Afterburners

by William Robert Stanek

  In the air I was part of the back-end crew. I worked as a mission crew supervisor or as a senior mission specialist, depending on the duty. On the Hot Sheet for the next week was a mobility exercise. Chief Hancock’s handwritten note asked for me specifically. I scheduled a different mission crew supervisor for the mobex anyway. I’d just been away for 5 weeks. My wife wouldn’t understand why I had to go off again, especially when I was the one running scheduling.

  Then I got to thinking about the Washington brass and their small-minded view of Electronic Warfare. EW platforms were like stealth bombers. Bureaucrats recognized the value of planes that were invisible to radar but often couldn’t justify the expense. And while they might be willing to pay for stealth fighters, stealth bombers at 2 billion and change each seemed way over the top—even if it meant the U.S.A. could get first strike.

  I wasn’t about to let them win. Like the chief, I had something to prove to the Washington brass. I penciled myself back in as the MCS for the mobex. No matter what Katie said, it’d be easier explaining to her why I had to go away for two weeks than trying to explain to Chief Master Sergeant Hancock why I shouldn’t go.

  The old chief was married to his job and the military. He didn’t understand what it was like to be a newlywed; or if he did, his memories of those days some thirty years ago just weren’t as clear as they once were.

  “Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” is what the chief would say, if he said anything at all. My usual response of “or indifferent” would get a chuckle but wouldn’t really be heard. The chief wanted the best crewers on critical missions and I was one of the best—fortunately or unfortunately.

  Ten hours later, I was home, sitting in front of an ever-filling screen, pounding away at the keyboard, waiting for my wife to come home. I had a box of manuscripts that I was consistently piling higher and higher. Tom Petty was playing on the radio, and I stopped pounding the keyboard briefly to jot down a few notes in my journal and sip at my beer, a Bischoff. Then I turned back to the computer screen.

  Katie came home from work at 19:30. We made supper, made love, talked about the away mission—in that order—and the order of the events is what pissed Katie off.

  It was a typical Wednesday, ending with Katie slamming the bedroom door in my face and my sleeping on the couch.

  August 1990

  04:00 came way too early. I showered, ate, and was out of the house by 05:00. I had an 05:45 show, 3 hours of pre-brief, 9 hours of flight time, and 2 hours of post-brief to look forward to. It was a Thursday. This was going to be an average day as fly days go.

  Wednesday’s flight had been a No-Go, so today’s flight was a Gray Warrior—in-flight training for chemical warfare. I lugged my chemical protective gear out of the car, entered ops and went straight to Life Support. I dropped my gear next to the O2 station, then preflighted my oxygen mask and helmet.

  At 05:29, I touched my thumb to the scanner on the secure vault door outside the flight briefing room. I remembered to slap on my green badge as the door closed behind me with a dull thud and a click.

  Check-in went quick. I initialed the flight orders next to my typed name while looking over the info to make sure it was correct. Then I sat down for the short wait.

  By 05:45, the pilot, copilot, navigator, and engineer were present as were the eight mission crewers. The only one missing was the air maintenance technician. The AMT, Sergeant Martin “Crow” Endwick, was prone to being late; and true to form he showed up flashing his hang-loose sign three minutes later. In crew time, late is late, whether it’s seconds or minutes.

  “You got beer after wheels down,” I whispered into his ear, slapping him on the back. It was a crew dog rule: late to fly, first to pay.

  Mission Planning for the flight, a standard training profile with the inclusion of chemical gear practice, didn’t take long. We’d wear our plastic bags to and from the plane, all right.

  We were waiting to fly when the messages started coming in. Iraq was invading Kuwait. At the time, the thirteen of us sitting in the ready room didn’t think much of it. Our concerns were centered on the flight and the mission ahead.

