Baghdad or Bust (3 page)

    The paramedics gave us the once-over. One of them tended to Ice. Five minutes later, our crew van showed up. I watched the great Gray Lady grow smaller and smaller against the black of the runway.

    The sudden frenzy on the flight line ebbed as the rescue vehicles began to disperse.

    My thoughts strayed.

    It seemed just yesterday that I was home in bed, Katie beside me, and I was watching her sleep. Last summer had been so warm and clear, so very warm and clear—and happy.

    Germany and Katie seemed so far away.

Fatigue hit us hard. We were in a slump. The previous flight had been one I almost didn’t walk away from. I could still see the fire engines and rescue vehicles lining the runway. Red lights flashing. Sirens screaming.

    Sitting in the back of the crew van as it rolled away from the plane, I watched black asphalt fall away to be replaced by the faded markings of an old Turkish road. All I wanted to do was crawl into bed and later wake up with Katie beside me.

    This incident coming so close to the AC-130 Gunship shoot-down opened a lot of people’s eyes. I caught myself wishing I’d gone home with Big John. Yet when the crew van would pull up in a couple of hours, I would pile in, my flight bags in hand; so would Happy, Cowboy, and Bad Boy, who were staying here with me in the PME.

    Popcorn was supposed to stop at the commissary and buy steaks for Happy, Bad Boy, Cowboy, and me. He didn’t come through. Now the commissary was closed. I would have to wait another day to taste a juicy grilled steak.

    Things weren’t all bad. We hadn’t been alerted yet, so I was trying to get a few more hours of sleep.

Leaving the warmth of my sleeping bag was no easy task. As I dragged my tired carcass out of bed to get ready to fly, twelve other crewers were doing the same. Shaving kit in one hand, towel and flashlight in the other, I struggled with the door.

    Cold outside air jolted me. Then as my bare feet touched cold concrete, my eyes shot wide open. I’d forgotten to put on my boots, and the ground was colder than the chilly pre-morning air.

    Icy cold water from the outhouse sink gave me another rude jolt as I splashed water on my face. Afterward I stared into the dirty mirror, thankful I no longer had hair that needed to be groomed. I ran a wet comb through it and in short order it looked just as it had yesterday. It looked like I had a flat top. I did have a flat top. I glanced at the watch forever strapped to my wrist. 02:10. I hated mornings like this.

    After brushing my teeth, I hurried back to the barracks, put on clean socks, and then slipped my flight suit over my cotton long johns. My boots had quick-laces. I pulled the shoe strings taunt, ran the metal cinch back, looped the excess lace around the top of my boot, slapped the velcro over the top, and that was that.

    My watch read 02:13.

    I grabbed a can of fruit cocktail and an opener then retreated to the rec tent. It would be breakfast while I watched CNN.

    At 02:30 the sky seemed especially black. I zipped up my winter flight jacket an extra couple of notches. In a couple of hours we’d be humping the zone and facing a deadly light show of anti-aircraft artillery; yet I could truly say I hated the waiting more than anything else, for it seemed that it never truly ended.

    Cosmo, the newlywed, was driving the crew van today. He had returned about fifteen minutes early. As he sat down beside me to watch CNN, he rested his left arm on the chem mask attached to his web belt as if it were his safety blanket. He still had that look in his eyes, the look I had had that first day. The look of wariness and unease, caution and alarm.

    “You look so tense!” I finally exclaimed, adding while trying to keep a straight face, “What’s wrong, the ball and chain giving you a hard time back on the home front?”

    “Not really. Those guys up?”

    “I know Happy is. Cowboy and Bad Boy are probably pushing the sleep time. You’re early; give ‘em a few. This your first day driving?”

    “Sixth on MPC.”

    Right then I understood the look in his eyes. Working mission planning cell was like a mini vacation, relaxed twelve-hour days spent either planning or driving. After six days he was probably going back to flying soon.

    Cosmo continued, “I was planning most of the time. Ziggy was driving nights.”

    “Ziggy’s still driving?”

    “No, she’s flying now. She went up the line before this one.” He glanced at his watch. I glanced at mine. “I heard about Monday’s mission. What do you think the odds are of that happening again?”

    “I’m hoping it’s about the same as lightning striking twice in the same place.”

