to see if you make it at roll call. Even then, even with a ticket in your hand, you might not make it. You never really know for sure until the plane is in the air. Why, you might ask? Well, because there could be military members that aren't flying space available, but space required, and they have to go meaning you get booted off because you are just flying if there is space available. Anyway, hope that gives you somewhat of an idea of how it works.
Laura, one of my best friends from the Academy, was traveling with me and we were both in category 3 because we had just graduated and had a giant amount of leave. Now, it all depended on when we'd signed up and thankfully, we had signed up at the same time within like minutes of each other. This assured that we'd hopefully get on the same flight.
We hadn't really heard much about Space A except that it was cheap (free or less than $20 for an overhead charge) and that you needed to be flexible. Most people had told us that we wouldn't get out on our first try and we were prepared for that. So, yeah, we thought we were ready. We set off on Sunday, June 8 to Dover AFB, DE, home of C-5s and C-17s that usually always go overseas. We were hoping to get on a flight to Rota Naval Station, Spain, and work our way up to Germany from there. Well, someone didn't do their job correctly and posted that the flight to Rota was no longer happening. See, that's the other thing...flights can just get cancelled in Space A and sometimes you'll never know why. So, we changed our minds and headed to McGuire AFB, NJ. They had 5 international flights going out on Monday: 3 to Mildenhall, England, 1 to Portugal, and 1 to Germany. Well, on Monday morning, all the Mildenhall flights had been cancelled. Then while waiting at the terminal for the flight to Germany, all ready to go and checked in, they cancelled that flight too. Apparently there wasn't enough cargo to go forward with the mission. Okay, okay, we were told that this might not work out the first time.
We were extremely hopeful at McGuire because this is what the passenger terminal looked like the entire time we waited for the flight to Germany.
So, we immediately started looking for new possibilities and decided to try to make a flight out of Baltimore Washington International. Well, our only problem was, we didn't have transportation to get there and it was like 4 hours away. And time was running thin. Thankfully, we had Julie, Laura's younger sister. She came to the rescue via the NJ Turnpike and took us back to Baltimore. We made it with 30 minutes to check in for roll call. Oh and this was what we saw when we entered the BWI Passenger Terminal.
Oh yeah, the crowds were forming!
We learned that we were competing with almost 200 people to get on a flight to Ramstein Air Base, Germany. Oh yeah...we kind of knew we wouldn't make it, but I reminded Laura that we had to stay positive. Due to the date and time of when we signed up, we got ahead of some of our other classmates that had already been waiting for like 2-3 days. They were kinda pissed at us. But in the end, it didn't really matter because we didn't make the flight that night either. We were kinda bummed though because I was only 5 slots away and Laura was 12 slots away. If anything, I probably would have made it and she probably wouldn't have.
This is my optimism on Monday evening!
We stayed at Laura's Grandmere's house in Alexandria, VA on Monday evening, then went back to my house during the day on Tuesday to get my car, so we wouldn't have to depend on others for transportation. Once we had dinner, we jumped in my car and headed back to BWI in hope of catching a flight at 0140 in the morning to Ramstein Air Base, Germany. This was our 2nd attempt, so we weren't too hopeful, but again optimism and positive thinking always helps. My name was called first that night so I went to the counter and checked in. I got my ticket and was ready to go! Now, I just waited for Laura. My name was the last one to be called in my group. Thankfully, a few minutes later, after many prayers, Laura's name was called!!! We were super happy and excited, but didn't want to get too hopeful because we could still be kicked off due to other military members showing up that had to go! After we went through security, we patiently awaited boarding. The whole group of new lieutenants that had made the list were all super excited. We finally began boarding, so we all felt a little closer to our dream of Europe! Finally, we started taxiing and took off in the dead of night! There was no turning back now! We were on our way to Germany.
Trying to keep myself entertained while waiting for Roll Call!
My AMC ticket...only $17.50 to get to Germany, the Gateway to Europe!
After a 7 hour and 3 minute flight and 2 flight meals (YAY!), we landed at Ramstein AB, Germany to the sight of a sunny afternoon, C-17s, C-5s, KC-10s, and other shipping airplanes! Our adventure had begun!
Looking out the window to Germany!
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