After a very tense, exhausting couple of days in Kabul, we were finally headed to the airport and getting the heck out of there.

It is a broken-down crumbling war zone type airport. Barbed wire everywhere, lots of soldier, lots of guns, lots of chaos.

 

After we’re there waiting for two hours, they tell us there is a problem. We have to split up because only six people can fly back on our scheduled flight.

Delois and I volunteer to wait. Our friends leave and they take our airline tickets and give us back two pieces of paper with handwriting on them. These are our airline tickets.

They tell us our flight will depart in two hours. We sit there sweating, nervously. It is 100°. You look around and there are about 300 Korean soldiers. There are also another hundred guys that look like they are Taliban.

About 200 people that look like us, missionaries, do-gooders, doctors, as whatever.

Every 20 minutes or so a bomb goes off in the distance and everybody jumps. This was one of my worst airport experiences in my life. I was so relieved when they finally called out flight 67 and we raced to get in line and get on the plane.

I have never felt so good as when the wheels pulled up on the plane and I turned to the DeLois and said we made it! I reminded her that you don’t want to climb up Mount Everest — you want to get down from Mount Everest. I sure as hell didn’t want to go to Kabul – I wanted to get home from Kabul! We were so tired from the stress and the travel that we kind of dozed off. I woke up to feel the plane was descending.

This was strange because I looked out the window and there were all these green hills – not the white desert of Dubai which was our destination. I call the flight attendant in a mid-panic and ask her if we are landing.

“Yes,” she said.

“Is this Dubai?” I ask.

“No,” she replied, “We are landing in Kandahar.”

My heart leapt into my mouth. Two German tourists were just slaughtered in Kandahar. It is the Taliban stronghold and a very active war zone. This is really dangerous!

The flight attendant must’ve seen the terror in my eyes as he patted me on the shoulder and said don’t worry it is just a two-hour refueling – then we go to Dubai.

That is one of the closest near heart attacks I have ever had, flying to Kandahar Afghanistan by mistake. When we landed it was like we landed in the middle of a war zone – which it is.

Fully armored Humvees racing up and down the runway patrolling. Dozens of Apache attack helicopters lined up as we taxi in. All the fighter jets, troop transport helicopters and airplanes, huge military cargo planes, surveillance planes, tanks, attack vehicles you name it.

Hundreds of Marines in formation running around doing PT. Kandahar is command central for the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan.

I thought I had to get a photograph because no one is going to believe I went to Kandahar. I got my camera out and started to shoot out the window at the airport. There was a big sign on the airport terminal that said, Welcome to Kandahar”. But the airline crew started screaming at me, “No photos! This is a war zone!”

They opened the door of our plane and they had a staircase down to the tarmac. I stood out there for about an hour taking it all in. The guy standing on the wing, putting the gas into our plane looked very much like a Taliban guy which made me a little nervous. Especially when he gave me this big smile and waved to me!

I was happy and relieved when our two hours were up, they closed the door and we took off for Dubai.