Ok.. this is not about me, it concerns the son-in-law..

He just got home from a tour in Afghanistan, but the actual travel home turned in a big old cluster...

He traveled from somewhere in country.. to Bagram airbase. He was to take next available flight, per his orders.

He gets there, and subsequently gets bumped off 3 consecutive flights out to whatever next place is.

It reaches the 30-35 hr mark, where he was basically stranded in the Bagram airbase terminal.. no shower, only food is what he can get off the vendors in the terminal, and no place to sleep but a bench in the terminal.

At the 30+ hr mark, on of his commanding Majors from in-country comes thru on his travel home, and ask "LT, why are you not traveling home..?"

Son-in-law replies" am trying sir..".

Major asks what is going on, and son-in-law tells him the situation. Major says " this crap is not going to fly.." or something along those lines. Tells son-in-law to wait there just a few mins..

Major goes to terminal manager and has a polite discussion.. Amazingly, son-in-law gets a confirmed seat on next flight out.

Fast forward about 2 days. Son-in-law has made it to Baltimore.. and goes to desk in terminal to check in for his flight..

Oops..

It seems that while the seat was reserved by the logistics' ffolkes, it was never paid for, so the airline sold the seat.

Son-in-law then has to pay out of his own pocket to fly on to destination where my daughter picks him up..

Son-in-law is going to have a long talk with deployment officer, once he gets a day of sleep or so. He is also going to put in for re-imbursement of the ticket home from Baltimore..

Umm, is this typical of military logistics.. especially for personnel?

-- shakes head --

BTW.. reason I am posting here.. Fighting Texas Aggies understand military stuff better than your average internet ffolkes.

[This message has been edited by Born (edited 8/9/2013 7:18a).]

so he made it from afghanistan back to baltimore in 2 days? not too shabby.

It's not really logistics, it's transportation. and yes, it is normal. He is a Soldier right? I mean a day or two of no shower and sleeping on the ground should not be an issue I would hope. Don't know too many majors who command anything... Was he traveling in a group? Why was he by himself? EML leave? There is a military rep. at BWI who could have gotten him another flight through Carlson Wagonlit. Sorry, this story doesn't make a whole lot of sense to this Soldier (oh, and I'm a major who doesn't command anything).

He probably went through the Transit Center at Manas AB to get lift back to BWI. Army reps there should have been able to help him out ensuring follow-on arrangements.

Now that he is back at home station, he could consider speaking with his Installation Transportation Office (ITO) to see what, if any, action he needs to take.

Also, speaking as a military logistics guy who has been deployed to Bagram and Manas, there are several reasons why a passenger could be bumped. R&R pax coming out of Afghanistan had a pretty good place in the priority system.

[This message has been edited by Zip 88 (edited 8/9/2013 8:35a).]

is Manas REALLY a deployment?

It was a bit when I was there; early '02. We were just building it up.

JFTR and GTCC are a ***** when it comes to spending your own money for transportation.

Story doesn't seem as bad as some of my travels.

Not unusual at all.

[This message has been edited by WarChief (edited 4/4/2014 2:45p).]

His money will be reimbursed for his travel expenses if he was on orders. That's like when I'm on the road and my GTC doesn't work at a hotel in country x, fortunately my frequent flyer credit card does. It all gets reimbursed he just has to specify to send the money to his personal account and not the GTC, and keep the receipts! On another note, I am currently working on the very mil-flights that move guys into and out of country which left your guy stranded for 3 days. All I can say is that there are a lot of factors that go into planning these things and if you can't see the big picture it can become frustrating. It's a large shell game we play and sometimes other Ops take precedence, unfortunately I'm probably the guy that is directly responsible for choosing the priority. Unfortunately due to OPSEC I can't discuss the particulars.

My daughter's travel office in Mississippi couldn't pull their head out enough to arrange travel from her base to Pensacola for a TDY, with six weeks lead time. She ended up traveling without orders on simply her CO's verbal OK.

So the OP's story doesn't surprise me at all.

I've been in and out of BAF/Manas several times and never had an issue even close to that. There is a transient tent next to the BAF terminal with sleeping arrangments and a shower tent next to that. Does it get over crowded? Yes. Your son's unit should have had a LNO at both Bagram and Manas that would have facilitated his travel. There seems to be some details missing from this and a good dose of operator error as well.

Most of the time they move heaven and earth to get people home, aside fron the usual screw ups. Had a buddy whose house burned down and had family injured. He was home 24 hours after getting notification in the Kunar.

Rabid, that's different than someone going home on a regular rotation.

Sounds par for the course. Let us know if he ever actually gets delayed for a real amount of time. Despite what your congressman might say, the folks running the pax terminals are not America's best and brightest. He's got to be proactive and not sit and wait for his name to be called. Also, chow halls on BAF serve 24 hours a day. Again, a little leg work on his part would have gotten him food.