  The invasion of Kuwait progressed rapidly. Most of their units were caught in garrison, having been pulled back from defensive postures. No Arab nation believed an Arab would attack another Arab nation. In the end, Kuwait didn’t mount much of a defense at all. Iraq would have its prize in less than three days. That day, the thirteen of us departed on time, plastic bags and all.

  Five days later, early in the morning on Tuesday, August 7, some of us would be sitting in the same ready room waiting to fly. Over the weekend a lot had transpired. The fourth largest army in the world, the Iraqi war machine, had just stepped on a nuisance; and they had crushed it in less than three days.

  King Fahd of Saudi Arabia feared the next step might take Iraqi forces into Saudi Arabia; and on Saturday, August 4, he had called for U.S. military advice. Our intelligence indications supported his fears; Iraqi forces were setting up in a defensive posture along the Kuwait-Saudi Arabia border. President Bush had already agreed to send forces to the Gulf; the only thing he needed to do it was to get the approval of King Fahd. The matter was a delicate one, handled aptly by a delegation headed by Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney that included a number of high-level VIPs and General H. Norman Schwarzkopf.

  By Monday afternoon Germany time, the United States was committed to the defense of Saudi Arabia, which would lead to Operation Desert Shield and ultimately to Operation Desert Storm.

  This day we didn’t fly though we did follow the incoming messages rather closely.

  U.S. and allied troops began arriving with regularity in Saudi Arabia. Within a week, five fighter squadrons and a brigade of the 82nd Airborne were poised for defense. For those of us at the tiny air base in Germany, the waiting game had begun only we didn’t know it yet.

  Over that next week, I watched three of our team go. They were Farsi and Arabic language specialists. Things were heating up in the Gulf; but for those of us that remained it was business as usual—well, almost business as usual. For a time we didn’t fly. For a time afterward we flew less and less. I thought about those in the Gulf a lot. The desert sands seemed somewhat closer though still very far away.

  September 1990

  September was pretty uneventful. The days faded one into the other and are gone from my memory. Katie and I managed to get away for a few days, taking a long drive out into the German countryside. The castles along the Rhine River are strikingly beautiful and somewhat eerie in their majesty.

  October 1990

  Flight bag in hand, I entered ops and looked around. It was rather deserted for the middle of the morning.

  “All flights have been cancelled for today,” warned the Watch Officer from behind his desk, “you should check in with the chief.”

  “Check in with the chief?” I asked. The Watch Officer shrugged his shoulders. Needless to say, I double-timed it to the DO’s office.

  “Morning, Chief, what’s up?” I asked.

  “Ah shit, guess no one got hold of the crew that was flying today!” There was something about the way the old chief said it that made me chuckle. He was the only chief I knew who flew every chance he got. The major looked up from his desk. He didn’t say anything; he just sort of smiled. To him, it was just old Jimmie being himself.

  “Guess not.” I replied.

  “Get on down to Life Support and fit a chemical mask. Then head over for mobility processing at the hangar across the lot.”

  “Real world?” I asked.

  “Real world. Mobex is just a prep; but you’ll need your shot records, tags, and your gear. Should be in your bag anyway, right?” Old Jimmie looked up at me and I sort of nodded.

  Just then, I noticed a brand-new bulletin board behind him with lists of names arranged by crews. My name was in position six on crew three. “Position 6?” I asked.

  “We need the best ops on 6 and 7. You’re it. Got it?�
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  I nodded agreement, didn’t think much more of it at the time as I headed out the door posthaste.

  In a few minutes I was sucking filtered air through a real-world chemical mask while the life support technician fitted it up and showed me how to use it properly—like I didn’t already know how. But this one was different from the one I was used to; it wasn’t stamped: TRAINING USE ONLY. I’d never really cared before if the seals fit just right. I did then.

  By the time I got into the mobility processing line, it stretched all the way to the back of the hangar. Happy, Topper, Popcorn, Cowboy, and a few other crew dogs were also at the end of the line, mixed in with a large group of ground-support personnel. They had arrived a few minutes before me and under similar circumstances. We all would have preferred flying.

