Gearing Up

When I have gone traveling around the world in the past few years I have always taken very little stuff. For Southeast Asia in 2005 and Australia in 2006, my bag weighed less than 30 pounds. This trip to Laos for work is a little different. Ok, it is a lot different. First, I have not had to take care of any of the logistics. The military takes care of ALL of it. They take care of all transportation to, within, and from our destination. All I have to do is show up at the terminal at the airport on time. Travelling with the military also means that you need/get to take A LOT of gear. This of course is heaven for a guy who always likes to be prepared. I am allowed two giant black plastic foot lockers as well as a super heavy duty pelican case which serves as my mobile office and personal dig kit.

The amount of gear that we take depends on each mission. If we are camping in the jungle for 45 days we have to take a lot of food with us so we end up taking more boxes and they get a lot heavier. For this particular mission, where we will be staying in a hotel in Phonsavan, we take a lot less gear.


It bears remembering that each person on my 12 person team has a similar amount of gear and that there are four teams going out on this particular mission. All of the gear gets palletized shortly before we depart. This of course occurs way too early in the morning. Because the military guys like to be on the ball the entire process was half completed by the time I showed up at 0630 when I was told to. The photo below shows all of the teams' personal gear. There are also four more pallets that have all of the general gear like generators, screens, and other necessary equipment.