Imminent Threat (7 page)

    There was a definite sense of unity and performance as we waited. Gypsy reported the targets had been hit as planned and the skies were clear. We rejoiced.

    I sucked at my water bottle during the brief lapse, cracked open one of the cans of beanies and weenies, wolfing it down in less than thirty seconds. Afterward, I was pumped up and ready to go again.

    We cut our jamming ten minutes prior to the wave of Ravens and Weasels coming in, bringing it up and down again in two-minute intervals. The enemy AAA sites were still playing along with us nicely. They didn’t understand the game, but we did—we had the rulebook. Our job was to tire them out, waste their ammo, and more.

    We got the green light just as the initial wave swept inward and cut our jam. The Ravens and Weasels were on top of the enemy units, striking before the enemy knew what hit them. As the Ravens and Weasels did so, we went back to work. Far out in the Iraqi desert, the assault began. Part of the package would re-strike the nuclear R&D facility, while three other groups lashed out at key northern airfields.

    Sweat had been pouring from my brow for a long while now and there were dark bands of moisture under my arms. While I was enjoying every terrifying minute, I never forgot for a moment that the same AAA and SAM sites we were jamming could reach out and pluck us from the sky in one swift and deadly instant.

    For me, being on orbit was akin to riding a giant roller coaster that never stopped. It whipped around and around, around and around, up and down, up and down. When the ride was finally over, it left me emotionally and physically drained.

    The second package was putting the ground forces below us through an hour of hell while the strike force swept toward Baghdad. The ride was almost over.

    The initial wave was heading home. Soon others would follow, and then so would we. I was shaking with excitement, anticipation and anguish. We were at the top of the tallest hill on the ride. I was staring down the long inevitable fall. Once I started to fall, racing downward with my heart in my throat, I’d hit the bottom. The ride would finally stop. It would all be over.

    I heard the AC relay the red light. I held my breath, waiting for Gypsy to say the package had come out clean. Happy called out the egress, groups of traffic low and fast.

    Still holding my breath, I waited. Radios tweaked. I keyed in. “The last wave has safely egressed and is headed for base.”

    I released the breath and it came out in an elated rush. We’d done our job. The aircraft were safely on their way. The strike force was coming in over Baghdad. In the back of my mind I saw that wing of Fighting Falcons knocking Iraqi jets from the skies.

    When we touched down, wheels slapping the runway, I was never so happy to find the ride was at an end. It was early evening when we returned to the barracks. By all accounts we should have been utterly exhausted, but we weren’t. We’d promised Tennessee Jim that we’d come over for crew beers but weren’t really sure we’d make it that far. First thing I needed was a shower, so I made the three-block trek to the base gym.

    The showers were always crowded. Today, especially so. A group of soldiers had come in from the field. The floors were covered with bright Turkish mud; the showers were flooded because the drains were plugging up. I sloshed my way into the showers through cold, dirty water and found that there was still hot water. I must’ve stayed in that water for ten minutes—well, at least it seemed like ten minutes.

    Afterward I went back to the PME to see if Cowboy and Happy were going to go over to Tennessee Jim’s. There was a ruckus coming from the rec tent when I returned and that’s where I found them. They were whooping it up with Captain Willie’s crew. Charlotte had even come down from billeting, bringing her roommate Sandy with her—Sandy was on one of the other crews.

    As soon as I came in, Captain Willie handed me a beer then hollered, “Close the tent flap! It’s cold out there.”

    With me, there were now fifteen people crowded into a six-man tent, which still had no heater, so I did seal the tent’s flaps to keep in the heat.

    Charlotte started a round of the name game. The first name that popped into her mind happened to be the singer of the song playing in the background. Joe Walsh was singing, “Rocky Mountain Way.”

    “First names,” she called out. Then turning to Cowboy she said, “Joe Walsh.”

    “Andrew Johnson,” Cowboy replied.

    Happy to his left had five seconds to think of a last name that began with ‘A’. “Hank Aaron.”

    “Aretha Franklin,” Bobby shouted out.

    “Drink!” we shouted, “First names, not last names.”

