Best deployment location.....and why

[Guest Xtndr50boom]

Taking a hint from rumblefish, what are the best spots you've been deployed to? This can be anywhere.

A certain base that hosts the 380th AEW is mine. You can go off base to some great spots, the base itself rocked, with a smoothie shop within walking distance of tent city. Base life was pretty cool; not as much of the @sspain of Al Udeid or (I'm told) P-sab. And best of all, schwarma night which happened to coincide with bingo night and KC-10 rotators. Granted, it was alot better before 9-11 and khobar, but it was still great during and after OIF (excluding hornitschek's rein-O-$hit of the refueling sqdn).

What is yours, and why?

Edited: For possible OPSEC buffoonery

[ 21. February 2006, 21:16: Message edited by: Xtndr50boom ]

[GBock]

Are we talking OEF/OIF deployments only? If so that would be Diego Garcia hands down. Nothing better than sitting in the lagoon with a few miller lights, deep sea fishing, wind surfing, etc. Until the Forks took over we had some pretty narly tent parties too.

The food 'aint bad either.

[Guest sickels101]

Nothing like B-52/B-1 deployments. Guam or Diego Garcia. Our PCS locations may suck but our deployed locations make up for it.

[Guest Hoser]

Stateside: Las Vegas

OCONUS: Moron / Seville enroute to the sand container.

Uummm, Sharwma! I think I ate my own body weight in sharwa one night. Little place called the Lebanese Flower in downtown Abu Dhabi. We called it the Lesbian Flower.

Cap-10

[HercDude]

You guys call Las Vegas and Diego Garcia "deploying"?

Although I wasn't there long enough to get bored, K-2 was a nice place. Food rocked and the gym was the better than a lot of CONUS bases. Plus it was green. After 110 days of nothing but flat brown dirt and sand it was nice to see rolling green hills. All the ex-Soviet propaganda they sold and the SU-27s rotting on the tarmac were cool too.

[ 21. February 2006, 21:48: Message edited by: HercDude ]

[Bergman]

The Royal Sun Hotel. Souda Bay, Crete. For a month at a time. Who said RC-135s were bad??

[Nanook]

If you had to deploy for OIF, then the best was Masirah and the Turtle Beach Golf Club (gotta love ex-pat Brits). OEF was Manas and downtown Bishkek.

[Wing Sweep]

Can't really call it a deployment because it was too good of a deal. During OEF's kickoff, X-base, Oman took the cake. Some Herk crews were staying in some sweet 5 star resorts with lots of Brit flight attendants and free all-you-can-eat steak and lobster buffets. Oh, did I mention we were beach front? Any of you Herk guys remember this? Of course it didn't last long. They moved our asses to a tent city inside the base, at which point it officially became a deployment (due to the suck factor of living in tents).

I can't think of anything that's come close to that since.

Agreed about bomber "deployments." If you're living cush, please just call it a TDY.

[ 21. February 2006, 23:02: Message edited by: g2s ]

[Scooter14]

OK, so if it's gotta be in a tent or a sandy place or just somewhere where people might want to kill you...

Thumrait for OEF was a blast. Your beer card reset at midnight. None of this Al Udeid 2 AM bullshit. 20 oz Amstels=1 beer. 20oz Atlas=1 beer + 1 midmorning run to the shitter. No hat/no salute in tent city, there was about a 6x9 foot patch of opstown where uniforms were required. Trips to the Brit Bar, it was the most fun you could have without a reflective belt on in a tent city. Bender would have loved it.

[Guest Hydro130]

g2s...

HELLS YES! Those pre-911 Oman deployments were the best kept secret in the USAF, no doubt!

Didn't actually stay at the gucci 5-star places, but we had very nice accomadations and those very gucci 5-stars were where we had free reign to chow / work out / swim / chill / drink :eek: or whatever (all on the "US Embassy" tab, of course [well, not the drinks]).

Each crew had their own crib and SUV; it completely rocked. Banker hours for flying since Seeb didn't like night ops, so life was cush.

