Recently in Kuwait Category
AN AIR BASE IN KUWAIT - When I flew out of Baghdad, leaving Iraq this most recent of dozens of times, something felt different. Usually when we reach cruising altitude, higher than any stray round or MANPAD system can reach, the relief is distinct and exquisite. This time the feeling was more melancholy: not because I was leaving a country soon to be rendered back to its own people, but because for once I felt like I was leaving Iraq to go somewhere less attractive.
Read MorePassenger terminal, an air base in Kuwait - I wrote earlier about how all big military bases resemble each other somewhat. What makes Kuwait distinctive is its volume of traffic. At any given time it hosts an enormous transient population of contractors and servicemen. Outside its passenger terminal, blue signs indicate where to line up for destinations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those destinations -- a couple dozen in all -- are the sites of this war and the temporary homes of tens of thousands of U.S. military personnel.
Read MoreAn air base in Kuwait -- The State of Kuwait looks a bit like Darth Vader's helmet in profile, with Darth looking west, away from the Persian Gulf. Kuwait City is where Darth's ear would be, and somewhere inland toward his brow is a U.S. military base from which soldiers, contractors, and embedded journalists deploy at a rate of roughly two thousand per day.
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