Tail of the Storm

by Alan Cockrell

  "YOU BACK THERE! Yeah, YOU. Dammit, I told you to get back in your seats and strap in. NOW, DO IT!"

  But I've found another man beneath that tough leather exterior. He once shared with me a long poem he had written about the Starlifter that belied his rugged image and exposed a great sentimentalist underneath.

  Mike and I walk to Keith's room and find the squirrel brothers methodically at work, strapping the Possum into his bed. One is holding him down while the other is tightly ratcheting cargo straps over his legs and chest, binding his upper arms against his side. They giggle and guffaw while working, but we notice that the Possum isn't resisting in the least; in fact he's lying back, reading a paperback about World War II Flying Fortresses and listening contentedly to his Walkman. Mike walks away shaking his head over the foolish idea that two flight engineers would try to tie up a loadmaster with the tools of his own trade. We return to our bunks, and a couple of minutes later the hallway bursts with stampeding feet as we see the squirrels streak by with the Possum in close pursuit, straps lassoing.

  After a long hibernation, I become restless. There is nothing else to do except walk or run around the perimeter road, or sit on the porch of the hooch and gaze at oil-smoked skyscapes. There is a TV room with video movies, but it is crowded and hot. Later I seize a chance to go off base to downtown Dhahran. The Air Force has begun bus service, and I ride down to the market area as the sun goes down.

  The streets are alive with GIs, all clad in desert camo battle uniforms, strolling along in clusters; laughing, toting shopping bags, drinking nonalcoholic beer. Scores of industrious, turban-topped sidewalk vendors hawk selections of watches and electronics, appealing to the GIs in sporadic English. The scene could be a rerun of another war and another place twenty years ago except for the absence of women.

  Almost everything sold is imported. The place is oppressively noisy. Busy honks and revs from the streets mix with murmuring crowd noise and an assortment of music. Playing in one shop is the fluty Arabic dance tunes that blend, as I pass to the next, with the electric twangs of Lynard Skynard singing "Sweet Home Alabama."

  Suddenly the shops begin to close. All along the street, scrolling metal security doors start to slam shut, as storekeepers usher GIs out. I look at my watch; it is still early. But then I notice that the storekeepers, squeezing padlocks and hurrying away, have left the lights on. It is, of course, prayer time. I'm delighted. Finally I will get to see the real Mideast character.

  As I walk to the edge of the street, the prayers begin to roll in from some distant loudspeaker, and I look out to the grassy median between the two streets where a devotee is bowing. But he's isolated. I look up and down the median, and along the sidewalks but see only a few worshipers. Most of the local people stand in groups talking with one another, some smoking cigarettes and chatting with groups of GIs. I'm really surprised. Here in the heart of Islam, very few seem to take their faith seriously. Maybe they're more devout in the other towns. But then maybe they're not so different from us after all.

  I go back to Eagletown to find that our crew is nearing the top of the assignment list, and I turn in.

  After two and a half days the stage manager finally gives us a mission. But typically, the alert comes after we have been awake about ten hours and I have just turned in for another vain attempt to bank some sleep. It has been an agonizingly long day. The headwinds were fierce, and our trip up from the sands was almost ten hours.

  We check in to the transient crew quarters at RAF Upper Heyford, England, and drag our bags up to the rooms. The World War II-vintage building is extremely well kept and nicely decorated. In stark contrast to our facilities at Eagletown, the Upper Heyford officers' quarters feature polished wooden floors with massive doors and high ceilings. The restaurant and pub are all in the same complex, and the pub has been opened to all ranks for the duration of the Persian Gulf operation. We agree to meet with the enlisted guys down in the pub for a round of bitters before turning in.

  Mike and I start out the door but turn back and pitch our caps on the beds. He wears a cap bearing the logo of his airline, as do I. We have gotten used to wearing the unauthorized caps. They provide better protection from the sun than the silly flight hats issued us. But the caps are also an outlet for that touch of recalcitrance some of us need in order to avoid feeling like robots. And we were constantly catching hell on account of them. Only a few days before, while walking across a flight line under a relentless Arabian sun, Mike had been hailed by a derisive colonel.

