A Northern Thunder (24 page)

The shining, white, long-tubed jet landed, its oversized engines reversing to bring the aircraft to a quicker than expected stop. Then it taxied fast to the large open space across from the two Marine helos.

“Thanks, folks.” The captain gently pulled the door closed behind him, then walked across the tarmac and signaled his crew chief with a thumbs-up. He spun his index finger around in circles. The helo engines began to whine in unison as their auxiliary power units ran up the jet engines.

Just as he turned toward the Gulfstream, the door opened, a stairway lowered, and a man in a Marine flight jacket hopped off. He didn’t have a cover on, which was very unusual for a Marine, but he walked like a colonel. He had no badges, no patches, no name tags.

“Sir, Colonel Parker?” ventured the captain.

“For this, technically
Mr.
Parker,” Will said.

The young captain was impressed by Will’s tanned, strong face and blue eyes. “To Bridgeport, sir,” the captain said. “CH-46 express.”

“Let’s go.”

A youthful man in a white airline-style shirt with black epaulets and one gold stripe brought a canvas bag down from the Gulfstream and handed it to Will.

“Can I get it, sir?” said the captain.

“No, I’m fine.” Will closely followed the captain as they approached the helicopter at a 45-degree angle to the nose.

Will now relinquished the bag, tossing it to the crew chief as he approached the hatch. The captain stepped up, put on his flight helmet, and climbed into the left seat. The pilot in command of the helicopter was in the right seat, but occasionally the boss, or senior pilot, would let the junior pilot switch out to get time in his logbooks as pilot-in-command.

The crew chief pointed to a row of web seats as Will grabbed the one closest to the door. The chief gave him a helmet—more for sound protection than for anything else.

Will felt the jiggle of the aircraft as the long steel blades swung above. Until they got to a certain speed, the helicopter wiggled around, struggling into a balanced spin. It began to smooth down and get into its rhythm, and Will felt the bird lift up, rise, then tilt forward. In quick succession, it rose above and over the Gulfstream, banked sharply to the left, and headed directly toward the mountain range in the near distance.

As the helicopter tilted again in a sharp bank, its sister aircraft pulled up in unison to the back left. Will had flown in CH-46s many, many times before, yet always felt the electricity of flight. He sank into his seat. As the second bird leveled off with his aircraft, Will saw the Gulfstream below taxi onto the main runway and then move down it, faster and faster until it lifted off. Like a missile, the G-IV shot up into the clouds.

Will turned back around, catching the eye of the crew chief, and pointed to his watch. The
whomp, whomp
of the aircraft blocked out all sounds, so they could only communicate through hand signs.

The crew chief held up his right hand, and flashed all five fingers once, twice, and then a third time, signaling a fifteen-minute flight from Fallon. The Bridgeport base was actually located several miles from the town, beyond Sonora Junction, and in a small valley called Pickle Meadow.

Will occasionally leaned forward, catching a glimpse out the crew chief ’s door as the helicopters banked and climbed into the High Sierra Mountain range between Nevada and California. It became colder in the body of the helicopter as they gained altitude amidst the snow-covered mountains. As Will zipped up his flight jacket and turned the fur collar up around his neck, he saw below a rocky ground, covered in deep snow. Occasional groups of pine trees dotted the sides of the mountains. Will Parker had learned to ski in mountains like these near Aspen. His father had sped down the steepest runs, with Will struggling to stay up.

Damn
, Will thought. He had only been to one funeral in his life—a funeral for two. He’d never attended one again.

Instead of trying to climb directly over the mountain peaks, the helicopter banked and turned back and forth as it made its way through the valley. Will turned over to his left side and looked out through the scratched, oval window and saw a small, two-lane highway just below the helicopter. An old truck seemed to strain as it climbed through the curves of the road below.

At the same time, he glanced to the rear of the helicopter to the opening above the ramp door and saw the second bird following. It was mesmerizing watching his helicopter, then the trace helicopter, bank in tandem.

After a short while, his helicopter banked hard to the right as it passed from one valley into another at Sonora Junction, heading deep into the mountain range. It had been many years since he’d been on this small road—it broke off from the main highway and headed up the valley to the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center.

The helicopter now banked to the left in a continuous circular turn. Will sensed that the helicopter was in its final approach for landing at Pickle Meadow. Below, through the plexiglas, he saw brown and gray rock and stone, and green-tinted buildings tucked against the side of the valley. At this altitude, the remnants of an old storm were evident in patches of brown-stained snow around each of the buildings. He saw the occasional Humvee jeep parked in front of the separate buildings and knew this was the place.

It had been decades since Will had last been at Bridgeport. As a young officer attached to the First Marine Division in southern California’s Camp Pendleton, then-Lieutenant Parker was assigned to a training unit here. He spent two winters in the Wolf Creek region above Pickle Meadow, teaching young Marines mountain warfare training and winter survival.

“Sir, we’re coming in for landing,” the chief shouted over the roar of the jet engines.

Will gave the crew chief a thumbs-up. The helicopter completed its bank and then, as if proceeding down a slide, tilted its nose up and its back wheels down. The
whomp, whomp
of the blades increased as the pilot changed the pitch to hover mode. Will leaned back against the seat as the aircraft gently slowed down and collapsed on its wheels, the nose finally pitching down to a full landing position. The smell of the kerosene-based jet fuel increased as the wash of the engine caught between the propellers and the ground.

The crew chief unlatched the bottom half of the door and stepped outside as Will unbuckled himself from his seat and came up to the entrance-way. As he stood in the door, he saw a small greeting party of five. The blades slowed to a near stop as Will climbed down from the helicopter and crossed over to the group. “Well, Mr. Scott,” he said. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Yes, Colonel,” said Scott, “I thought I’d be here to make sure the second phase of your training gets off all right. You know these three Marines.”

