And so officially ends the KFOR part of the story. There is an ongoing joke in the Army that has been making the rounds since, I believe, the end of the 1991 Gulf War. We have maintained a presence in the tiny nation of Kuwait ever since that first Gulf War, and ever since the hostilities ended, people that have gone there have been told, “Kuwait isn’t a real deployment”.

I don’t know why this started; I believe that after the 1991 Gulf War ended and we stayed in the region to keep an eye on Saddam Hussein and Iraqi activities, there was an expectation that the Kuwait theater “could go hot again at any moment”.

The idea that an area is hostile, hazardous, or includes the possibility of “imminent danger and the potential loss of life, limb, or eyesight” means that troops get a pay boost for these dangers. It also means that many people think that they deserve a “combat patch” and possibly even a “combat action badge” for being in those areas. CABs and combat patches (wearing the patch you were deployed under on the right sleeve) is really just more bling for your uniform but it also imparts a certain level of “cool factor” among non-deployed peers. It also adds a few promotion points to boot.

But after the 1991 Gulf War’s quick victory, people were quick to dismiss Kuwait as a dangerous place (even though troops got their “hazard pay” bonuses for being there). It became sort of an ongoing thing that “Kuwait wasn’t a real deployment”.

For the record, I heard similar rumors and suppositions about our trip to Kosovo. I heard rumors that were were supposed to get a combat patch for having been there, and so on. Yes, we got Hazardous Duty Pay and Hostile Environment pay, etc, but we never came under actual fire, so no CABs or combat patches.

But to this day, regardless of where you deploy or rotate through, the old joke persists: Kuwait isn’t a real deployment, even compared to KFOR. The truth is, they’re about the same level of potential danger, but Kosovo was a much more pleasant climate.