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My team arrived at Fort Riley, Kansas a few days ago.  We will fly home tomorrow to our families, as we are in the unique situation of not being stationed at the base from which we deployed. 

This post is a few notes from throughout the redeployment:

When redeploying Soldiers layover in Germany, they are bused to a terminal specifically for them and away from the civilian population.

Iceland is a very welcoming country.  In an effort to increase tourism, they established an ingenious theater, which is free is the public and plays sites and attractions of the county non-stop.  I should think that it would be a great idea to have a similar room in Virginia.  dozens of Soldiers sat and watched the film just because it was something to do.  Before the plane departed, the airport sent a representative to hand out a big pile of CDs with pictures and videos of attractions.

At least one airport of a major U.S. city declines for Soldiers to layover in its terminal.  Or at least the airport did on at least one occasion under the guise that they did not want Soldiers carrying weapons throughout the airport.  Of course, the airport knows that Soldiers leave their weapons on the plane under guards.

The air in Kansas is so clean.  It reminds me of fresh scent deodorant.  I assume that this is true for most of the States.

The team immediately received a few briefs, including one from a chaplain, who stressed that we needed to observe patience now that we are back in the States.  Of course, we did have a year of practice with this concept, working with the Iraqi Army.  Still, I hope to take his advice.

Attempting to go for a 15-mile run while jet-lagged will result in netting less than half of those miles at a garbage pace at that.

After a year, the strange sensation on my calf muscle was in fact a mosquito.  Those suckers are one thing that I did not miss.