Within the alert area, where the bombers sit poised and loaded for the final war, the security is intense. Even the crew members who work there daily must prove their right and need to be there a hundred times a day. No one strolls idly around the bombers. You must have a purpose to be there.
Each aircraft has its own personal guard. No one gets within fifty feet of the bomber without proper authorization and recognition. And there are guards who watch the guards. And another echelon behind that one to watch the watchers. Trust is not a given here.
On a dark fall night, the guard on alert sortie number three walked his post by the giant bomber. The aircraft was lit by stadium lights high above the ramp, but the structure of the huge bomber blocked the light in many areas. The aircraft was wreathed in shadows.
The airman paced the line around the bomber, constantly alert, his eyes sweeping the darkness. It might seem to be a dull job. But SAC did a lot to prevent boredom from being a player in nuclear security.
The young man knew that his movements were constantly being watched and evaluated. Many agencies were given the job of testing the security he provided. Any of those could suddenly attempt to penetrate his area to gauge his ability. Punishment for failing to pass these tests was immediate and painful. Any member of this elite force who failed could find himself the exact opposite of his profession: a prisoner.
Sweeping his area of control, the security policeman paced the line. Suddenly, his eyes registered movement from the periphery of a large shadow. He rushed to the point of the aircraft boundary, charging his weapon as he ran. Even if it was a test, he must react as if it were the real thing. The evaluators would identify themselves before he could use any of that deadly force.
But it wasn’t a test. High above the alert area, in a darkened control tower, the next echelon of security scanned banked monitors of television screens. The low-light cameras covered every square inch of the compound. Just to make sure that the cameras missed nothing, a guard paced the catwalk outside the tower, watching everything through high-powered binoculars.
Suddenly the attention of these overseers was riveted to the area of sortie number three. The muffled popping coming from that area wouldn’t have meant much to an untrained observer. Certainly not the end of the world. But that’s how the guardians above the aircraft took it.
Immediately, sirens rang out. Both men were on their radios alerting all agencies and all security police on the base. Calls went out to a different part of the airfield. A helicopter, on twenty-four-hour alert, started its engine with a bang and a whine. The pilot pulled it off the ground and swung violently toward the alert facility as the last armed soldier clambered aboard.
All over the base, high-ranking officers were running for their vehicles. With red lights flashing, they converged on the heart of the base.
Everyone was responding to the same message. Everyone was reacting to the same rush of adrenaline that accompanied the words.
“Shots fired! Shots fired in the alert facility!”
It is safe to say that an army was converging on that contested part of the Air Force base. And they converged with grim determination. For a prime directive was that atomic weapons would not be damaged, destroyed, or removed from the control of the Air Force, regardless of the cost.
There would be no exceptions.
The advance arm of the protectors approached the line around alert sortie three very cautiously. Attempts had been made to reach the guard responsible for that zone. There had been no response to repeated radio calls.
The senior noncom, a Vietnam veteran, signaled to the forces arrayed behind him to stay put. He crawled forward to the side of the bomber opposite from where the shots had come. Looking under the nose of the silent bomber, he could see the form of the guard lying on the ground. He could tell that the young man was in a defensive posture, with his weapon pointed into the shadows behind the bomber.
“Hey, kid, this is Sergeant Stander. What have you got out there?” The sergeant’s words were delivered in a calm, soothing tone. He didn’t want to startle the heavily armed and obviously frightened airman.
“I… I don’t know. I don’t know what I got, Sarge,” came the shaky reply. “It’s out there, though. I know it’s out there.”
“Permission to approach your post?” said the sergeant. Formality was required in security situations.
“Permission granted,” came back to him from the young cop. “But be careful. He’s still out there.”
The NCO whispered into his radio, then crawled the short distance to the prone airman.
Before he could ask, the airman blurted out his observations.
“He was right over there. Behind the tail of number four. He was on a horse, a big one, a white one. He looked real white, too. Just riding up there on the edge of the pad like this was some damned circus show. All those feathers in his hat, he looked like something out of a history book. I yelled at him and I know he heard me cause he looked right at me. But he didn’t halt. He just kept riding behind the other airplane. I think I got him. I let him have it with about ten rounds. I must have hit him.“
The sergeant was listening to this recitation with evergrowing disbelief on his face. He finally interrupted the litany with a question of his own.
“You mean to tell me that you were shooting at an Indian? A big white Indian with feathers, on a big white horse?”
“Yeah, yeah, I know it sounds weird, but that’s what it was.”
The airman was intent on surveying the dark for the return of his nemesis. He didn’t see the sergeant slip his handgun from its holster. He pointed the barrel at the head of the young man. He would give him one chance to surrender his weapon. But then, no nuclear weapon can ever be endangered, whatever the cost. And the young security policeman had just become expendable.
“Just move your hands away from your weapon, real slowly,” the sergeant started, when suddenly he saw movement in the darkness.