  "YOU THERE! YOU WITH THE HAT!"

  He put the hat back on as soon as the colonel had blown off steam and departed. Nevertheless, we know better than to wear our hats in high-visibility places such as operations buildings and the like and especially in the club bar.

  The pub is crowded with crewdogs. The wall is taking more hits than the dartboard. Flight-suited airmen huddle in comers and around small tables, talking of the usual suite of topics; only the sequence changes, depending on how long the crew has been out and on how tired the men are. A crew fresh from the States, for example, would be discussing the war and the military establishment, most likely, then sports and women. A crew that was tired and had flown many missions without a break at home would generally reverse the order. But the last subject covered was always the same.

  The squirrel brothers grab a table, while Mike, Keith, and I squeeze to the bar. A group of a dozen or so crowd together at the center of the bar around a tall guy who is making contorted, impossible movements with raised hands. Mike and I are aghast when we see him. He is wearing a cap in the bar! Has the man no decency? He wears the gold leaves of a major on his flight suit. He's been around for a while. Surely he understands the tradition.

  He who enters covered here

  Buys the bar a round of cheer.

  Not many traditions have developed over the years in the Air Force. It's certainly not like the centuries-old Navy, which is infested with them. The tradition of the hat in the bar is about the only one we've got, and it's fiercely protected.

  The man appears to be the highest-ranking officer in the pub, though I am his equal. Maybe no one else has had the pluck to challenge him. Or perhaps he has already bought the round and thinks he has earned the right to wear the cap. He's lucky; if he had done this at a fighter base, he would have been seized, and the cap forcibly removed. Moreover, fighter pilots would have taken punitive action for a less well known transgression.

  We all have a small pocket that holds a survival knife on the inside left thigh of our flight suits, although few people keep one in it. I lost my survival knife years ago. But fighter pilots wear "G-suits" over their flight suits, which have identical knife pockets. Having no need for a knife pocket on the flight suit, they tear them off, in a celebrated ritual, and hang them on a wire over their bar like scalps on a lodgepole. All green fighter drivers and other pilots who wander into a fighter lair will suffer the fate.

  We lean against the bar down near the end under the bell and order a pint of bitters. Mike is a veteran of several years' active duty and is as incredulous as I over this inexcusable sacrilege. He walks over and checks the guy out, comes back, and breaks the news that the guy's cap bears the logo of an airline that is a fierce competitor of ours. This revelation intensifies our contempt. Obviously he too is a reservist, like most of us here. But I decide to let matters be. We sip our bitters and try to ignore it.

  Then he commits an unpardonable sin. He takes off the cap and lays it on the bar!! We reel, an electric shock running through our veins. Placing a hat on the bar is a brazen and audacious violation of the tradition. I can stand no more. I reach up to the bell, which is reserved for such transgressions, and ring it boldly, continually, for five or ten seconds, while Mike climbs on a stool, points to the offender, and yells.

  "Hat on the bar! Hat on the bar! He's buyin'! He's buyin'!"

  A momentary hush falls throughout the pub as all faces turn first our way, then his. Then a cheer goes up
and the accused disappears in a rushing tide of crewdogs who stake their order at his expense.

  As I lean back with a smile of justice and satisfaction, the man resumes his storytelling to his original audience and the dejected crewmen return to their tables. Mike turns to me.

  "Can you believe this guy? He's not buying."

  The guy is beginning to get on my nerves. He isn't just trouncing the tradition, he's defiling it. Worse yet, he's souring the image that the enlisted men in the pub have of officers. The Possum, Keith Burton, is getting hot and is mumbling some extremely unflattering remarks about the good major.

  I've had about enough and am thinking of leaving, but Mike will not let it be. He weasels in among the huddled group, snatches the cap from the bar, and returns to me. I look at the American Airlines logo, tie it to the bell rope hanging overhead, and lean back to wait.

