by T I WADE
“That’s my girl!” whooped Sally as the usual cloud of dust sprang up from the area in front of the asphalt. Preston reminded himself to get the engineers to extend this runway before they got started on the new tarmac. He could still squeeze out fifty feet of new blacktop from the open areas at each end before reaching his fence line. The second planned runway would run diagonally across the main field and would be 500 feet longer at each end than this extended one once finished. He would have 3,800 feet of runway, enough for the F-4s, he hoped.
There was no real rush. Everyone was dressed for winter on the calm and peaceful morning in North Carolina. The C-130 parked next to the old barn, Jennifer’s usual parking space, and a group dressed in military uniforms walked out of the back together with the Smart family. As is usual with humans, the men and women segregated into two groups to greet each other. In one group were Preston, Carlos, General Patterson, Admiral Martin Rogers, Colonel Mondale, Will and his son Ben, Army General Mark Ward from Fort Bragg, and Colonel Mickiewicz, the Base Commander at Camp Lejeune. In the other group, Jennifer, Maggie and her daughter Oprah went straight up to the group of women waiting to say hello.
Preston noticed that the group of women, with his girl Martie at a little over six feet—a good four inches taller than the rest of them—was an extremely beautiful lot. The girls were all within a few years of age of each other, in their twenties and at the prime of life. Each one had a man in the crowd gathered here and each one was a pilot.
“They need their own Wing,” he stated to Carlos still standing next to him once they had shaken hands with the new arrivals.
“As I said, Preston,” Carlos laughed, “the ‘Tweety Bird Dog Whistle Wing’ of the United States Air Force.” The men hearing this joke for the first time laughed with Preston and the group of women became silent. Ugly looks assailed the male group several feet away.
“Funny you said that, Carlos,” stated General Patterson. “You won’t believe what we found at McConnell Air Force Base in Kansas a day or two ago.”
“Super Tweets?” Carlos and Preston asked together.
“Yep,” replied General Patterson, “six of them, single-seaters though, otherwise they are close copies of the Colombian A-37B you brought back with you. All will be fully operational within a week.”
“Do they have the in-flight refueling points?” asked Carlos.
“As I said, they are close copies so yes, they do, which gives them a valuable combat range for us. They are the AT-37E/STOL version, like yours with the short take-off and landing configurations added. Since they are single-seat models they have more fuel weight for their more powerful engines. Carlos, the J-85-GE-17A model’s a little more powerful than your Colombian version. They are important to us as they can cross the U.S. with in-flight refueling nonstop in ten hours. They are having their directional equipment and modern radar systems exchanged for older ones, which we had kept at McConnell in storage. They are already equipped with a Minigun each. I also asked the armory to look in the old Vietnam-era warehouses at McConnell late last night as I know they have, or had a dozen or more Miniguns taken out of older aircraft as they had been dismantled there over the last couple of decades. We have dismantled many aircraft at McConnell over the years, and of course the Super Tweets were made just a couple of city blocks away at Cessna headquarters in Wichita. I also liked the Tweets and flew them often. They did a great job in Vietnam, but never got any credit for their achievements. General Allen, I believe, kept them alive and in one piece as he enjoyed flying one whenever he visited Kansas.”
“So as the favor you said you owed me, General,” continued Carlos, “could you add another request from me and form the ‘Tweety Bird Dog Whistle Wing’ for the six lady pilots over there? Since they are single-seat, we could use all six aircraft for the girls and the Air Force can get them all prettied out with decals in girly-pink and stuff with say the cartoon, Tweety Bird on the side and the grand lady’s bulldog, I can’t remember his name, but the bulldog could be blowing a dog whistle.”
“Hector,” added Admiral Rogers smiling at the idea.
“Just like the girl pilots in the James Bond film Gold Finger,” added Preston.