    Bobby guzzled down his beer.

    “Last names,” Cosmo said starting the next round. “Al Stewart.”

    “Sam Perkins,” said Captain Willie, another big sports fan.

    “Sam Perkins?” PBJ to his right asked. Another rule of the game was that someone else had to recognize the name. The name couldn’t be fictitious and it couldn’t be a person anyone knew. In this case, Cowboy backed up Captain Willie, “NBA, Orlando.”

    “Peter Frampton,” quickly voiced PBJ.

    “Frank Sinatra,” I said.

    Sandy paused for a moment, “Scarlet O’Hara.”

    “Judges?” Happy shouted.

    We gave her a thumbs down. “Drink, drink,” we chanted, and Sandy bottomed out her beer. Happy gladly handed her a fresh one.

    Thomas began a new round with last names and as the chain lasted around the whole room, we all drank. Now the name game played in moderation was fun, but when played to ever-changing crew-dog rules, it was even more fun.

    The tent was finally getting warm or we were all getting a little drunk. We opened up the tent and annexed the picnic table.

    We played at least a dozen more rounds of the name game, burning through a small stack of cassettes as we did so.

    Around 21:00, things started to wind down. Both crews had a 10:00 alert in the morning and unfortunately, the twelve-hour crew rest rule said it was time to start thinking about breaking up the party.

    Just when things should have been winding down, though, things began winding up. Sandy, feeling a sudden lack of inhibition jumped up on the picnic table and started dancing, Happy and Cowboy followed. The day had been stressful and we were sure relieving a good portion of the stress.

    We were also blocking from our minds thoughts of tomorrow’s impending flight. We had returned to base ops to find that two crews were waiting to launch and both crews were again flying the next line. Just when we had returned from our longest mission to date, we found out that tomorrow’s line would stretch to ten full hours. Ten hours of flight time meant a minimum of a sixteen-hour day if things went exactly according to plan. Things never go exactly according to plan.

    We whooped and hollered the way crew dogs do. At 21:59, the stereo quieted and the alcohol was put away. There was too much on the line if we couldn’t perform our duties tomorrow. We also knew tomorrow’s mission was of obvious importance though we’d have to wait for pre-brief to find out exactly why.

    The festivities carried on for another hour though we slowly edged back into the tent. We never did make it to Tennessee Jim’s quarters that evening, but we did have a lot of fun.

“Gentlemen and ladies,” began Gentleman Bob, looking about the room the way he always did when giving in important speech. “Today’s mission is a two-crew Go as you already know. Intel, the ACs and mission controllers have already briefed you on targets, so you understand the import of this mission.

    “The game plan is again different from yesterday’s. The ultimate success of the mission is in our hands. We have to do our job the best we possibly can to ensure that the packages get in and out safely.” He demonstrated this graphically with his pointer.

    “The mission will be a very long one. I know that as we near the third week of the war most of you are worn out from the seemingly relentless onslaught of fly-fly-fly. Stick with me through this one and I guarantee things will start to even out.

    “Again, let me remind you the med techs are here. If you need something to make you stay awake, they can give you something. I don’t want anyone falling asleep in their seats! Also, if anyone is feeling especially under the weather, this is the time to speak up. Anyone?”

    Gentleman Bob paused to look about the room and take a sip of coffee. “Good. Now let’s go get them!”

    Already two crew vans were waiting. After gathering our gear from the hall, twenty-two crew dogs poured out of base ops with determination in our steps. The Eng and the AMT for both crews were already at the planes.

    Captain Willie’s crew piled into the first van. I noticed just then that they had a different copilot. Lieutenant Faber must have been switched out to MPC. Emily, their new Co, looked rather peaked; today was surely her first flight. There was always that look of uncertainty in people’s eyes as they went out on their first combat flight. Emily had it plastered across her face as if it were written in indelible ink.

    I climbed into the van behind Tennessee Jim, grabbing one of the wheel wells to rest my backside against. Our crew had one change too, but it wasn’t Mike coming back as we had expected. Popcorn was replaced by Bad Boy. I could already see the impact this would have on our crew. Where Popcorn had been quiet and reserved, Bad Boy was anything but quiet and reserved. You wondered what color the sky was in his world. I was sure it wasn’t blue. All in all, though, Bad Boy would fit in just fine with our motley crew.

