Baghdad

The final leg of my trip to Baghdad was to be fairly uneventful, just another plane ride to another far off, mysterious destination.  Or so I thought...As we piled our overabundant duffel bags onto a pallet to be stored in the belly of the plane I never thought that I too would be in the belly of the plane as well.  With our bags stacked high we waited in the airport at Ali Al Salem for just over 6 hours waiting to be called for the flight.
There wasn't much to do except watch the large TV suspended over the door leading to the runway.  There is only one channel over here - AFN(Armed Forces Network), and it shows everything from movies to news to sports.  While we waited I was fortunate enough to have to watch the Oscar's pre-show for what seemed like forever.  It was amusing to look around at the other soldiers, the majority young males shaking their heads as they watched and wondered what they had done to deserve this little purgatory.  By the end of the six hours there was no question in my mind - get me on a plane to Baghdad, it couldn't be worse than watching any more of this.
They finally called our flight and we headed out to the runway in single file and began to board the C-130.  This particular plane is immense in scale, but the room inside looked eerily small as we walked in.  The entire plane is hollowed out and one of the first things that I noticed was that there were no seats.  In their place were red straps that criss-crossed eachother to create in effect four rows of hammocks for us to sit on.  I got to my "seat", sat down and immediately began to dream about more Ryan Seacrest and analysis of Oscar gowns.  This was by far the most uncomfortable mode of transportation yet.  It was so tight that we had to weave our legs inbetween the two people that sat directly across from me.  Looking from afar it would look like a giants camoflage zipper made up of legs.
Just when I felt pushed to my claustrophobic limit they began to load up the giant pallet of luggage behind us, effectively removing any sense of natural light or air.  "One hour and twenty minutes," I told myself and got ready for take-off. 
I had already been warned by people who have taken this flight before that it would be a little different from those I had experienced in the past.  I'm glad I got this warning, otherwise I wouldn't have been as seemingly calm on the outside.  As we took off the first thing I noticed was the steep angle of climb that we had assumed, and as the plane banked hard to the right only seconds after being in the air I realized that yes, this was going to be a little bit different.
The banking to the right and left continued as we climbed even higher.  When we reached what seemed like cruising altitude, the banking became less severe, but now the pilot brought the plane up and down as well.  It felt more like being on a ship in six foot swells than being on a plane - but the effect on my stomach was quite the same.  Along we flew like this for another hour or so.  I have never been one to be able to sleep anywhere but in a bed, but in the recent days, sheer exhaustion had helped me overcome this problem.  Here too I found myself dosing off every couple of seconds, even through the acrobatics of the pilot.  My neck which had already been strained during the roll-over drills cried out again every time my head bobbed with the kevlar helmet in place.
I don't know what I expected for the landing but this one was very different.  There was no familar announcement to put my tray table and seat into an upright position, and there certainly was no lazy fall back towards earth.  Out of nowhere the plane took a steep nosedive towards the ground.  On commercial jets, the nose of the plane is never pointing towards the ground.  On this flight it most certainly was at what seemed like a breakneck speed.  The banking left and right seemed to get more severe as well and now I understood why people had given me a heads up prior to this flight.  If they hadn't I certainly would have thought that we were crashing.
Without any windows to peer out my mind raced even more wondering about how much of this was normal.  I was jolted out of slight sense of panic and driven into my seat with quite some force as the pilot pulled up at the last second and we landed on the runway.  The smell of burnt rubber filled the plane and that's when I realized I had made it to my final destination.  After the pallet of bags were removed that familira wall of heat hit our bodies.  Eager to stand and stretch we all quickly stood up and exited.  Standing on the runway I felt extremely overexposed, and then I looked past my immediate surroundings into the distance to a city and thought, "Oh my God, I'm actually in Baghdad!"