“Turn those aircraft into pretty pink-decaled jets for our girls and you won’t owe me anything else, General,” suggested Carlos to General Patterson, smiling a sweet smile. “Get the Tweety Bird cartoon cat, Sylvester decaled on my Colombian one and I will be Wing Commander and work for you for free forever.
“And the seven Gunships, and arming the whole Colombian Air Force for you? What about those favors already asked by you and your extended family?” replied the general, trying to look serious.
“Preston, this is Buck One,” stated Buck’s voice over Preston’s radio. “We are several minutes out and request landing instructions. Over.”
“Thirty five degrees, zero wind and there is a space for Baby Huey in front of the hangar. We are all out on the apron waiting for you. Over.”
“Roger that,” replied Buck.
Baby Huey came in from the north and landed in the space provided. Once the rotor had stopped, the President’s kids jumped out first and rushed over to the Smart kids, now together and waiting for their friends. The President helped his wife out. There were no Secret Service men to be seen, just two armed Air Force soldiers. Buck and Barbara got out of the pilot doors and everyone went over to greet the newcomers.
“Now our six Tweety Pie pilots are together,” stated Carlos to the group of men walking over. “Let’s keep this a secret for now, guys. It will be a rush to see them get their aircraft delivered here. We will need a scheduled day to get everybody here. Air Force pilots from McConnell can fly the newly-painted aircraft in. The girls can use my dual-seat A-37 for training. What do you think, General?”
He nodded. “It will be fun and a new Wing of aircraft would be a good and powerful addition to the current tiny United States Air Force.”
“Joe, David, this is Preston. Your lady friends Pam and Jennifer have arrived and you guys are late. Over,” he stated into his handheld after changing to Joe’s CB radio frequency.
“David and I are coming through your front gate,” replied Joe. “We are in the Saracen and my boys are bringing in two tractor-trailers to help feed the ladies and all those aircraft I’ve heard coming in. Tell Buck he nearly blew off the roof of my shed with his rotors, he was so low.”
Chapter 6
Meeting at Preston’s Airfield – March
Initial greetings over, the crowd regrouped in the hangar for the meeting. Preston did not really know why it was being held, but was glad to have visitors using his airfield again; it had been getting pretty quiet with no visitors.
Preston began, “Good morning, everyone, it seems that Phase Two of our meetings is here at the farm this week. General Patterson ordered this meeting and he can tell you why. My neighbor Joe and family, including friend David, have brought us over some “road kill” they found on the highways over the last week. I hope it’s not real “road kill” so it won’t destroy our flying abilities. Joe, come up here and tell us what you have, and why you brought over your two big BBQs.”
“Hi, y’all. Martie usually insults me when I bring stuff over and this time my friend Preston does it to me. If you can’t trust your neighbors who can you trust?” stated a smiling Joe to much laughter. “Best quality ‘Highway Road Kill’ is quickly running out on the highways, neighbor Preston, and thanks to your trusty neighbors and friends, we can all eat well for another several months. The highways are pretty orderly and we haven’t seen much violence. People are still polite, standing in line and helping each other at dozens of damaged tractor-trailers scattered everywhere. Unfortunately, I think the worst is yet to come as the supplies out there dwindle down. We have been out for several trips now and so far we have brought back two working Bobcats…”
“Those sound delicious!” interrupted Martie, getting in her five cents of insults.
“D
epends how hungry you are, young lady,” Joe replied straight faced. “Those Bobcats will sure come in handy at my farm and you can come over and eat them any time you want!” Joe waited for the laughter to die down. “We also found two full and still frozen reefers of meat, and about forty tons of pre-packed pork and chicken. We thought both trailers had the same contents, but one was pork and one was chicken. I brought one of the reefers here, mixed up the meat into half pork and half chicken and will leave it with you. You still have about three tons of beef, so that should fit in nicely. Like the other reefer outside, this one runs on diesel and the tank needs to be checked every couple of days. We collected one and a half trailer loads of beer; one was a crashed Budweiser truck and the other a Yuengling tractor-trailer which had absolutely no damage, other than it had careened off the highway and was hidden in a forest of trees. Unbelievably, the whole rig, with no driver inside, missed every tree in the forest! The Yuengling trailer is a pretty-colored trailer; you can have the beer, Preston, but I want the trailer. We’ll off-load it sometime in the future. The trailer was totally untouched since it had been in the forest and is three quarters full. I don’t like Yuengling as much as a good Bud, so I will pack the beer in one of my many new trailers and bring it over here. It’s not a reefer, but it is insulated against freezing conditions. I suggest you keep it here in the hangar.” Preston nodded, winking at his friend to thank him.
