by Ward Carroll
The origins of the arrow were not a matter of official squadron history, and the associated tales ranged from its being pulled out of the back of Eric the Red by his loving and faithful men at the end of his last Viking conquest, to its being presented in passing to the squadron by a couple of retired farts nobody knew a few years ago.
The seven junior officers accurately assessed that they had been the last to be informed of the AOM, so they opted to enter the gathering via the back door to try and slide in unnoticed. To their mild relief, they walked into a gaggle of officers filling coffee mugs, checking their e-mail accounts one-by-one on the sole desktop computer in the ready room, and otherwise chatting informally—a scene that indicated to the latecomers that the skipper was not yet present.
“What’s the meeting for?” Punk asked Beads as the operations officer poured some coffee into his mug.
Beads shook a packet of sugar and ripped it open and answered Punk without making eye contact. “I’ll let the skipper tell you. Why don’t you grab a seat?”
The ops officer moved away, and Punk shot him a disapproving glance and quickly removed his mug from its hook on a large arrow-shaped piece of mahogany mounted on the wall behind the coffee maker and charged it full. He then finished the trip to his assigned chair, the final stretch of which was across the legs of his squadron mates already seated.
“One of the ordies told Weezer the skipper came back minus tanks and a ’winder,” Biff whispered as Punk sat down next to him.
“You’re shitting me,” Punk said.
“I’ll do you better than that,” Scooter added from the other side, “Smoke was up on the flight deck checking on the maintenance effort and he said there was a full-blown dogfight between the skipper and some rag head F-4 right over the ship.”
“Holy shit,” Punk said. “Did the skipper bag somebody?”
“I dunno,” Scooter replied. “I think Smoke was afraid the skipper was going to walk in and didn’t want to say too much.” Scooter also felt a bit uncomfortable with the incendiary nature of the topic and he looked around to ensure the CO had still not entered the ready room. “Needless to say, this is going to be an interesting little get-together.”
“Boy,” Punk said, “Soup’s head won’t be able to fit through the door if he got a kill. He’ll be even harder to live with.”
“I’m more worried about the possibility he didn’t get a kill,” Biff replied.
As the Arrowslingers officers gathered in the ready room, Commander Campbell and Paul were a hundred kneeknockers forward of them in Flag Briefing and Analysis trying to piece together for the admiral the events of their twenty-minute flight. Actually, they were talking to two admirals since the battle group commander aboard the carrier had called his immediate superior, the Fifth Fleet commander in Bahrain, and put him on the speakerphone to hear the explanation for himself.
The room on the ship was packed with staffers, all looking on with knitted brows, some taking notes, others simply nodding or shaking their heads in response to whatever comments were thrown about. Also present was a large contingent of intel geeks, including the Pats.
The speakerphone cracked with the three-star’s voice from Bahrain: “I guess I’m trying to figure out if we’re now at war with Iran.”
“Well, Admiral,” the sea-based one-star returned, aiming his voice directly into the box, “I’m assuming we are until you tell me otherwise. I have two alerts airborne right now and I’m moving the cruiser forty miles southeast of her current position.”
“That’s probably a good idea, Admiral,” the Fifth Fleet commander replied. “Be advised I’ve got SecNav on the speaker phone in my office. Mr. Secretary, what do you think? Are we at war with Iran?”
The Secretary of the Navy’s response from the Pentagon came through to the carrier as nothing but sentence-structured static. Once he was finished, the fleet commander asked, “Did you copy that, Admiral?”
“Negative, Admiral, can you relay?”
“The Secretary said he’s been unable to speak with SecDef or any of the Joint Chiefs on this one yet. They’re all over on the Hill testifying—about what, he’s not really sure, but he knows it’s not this thing—and he wants you to keep your guard up.”
“Roger that,” the admiral replied.
“Got that, Mr. Secretary?” the fleet commander inquired. There were more beats of static on the carrier’s end. “He said, ‘Roger that,’” the three-star relayed, indicating that the secretary had not heard the battle group commander’s initial response.
The throng in Flag Briefing and Analysis, all standing except for the admiral seated at the center of the long end of the big rectangular “situation table” that dominated the room and his chief of staff seated to his right, listened for several minutes to an exchange between Fifth Fleet and SecNav that consisted mostly of the secretary’s unintelligible white noise syncopation. The only English they could make out was the fleet commander answering, “Yes sir,” when the static occasionally stopped.
“SecNav wants to hear the details of the engagement,” the fleet commander finally passed. “Admiral, I understand you’ve got the pilots in the room with you?”
“That’s correct, Admiral,” the battle group commander replied. “Commander Campbell, why don’t you walk us through the mission tape?”
“Certainly, Admiral,” the skipper responded. He was still covered in the bulk of his flight gear and tilled a wider than normal line as he pushed his way to the front of the crowd that had formed along the wall near the only door to the space. “But before we review the tape, I’d like to set up the incident, if I may, sir.” The admiral nodded his concurrence.
