Tail of the Storm

by Alan Cockrell

  We learned later that Ruler 13 had watched the whole escapade on his SKE as he executed his escape turn. He saw the lead plane's symbol on the scope merge with ours. Only the altitude had separated us. And we never managed to find out why Lead's navigator didn't see the thunderstorm on his scope. The next morning I sat at my drafting table pouring over geologic maps, but my mind was still back in the cockpit, fighting the storm. It could have been badreally bad. But one thing was certain, I thought as I correlated electronic well logs, and it made me smile: I wouldn't trade places with anyone.

  The squadron was a fairly kindred groupnot as fraternal as a fighter squadron but close. Still, we were split into two factions: the afternoon fliers and the night fliers. The afternoon guys were those who had jobs with flexible hours or maybe no job at all. That mission launched at 3:00 p.m. and landed at 5:00. About that time the night guys, those who more closely fit the "weekend warrior" stereotype, began to arrive. Their mission launched about seven. The two groups became two different societies, sometimes seeing each other only on drill weekends, rarely flying together. And a measure of rivalry developed. The night fliers thought the day fliers were pretentious, overrated bums. The perception stemmed from the propensity of the day fliers to participate more than was required. Because they weren't shackled by restrictive jobs, they could fly any time the Guard wanted, and as a result they were the most experienced of the two factions. And the day fliers shunned night flying, doing only the minimum required, claiming that it was exceedingly stupid. I was among the nighthawks until the oil business went bust.

  Although our unit had established a solid reputation for reliability and safety, there was one major blemish on our record. A deplorable scandal struck us in 1984. We never fully recovered. It all started innocently enough. Three crews were gathered for a three-ship nighttime drop mission to Bull Run Drop Zone. The briefing was completed, and all were milling around, waiting for the engineers to complete their preflights.

  Lieutenant Colonel Jake Bland had stopped by the convenience store off base and bought a box of fried chicken and Tater Tots. He intended to eat them as time allowed, but unwisely set the box in the open and left the scene.

  Jake was nearing retirement, but his enthusiasm for minute detail and absolute compliance with the "regs" had never waned. He was a "full-timer," an employee of the Air Guard ("technician" was the accepted term). And he was also chief of "stan/eval": the man in charge of a group of pilots, flight engineers, navigators, and loadmasters who administered periodic flight checks and written tests to the rank and file. Jake was a workaholic, full of energy and initiative, but was highstrung, and when he focused on a task, it was hazardous to distract him. His fastidiousness made him a target of the practical jokersof which we had manyand although he did have a sense of humor, it was a little shallow. Nevertheless, those who took the time to know him discovered a gentle, caring man who was a model of integrity, hard work, and dedication. There was always something that Jake needed to do. Rarely did we see him relax, even for a meal.

  When he finished his duties and opened the box, he gazed down at the spoils. His blood heated and eyes bulged as he surveyed the stripped bones lying among the debris of a plundered biscuit. And the Tater Tots: gone.

  His sense of decency told him that someone else had also picked up a chicken dinner and had substituted their finished box for a quick laugh. He would be calm. He would play along until his box was returned. He had heard people speak of a thing called patience. He knew he must have some, somewhere. He would call upon it. They would have their silly laugh, then he could have his meal and get on with the mission.

  Fully five seconds passed when the patience gave out. The explosion was volcanic; the rage spewed like scalding lava over all within his range. Not knowing who did itthat was the worst for him. Most of them slunk away and drifted toward the planes, a few of the braver ones remaining behind to question him as breaks in his wrath allowed.

  As the drop mission launched and progressed, stinging accusations were fired across the squadron frequency. Of the two other aircraft in the formation beside his own, ten people had access to the radios. Jake could not know who was taunting him. He tried to maintain his composure, to be calm and professional, but the teasers were relentless. Jake's radio tortured him as they made their way across the dark Mississippi landscape.

  "Cluck, cluck!"

  "Cluck, cluck."

  "Cluck, cluck, cluck."

  "Paawk."