“How did you know that I’m partial to a Yuengling or two now and again, Joe?” asked the President.
“I didn’t know that, Mr. President, but I will keep it in mind on my highway travels,” replied Joe. “To continue, while driving through a small town somewhere north of Smithfield we found an ABC delivery truck behind an ABC store which had high fences and heavily chained locks. Anyway the truck was dead, but once we broke the chains to get in, the back was full of bottles of booze. There are one hundred and forty boxes of fancy liquor I will load into the trailer with your Yuengling beer, Preston. I will keep the bourbon, moonshine and brandy; you guys can have the fancy Scotch and the other stuff.”
“Is that maybe stealing?” asked Admiral Rogers. “It was in a secure compound, wasn’t it?”
“I would agree with you, Admiral, except that the ABC store itself was empty, semi-burned, still had smoke coming out of it and was totally trashed. People, mostly grownup kids, scattered when we arrived and they would have either torched the truck or broken it open as we did. Nobody had climbed the prison-style fence into the secure rear delivery area by the time we arrived, or maybe they just thought nobody in their right mind would leave a truck full of liquor outside. Anyway, after this lot is finished we may all have to become teetotalers because there won’t be anything left to drink in the beer and liquor department. We also hitched up two Walmart trailers, one nearly empty and one totally full. The full one was on a desolate part of Highway 264 and miles from any town. It was also on an off-ramp and we nearly missed it if it hadn’t been for David’s good eyesight. The trailer is full of supermarket goods, flour, crackers, canned foods and other items Walmart stocks. The other one contained much the same. Tomorrow we will split up the Walmart goods and will deliver a shopping basket to your door, including cans of dog and cat food, Ms. Martie Roebels,” stated Joe sarcastically and bowing to her.
“And pray what is our debt to you, grand knight?” replied Martie in the same tone.
“Last year I would have asked for your hand in marriage, Ms. Roebels, but due to my meeting Ms. Wallace here a month or so ago, I’ll let you off the hook. But there is one thing. I feel pretty left out of this flying stuff and would like some flying lessons in something slow and safe. That way I could travel the highways at a faster speed. Also, I’m thinking that I might have always been jealous of you guys and really wanted to become a pilot. Look at the women pilots around here; they are far better looking than the raggedy old male pilots, and I’m sure more fun.” There was much laughter. “The eighth trailer is full of brand new and working John Deere lawn tractors, America’s new mode of transportation. The ninth trailer is a weird one from Nevada, full of Indian stuff, and I’ll let you ladies unpack that one.
“My boys are lighting the charcoal BBQs and have taken out enough meat for an old-fashioned grill-up for lunch, and due to the weather, all the beers are cold.” Joe got a standing ovation and returned to his seat.
General Patterson walked to the front of the room and began the meeting. “Apart from my two Air Force Base Commanders, Army General Ward and Marine Colonel Mickiewicz from Camp Lejeune, all of you have been in all of the meetings we have had here at Preston’s airfield. Yesterday’s meeting was our information group; today is our planning group and you guys are the think-tank group the President has asked me to put together. There are thirty of you in this room and our mission is to try and stay behind the eight ball, because future events are coming at us from close and far. Lee Wang couldn’t make it today. He and his family flew back to California last night to solve a problem with these Chinese parts. We have teams working 24/7 to get things going again. We don’t know where to start, but it is not up to me to decide what is important. I’m a pilot, not an engineer. We need to discuss what is important for defense and work on future threats to our country. I will ask the President say a few words to you first.”