    “Me, too,” Cosmo said dryly.

    As he stood and nervously jingled his keys, I knew it was time to load my gear into the van. I hoped the folks at ops would be more cheerful than Cosmo was this morning.

    Once in ops, I went straight to the briefing room, which was packed with people waiting for Derrin, our mission briefer. It was a few minutes before the door opened and Derrin entered. “Sorry for the delay,” he said, tackling his pointer and slapping it against the map. “SAR codes are listed. By now I hope you’ve written them down; but if you haven’t, we’ll take a moment to let you do that.”

    As he paused, I cast a sideways look at Tennessee Jim. He was in a fire-spitting mood this morning. It looked as if he hadn’t shaved or he’d been up all night and hadn’t thought about it after alert. Chris looked about the same.

    Derrin continued, “There’s some interesting reading material in the read files. I hope you all take a couple of minutes to read those over. A lot of new stuff. A lot of new stuff.”

    The door opened again; Happy and Cowboy entered. An enterprising individual at KC ops had set up a munchies fund. Happy and Cowboy had ambled down for a quick raid on it while the rest of us piled into intel. Derrin looked irritated but continued all the same.

    “As you well know, a significant number of Iraqi aircraft have been sneaking into Iran. Clouds are moving in again, along with a strong storm front, which gives them a big window of opportunity. Special emphasis targets won’t come as a surprise; our boys are going to hit those airfields again. Hopefully, we can catch them coming out from their bunkers; if not, we’ll blow up the bunkers. Either way, aircraft is the key goal.

    “The secondary targets won’t come as much of a surprise either.” Derrin began slapping the board with his pointer, stopping on a single distant target. “That’s the farthest target you’ll be supporting. Those guys will have a tough time getting in and out. You’re job will be to make it easier for them.

    “AAA will be thick as rain. Pilots are reporting emplacements continuing to sprout up all over the place. No surprise. Nearly every half-mile along key military roads.”

    Derrin went on for a couple of more minutes, finishing by showing us a group of glossies with the results of a bombing raid we had supported the day before.

    Captain Sammy’s briefing was next, followed by Tennessee’s standard spiel and pep speech. Both reminded us that weather was a factor today. If the storm front swept in, the packages wouldn’t go in and neither would we.

    After the briefings, Chris and Jim were the first ones to crash out in the lounge while we waited to go. They looked as if they’d had a really rough night. I sat down and resisted the urge to let my eyes slip closed and the urge to ask Jim and Chris what they’d been up to.

    Ops at 05:15 was occupied by a small group of bleary-eyed individuals who were looking forward to getting some sleep when their shift ended at 06:00. As the shift change began, ops began to look alive. The bleary-eyed night crew disappeared one by one, replaced by the bright-eyed day crew. It was right then that Derrin and Quincy did the unthinkable. They started a game of spades in the crew lounge; and since their quarters were directly off the lounge, they brought tunes, an array of munchies, and bravos.

    As Quincy sat adjacent to me, I noticed his flat top. “Nice. When you do it?”

    “Yesterday,” chimed in Derrin at the same time that Quincy did. Derrin held up a pair of clippers.

    I started to respond when Captain Sammy burst into the lounge. “Weather’s moving in. We got to go now! Time to scramble, folks!”

    We scrambled all right. Crow and the Eng, Patrick, hadn’t even preflighted the system yet as we prepared for taxi and takeoff. We ran through our checks as fast as we could, racing to beat Mother Nature and already knowing she would probably win in the end.

    Fighters had a definite advantage over us. Worst case scenario, they could wait out the weather. It didn’t take them long to reach the zone with afterburners. Either way, it’d be close to an hour before they even had to launch. We, on the other hand, had to make the slow turboprop pedal to the zone.

    “How’s that cloud deck, Co? Vis looks pretty bad and dropping fast. Nav, you got the weather reports over target yet?”

    “Cloud decks thickening and dropping in on us, vis down to 1500 meters.”

    If we got off the ground before the rains hit, we’d be okay.

    “Roger, Co, see if we can get taxi clearance from Tower.”

    “Roger, Pilot.”

    “I’m checking on the weather over target.”

    “Roger, Nav, keep a close watch.”