  As the weeks went by, the caper mushroomed into a monumental travesty. Jake didn't deserve it. Certainly no one blamed him for being so sore about it, but it followed him like a skulking shadow, and whenever he entered a room fingers abruptly pointed at suspected culprits, and accusations zipped like bullets. The great chicken raid became the ultimate topic to which all conversations evolved. And even as the weeks turned to months, our drill weekends were center stage for the spirited debates, which Jake astutely avoided. "Who done it?" was the question on everyone's lips. A few tried to own up to it, but these we dismissed as depraved souls who were simply starving for attention. None who confessed would have had the guts to pull the deed off. As time went by, two prime suspects emerged from the investigations, and finally, several years after the unhappy eventeven after Jake's retirementa trial was held.

  A visiting general was asked to serve as the judge. The defendant, Harold (Hac) Cross, our squadron commander, was represented by one Tom Clayton, who could talk loud and persuasively but whose tongue often became disengaged from his brain and ran afoul of authority. The prosecutor was Bill ("Chalky") Lutz, a smooth, articulate lawyer in civilian life, and the star witness was John Tarr, himself a major suspect. Then the trial began, officially taped by the base audiovisual department. We jeered and shouted as the grim facts unfolded and the judge rapped for order.

  The first evidence was introduced and our flight surgeon, Doc Krueger, testified with a shocking graphic description, that they were indeed the bleached bones of a chicken. More testimony followed. But despite Clayton's pitiful attempts to implicate Tarr, the evidence mounted against the defendant. Tarr's observation that Hac had been seen that evening with grease on his fingers was corroborated. A witness for the defendant reported seeing a Tater Tot fall from Tarr's helmet bag yet produced no hard evidence. Witness after witness was questioned, and when the proceedings were finished, Cross was convicted. His sentence: the tab for the post-trial kegs and a career of shame. It was entirely too lenient.

  Yet many still had lingering doubts and watched Tarr carefully until the day he retired, his preference for the domesticated yardbird not going unnoticed. Hac showed no remorse andas was his wayskillfully convinced many that he had gotten a bad rap. And the victim? He ignored his subpoena and chose not to attend the trial.

  But even that was not to be the end of it. Until a couple of years agobefore so many faces changedyou could ignite an instant heated debate in any group by dropping a whispered suggestion as you passed, much as Tevye did about the sour horse deal in Fiddler on the Roof. Just pass by a friendly conversation already in progress and interject "Tarr did it." The response would be instantaneous.

  "It was Hac!"

  "Hell no, it was Tarr."

  "You dunce, you weren't even there that night."

  "What do you know? You weren't even in the unit then!"

  "You're both wrong. It was Jimmy Taylor."

  "Taylor? Aw, get outta here!"

  And so it went until long after you had left.

  Thank God, there was one group among us that seemed to provide some measure of maturity and stability. For the most part, its members stayed to themselves and smiled with amusement at the antics, only rarely becoming actively involved. Yet they were not aloof, just apart. They were our navigators. Sadly, we lost them with the C-130s. On the C-141 they've been replaced by machines. But they were special peoplehighly skilled officers who knew a great deal not only about navigation but about air operations in general. The nav was of
ten the aircraft commander's chief counsel, from whom he could garner a unique and fresh perspective. At times the copilot's opinion could be tainted with ego, inexperience, or even patronage. But the nav was more likely to be honest and unbiased, to offer counterpoint, to play the devil's advocate, to tell the AC what he didn't necessarily want to hear. And for that reason alone, the navigators were priceless.

  Without a doubt the most unusual nav we had was Venn Fortinberry. Tall and dark-complexioned, with a weathered outdoorsman appearance, he looked like a young Gary Cooper. He held the rank of major and was a country gentleman farmer who showed up to navigate C-130s across continents and oceans, said as little as possible, and then withdrew into the Walthall County woods. Yet a maverick he was not. The taciturn Venn must have considered his role in life to be the impeccable performance of his job and to speak only when he had something relevant and obligatory to say. Thus when he did speak, heads swiveled receptively in his direction. It was his way to bait us with a pause while he spat tobacco before getting to the meat of his brief messages.