  It didn’t take long to get to the front of the line. We passed the time listening to Happy’s anecdotes. By now a number of crewers had piled into the line behind us. I saw Able and Tommy. You couldn’t miss them. Several others—who were all good friends—including Chris, PBJ, Mike and Captain Willie, were behind them.

  Able was spouting off as usual. “You believe this f’ing shit,” he was saying. Tommy wasn’t helping to calm him down but was cheering him on.

  All I heard of the remainder of their conversation was a string of f-words as I reached the front of the line. Personnel was first with emergency data cards. The cards covered whom to contact in case of emergency, next of kin, and what not. I had one typed. Then came the Security police with ID cards and dog tags. I got a new set made. Afterward the base legal team was there to make powers of attorney and wills. I didn’t think I’d need either of those, so I moved on to the Chaplain and Finance. Immunization was through a door and across a hall. I got four shots. Two in each arm.

  The mobex prep was a rather rude awakening; and about the time the fourth needle pushed into my arm, something I’d neglected to see the importance of clicked. I was on launch crew three and yet the official word was that our unit was still to remain in place. We would not be going to the Gulf, or so the buzz in the mobility line went.

  After the mobility exercises, two weeks passed quietly, yet that morning when I entered the ops building at 07:15 it was buzzing. A crowd had gathered around the DO’s office and there sitting in one of the chairs across from the chief was a man so tanned that I hardly recognized him. He looked like a sun-wrinkled prune. Lost weight, too, I could tell. One of our guys had come home. It was October 15th.

  He was being bombarded by a never-ending onslaught of questions. “How was Saudi?” “Did you get to Riyadh?” “How was the desert?” “What was it like?” “Was it hot?” “What does the situation look like?”

  He was a celebrity, our local expert. He’d been there; we hadn’t. Yet the questions were all about the same thing. We all wanted to hear someone say it—anyone besides the newscasters and the second-guessers. It being the only question no one asked, “Do you think there’ll be war?”

  I stood gawking for about fifteen minutes then went to work, business as usual—well almost business as usual. That day I went home for lunch and ate with my wife, Katie. We didn’t have to talk about Saudi, the Gulf, or the possibilities. We had only to turn on CNN and it spoke for us.

  November 1990

  We didn’t have the traditional Thanksgiving fare that year. It wasn’t a well-roasted turkey we pulled steaming out of the oven. We had baked sweet potatoes, corn bread, pumpkin pie, and all the usual. But the main course was ham. Try something different, I had told Katie.

  The neighbors from one floor up joined us. He was an air maintenance technician, a fellow crew dog, and his wife was a good friend of my wife.

  The beer of choice after dinner, sitting on the couch watching the inevitable football game, was Bischoff, similar to the Budweiser I would have guzzled if I were at home in the good old U.S. of A.

  Quite a few of our activities at work were directed at preparations for a probable deployment. The possible had become the probable although the official word was still a definitive no.

  Some 250,000 allied troops had been deployed to the Gulf by then.

  December 1990

  At first glance the sleek gray-painted lady before me looked like any standard C-130 used for transport. But as you came closer, the rear antenna array told you she was different. She was unique.

  I clambered up the entry way and went through the crew entrance door, taking care not to smack my head on the upper metal lip that was a few inches too low for me even as I hunched over. The interior lights were still off and the cabin was dark and silent.

  I groped my way to position six and set my gear down beside the seat. Other than my normal gear, a helmet bag, and an A-bag, I had two extra bags this day. I waited for the external power hookups to kick in and for the AMT to turn on the interior lights. I was eager to get airborne, very eager.

  Seconds later I heard the distant hum of the external power-set kick in. The overhead lights were brought up. The AMT opened the rear ramp and door, negating the need for the overhead lights.

