Imminent Threat (9 page)

    I know I wasn’t the only one who had had trouble clearing his ears on the flight. Pressure built up in my sinuses had become an unbearable burning pain by the time we were wheels down. My head felt as if it were going to explode, but I shrugged this off as I stared at the TV.

    The reports were grim. Heavy ground fighting was under way. The Iraqis attempted a deceptive ploy near Khafji that involved a mechanized infantry battalion and a tank battalion. At first the two enemy battalions appeared to be surrendering. Under such terms, they pushed into Allied positions without resistance. The battle that unfolded afterward was tangled and confused.

    As we watched the news and read the reports, the remnants of the Iraqi battalions were withdrawing. The Iraqis held Khafji despite heavy Allied counterattacks.

    Eventually we did leave base ops. Part of the crew, the lucky ones, went back to separate rooms, showers, and warm beds. Four of us—Cowboy, Happy, Bad Boy and I—went back to the unheated PME and our cold cots. The PME was developing a particular odor about it that was slowly progressing from mildly noticeable to overpowering, a smell much like the inside of a sweaty leather boot.

    The flight suit I had on had been clean days ago, but now it wreaked of JP-4 and sweat. My plan for what little remained of the afternoon was to use one of the washing machines in the barracks across the street. I borrowed laundry soap from Happy and then headed over.

    Even though the laundry room was centrally located on the first floor, it took me a moment to find it—I was more tired than I knew—and of course, I found that the machines that weren’t broken were all in use. While I waited, I had a great deal of time to think. I listened to the spinning of the machines, the gentle swishing of water, and fought to stay awake.

    I hadn’t had much downtime or alone time to really think of home and how much I missed it. I missed Katie most of all, but I couldn’t deny I missed the creature comforts that I had taken for granted so many times.

    I missed hot meals and a warm bed. I missed watching old movies and reading a good book while sitting on a soft cushioned couch sipping a frothy beer. I missed my favorite pair of blue jeans with worn knees and my old gray sweatshirt. Things that all seemed so petty with war raging not so far away.

    When my clothes finished drying, I walked back to the PME. “You need to sleep,” I told myself, and that was my last real thought before I awoke to bright daylight streaming in through shielded windows. Looking at my watch that read 08:00, I scratched my eyes and looked again. I pushed the date button and looked again. 1-31. 08:00.

    I couldn’t have slept twelve straight hours. I would have had to be comatose. I unzipped my sleeping bag, braced myself for the cold floor. The floor was cool, not cold. The air outside the sleeping bag was also cool, not cold.

    Had I been alerted? No.

    Was it really 08:00?

    I put my feet back into the sleeping bag and lay back down. I closed my eyes and thought that it seemed I’d finally hit the lull after the storm.

    A familiar voice and a pillow being thrown in my face awoke me some time later, “You still sleeping? It’s 10:15. We’re heading over to base ops to see what’s up. You want to come?”

    “Shit, Happy. I was having the best—” I paused and worked my way out of the sleeping bag, “Sure, give me five.” I looked at my watch. 10:15. Had I really slept fourteen hours? Fourteen hours was more sleep than the total sleep I’d had in the previous three days. More sleep than I’d gotten that entire first week.

    I groped around for my shaving kit then headed for the outhouse. After turning on the faucet, I stuck my clean-cut head into the icy cold tap water. After toweling off I began shaving.

    As I shaved, I stared into the mirror. It was almost as if a totally different person were staring back. I hadn’t really taken the time to look during the past days. I’d always been in a rush. I did look now. There were thick lines of stubble coming in along the sides of my head where it had been clean-shaven. My cheeks were pale, but the deep dark circles under my eyes were mostly gone.

    I flexed my biceps and looked into the mirror; the cut was gone. I couldn’t wait to find a gym and hit the weights. I told myself that I’d start eating better. Where was that damned grill we’d been promised anyway? Just the thought of a well-grilled steak with a baked potato and corn on the cob made my mouth water. I was saving a ten-dollar bill in my wallet for the occasion.