All around, the best possible deal -- I've never eaten so richly in my life. Plus, we'd make runs to Fujairah UAE to restock the "home" alkeehaul supply (many pallets worth).

Good times!... #1 TDY /deployment / whatever the hell the kids are calling it these days...

Cheers, Hydro

Oh, and did I mention perdiem along with tax-free? Yeah baby! $3.50-a-day...

[ 22. February 2006, 13:21: Message edited by: Hydro 130 ]

[Toro]

Incirlik for ONW. Right outside the front gate was a row of shops we called "The Alley" that absolutely loved the Americans....or rather, their cash. You could get unbelievable deals and AWESOME food. I personally never got the screaming $hits, but it would have been worth it. You could get a full meal and beer for like three bucks. One of the stores was Pop's Leather were you could get great deals on backpacks, jackets, and leather jacket liners. I got a liner for my jacket that included a blood chit, cold weather liner, expansion pockets for the arms, extra zippers and pen/pencil slots for like 20 bucks.

I showed up there in February of 2002, when things were just barely cooling down from 9-11. They were just starting to let military guys off base to go to the alley...the place had nearly shriveled up and died as a result of the Americans not being able to drop their coin. We got an intel report that a suicide bomber was rumored to be seeking out a large group of Americans in the alley as a target. A day after that, we were told that the Turkish mafia had put out a $1 million price on the cranium of any suicide bomber -- that's how much they appreciated our business.

[Guest Hydro130]

Toro,

Good "Alley" story (agreed that place was great)...

My nav was looking around one night for a nice knock-off watch... "Mr Rolex", "The ORIGINAL Mr Rolex", etc etc... plenty of those places to choose from...

So he's looking at a TAG and asks the dude "Is it waterproof?" And the vendor, serious as a heart attack, says "Well, you can wash your hands with it".

I about died laughing.

He bought the watch. No news on its current condition :D

Cheers, Hydro

[HerkDerka]

"2" on the Royal Sun. Nice to find a place that will open the bar and kitchen for you at 0400.

But along the lines of deployed bases, all of the good deals have gone away (the early OEF fields and Oman). So now it's just a measure of which sucks the least.

HD

[Guest C-21 Pilot]

"3" for the Royal Sun...some of the best strip clubs are in Souda...many, many Russion and Hungarian chicks with tits hard as a rock.

In the C-21, we seldom deploy, however, I've had the opportunity to RON at the following kick-ass locations OCONUS:

Mexico City (Mexico)

Rio De Janerio (Brazil)

La Paz (Bolivia)

Panama City (Panama)

Grand Caymen (Spain)

Lima (Peru)

Lajes (Portugal)

Rota (Spain)

Moron (Spain)

Barcelona (Spain)

Lisbon (Portugal)

Grand Canary (Spain)

Tunis (Tunisia)

Entebbe (Uganda)

Cairo (Egypt)

Souda Bay (Creete)

Athens (Greece)

Istanbul (turkey(

Bodo (Norway)

Stavanger (Norway)

Helsinki (Finland)

Casement (Dublin, Ireland)

Mildenhall (UK)

Lakenheath (UK)

RAF Waddington (UK)

RAF Lyneham (UK)

RAF Brascomb Down (UK - 3 miles fom Stonehenge)

Prestwick (Scotland)

Edinburgh (Scotland)

Prague (Czech Rep)

Krakow (Poland)

Vienna (Austria)

Bratislavia (Slovakia)

Riga (Latvia)

Vilinius (Lithuania)

Moscow (Russia)

St Petersberg (Russia)

Kiev (Ukraine)

Tel Aviv (Israel)

Tblisi (Georgia - brought back grenades used in Bush assasination attempt)

Budapest (Hungary)

Constanta (Romania)

Bucharest (Romania)

Burgas (Bulgaria)

Aviano (Italy)

Naples (Italy)

Pisa (Italy)

Palma De Mallorca (Spain)

Keflavik (Iceland)

St Johns (Canada)

Many other "standard" locations (Stuggart, Berlin, etc)....C-21 assignments have to be one of the best gigs in the AF. I'm gonna definately miss it!!

