4410 OPERATIONAL SUPPORT WING(P) CONTINGENCY HISTORICAL

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    pressure on the one chow ball that they did have. KKMC has
    some unique problems that we don't face down at Al Dhafra.
    We have a large city very near to us, and the OAK [United
    Arab Emirates] work very closely with us. If we need
    something, we go downtown and buy it. It is much more
    difficult up here at KKMC.
    
    They are much closer to the war. We are not used to wearing
    our gas masks and our chem gear. We don't have any real
    threat of that down there, so we had to relearn to do that
    and carry our gas masks with us all over the place. Other
    than that, we are still working out the very last few bugs.
    We have a couple of vehicles due in from Riyadh any day now
    to flush out our vehicle requirements. Until then we have
    made do with loaners from the transportation people here.
    This support has been everything that you could hope for.
    
    S: Have You had any problem with your maintenance people being
    housed so far away from the actual airfield itself?

    E: It causes them a longer day than they would have back at
    home. Our tent city back home is actually just outside the
    airfield boundary itself, a total of maybe a 6-minute drive.
    Here, I think we are a good 10 miles away, for obvious
    reasons, which means that we have to get up probably a half
    hour earlier, and we get home a half hour later. At the
    same time, if there were slack periods at home, guys would
    go home, go back to the hootches, catch a nap. Here, you
    find guys during low periods sleeping out on the ramp.
    Fortunately, it has been nice and warm the whole time we
    have been here. It probably causes their day to be about an
    hour longer than it would be if it were located closer, but
    the tradeoff, I think, is worth it.
    
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