The Places I Go – To Djibouti and Back

We all know the military sends us literally to the ends of the Earth.  One of these ends is the country of Djibouti.  My command has about 100 troops deployed there at any given time.  Their mission is to stabilize the 11 countries in East Africa as part of CJTF-HOA (Horn of Africa).   I finally had the chance to get out there and visit my troops to see how they are doing and engage the two-star leading that force.  All went well, but it is a long trip for only being there 48 hours.  My travel was pretty elaborate:

FAY-IAD  UNITED

IAD-FRA  LUFTHANSA

FRA-IST-JIB TURKISH

JIB-IST-FRA TURKISH

FRA-IAD  UNITED

At least I got lucky with DTS and earned United miles on everything.  Earned a whopping 15,412 EQM, but it comes too late in the year to really matter for my status which is a permanent UA Gold (minimum) due to my being a Million Miler.  It was a looong 36 hours to get there with an 11 hour layover in Frankfurt.  At least my Star Gold status gave me UA, Lufthansa, and Turkish gave me access to all the various lunges along the way!  There will be a future post on the Turkish lounge in Istanbul – truly incredible!

A picture of the airport terminal.  Why do all third world airports look almost exactly the same?

It wouldn’t be Djibouti without a goat herd blocking your path!

The flag of Dbibouti flies proudly next to Old Glory on the yardarm.

My Acting Command sergeant Major and I.

Had to leave too soon.  I almost didn’t make the flight.  I arrived at the airport in what I thought was plenty of time.  After clearing security, I didn’t see any other passengers and approached the Turkish Airlines counter.   A nice guy said “are you going on the Turkish flight?  You better hurry up!  I checked my watch and it was 70 minutes to flight time.  At the counter the guy started to give me a hard time saying that he was closing out, but when I said the other guy (I am assuming the boss) said I could make it he gave me my ticket.  Getting through customs and got there just in time for boarding.  I was still wondering what was going on as I boarded.  Then the Turkish pilot came on the intercom and said they decided to leave 40 minutes early today!  When have you ever had a flight leave that early?  I felt sorry for anyone showing up an hour before flight time thinking that there would be no problem getting through this dinky airport.