Personally, I prefer to fly commercial to Dubai and business class back to the states.

[This message has been edited by Gator2_01 (edited 8/11/2013 7:43a).]

sorry for the delay in responding back..

Only info I have is what I posted earlier.

Apparently when he travels in and out of county travel plans are "in the dark", until after the travel is complete.

I did get a couple of pieces of info corrected.

He had talked to anyone and everyone he could at Bagram, including the office of the terminal manager. They basically gave him the cold shoulder until the Major got involved.

He arrived at Bagram on a Sat appx noon local time, and did not get a flight out until Monday afternoon or whenever the flight leaves on Monday during the day.

It was Manas he transited through. He did crash in the transit tents, after grabbing a shower and some eats. Appx 24 hr layover in Manas.

Per his words, long asssed flight from mans to Balt. Used same plane all the way, with a refueling stop in Germany.

appx 24 hr layover in Balt. He should have confirmed his flight out of Balt once he touched down there, but wanted a shower and a bed more and did not check on it until next day.

Total transit time from in-country to home was just under 6 days. 5 days and 22 hrs or somesuch.

He is still going through in-process at home base, post-deployment stuff.

One good thing, he gets a mandatory 2 weeks off to acclimate to being back home.

Anyway, just a follow-up.

Thanks for the replies !!

quote:

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appx 24 hr layover in Balt. He should have confirmed his flight out of Balt once he touched down there, but wanted a shower and a bed more and did not check on it until next day.

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So he went to a hotel instead of getting on his flight?!? You may want to delete your OP

Military logistics Rule 1 is quite different from TexAgs Rule 1:

NEVER MISS MOVEMENT!

What's the difference between an E-3 and a Lt? The E-3 has been promoted twice.

In the grand scheme of things, had your OP been: "my son in law got back from Afghanistan in two days and missed his follow on flight without getting in trouble. Military logistics is the tits!" We still would have taken the contrarian viewpoint.

quote:

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appx 24 hr layover in Balt. He should have confirmed his flight out of Balt once he touched down there, but wanted a shower and a bed more and did not check on it until next day.

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Cool. Chargeable under Article 87.

LMAO!

Mameluke, Roger that. I have spent many a day/night in the transit areas of Basra, Ali A Salem, J-bad, and Kabul going and coming.

Baltimore has one hell of a great USO. By far best I have ever seen.

And from what I have observed, their military transportation folks are first rate as well.

Historical note: Back in the late 80's and earlier Philly was the airport that MAC (now Transportation Command?) used for military charters coming from Europe and points east.

It was terrible - MAC charter flights would come in after midnight and there was NOTHING open. (My wife and 4 year old daughter had to suffer through that back in the day.)

In the late 80's a MAC Commander (who reportedly had gone thru the same BS at Philly) asked the Philly Mayor at the time to upgrade the services at his airport to better accommodate military travelers. And he offered AF funding to help make that happen. The Philly Mayor told him to get bent.

So the MAC CC looked around for other options and offered the same deal to the Baltimore Mayor. That fellow was much smarter than the Philly Mayor and accepted the offer.

Maybe things have changed, but back in the day I was always impressed with the AF transportation folks and USO facility at Baltimore.







[This message has been edited by NormanAg (edited 8/15/2013 7:31p).]

Ok. Some info needed.

Did he have on his orders "Deviation Authorize"
That gives the Lt some advantages though in the story you provided it probably not needed.

1st. Base on the length of his travel, he can stay one night in Baltimore and crash in a hotel. I have done that a numbers of times .. mostly because I hate my wife and kids seeing me look worn out.

2nd. The military will reimburse him the cost of the CTO ticket. The military has a contract for air travel. The Lt technically should have contacted the CTO office... (Should be on his orders) and arrange for follow on travel. That being said, they normally will reimburse up to that cost and no more. (The CTO tickets are stupid expensive so your son-in-law probably bought a cheaper ticket and will be fully reimburse).
3rd. Getting stuck in transit is normal. After the first time he gets bump.. he should have been move to the 1st of the queue.. 3 times is crazy and the Major probably did what the Lt could have done. I seen this happen to airmen and privates.. they don't know their rights and accept being bump 2 to 4 times.. and sit there sheeply afraid to defend themselves..

Just my 2-cents and glad to see he made it back from Afgan..

Hell I had to wait almost a week coming back from leave 10 miles from my base. Can't say I minded missing patrols. Kinda the opposite situation though. 3 or 4 days to travel home is pretty much normal from my experience. Sometimes longer and when it's emergency leave sometimes shorter. It's unusual to travel by yourself on normal rotation home though. I feel like part of this story is missing.