Imminent Threat (10 page)

    It seemed that the fighting in and around Khafji was over. It didn’t look like the ground war would come after all, which was actually a good thing. I could only hope that it would not come for some weeks yet. The longer we pounded the Iraqi fighting machine, the easier it would be to claim the final victory.

    It wasn’t all bad news that day. We finally got that heater for the rec tent. No more cold nights—well, as long as we could find some kerosene to fill it, that is.

    Strangely, I was looking forward to our combat flights more and more. The previous three days had seemed monotonous despite the happenings. It truly seemed that we had hit a slump when we should have hit a high.

    Bad Boy bought a couple of sets of poker chips. I’d been warned that he would cheat. I looked forward to “poker with the boys” all day. I needed something to get my mind off home and Katie.

    We started out with a five-handed poker game that slowly progressed and changed. The rules we played by were crew dog rules, meaning anything went as long as you spelled out all the rules before dealing the first card.

    Fabulous sat across from me, smoking a long, fat cigar, decked out in a long-sleeved cotton shirt, looking exactly like the sort of person you’d expect to see gathered around a poker table looking extremely haggard as the sun came up after a long night of hard cards. He preferred no wild cards, just straight-up poker. Every time it was his turn to deal, that’s exactly the way he dealt them, five-card draw, nothing wild, nothing special.

    To his left sat Rollin, almost as smooth as the man himself. He preferred his game full of wild cards. During the night he introduced such games as twenty-nine and unlucky lady where queens were wild except for the queen of spades.

    “Ante up,” went the call. I slapped down my fifty cents, just like everyone else. The chips that had sparked the idea of the game sat on the edge of the table. They were there. We knew they were there. But it was a lot more fun to play with money—there was no substitute for money.

    Bill the Nav began to set down a game of seven-card stud—two cards face down, one card face up. We quickly discovered he liked to slap his money down on the table quick and without thought. He was an officer. He had a lot of money to slap down, so we weren’t complaining.

    “Bad Boy, you going to ante?” I asked. He was to my right. He liked to play. He just never liked to pay. He’d hold the two quarters in the palm of his hand right until the cards were in front of him. I think some hard-core poker players would have kicked him out of the game after the first hand, but the cards were his and so were the chips that we weren’t using. Luckily, Bill was a slow dealer and so he hadn’t started to deal out the face up cards yet.

    “Yeah, yeah,” Bad Boy said slapping down his two bits.

    Fabulous grinned ear-to-ear momentarily as the ace of hearts was laid before him, but then his usual smooth poker face returned. I knew this was going to be a costly hand as I watched the cards go out. A, K, K, 6, A.

    “Your bet, Fab,” Bill called out.

    Fabulous tossed in a folded dollar bill. Bad Boy, with the six up, folded right then. The rest of us anted up.

    “Pretty quick to jump out, aren’t we?” Bill accused.

    “Yeah, like a rat jumping a sinking ship,” Rollin added.

    Bad Boy unwrapped the bandanna that had been covering his head and busied himself with re-wrapping it.

    “Wrap it tight,” I added.

    Bill called out the cards as they went down, “Seven of spades and no help. Three of clubs and no help. Ace of diamonds and looking good. Eight of clubs.”

    Since I had the best hand, I quickly tossed in fifty cents.

    “I raise you,” Fabulous called out, tossing in another crisp one-dollar bill.

    Bill raised it another buck and finally called.

    “Ace of spades, a pair of aces—king of diamonds, a pair of kings—queen of hearts, look at that straight—eight of hearts, pair.”

    Fabulous led with a buck; Bill raised it to two and Rollin called. The kitty full of change and bills looked exceptionally good. I glanced at my down cards again. “You guys keep betting like this, I’ll be in bed wiped out in an hour.”

    “That is the point, isn’t it?” retorted Fabulous. I don’t think he meant it the way it sounded. He seemed to be playing Bill to his right, had been playing him for the last five or six hands. Bill kept reaching into his wallet.