  I see the guy's hand reach back for the cap as he continues his yarning to a few still-faithful listeners. Finding it missing, he snaps his head toward me and then looks up at the bell. He is dishonored and now must save face. Shoving people aside, he drives ahead and thrusts his chest at me. But I stay cool and explain that he had not bought the round as per the tradition, a charge that he disputes, which in turn infuriates the Possum.

  "You didn't buy my drink!" Keith charges.

  The foolish major counters. "You're a liar."

  The Possum surges forth, but Mike and I form a barrier. A major confrontation is developing as the guy's crew begins to congregate behind him, but I sense they're only coolly loyal to him. Meanwhile over against the wall, the squirrel brothers sit in a cloud of blue smoke, astutely not interested in participating but urging the Possum on with wild guffaws.

  "WEAPONS RELEASED, WEAPONS RELEASED!"

  "CLEARED TO KILL. CLEARED TO KILL!"

  When the bartender realizes that the mother of all brawls is developing, she pronounces the pub closed and orders everyone toward the doors. The situation having been successfully defused, we proceeded to our rooms, like scolded children being sent to bed early, mumbling along the way about what a jerk that guy was.

  I'm glad it didn't come to a fight. I did, however, rather enjoy it. It was a great diversiona vent for the stress. We would talk and laugh of it for a long time.

  But if I ever see that guy again. .

  We touch down at McGuire Air Force Base (better known to us as Quagmire AFB) after a grueling Atlantic crossing from Upper Heyford, and I again unsuccessfully conclude an argument with the gentleman at the billeting office. He gives me a voucher for our rooms at the Days Inn near the base, and as before, we are to double up. We're not just tired, we're tired of each other. We're not college kids anymorewe don't need roomies, we need rest. But orders are orders.

  It seems we are continually frustrated almost everywhere we go in the desert operation, and I think it gets worse the closer we get to the States. It seems we have to do battle with every command post, maintenance officer, crew stage manager, and billeting office that we face. I know they consider us arrogant prima donnas, who expect to be catered to and serviced by all those who toil on the ground to support flying operations. I know of a few pilots who are like that, and they spoil it for the rest of is.

  The root of the perception problem is that we fliers are accustomed to an entirely different way of viewing job accomplishmenta way that's often not understood by those whose jobs are more subjective. Either we get our job done, or we don't. There's simply no middle road. We put the ordnance on the target or miss and have to try again from scratch. We get the cargo and passengers to the destination or we don't. There's no gap between success and failure for us to slip comfortably into and bide for a while. If my orders are to get to Tabuk, and I don't see Tabuk out the window when I flip the fuel shutoff switches, my job is not done. However, if I did get there, on time and safely, then I'm categorically successful. And I expect other people whose job it is to fuel, fix, transport, and provide room and board to be equally successful.

  Contrast this view of the job with that of a person whose objective is less clearly defined. The billeting situation at McGuire has become emotionally explosive. The base commander made the double-up decision for all crews going off base even when the motels have plenty of extra room. Rules were adopted against that years ago. It's hard to rest when your roommate is restless. His sleep patterns are different from yours. He wants to watch the Saints game while you sleep; you bang around, trying to get your laundry done while he's trying to crash. And besides, we're crammed together enough at the overseas bases and the endless hours in the air. We deserve some relief when we're back here in the land of plenty. So of course we challenged him about the policy. His excuse? In case of a surge operation, he wanted to have extra rooms available. Imagine that: a surge operation. What did he think we were in the middle of, for crying out loud? The only way we could have more of a surge was to build more C-141s and train more crews in, say, the next few days or weeks. Furthermore, did he have those extra rooms blocked? No, of course not. The government would have to pay for that. So his extra rooms were constantly subject to being taken by a Shriners' convention or a cheerleader festival or whatever. The motels were certainly not obligated to hold themwe asked them about it. It seemed like a petty matter, but the double-up policy at our major staging base proved to be about the most explosive and morale-shattering incident that befell us. I saw tempers go ballistic with people whom I knew to be mild mannered and tolerant.

