So we arrived in Qatar around 1 a.m. on Saturday morning, spent about 36 hours on the ground, ate a great meal at the Doha Marriott, picked up our VIPs at the Doha airport, and got back on the same C-130 to fly back to Afghanistan. On the return trip I got to sit up in the cockpit for take off. Generally the two extra seats up front are reserved for VIPs, but our VIPs were kind enough to give me a turn. It was awesome to get a view from the cockpit as normally the windows in the back are very small and blacked-out for security reasons. We took off from Qatar and flew over the Persian Gulf.