    The radios were silent for a moment. Just then I realized that I didn’t have Tower’s channel pulled. I pulled it out.

    “Tower just gave us taxi clearance. They’re going to put us out there on hold. Weather’s coming in thicker than they expected. Vis down to 1200 meters.”

    “Roger, 1200 meters. Is that acceptable mins, Co? Doesn’t look like 1200 any more, though. Double-check that; how low’s that cloud deck?”

    “A thousand.”

    “Crew, Pilot, prepare for taxi. Looks like we’ll have a delay out there.”

    “Pilot, MCC, mission crew ready for taxi.”

    “Roger that, MCC. Crew, we’re rollin’. There’s the AWACS crew running up also.”

    “KC’s on the left, going to be a back up.”

    “Roger, Co, I see ‘em. You got those weather reports yet from—”

    “Tower’s advising us to hold,” said the copilot.

    Bill, the Nav, cut in, “I got those weather reports. They don’t look good.”

    “I got Tower. Co, tell them we’ll hold here as advised. I don’t think we’ll beat that storm front if they make us hold too long.

    “Crew, it looks like we made the race for nothing. We’re going to have to hold here. Ah, shit, that’s thick. Here come’s the rain. Shit—one minute, God, that’s all I wanted.”

    “Pilot, Co, Tower’s advising—”

    “I got him, give him a roger. Tell him we’ll wait it out at the stand.”

    Captain Sammy eased the Lady back to the hard stand. We knew the rain was whipping down because to back in Crow had to lower the aft ramp and door so he could direct the pilot in.

    Hooked to our positions, we waited. The cabin smelled of jet fuel backwash from our prop exhaust kicked in by the strong winds the storm brought with it.

    Our scheduled departure time, 07:15, came and went. Still we waited while rain slapped at the Lady. The weather over target began to look grimmer as the storm front moved in and the visibility outside was down to 500 meters.

    The decision came at 08:00 to return to ops and wait out the storm there. We all would’ve preferred flying to waiting but we didn’t have much of a choice.

    Ops was crowded when we returned. The line after us had been alerted and had just arrived. So now two crews each of KC, AWACS, and EC would wait in the lounge. The late arrivals were the lucky ones; the rest of us had been up since 02:00. Still, none of us had our happy faces on. We all would’ve preferred flying to waiting.

    Quincy and Derrin were still playing spades teamed up against Doc, one of the med techs, and a ground support troop. I watched them play and the morning began to slip away.

    I was nearly asleep when someone thumped me on the shoulder. I looked up to see Happy standing over me. “What’s up?”

    “Steaks today?”

    “Cook ‘em up even if it rains all day. And Popcorn’s not invited. What happened to him yesterday?”

    “Maybe he had to fly.”

     “Probably.”

    I watched the cards float back and forth for a time as we waited. Chris and Tennessee Jim were enjoying the reprieve. They’d drifted off to a noisy slumber. The rest of us weren’t enjoying the wait much.

    A few minutes after 11:00, the word finally came. The area looked as if it’d be sopped in all day. The weather over target was now projected to be overcast for the next two to three days. Two to three days would be an eternity.

    It was the kind of weather the Iraqis would like, but we’d grow to hate. By afternoon, the endless day still hadn’t ended. Happy and I’d been up since 02:00; and while just about everyone else from our crew had hit the sleeping bags upon return, we hadn’t. We’d been busy.

    “Slap on some of that seasoning there,” I said, “and then some garlic salt and pepper. Where’s the aluminum foil you bought? Can I borrow some?”

    Happy pointed as he dumped on the different spices.

    “Where’s that beer you had?”

    “What for?” Still he handed it to me.

    Without replying I emptied the can over the seasoned meat. “Let them sit while we start the corn and potatoes.”

    “Good,” Happy said. It was fairly clear he’d never seasoned a steak with anything but a sauce from a jar after it had been cooked.

    I wrapped two ears of frozen corn in foil while Happy did the same with two large baking potatoes; then we placed them into the hot coals of a ready fire.

    The rain had just cleared up, so the air still had a chilly sting to it. We hovered close to the warm grill and waited. My mouth was already watering; and to stop the craving, I snatched up one of Happy’s beers. God, my mouth was watering.