The skipper stood for a time trying to figure out where to begin. He’d been yanked out of the jet immediately following shutdown and routed to the admiral’s spaces without a chance to organize his thoughts. He rubbed his hands together briskly and sniffed once deeply. Paul stood in his flight gear at the back of the crowd at a modified position of parade rest, nervously waiting for the skipper to tell him what to do and when to talk.
“We launched on the alert and were assigned to the eastern station,” the skipper began. “I thought we might be given a hot vector right off the cat, but we just held on station for ten minutes or more.”
The admiral interrupted. “Admiral,” he said, once again leaning into the speakerphone, “can you hear Commander Campbell when he talks?”
“Yeah, I can hear him. SecNav, can you hear the pilot talking?” There was no response. “SecNav, are you there, sir?”
The silence that followed told that the secretary of the Navy had either directed his attention to another matter and hung up or been cut off. The Fifth Fleet commander assumed the latter.
“Admiral, it looks like we’ve lost SecNav here,” he passed to those on the carrier. “Hold on for a second and I’ll have my aide try to get us reconnected with the Pentagon.”
As the ball of technology rolled between Manama and Washington, the mood in Flag Briefing and Analysis relaxed a bit, and the ambient noise of conversation grew. Commander Campbell used the break in the action to mentally develop a game plan, a plausible explanation for what had happened. He quickly scanned the room to factor in the local level of aviation subject matter expertise—as much to assess what he might pass as fact in his presentation as to what level of detail to shape his brief.
The bursts of static started up again from the speakerphone and an expectant hush fell over the space.
“Admiral, I think we’re ready now,” the fleet commander said.
The battle group commander looked to Soup and gave a circular wave that roughly directed the skipper to pick up where he’d left off. “All right, we were on the eastern station when—”
The one-star motioned for the skipper to stop. “Can you hear that, Admiral?”
“Yeah, I’ve got him. Mr. Secretary, can you hear everything?”
Some static was emitted in return.
“Al
l right, I’ll relay . . . the jet was on the eastern station. Go ahead . . .”
“When we got the first vector from the E-2.”
“When they got the first vector from the E-2 . . .”
“And . . . well, why don’t we roll the mission tape?”
“And why don’t they roll the mission tape . . . oh, they’re going to roll the mission tape, Mr. Secretary.”
More static.
“The secretary says go ahead.”
The skipper gestured across the room to one of the Pats poised to hit play on the VCR and said, “Holly, if you please . . .”
“It’s Steven, sir,” the ensign said.
“What? Oh, whatever. Start the tape.”
The tape began to roll and the monitors at the near and far corners of the room showed the view through the pilot’s heads up display (HUD). There was nothing for the untrained eye to make out at first. On the screens, digits jumped and symbols tracked against a background of nothing but the early morning cloudless sky.
“Now, Admiral,” the skipper said as the tape continued to play, “you’ll hear the first call we get is actually almost behind us.” Commander Campbell adjusted the volume of the closest monitor between asides. In the background, the Fifth Fleet commander continued to parrot the narrative for the secretary of the Navy.
“Is the E-2 controller here?” the battle group commander asked.
“That E-2 is still airborne,” somebody said from the crowd.
“That’s fine,” Soup replied in an effort to wrestle the floor back. The less other people talked, the more he could mold the facts. “Anyway, we got a very late heads up, and as you’ll see in the tape, the intercept wound up being a tail chase.”
The skipper allowed the tape to play for a while longer without interrupting. Unsure of what he’d said over the intercom in the airplane, but sensing that the admiral didn’t need to hear it, the skipper continued to lower the volume on the monitor he had within his reach.
The view switched from the HUD camera to the magnified TV picture of the F-4 turning back toward the Tomcat. The room filled with expressions of amazement and disbelief as the monitors showed the missile coming off the Iranian jet.
“Hold it,” the battle group commander ordered as he leaned back over the speakerphone. “Admiral, what the tape shows at this point is a missile fired by the Iranian jet at the F-14. There has been no provocation on our part up to this point other than to attempt an escort.”
After relaying the words to the Pentagon, the fleet commander listened to the secretary of the Navy and then asked the battle group commander, “So in terms of rules of engagement, we’re justified at this point in shooting back?”
“That’s affirmative,” the at-sea admiral answered. “It’s down to basic self defense.”
Following another wave from the admiral, the skipper continued. “I maneuvered to defeat the missile and then managed to get into a semi-offensive position, although I had to turn a long way to get there.” Semi-offensive. Nothing too definitive. “And, long story short, by the time I had the first shot opportunity the Phantom was out of range. Steven, you can turn the tape off.”
“Wait,” said the chief of staff seated next to the admiral. “Don’t stop the tape. I want to see something. And turn the volume up so we can hear it.”
The skipper’s heart stopped for a time as he watched the admiral’s right-hand man analyze the images on the screen before him. The chief of staff, who wore the rank of captain, had flown Tomcats for many years before being put out to staff pasture, and he enjoyed the idea that he might still have a bit of tactical thought left in him.
“Freeze it there,” he commanded before looking over toward Commander Campbell. “Why do you have Guns selected here?” He studied the scale down the right vertical axis of the view. “The guy is about two-and-a-half miles away. Why would you select Guns at this point?”
