What Does it Mean to Deploy to Kuwait in 2018?

If you're in ASG-KU at Camp Arifjan, you might be spending your deployment finger painting... If you're in an Armored Brigade at Camp Buehring, you might just be there on the weekends between combat missions to Iraq and Syria. There's no telling what a Kuwait deployment might bring these days, but Soldiers in the second group probably aren't telling people they deployed to Kuwait - even if they did spend an awful lot of time training in Kuwait.

March 13, 2018 at the Camp Arifjan USO.

3rd ABCT, 1st CAV DIV on July 27, 2017 conducting logistics training in on the Udairi Range. The boss wants Soldiers to stop relying on contractors for everything - something the AOK can get behind!

COL Woodward on April 4, 2018 tells the Killeen community all about his Iraq and Syrian missions during his Kuwait deployment...

Welcome to the AOK!

Nobody wants to deploy to Kuwait, but you did anyway. Unless you were part of Desert Storm in ‘91, you didn’t get any bragging rights by going there. You might even have had an important job – loading ordinance, evacuating casualties, coordinating emergency resupply, or planning combat operations against ISIS. It doesn’t matter. You were just in Kuwait.

Maybe you had never deployed before and felt left out. So you volunteered for a Kuwait deployment… and you still feel left out.

Sure Kuwait wasn’t always boring. You could have been part of the invasion force in ’03 staging out in the middle of the desert, facing SCUD missiles and the threat of NBC attacks. You could have been posted at Camp Navistar and ran convoys through southern Iraq dodging IEDs. Even today, Soldiers occasional cross paths with amateur terrorists in incidents that never make the news. It doesn’t matter. There’s a pool in Kuwait so it doesn’t count.

Whether your job was big or small, exciting or mind numbingly boring, terrifying or safe – Kuwait still sucked. And no one will tell you what you did there mattered, except here. You do deserve credit for deploying to Kuwait and serving your country in an operational capacity.

Of course, that doesn't mean you’re going to get a free pass here. If Kuwait vets are good at anything, it’s taking one on the chin and laughing at ourselves from time to time.

For now, this is an unofficial veteran organization. That doesn’t mean it’s not serious about connecting and informing the member of the Kuwait veterans community. If that’s you, then welcome to the Army of Kuwait. As far as we’re concerned, you’re A-OK!