  I once concocted a brilliant but risky scheme to expose Venn's emotions to the world, hoping that the disclosure would not be ugly.

  When one pulls a practical joke on such a man as Venn, one must be prepared for the possibility that one will have to choose between administering an ass-whipping and receiving one. And I suspected that Venn was an able administrator. But I planned to be drunk with laughter at the conclusion of the affair and thus utterly defenseless. In this way I had avoided reprisal in past such antics. I hoped Venn would exhibit similar restraint. Nonetheless I proceeded.

  The scene of the deed was Howard Air Force Base in the Panama Canal Zone. Volant Oak, as it was called, was one of the Air Force's best-kept secrets. It was an ongoing operation in which the militia were the star players. Air Guard and Reserve C-130s were dispatched in flights of four with eight crews and a complement of mechanics to the tropical base for service with the Southern Command. The two-week rotational tour of duty featured several airdrop training missions, with an occasional supply run down to South America to service the embassies. In between the flights the crews enjoyed numerous rounds of golf and tennis interspersed with lavish cook-outs, marathon poker games, and occasional forays up the Canal in pursuit of the big tasty peacock bass. It was a veritable paradise for sun worshipers, slumber seekers, tapestry shoppers, joggers, bingeful imbibers, and especially those who simply needed a respite from the rat race of their usual jobs. Howard was a world removed: an exotic, esoteric place of escape and release, masquerading as a site of duty and toil. It was, as we proclaimed, a thankless job, but someone had to do it. And it was there at the officer's quarters high on a bejungled hillside that we discovered them.

  Out of the rain forest they came; first a bold vanguard, then the others. We watched with fascination as they slowly moved closer to our building, foraging in the grasses as they came. They were the most ridiculous-looking creatures I had ever seen, a hodgepodge of unrelated species thrown together as an afterthought from leftover parts in God's bench stock. The body was that of a monkey, with long, strong hind haunches that raised the rump and tilted the nose to the ground. The head was doglike, with a slender snout, featuring the ludicrous ears of a bear. The long tail, striped like a raccoon's, stuck straight up and swayed like a whip antenna on a sheriff's cruiser. One or two among us had heard of these strange creatures, but the closest name we could tag them with was kootymongas. I researched it later and learned that their proper name was coatimundis. But despite this revelation, our crude characterization stuck, and enticed by our alms of crackers and breads, the fanciful kootys became regular but wary visitors.

  Venn's particular fascination with the kootys prompted me to roguery. He leaned on the railing outside his second floor room for hours each day chewing his tobacco, spit cup in hand, watching the kootys below as they became ever bolder in their approaches. I tested my plan by coaxing the beasts with cookies thrown down in a trail, and it worked splendidly. I found that I could lead them almost anywhere. But would they continue to nibble at the cookie trail up a flight of concrete stairs? The answer had to wait until Venn next flew at a time when I was off.

  When that condition was met, I seized the opportunity. Venn was due back at about 1600, and I started half an hour earlier. I succeeded in wheedling a half dozen or so kootys, mostly young ones, up the stairs and down the walkway toward my room, sowing the cookie crumbs all along. When I paused to open the door, three of them spooked and plunged head first over the side, crashing to the ground, but nonetheworse for the fall, they all scampered away. However, a large adult and two pups followed me into the room. Snickering like a deviant schoolboy, I led the three cookie monsters through the connecting kitchen from my room into Venn's and shut the door, feeling as if I had left a box of hand grenades on a hot stove.

  Venn didn't show at 1600. I waited. After a while I began to worry that the cooped-up kootys would destroy the room, and I became tempted to abandon the scheme. But then he came.

  Fearing that my uncontrollable giggling would alert him I staked out down on the lawn and watched as he climbed the stairs. By the time he was inserting his room key I had followed him up and was peering from around a corner. I sprinted down to his window as he entered the dark room and shut the door behind him.