    A ten-hour mission meant we had eight hours of hugging the fringe of Iraqi territory to look forward to. Tennessee Jim had already told me that he wanted me in the window today spotting. I had eight hours of staring down into a potentially deadly storm of AAA to look forward to.

    A ten-hour mission also meant we would be on orbit as night came. Darkness made everything seem that much grimmer.

    Heading to the back of the plane, I passed position Six in the quasi-darkness of the Gray Lady’s interior. First thing I did was to fit my chute, then I double-checked the pair of NVG I had and set them on the rear bunk.

    As both paratroop doors were open, I stared out across the white of the hardstand to the black of the flight line. Everything looked deceivingly tranquil, but I knew that a short while after we departed, the flight line would be inundated by a host of aircraft readying for takeoff. Falcons, Eagles, Weasels, Ravens and many others would depart, afterburners screaming, in wave after wave.

    I ambled back to Six, pre-flighted my helmet and headset, and then fitted a bandanna round my head. Bad Boy obliged with the radio checks.

    The waiting began. I hated the waiting more than anything else. I listened to the radios and the bit of chatter coming from the members of the crew, yearning to hear Captain Sammy say, “Crew, we’re rolling!”

    Happy had Martha screaming way before we leveled off. Right afterward, he slapped in The Kinks. “You really got me,” played in the background as I switched out to the window. Sammy seemed to like the tune, as he wiggled the wings to the beat of the music.

    It didn’t take Bad Boy long to adjust. He was out of his seat and grooving to the music with the others almost immediately. Hell, I even joined in for a while. Stress does crazy things to people who let it build up inside and eat at them. It’s best just to let it all out sometimes. Somehow I imagined that that was Happy’s gift in life. He had a way of making people do zany things. The funny thing was that if you joined in, you came out the better.

    “Destroyer” was winding down and things were getting a little out of hand. Tennessee Jim didn’t say a word; rather, he just looked on as he always did. He wouldn’t say anything until we neared the sensitive area if he said anything at all.

    Crow was bustling, trying to bring the system up, but that didn’t stop him from joining in briefly as he passed through. Happy and the others had their arms spread out like birds, running up and down the aisle between the positions. The Kinks were singing, “I Wish I Could Fly Like Superman.”

    I stared out at the white-capped peaks ahead in the distance. There was a light cloud deck around us but not enough to hamper the view. Outside the window it was a bright and sunny day, but all I could think about was the encroaching evening.

    The air around me was growing colder by the minute. The window was chilly to the touch as I pressed close. “Pilot, Spotter,” I called out. “Traffic high moving from one o’clock to three o’clock.” It looked like Gas Station moving in.

    The jagged peaks were below us; soon we’d be on orbit. The Nav gave his ten-minute warning. The crew dogs in the mission compartment became all business.

    I heard Chris on radios to Shadow-2. He was coordinating the orbit box, which we would share with Shadow-2. Both planes on orbit at the same time meant a shorter orbit and that both would be jamming. This would require close coordination to avoid duplication of effort.

    A shorter orbit also meant a lot more turns. I hugged the paratroop door as the AC brought us up on orbit. For an instant, the wing looked ominously perpendicular to the jagged and rock-strewn land below us. As we went into the steepest part of the turn, I was left staring nearly straight down at the ground below. It looked so close, too close.

    “Stations,” Jim called out.

    I gave a forlorn backward glance into the darkness, wishing I was on position instead of in the window, and then concentrated on my search. “Pilot, Spotter, traffic low, moving nine to three. Inbound.”

    “Roger that, Spotter,” tweaked Captain Sammy’s voice into my headset.

    Even in the bright daylight with shadows reflected across the land, I could see the outline of the group of fighters low to the horizon. They swept inward in two three-ship formations. It was the beginning of the first wave. I didn’t watch them long. It was more important that I watch for things coming out and not going in.