    Thinking of money made me remember I was going to ask Major James about going to finance, hopefully to get another advance. Except for that ten-dollar bill, I was virtually broke.

    I flexed my biceps one last time in the mirror then turned away. As I rinsed my face with cold water, my thoughts quickly returned to my surroundings and the war. What had happened at Khafji? Was the ground war under way?

    As I emerged from the bathroom I shouted, “What’s the news?” to the guys in the rec tent who were watching CNN.

    “The Allies have taken back most of Khafji, but the fighting is still underway,” shot back Bad Boy.

    “No shit? What are the losses?” I asked grimly, expectantly.

    “Light so far. It looks like the Iraqis took a pounding, though.” We all smiled, not a happy smile, rather a proud smile.

    “You guys still heading up to ops?” I got three nods in response, and we started the long trudge on foot across base.

    Happy, Cowboy, Bad Boy, and I made the walk to ops at a quick pace. The ops building and the ops center itself were fairly deserted even though the big board said one crew should be returning and one crew was enroute to the zone.

    I noticed then that of the three lines listed our crew wasn’t one of the three, also that Captain Willie’s crew was listed last which meant we’d be the next line after that. We’d have an early morning flight the next day.

    I talked to Major James about the money situation. It turned out I wasn’t the only one caught in a financial bind. He already had plans in the works for getting advances for us and was, in fact, waiting for a return call for the final go-ahead from the folks at accounting and finance. His advice was to wait, and so we did.

    More news came in about the battles in and around Khafji. We thanked God that so far it was all good. Despite heavy Iraqi losses, Allied losses remained light. We hoped they would stay that way.

    Several hours later, we piled into a crew van that took us to accounting and finance to get much-needed advances. I was never so glad to see a stack of twenty-dollar bills in my life. Happy and I made a run to the commissary immediately afterward to restock our supplies. I bought a loaf of fresh-baked bread. I hadn’t had a slice of bread, especially fresh-baked bread, in what seemed a lifetime.

    Yet all through the day, my thoughts remained with the Saudis, the Qataris, and the Marines that were in the process of liberating Khafji. What should have been a day of relaxation from an exhaustingly long stretch of endlessly long days wasn’t.

Snow covered the now sleepy air base at Sembach in a thick white blanket that stretched as far as the eye could see out into the countryside. Dressed in a thick woolen sweater, Katie made the two-block walk from the commissary where she worked to an empty and silent apartment. She flicked on the TV, tuned in to the Armed Forces Network as she had every day for the past two weeks.

    After performing the usual after-work things like changing clothes and preparing supper, she curled up on the couch in front of the TV. Abruptly the phone rang and she ran across the room, snatching up the receiver before it finished the first ring. “Hello?”

    “This is Mrs. Kuntz from the base legal.”

    Katie paused and then replied weakly, “Yes?” Images flashed through her mind. Had something happened?

    “Is your husband there?”

    “No, he’s in the Gulf.”

    Another long pause. “The claim your husband filed for damage done to your property when your household goods were shipped to Germany has been approved. When can we pick up the furniture?” Our furniture had been damaged during the move to Germany. Our fine, silver-colored couch set had been water-damaged and soiled so badly that it was now a dull and dirty gray.

    “Pick up the furniture?” Katie cried, “What do you mean? The couch and loveseat only need to be reupholstered.”

    “The cost of reupholstering the couch and loveseat comes to more than the cost to replace them. They’re government property once we make payment. You need to deliver them to the Defense Reutilization and Maintenance Organization.”

    Katie looked at the couch and the loveseat that filled the living room, then cut Mrs. Kuntz off, “What do you mean? My husband is deployed to the Gulf. I can’t move this furniture. What would I do without a couch?”

    “That’s policy, ma’am. We have to recover the property within so many days.”

    Katie was near tears now. “What do you mean, that’s policy?”

    “I guess I could make an exception. What if I arrange pick-up? Will that work?”

    “No, I still won’t have a couch.”