The skipper stood nonplused at the ethical crossroads. After a few seconds of looking at the screen and mustering up some feigned confusion of his own he said, “I don’t remember selecting Guns, Chief of Staff.”
“That little G at the bottom of the HUD does still indicate that Guns is selected, right?” the chief of staff asked with a dusting of sarcasm. “It’s been a few years since I’ve flown the Tomcat, but they didn’t change that recently, did they?” The chief of staff looked back at the ensign and said, “Unfreeze the tape and let it play.”
At that moment and for the following minutes, the skipper had never felt so vulnerable in his professional life. He stood alone on what was quickly becoming the wrong side of the situation table, growing more and more naked with each frame of tape. Time compression set in; for him, the presentation seemed to move at a painfully slow pace.
As the Fifth Fleet commander’s play-by-play for SecNav continued over the speakerphone, sounding a lot like a radio talk show in the background that nobody was paying attention to, the mission tape reached the skipper’s first trigger squeeze during the flight. The HUD camera vibrated slightly as the F-14’s nose cannon cooked off rounds doomed from the start to hit nothing but the waters of the Gulf.
“Stop the tape again,” the chief of staff commanded. He turned toward Soup and asked, “Did you just fire the gun at almost three miles away?” as he referenced the symbology on the screen.
Again, the skipper struggled for the best answer considering the circumstantial evidence before the body that had transformed, in his mind, into an ad hoc court. An electrical short, maybe, he thought. Any precedent for that sort of malfunction in the community?
Before the skipper could formulate a counter to the chief of staff’s question, a new voice jumped into the discussion. “The gun did fire.”
“Who said that?” the admiral asked the crowd behind him and to his right.
“I did, sir,” a short, young-looking lieutenant with freckles and bright red hair replied. He emerged from the crowd waving a VCR tape of his own. He quickly moved over to the machine and relieved Steven of his position while asking the admiral, “If I may, sir?”
“Please, go ahead,” the admiral answered. “It doesn’t seem like Commander Campbell has any answers for us.”
Paul watched the skipper’s normally tan complexion deepen from a crimson hue to near violet as the carrier’s public affairs officer removed the mission tape and inserted the new mystery tape.
“Admiral,” the skipper protested, “I’m not sure what—”
The admiral silenced him with another wave of his hand while looking at the monitor nearest to him. The tape rolled for a few seconds and showed an upper torso shot of two sailors, dressed in their Crackerjack dress uniforms, looking down at the flight deck from Vultures’ Row on the carrier’s island.
The PAO paused the tape. “We were shooting a hometown news release with some of our sailors this morning,” he explained, “and we wanted an early morning sunrise shot, so we were out there kind of . . . early.” He smiled but then continued as the admiral passed on changing his own expression in any way.
“Anyway, as you’ll see, our ranking photographer’s mate managed to capture the entire event on videotape.” He hit Play and then stepped aside to allow the performance to speak for itself.
“Hello, Akron,” one of the sailors on the island said with a sweeping wave after a few seconds of waiting for his cue from someone behind the camera.
“Hello, Jacksonville,” the other sailor said with the same gesture, performed with the opposite arm.
“We’re here to say . . .” The roar of a jet eclipsed the dialog and the camera left the faces of the sailors and fished around the sky to find the cause of the noise. The camera found the F-4 and followed it over the stern of the carrier and into the distance. The argument between the two sailors over the jet’s ID served as narrative while the sound of the Phantom’s engines faded. About ten seconds later, a second roar revealed the skipper’s passing and once again the cameraman worked the skies to find the source.
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Cued by the flares flying out of the underside of the Tomcat, the camera captured and stuck with the skipper’s jet through the missile-evading hard right turn. The straight-line white plume of the Iranian missile was briefly featured in the foreground as the tape continued with the F-14 in the hard left-hand turn that followed the first move. The chief of staff noted the tanks blowing off and how the jet’s variable geometry wings swept from almost fully aft at the beginning of the turn to completely forward by the end of it, a detail that indicated to him a significant loss of airspeed by the aircraft.
Almost as soon as the turn was complete, a wisp of smoke trailed from the left side of the nose of the jet, followed immediately by the distinctive “pops” of bullets breaking the sound barrier.
The PAO turned to the skipper, and innocently enough for a non-aviator asked, “That was the gun going off, right Commander?”
The skipper stood unfocused and motionless. Any compelling argument he’d planned on forwarding was smashed to bits now, not so much by the facts, but by the unorthodox and unplanned presentation of the facts. The admiral, the chief of staff, the PAO—damn, where did he come from? They were all growing horns in the skipper’s eyes as the inquisition dragged on.
“Of course that was the gun going off,” the chief of staff laughed as he slapped the table with his big paws and scanned the room with a turn of his white-frosted head. A number of the gathered officers joined him with closed-lip smiles, and a handful actually clucked quiet noises of acknowledgment, but sounds not well defined or loud enough to be labeled as laughter.