The horse glided silently from behind the neighboring bomber. It glowed with a reflected light that came from nc earthly source. Its rider glowed palely from the same source. The tall Indian turned slowly to regard the two men lying on the concrete. He watched them for a long moment, but no expression crossed his face. Then he raised one hand in a gesture of recognition usually reserved for fellow warriors. The horse moved forward of its own volition and the pair faded from view.
Officially the incident was classified as an accidental discharge of an automatic weapon. Many of the young policeman’s peers were curious about the circumstances of the incident. Weapons had been known to discharge accidentally before, but the airman in charge had always been severely punished for the accident. This airman was not even reprimanded. His story of the events of the evening was never formally put into writing. But informally the story made the rounds. What made the fantastic story even more fantastic was the senior sergeant’s refusal to say anything about the night in question.
Only one other time did the events of that night replay themselves in somewhat like fashion. A bomber crew was leading a three-ship group of bombers out of the parking area for a night launch. As they taxied down the dark strip of concrete to the runway, they came abreast of the Alert facility.
Suddenly the lead ship came to a halt in the middle of the taxiway. The crews in the planes behind the stalled bomber made repeated calls to their lead ship, but they received no answer.
Finally the supervisor of flying called lead to ask what was the problem.
“A… SOF… we’ve got a malfunctioning gauge here. Would you send out maintenance?”
After the mission was flown the crew was questioned about the so-called malfunction. No problem had been found when the maintenance personnel arrived. And the mission flew without a hitch. The entire crew testified that the gauge had been malfunctioning. That was a little strange in itself, because only the pilot and copilot should have been able to see the gauge from their crew positions. No one thought to ask wha
t the whole crew had been doing in the front of the cockpit.
And, when questioned unofficially by other crew members, the crew remained adamant about the events of that night. They saw the gauge. It wasn’t working. That was the only reason they stopped. They didn’t stop for some guy on a horse. Some guy who looked like an Indian chief. Some guy who was all white. Some guy who vanished while they were all watching him. Nope, that’s not the way it happened. Just ask the aircraft commander. We only stopped because the gauge was broken.
Before the bomber taxied at Grand Forks, and before the bombs were built, and before the base was even built, this part of North Dakota was a desolate place. It was not even well loved by the Indians who had to live there. In fact one tribe referred to it as “the place that’s not any good to walk across.“
Why then would the spirit of an ancient warrior choose this particular spot to haunt?
Maybe there’s another line of protection for the terrible weapons at Grand Forks. A last line.
THE WELCOMING COMMITTEE
THE best thing about a military life is probably the traveling. It’s strange that it is also the worst thing about military life. Being uprooted on a regular basis leaves scars on the soul. Finally there comes a time when you say enough. I will live here and move no more. That decision comes to all of us eventually. Usually it comes before it’s too late. Usually—but not always.
Over the hill and around the bend, the headlights pick out the start of the town—the new town. The buildings are bathed in bleak moonlight. They look faded, strange, wrong somehow. All of the requirements are met. Everything that is necessary to make a town is there, and yet. It’s wrong, all wrong. The gas station sells the kind of gas you buy but it’s laid out wrong. It’s on the wrong side of the street. The grocery store you just passed looks adequate but different, forbidding maybe. You’ll never get used to shopping there. Not after the pleasant store you left behind in the other town.
Here and there, in spite of the late hour, you see people. People walking, people driving. All strange, all wrong. Ax murderers and deviants all of them.
The town thins and then is gone and you’re left with the road and just a sign that says, “Airbase” and points rudely ahead. In your mind you sigh and then start when you hear it echoed aloud.
It’s too late for your daughter to be up, but there she is at the rear window of the car. She clutches her Boobear and watches the town, new town, recede in the distance. You know that what she’s really seeing is the old town, the old home, the old friends, now left behind. This new town is a poor imitation of home, strange and frightening.
Finally the journey is over. Here’s the main gate to the new base. You wanted the long trip to end a couple of days ago and now that it has, you’re not so sure. It means the comfortable old base that you knew so well is relegated to the status of memory. You just killed it by driving onto the new base, your base now. Have to call the old home “Base X” from now on. Just a bunch of memories of a place that has no real texture any more.
Directions. Turn here, right there, through this light, past this stop sign. Nighttime makes it even more of a maze. All purposeless direction and no sense. Is this right or should I have turned there? Each landmark is just a thing, not yet THE bank or THE store or THE gym, but just a bunch of places. It’s so lonely pulling up, tearing roots loose, going, leaving, moving.
This is it. Look, they call it a hotel. Is that quaint or is it pretentious? Must be the latter but have to be fair. Everything seems pretentiously inept when you’re not a part of it. Nothing to feel proud of because nothing belongs to you, yet.
Your weary bunch piles out of the car, still vibrating to the rhythm of the road. Muscles tingle and creak as you enter the office.