-Cheers

[Mambo]

Definitely Incirlik in the early 90's. The Alley was awesome and tent city was a non-stop frat party. The Ravens Roost (our bar), the Brit bar, the Twin Tails....the guys from Spang always had Bitberger and the Brits would fly in Guiness in a can. And the per diem was $56 a day!

As for just TDY...had the pleasure of staying at the PIC (Pacific Island Club) in Guam for a week while we waited for an oil tank from Tinker. Awesome place.

[Guest Hydro130]

Mambo,

The PIC is a good deal in Guam, heck anywhere downtown there is...

And how have we gotten this far without mentioning Pattaya (U-Tapao) Thailand?!? :confused:

I'm getting rusty I guess.

Before someone jumps my case about "that's a TDY, not a deployment", yes, that's true for the most part. Good times.

But we did mobilize and deploy (over 2 months) there for Tsunami Relief

Cheers, Hydro

Edited for U-Tapao clarification

[ 23. February 2006, 02:16: Message edited by: Hydro130 ]

[ACCBoomer]

During OIF I was partial to Diego, but PSAB was not to bad either.

[Champ Kind]

Do we still pass through Incirlik at all?

[Scooter14]

I can't believe we call PSAB a good deal now. The world has gone to shit.

Yeah, Incirlik's still a deal for T-tailer and tankers, but no Combat Zone Tax Exclusion anymore. Oh well.

[Gas Man]

Other than C-21 Pilot, I feel bad for you guys. Turkey being listed in the top places you've been!?! Yea, you can get some good deals in the alley, but other than that, it sucks. The Netherlands rocks! Operation Clean Hunter is Europe's version of Red Flag, sort of, but there aren't bases big enough to hold all the airplanes, so they all just meet in the middle. The damn reserves stole the trip this year, but in 22 days I flew 4 times (that's the only time I went in to work also) $110 a day per diem, little euro rental cars that we rallied the crap out of, and our hotel in Eindhoven was awesome! Great bar in the lobby and 2 blocks from what we called "the alley" only the stuff for sale was all BOOZE! 5 blocks of bars that were hopping until 6-10 am. Good times.

[Login Name]

i'd agree on souda but the beds were like sleeping on stone....i'd say the best place is the excelsior hotel in down town catania, sicily....HUGE rooms/beds, great food just around the corner, the italians know how to live.

[Mambo]

Originally posted by KIPP:

Other than C-21 Pilot, I feel bad for you guys. Turkey being listed in the top places you've been!?! Yea, you can get some good deals in the alley, but other than that, it sucks.

I think the jist of the thread was deployments meaning 3-4 months at a time, although there are some great TDY places mentioned here. If I have to spend 4 months somewhere, I want to be able to booze it up. Believe it or not Saudi was a decent place prior to Khobar. I did 4 rotations to Dhahran and had a blast each time. Our EWO's would drive us over to Bahrain 3 or 4 times a week to get drunk with airline stewardess's, fished under the bridge, rollerbladed all around Khobar, and went clam digging in the Gulf, partied on Dhar island. Not a bad place, if you had to be in Saudi.

[Insubordinate & Churlish]

Alright, my unit is trying to get some people together for an AEF rotation to Al Sahra Airfield. I know nothing about this place (mainly because it has never been mentioned here).

Can anyone vouch for the place? Is it a tent city or does it have hard facilities? Is it full of shoes like the Died? Any and all info is appreciated.

Please help a young enlisted troop, sooner rather than later. I need to give my superiors a solid answer tomorrow.

[Dead Last]

Alright, my unit is trying to get some people together for an AEF rotation to Al Sahra Airfield. I know nothing about this place (mainly because it has never been mentioned here).

Can anyone vouch for the place? Is it a tent city or does it have hard facilities? Is it full of shoes like the Died? Any and all info is appreciated.

Please help a young enlisted troop, sooner rather than later. I need to give my superiors a solid answer tomorrow.

Never RON'd there but flew into Speicher more times than I care to count...

Have fun with the ARMY.

cheers

[C17Driver]

Christchurch, New Zealand (for a peacetime deployment).