  At another Stateside base we decided to escape for a while, to get away from the Air Force, even if just for a couple of hours. We needed to get off base, to see some normal folks, to eat some quality food and recuperate from the rat race. We pondered how we would achieve this without having to pay taxi fare. Mike Gandy, my loadmaster, stated that George Fondren would have secured a government vehicle for such an excursion. I knew his statement was a not-so-thinly veiled challenge for me. I walked to the base motor pool and asked for a "U-Drive" vehicle. The U-Drive program had been in effect for a while. The theory was that the Air Force had a complement of staff cars and utility trucks at each base, and someone high up had decided that they might as well be used rather than sit idly, although there had to be a legitimate reason for using them. I walked past a row of at least a dozen such vehicles and entered the motor pool building. When I asked for the use of a staff car, the answer was an emphatic no. "Why not?" I asked.

  "Because sir, we can't lend staff cars to flight crews. Crew buses are available to you."

  "Yes, but we've already asked if they'd take us off base and they said no. It's Sunday evening; the clubs are closed; we're tired of chow halls; we want a decent meal tonight. So we'd like to check out a vehicle."

  "Sorry, sir, but it's against our policy."

  "Whose policy?" I asked.

  The sergeant shrugged. "Well, ours, sir, the motor pool's."

  "Whose, in particular?" I pressed. "What's the name? Show me where it's written, please."

  "Well. ." He took a deep breath and cut eyes toward the key rack as he thought hard and formulated his answer. I knew then that I had him. I smiled. George would have been proud of his old protege.

  "There's several out there; we only need a sedan, and just for tonight. Even a truck will do."

  He gave in but saved a measure of face by giving us the smallest, shoddiest station wagon in the pool. As we squeezed into the car, a round of giggling erupted when Jeff Carter quipped that George would have gotten a nicer, bigger vehicle.

  Yet most of our sources of frustration came from the operations sectorlike the time we were sent to the wrong base. We landed at King Fahd Air Base, just northwest of Dhahran. Our cargo of trucks and trailers, we learned, was destined for Dhahran Air Base. Someone had fumbled the ball. Not us. Our orders clearly read King Fahd. We'd done our job. But the ALCE insisted that we load the vehicles back up and fly them over to Dhahran, which was ten minutes' flying time. I argued that the trucks should be driven the thirty-minute drive t
o Dhahran, that it would cost thousands of pounds of extra fuel and hours added to our mission time to fly them over. The report came back over the radio that the colonel had made his decision and that he did not appreciate aircrews trying to run his business.

  It took an hour to round up the trucks from wherever they had gone and reload them back on the Starlifter. Then we had to wait for a slot to become available over at Dhahran. Finally we flew over and unloaded the truckstwo hours after they could have been driven over. But then, while we were waiting for fuel to go back to Spain, we discovered a bad tire, and Dhahran was out of spares. So the ALCE began a search for a tire. First word came that the nearest spare was at McGuire AFB, New Jersey. We were in for a long wait. We began to download our gear. But then they found oneat King Fahd. Thirty minutes later, it arrived on a truck.

  Every war that's been fought is replete with such repugnant displays of obstinacy in the face of threatened pride and ego. And I have come to the conclusion that lieutenant colonelsthough I have become oneare the worst offenders.

  The lieutenants are cautious apprentices. The captains are the most energetic and resourceful of officers, and the majors are the ones who are the most streetwise and in touch with the lower ranks. But lieutenant colonels are a problem. They are the middle managers, mostly in mundane desk jobs, though the Persian Gulf surge had drawn many of them back to the cockpit. They recognize that their careers are on final approach, and they are panicking. They desperately want to make colonel and are mortally afraid of committing an error that will preclude such advancement. So the favorite tactic of the lieutenant colonel is to avoid mistakes by avoiding decision making. Procrastination, consultation, ultraconservatism, and buck-passing is the light colonel's modus operandi. There are exceptions, of course, but if you see a bottleneck, look closely and you'll probably find an LC nearby. Fortunately, most of the full colonels and general officers have achieved their career goals and have a more realistic outlook. And they are ready to act decisively but only if you can get through to them.