“Indeed,” said Will.

“How you doing, boss?” The man who spoke first was a stocky staff sergeant with a gold set of jump wings on his dotted green, black, and brown Marine utilities.

“Staff Hernandez, how’re
you
doing?” He grabbed Hernandez’s hand in a vice-like grip. “In fact, how are all of you doing?” Will turned to the other two Marines standing next to the staff sergeant. Each of the men was broad and muscular, with virtually no waistlines. The Marine with black sergeant chevrons on his collar was by far the tallest and broadest of the three, the sleeves of his uniform tightly wrapped around the muscles of his upper arm like a taut rubber band. “Sergeant Stidham, I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Still playing some football?”

As a middle linebacker, Shane Stidham had been heavily recruited by sixteen different colleges in the South. His friends called him “Dee.” Coach Pat Dye at Auburn University had called him the next Bo Jackson. Bad grades and an incident with the law brought him to the Marine Corps, and a tour in the Marines gave him the maturity to go back to school, get a degree in physical education, and become a teacher and assistant football coach at Jordan High School in Columbus, Georgia.

His service with the Reserves helped him stay in shape and involved. When he wore his dress blues, Shane Stidham also wore two bronze stars—recognition for deeds done with Will in the Gulf.

“No, sir,” said Stidham. “I do more coaching than playing.”

“And Gunny Moncrief.” Parker turned to the last and shortest of the three Marines. A muscular man, he made up for his shorter stature with a much taller attitude.

“Yes, sir. Just be my luck to work for a colonel who would drag me out to a Godforsaken cold-ass place like this, sir.” Moncrief ’s low-pitched voice sounded like a grumble.

“At least your attitude hasn’t changed, Moncrief,” said Will.

“Yes, sir. I imagine it won’t, either,” Moncrief said.

“Okay, Mr. Scott, what’s the plan for us?”

“We thought we’d give you two or three days to acclimatize,” said Scott, “then move up into the mountains later this week.”

“No, we’re ready to go now,” Will said.

“O. . . k. . . a. . . y,” Scott said, more a question than an acknowledgment.

“My thoughts about this phase are that we work on small unit tactics and get our coordination back up,” Will said.

“Yes,” said Scott. “And get familiar with some of our new cold weather gear.”

“Unless my team disagrees,” said Will, “we’re ready to go right now.”

“Yes, sir, we’re ready,” said Stidham. His deep Southern accent sounded slow and thick.

“Me, too, sir,” said Moncrief. “I’ve been here a week, sitting around staring at the four walls.”

“Yes, sir. Me, too. I’m ready to go,” Hernandez said.

“Okay,” said Scott, “we’ll go up to the gymnasium and outfit you with your cold weather gear and then head on into the mountains.”

S
cott led the way to two Humvees parked at the edge of the helicopter pad. After sloughing through the melting snow at the lower base camp level, Will climbed into the front right seat of the first Humvee with Scott in the seat behind him, then covered his eyes as the snow-reflected sun temporarily blinded him.

“Here, Colonel, you’ll want these.” Scott leaned over from the backseat and handed Will a pair of black wraparound sunglasses.

“Thanks.”

Others would have immediately felt a shortness of breath as they adjusted to the seven thousand-foot altitude of the base camp, but not Will. While others would have suffered through frequent gasps for air, the fast pace of daily ten- to fifteen-mile runs had made Will more easily adaptable.

The jeeps pulled away from the helicopter pad and wound their way up the small mountain trail, past several stone and block buildings, to the upper road above the small base. More than a true military base, Bridgeport was a national park camp. In fact, for many years, it had been on loan to the Marine Corps from the Department of the Interior, with the hope that one day it would be returned to the Park Service. But the threat of North Korea and other cold weather war scenarios had the Marines constantly renewing the lease. With each renewal, the Marine Corps, like a cousin who came to visit but wouldn’t leave, built more buildings. After September 11th, the Corps sought and signed a long-term lease for the space.

The two Humvees stopped short of the entrance to a gymnasium on the top ridge overlooking the small camp. Scott and Will exited the vehicle.

“Okay, Colonel, this is Captain Phillip Burke,” said Scott. A young Marine in white pants and white parka stood at the entrance to the gym. Aware of both the colonel’s reputation and rank, he cracked a swift salute to Will.

“Yes, sir,” said the captain, “welcome to the Mountain Warfare Center. I’m in charge of the instructor team here.”

“Yes, Skipper, I know all about your teams.”

“If you Marines will come with me,” Burke said as the rest of the team left the Humvees, “we’ll get you set up.”

They walked through a green metal door into a small gymnasium. In the center, on four tables, were parkas, other clothing, ropes, and molle packs stuffed with gear. Strapped on top of the packs were two white titanium snowshoes only slightly larger than cold weather boots. All the equipment was white, including the boots.

“Sir,” said Burke, “you’ll find your equipment on the far left table. The gunny’s table is next, followed by those for the two staff sergeants. We believe they correspond to your sizes.”

“Good job, Captain,” said Will.

All the clothing was made using the latest in Extended Cold Weather Clothing System technology. Will lifted up a Gortex parka with a mixed white-and-black camouflage pattern. The pattern had a broken patch of black, browns, and whites that looked odd in the building but would blend in well in the mountains. Each of the Marines stripped down on the spot and put on the ECWCS underwear and Gortex cold weather gear. From the table, Will removed a pair of white silk socks and two white boots. They were the “Mickey Mouse boots,” as the military affectionately called them. Oversized and rubber-insulated, they did their job extremely well. Even when Will had worn them without any socks at all, his body heat soaked the tightly sealed boots. They were the same sort of insulated, cold weather boots he had used at Bridgeport when last here years ago.