“Ladies and gentleman, and Joe, who has gone up on my list of important people, started the President in a relaxed mood, “nobody in this country knows what the hell is going on and what the future is going to bring, except more death and destruction. I have no Congress or Senate to worry about for the first time in my administration and I want to get the United States back on track as soon as possible. What goes on in this room stays in this room. I know you military personnel are all different ranks, but at these meetings, you are all as equal as I am, except I must make the final decisions.” He sat down.
Preston looked around the room. The First Lady was sitting and listening closely, as were all the high military brass and civilians who had been here before, but the kids were not in the hangar, nor were the lower-ranking military personnel. The hangar was on lockdown by guards on the outside. Also, Preston noticed, apart from David, everybody was American.
“Some of you have flown outside our borders very recently,” continued General Patterson. “Carlos, come up and tell us what is happening out there, as far as South America is concerned.” The men switched positions.
“We spent only three days in Colombia, so we don’t know much about the world. What I did notice was that poorer populations, shall we say second-world countries, are not as bad off as we think. I did learn that many countries must have more operational Vietnam-era and older weapons and electronics as compared to the USA and the European Block, and maybe even Russia and China. To me, that means that all countries might be of equal standing and have the same arms and munitions. The United States, Russia, the European countries of Germany, France and Great Britain, and China, that had far more modern electronics and depended on them more, are worse off for their dependence on them. The middle-strength nations still have capabilities with their World War II and Vietnam-era aircraft, ships and equipment just as we have, here at Preston’s field. Colombia is far better off than we are here. It’s not so cold and for example, private and commercial kitchen equipment is still working. From this small sample, I estimate that the really poor nations have seen little or no change due to having less modern equipment to fail in their daily lives. I would assume that hospital equipment of all nations would be more modern, such as emergency vehicles like fire engines, ambulances and police vehicles, but to me it seems that all middle-strength nations have increased in strength compared the more powerful nations who have lost more.”
“Does that mean that we might not be one of the most powerful nations in the world any more, and maybe a country like Mexico, Brazil, India or Venezuela could be more powerful than us?” asked the President.
“I don’t think so,” replied Carlos. “I think we have
much more residual strength than many other countries. Yes, we lost more modern technologies than other countries, but the other countries have all lost something,especially communications and knowledge. With our military size, strength and available equipment and supplies, we are in a powerful position to defend ourselves from another country’s attacking force. What is most important is that we have Blue-Water oceans between us and all other potentially powerful nations.”
“So, future invasions or attacks from external forces could come from our southern or northern borders?” the President asked.
“I would think so, and although our satellite feed can help keep eyes on the seas around us, searching for shipping, the satellites won’t see a couple of jeeps driving over our borders, north or south,” Carlos answered. “In Colombia, nobody knows who to trust. One of the major centers of power in Colombia is composed of my five uncles. They control half of the police force, much of the Air Force and Navy, and a good portion of the Army. Many soldiers have deserted, but not in my uncles’ divisions. Admiral Rogers, may I ask you a question? What is the effectiveness of your Navycurrently?”
“Zero,” replied the admiral bluntly. “I’m thinking, like Joe, maybe I should learn to fly.”
“Would three Light Frigates of the Colombian Navy help you if they were loaned to you?”
“In a smaller patrol area, yes,” replied the Admiral. “We currently have six operational Destroyers that are older and more obsolete models and two Submarines. There are another half dozen ships, even Aircraft Carriers, the USS Yorktown in Charleston, South Carolina and the Midway on the West Coast that might be salvageable, but it will take a year to get them up to steam. If I needed to patrol over a certain area, let us say the Caribbean or Gulf of Mexico, three Light Frigates would be a formidable force compared to what we have now. I would say that three ships could treble our naval defense opportunities.”