  The encounter began with a sharp imprecation followed by a sound like a rocking chair coming down on a cat's tail. Then the grenades went off. The struggle instantly escalated into an awful pandemonium of thumps, crashes, tears, screams, and grunts. Listening to the clamor of falling furniture and stampeding feet, I leaned close to the window and saw the curtains suddenly jerk, then plunge to the floor bearing a terrified kooty. Soon the door blew inward as if the room had been sucked of its air and two screeching streaks of fur propelled past me at the speed of heat and catapulted over the ledge.

  I lowered myself to the deck on weakened knees holding my ribs in the delightful pain of reckless laughter, as the haggard Venn, ignoring me, emerged and leaned against his rail. A wretched thing I was, lying there beside him helplessly guffawing, but I caught a breath and paused long enough to comment on what cuddly creatures they were. But then the third kooty came bounding from the room and blew out past Venn's boots into the airspace over the lawn like a torpedo shot from the deck of a destroyer, and again I was beset with hysteria.

  Still gazing toward the jungle, Venn extracted his tobacco can and loaded an enormous chew but said not a word to me until after I had assessed the battle damage to his room. "You know," he spat, then continued in a low-toned, contemplative voice, as if the foregoing had never occurred, as if he were merely picking up where yesterday's musings were left off, "I'd like to turn some of them rascals loose down in Walthall County."

  Soon afterward the jets came. The navs left us. Panama and the kootymongas became memories. The day fliers remained distinct from the night fliers, but many faces changed. We flew the jets either around the flagpole or around the world, it seemed, seldom in between and never again to Bull Run Drop Zone. It was deactivated.

  We grieved for the loss of the Hercules. But the old colonel was right. The airplane we're in is indeed a good airplane. I'm just glad to be here.

  And of the chicken heist? I know who did it. But name, rank, and service number are all you'll get out of me.

  Thirteen.

  Eye of the Storm

  scud: NATO designator for the Soviet SS-1, short range mobile launched surface to surface ballistic missile.

  Department of Defense

  scud: (skud), v.i. [scudded, scudding], 1. to run or move swiftly. 2. to be driven or run before the wind.

  Webster's Dictionary

  My roomie, Mike Hall, and I are awakened by running and shouting in the hallway. Its 0200 local time on January 16, a day since President Bush's January 15 deadline had passed. We fling open the door and learn from a passerby that the mother of all battles is at last under way. Mike rushes to turn on the T
V, but all we see is a test signal. It must be on the radio. Mike then dives for the clock radio, but after fiddling frantically with it, he declares it's "tango uniform." We finally find a good radio in the laundry room and requisition it back to our hole. We quickly learn that massive allied air strikes are in progress in Kuwait and Iraq. Even after all the months of preparation, the reality is hard to grasp. This is no skirmish, no antiterrorist operation, and not a guerrilla action. It is a massive, full-blown conventional war, complete with killing fields. Later the TV comes to life, and we watch with the world as the Persian Gulf furiously explodes. The whole thing is incredible. Even after the months of flying the desert missions, I have trouble believing it is happening.

  While devouring the news reports, Mike and I speculate as to what the immediate future holds for us. We recall our squadron commander, Lieutenant Colonel Dwight Sisk, briefing us about this mission prior to departure. Though hostile action was imminent, Dwight told us he had been assured that MAC would not risk its "strategic airlift assets" (big jets) during the early, uncertain days of the war. And again, when we arrived here at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, the stage manager had echoed the concern. "Relax," we were told. "Until some of the smoke settles, you'll probably get a breather, at the most, maybe a run back to the States." We wonder how such a massive deployed force could go even a few days without strategic airlift support. We've been in uniform too long to swallow everything they feed us, but we accept onlooker status for the next few days.

  We finally get to sleep in the late morning, but at about 1500 we are alerted by the command post for what we assume will be an Atlantic crossing. We should know better. In spite of what we have been told to expect, the destination is Dhahran. We are, of course, very familiar with the place. We've been there many times. But in light of the developments of the previous hours, the orders are ominous.