    “You should have thought of that when you filed the paperwork.”

    “It was a brand new couch set when we left the states,” countered Katie, her voice heavy with emotion and oriental accent.

    “That’s policy, ma’am. What if I could get someone over there by next Friday?” asked Mrs. Kuntz.

    “Are you listening to me? My husband is deployed to the Gulf. Can’t this wait until he returns?”

    “Afraid not, ma’am. I’ll call back on Monday the 4th to confirm. Is that all right?”

    Katie started to say something when the phone clicked and then went dead. She looked at the couch and the loveseat in the gradually dimming light—dusk was at hand. She was frustrated as she turned up the volume on the TV. She ate dinner in front of the TV while listening to the news as she had every night for two weeks.

    She couldn’t help thinking then that she’d been married for only eighteen months, that she’d never wanted to come to Germany in the first place, that this was the third long separation in eighteen months.

    The first had been when I changed stations to Sembach; due to housing shortages I had needed to find an apartment prior to her arrival. It had taken almost two months to find an apartment and finalize all the paperwork—an eternity to newlyweds. The second separation was when I deployed to Nevada for the Green Flag exercise. The third now.

    Of course, there were a number of shorter separations in between it all, three days here, four days there—the life of a military member who was a flyer. It seemed to her that we’d been apart more than we’d been together. More so this final time when her husband of only eighteen months departed for a war zone. Still, she’d braved it all and taken it in stride. She had a strong heart, a special charisma, and boundless love.

    Still upset over the phone call, she sat on the edge of the couch and watched the news until a programmed show came on. “We take you to a regularly scheduled program. As of today, AFN has reversed its all-news policy. We will resume our normal weekly programming, bringing you highlights from the Gulf as they come in.”

    Katie crossed to the TV and clicked it off. During the moment of silence that followed, she stared into the darkness of the living room. She paused a moment more. Thinking perhaps she might still see more from the Gulf, she turned the TV back on.

    Afterward, she went into the kitchen. She had just started washing the dishes when a special news bulletin interrupted. It was an update from the Gulf. “We interrupt our programming to bring you a special bulletin,” the announcer stated.

    Katie had a dishtowel in her hand and was in the process of drying a dinner plate as she crossed into the living room. “This news just in from the Persian Gulf,” began the AFN reporter. “Tragedy has struck again. An EC-130 was apparently shot down during intense fighting. All fourteen crew members are reportedly missing behind enemy lines at this time.”

    The plate fell from Katie’s trembling hands and crashed to the floor as the announcer repeated the message, adding, “We will do our best to keep you updated on the situation as more information comes in.”

    Katie sat numbly on the couch. She watched the TV for the rest of the evening and late into the night, hoping more news about the incident would be broadcast, hoping the phone would ring and knowing she would dread the moment either happened.

The evening flight of the day before had gone well, and I was beginning my third week. It seemed that I had truly been there forever. The second week had ups and down, highs and lows that equaled or rivaled those of my first week. So much had happened. Sometimes I just wondered when it all would end. Where would it leave me? Where would it leave the hundreds of thousands of deployed troops?

    Six hundred German air defense troops were to arrive soon to bolster our air defenses with German-built Roland systems. Everyone was taking the threats from Saddam Hussein against Turkey seriously. I’d seen increased numbers of patrols on base. More and more Turkish troops were moving about.

    Low-flying cruise missiles flew over Baghdad—what an eerie sight it must have been for those below. Iran warned against Israel’s entering the war. Sometimes I wondered what would happen if Israel did enter the war. They could only take so many poundings by Iraqi Scuds before they sought retribution.

    The stress level peaked that day. We were all told to make phone calls home as soon as possible. Katie didn’t sound too good on the phone. In fact she was sobbing through most of the conversation. I’m not too sure what happened, but it sounded like the initial reports on the AC-130 Gunship crash said it was an EC-130, at least in the reports on AFN broadcast from Sembach. I hoped to God they would find the missing crewmembers soon.