    “Seven of hearts, two pair showing,” began Bill as he started the deal again. “Three of diamonds, two pair showing. Nine of hearts and no help. Yes! Eight of spades, three of a kind showing.”

    Bill began the bidding with two one-dollar bills, our pre-game limit. Fabulous bumped it up two to four and Rollin did the same. Suddenly, it was six bills to me. I laid down a stack of quarters, then sat back and watched as the game progressed; one last down card.

    The final ante to me was quickly six dollars again. Sticking to my guns, I put it in. Bad Boy to my left was eyeing the pot. I could see he was glad he got out. I wished I had.

    By the time Fabulous turned up his cards, the large pot had attracted two potential players. He had but two pair. Eventually, with a straight, I took that first big kitty. But then Rollin started playing games like Butcher and Blind Tiger.

    Butcher was one wild game and when he first introduced it, it nearly started a fight among friends. All cards were dealt face up. When a player received a card of the same rank as one already dealt, it was transferred to the player holding that card. Four of a kind took the pot and low-hand split it with him. After a while we came to like the game. Except for Bill the Nav who had absolutely no luck.

At 11:55 I had my gear in hand, a helmet, flight gear, chem gear, a can of beanies and weenies, and a newly-acquired bag of sour-cream-and-onion potato chips. I took one last quick glance at the PME as I waited for the crew van. Today was the first day in a long time that I’d seen the windows open and the shades drawn though the stagnant air still hadn’t cleared.

    On the far side of the room, Fabulous was pressing a suit, of all things. He even had an ironing board. Fabulous was smooth. Big John was fussing with his bags. I didn’t know what he was all worked up about but he didn’t seem to be in a good mood.

    I heard the crew van pull up. My heart began to beat a little faster as I stepped outside. The driver was Mike from the crew. “Where’s your flat top?” I called out. His reply was sort of a snarl. Mike had a way of doing that. “You here to alert us?”

    “No. Didn’t you hear, you’ve been bumped back two hours.”

    “Two hours? Shit. What am I supposed to do for two hours?”

    Mike snarled again. “You seen Big John?”

    “Yeah, he’s fussing with his bags.” I was about to head for the rec tent to tell Happy and Cowboy about the delay when the glare in Mike’s eye stopped me cold. I knew him fairly well, so I knew something was wrong. “What’s up?”

    “Big John’s going home today. You want to tell him I’ll be back in forty-five to pick him up?”

    I glanced at my watch. “At 12:45?”

    “Yeah, thanks,” replied Mike. Before I could say anything, he hopped back into the crew van and started off.

    I almost headed back into the PME, but then I remembered Happy and Cowboy waiting in the rec tent. They must’ve had CNN blaring to not hear the crew van pull up.

    “We’ve been bumped back two hours,” I yelled, ducking my head into the tent as I unzipped it. “Hey, Happy. Man, you want to come talk to Big John with me? Something’s up. I don’t know what, but they’re sending him home. He doesn’t look too good.”

    Happy may have been obnoxiously perky, but he understood people. He knew what made them tick, or so it seemed. “Sure, no sweat,” he answered.

    Big John was still fussing with his bags. His face was bright red. It was strange because he was otherwise the most mild-mannered individual I knew. It was only his size that threw people off. Most figured anyone that big had to be an animal, but he wasn’t. He was a teddy bear.

    “Hey, Big John, Mike said he’d be back at 12:45 to pick you up. You look like you need some help. You packing?” Big John didn’t answer; I nudged Happy.

    “Shit, Big John, you look bad,” Happy said in his usual jocular manner. “What’s wrong, someone die?” I could tell he didn’t mean for the words to come that way, they just did.

    Big John stopped fussing with his bags and tears came into his eyes. “I’m going home,” he said. “They’re sending me home. Can you believe it?”

    Fabulous was still ironing his suit, doing a good job of acting as if he didn’t hear a thing. He might not have because of the music playing in his ears from his Walkman, but I was fairly certain he was listening. Our training made us preternatural curious types; listening was part of the job.