Everyone stands huddled in a pool of light, the only warm spot in the strangeness of this room. The clerk reluctantly notices your group and tears himself away from the quiet television.
“Name?” he greets you.
“Ah… Simms… Joe Simms… Sergeant Simms, with two m’s.”
“Orders?”
“Yeah, here. We just got here from…”
“Reservation?”
“What?”
“Do you have a reservation?”
“Oh, yes, yes, our sponsor made it for us.”
“I’ll check.”
Rude, but have to give him the benefit of the doubt. Probably a pretty boring job. After all, he’s just a clerk, not a welcoming committee.
“Sign here and here. The TLQ is at the end of Fourth. Take this street two blocks, left at the stop sign, then right at the light. Building 208. No pets. One week maximum. Clean towels over there on the table.”
You collect your towels and head for the door, trying to remember the directions.
“Welcome to Griffiss Air Force Base.”
Everyone turns to say thanks for a pleasant word finally, only to see that he’s gone back to the television. Gotcha. A sarcastic greeting is worse than none at all. Always someone who can’t stand a place. You hope for the best. This will be a good assignment, just as good as the last one; maybe even better.
Building 208 is there but it doesn’t seem to be at the end of the directions. Must have misunderstood. You found it anyway so, no sweat.
The parking lot is full of strange cars with a profusion of different plates in a wide variety of colors. They look like pushcarts from old pictures of immigrants, stuffed full of the junk that is necessary to start a new life. They are soiled with the mud of many roads all converging on this strange new place.
At the door, there’s an envelope tacked by the bell. You open it after you put your little one in the single bed by the window, already asleep. She stayed up long enough to confirm her certainty that this would be a bad place. She sleeps fitfully, dreaming of the home that’s now someone else’s home and the friends that are just letters and pictures.
The envelope unfolds a ray of sunlight in this dismal process called moving. It’s from your sponsor and it’s a genuine welcome from someone who went out of his way to understand.
It ends on a happy note.
“You guys are really in luck. Went by the housing office yesterday to check on your position on the wish list. Guess what. They have a house for you to look at already. Somebody canceled out or passed on it or something and you got moved up. Usually takes a couple of months to snag a place here. The town doesn’t have much in the way of rentals. Must be an omen. You guys are going to love it here.
Give me a call tomorrow morning after you get a good rest. I’ll take you over to see the place.”
Moves in the military are a way of life. They are accepted and expected. And in spite of this forewarning they are still one of the most painful things about being a soldier. To be sure, Uncle Sugar pays for everything when he moves you. But you always come up short. You always lose. You lose friends, you lose places, and you lose a sense of belonging that takes longer to get back each time.
The military takes some of the trouble out of moving by providing you help along the way and a home when you get to your new base.
Base housing is a good deal but, contrary to civilian belief, it’s not free. You lose your housing allowance, a lump sum from your salary that may make the house a good deal or a bad deal depending on off-base housing prices at your new location. And you’re always reminded that the house belongs to the government. You are only borrowing it for a while. And you better take real good care of the government’s building.
The morning sun burns away the shadows and some of the strangeness goes with it. You meet your sponsor, a nice guy who was in the same boat as you a couple of months ago. He can still remember and understand the disorientation caused by moving. He goes out of his way to show you around and point out the nice things about the new base.
It’s all still too new to be home. Everything still suffers by comparison but some of that is starting to fade. When you get to the house your good fortune goes a long way toward setti
ng things to rights.
The house is beautiful even if it is Air Force. It’s more than you expected. Usually the houses on a base tend to be duplexes, and triplexes and even quadruplexes, all the same and all pushed together. You have lived in the worst and always seemed to be able to make the best of it. Neighbors help, probably because of shared adversity.
But now, here is a separate, one-family building that looks amazingly like a normal house. How did you get so lucky? How indeed?
In the days that followed, you and your family stay busy with the thousands of things that need to be done to get a new household started. The moving company is called to deliver the furniture. The furniture that fit so well in the last home refuses to go into this one. Everything must be moved around and changed and experimented with until the angle looks just right, or at least all right for now.
You have to get used to work. Your family has work to do also. They have to find the grocery store and the best way to get to the Exchange. They have to track down stores and schools and banks and telephone offices and gas stations. But during all the running around and searching and hunting, the process of turning this house into a home is taking place.
After the second week the house is starting to become your home. A neighbor stops by to welcome you and your wife.
“See by your license that you were stationed at Base X. We were too. Seems like a thousand years ago. This place is just as good. Better, in some ways.”
Then, in what seems like a more cautious tone, “How do you like the house?” It doesn’t seem to be just a polite question. She is very interested in the answer.
Your wife, somewhat bewildered by the way the question is asked, nevertheless can’t help but exclaim about the wonderful house and your good fortune in getting it.
“Yeah, well, I hope you stay longer than the last bunch. They decided real sudden to move downtown.”
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