    Happy and I helped Big John disassemble his cot. He didn’t say anything for the longest time. Neither did we. Happy had that usual dumb smile on his face—I imagined he’d probably die with that same grin on his face some day.

    We were in the middle of stacking Big John’s bags outside, chem gear, flight gear, and A-bags, when Big John unfolded two pictures from his wallet.

    “These are my kids.” He handed the pictures to me. Right then I expected him to tell us that one of them had died. But he didn’t.

    “They’re cute,” I said handing the pictures to Happy. Big John didn’t even break a smile.

    Happy looked at the picture for a moment as if he was remembering something he had been trying to forget. “How old are they?”

    “John junior is seven. Samuel there is five.”

    Happy handed John back the pictures.

    “Cute kids,” I repeated.

    Big John stood there a moment rather glumly, and then he took two folded up drawings from his flight suit chest pocket. “I received these in the mail along with a letter two days ago. My wife Anna isn’t doing too well. You know, when I first looked at those pictures, I saw only our plane and the mountains. That second picture there looked rather like a forest, till I put on my glasses. I don’t much care for wearing my glasses, you know, only when I fly.”

    I stuttered, trying to say something in response but stopped instead. I was glad I didn’t say anything, because as Happy handed me the drawings I saw shock on his face—and here I’d just thought about that dumb smile glued to his lips until the day he died.

    “She told me things were fine but that John junior was having troubles in school with his teachers. Then I get this letter. See there, I thought those were gray clouds at first, and then I looked closer. It’s smoke. There’s fire. That second picture there my youngest drew. Where do they come up with these things?”

    “I wish I knew,” I replied. The second drawing wasn’t of a forest but row after row of crosses. It was a cemetery and under one of them was a little sign that read, “Daddy.” That’s about all it took to bring me near tears.

    “My wife’s not taking this separation too well,” began John after a long awkward silence. “She’s been telling my sons that Daddy will never be coming home unless, of course, it’s in a canvas bag. You know, I was fine until Thursday. I told her nothing like that could ever happen, and then it did happen. I don’t know anymore.”

    Big John paused. There were tears in his eyes now. “I got a phone call late last night. That’s when I heard the news about Anna.” He continued in a barely audible whisper, “I’m glad I’m going home or otherwise I would’ve had a breakdown like Anna. I nearly did. I lost complete control yesterday. That’s never happened to me before.”

    “Kids are a lot tougher than you think, Big John. You go home and things’ll turn out all right.”

    “I don’t want things to turn out all right. I want them back the way they were before. What am I going to do without Anna?”

    “They’re cute kids, John,” began Happy. “They’re young. You go home and you tell them you love them. Spend a few days concentrating on nothing but them. You’re leaving, John. Good God, the war’s behind you. With the stress gone, Anna will bounce back. You’ll see.”

    Silence followed. Big John, Happy, and I stood awkwardly waiting for Mike to return, which he did at exactly 12:45. Happy and I put Big John’s bags into the back of the van, and then we said a quick goodbye. That was the last time I saw Big John. He caught a transport headed to Germany just as we were entering ops to go fly. He never came back.

The story continues with

Baghdad or Bust: Air War #3.

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AAA

Anti-Aircraft Artillery. Most Iraqi AAA ranged from short range 23mm to long range 130mm artillery. Small caliber weapons fire vast amounts of rounds and rely largely on this high number of shells to destroy the target. Large caliber weapons fire large shells, which contain an explosive charge (detonated at altitude) to scatter a great number of fragments. Most AAA systems rely on command and control communications and radar to help target enemy aircraft and are largely mobile.

AAM

Air-to-Air Missile. Most fighters are equipped with AAMs, which are used to destroy enemy aircraft.

AIM

A type of air-to-air missile. The AIM-7 (radar-seeking missile) and AIM-9 (heat-seeking missile) are widely used by US fighters.

Alarm

There are four conditions of alarm associated with possible nuclear, biological, chemical and/or conventional attacks. With the exception of the all clear signal, the alarms require the donning of protective gear and assuming defensive posture. See All Clear, Alarm Black, Alarm Red, Alarm Yellow.