  I waited my turn to stow my extra bags in the rear behind the racks. As I did so, I took a long look up the belly of the Lady. The cockpit was that of a standard C-130 with positions for pilot, copilot, navigator, and engineer. Behind the Nav’s position was the forward bunk and above that the forward escape hatch.

  It was behind station 245 that the Gray Lady really expressed her differences. Her belly was dissected by one main aisle that ran from aft to stern lined on both sides by an array of high-tech gear that filled her insides and weighed her down with thousands of extra pounds.

  Behind the station 245 wall dividing the cockpit from the mission compartment was the emergency oxygen shut-off valve, a fire axe, and an extinguisher. Immediately behind that the tall racks housing the eight mission crew positions began. In front of the racks were eight high-backed flight chairs. The chairs swiveled to face the positions, but that’s about all they did. They looked deceivingly comfortable, but all they were was cold steel and old foam cushions.

  Each position within the two long racks that ran to the mid-section, four to a side, had its array of high-tech gadgetry. On the starboard side near the center hatch, a single position stood all by itself. This was the air maintenance technician’s position. Opposite it was an empty space where spare equipment was usually stowed. Also where most of the emergency medical kits were stored. Behind the AMT’s position were two more rows of equipment, housed neatly in racks. This was the heart and soul of the great Lady. Yet with all her electronic gadgetry turned down, she still looked deceptively innocent, at least to me.

  I opened my flight crew checklist to the Preflight Checklist as I had a hundred times before. Following procedure, I ran my fingers across the equipment racks in front of me. I gave them the usual tugs then sat down. After wadding up a set of foam earplugs, I stuffed them into my ears. The whine of the four turboprop engines was unnerving, and in the long-term damaging. There were a few, though, that had been flying for a very long time. They didn’t need the plugs anymore.

  Headset on, I readied my communication panel, pulling out all the appropriate knobs from a seemingly daunting array of knobs and switches. The knobs were for listening to chatter on a particular channel. The channel selector let me talk on a given channel when I keyed my mike.

  The knob marked PA was for the ship’s loudspeaker; only the front-end could talk on PA. Ship’s Interphone was for cockpit comms and comms to the front-end. Private A was the mission crew commander’s channel. We used it to pass targeted signals to the MCC. Private B was the mission crew’s channel and for comms to the mission crew supervisor. Listen let me hear Flight Crew Hot comms, which, when pulled, activated my microphone without my having to key it. It was used for emergencies. Select was like a dial-in telephone switching bank for general chatter. There were others for out-of-ship comms.

  Mouthpiece in place, I called out, “One, Six, interphone checks.” No reply. On
e was still busy with her oxygen regulator and helmet. “MCS, Six, interphone checks.”

  The mission crew supervisor’s reply came into my headset loud and clear. We ran through the channel list: Flight Crew Hot; ship’s Interphone; the Privates: A and B, Listen, and Select.

  I gave the thumbs up sign to the MCS and waited for the others on the crew to check in and do the same.

  A few minutes later the MCS called out, “MCC, MCS, preflight checks complete. Mission crew ready for Before Starting Engines Checklist.”

  “Roger, MCS,” responded the MCC. He then relayed to the navigator that the mission crew was ready to go.

  I could hear the front-end chatter in my ears amidst a chorus of other voices. They were just finishing up their preflight checks.

  “Crew, Before Starting Engine Checklist. Loose articles stowed. Oxygen 100 percent.” There were a number of responses, but by now I was only half listening. I was keying in on Tower, waiting for them to give us taxi and take-off clearance. “Crew, Before Starting Engine Checklist complete.”

  The copilot gave a quick brief, then the AMT pulled the chocks from under the wheels and tossed them in behind the racks. I knew this because they landed with a thunk just as the number three engine was whining to a start.

  “Crew, four engines green.” The engines whined a little louder as the pilot checked forward and reverse thrust and the brakes.

  Taxi went quick. The gate was already open when we got to it, allowing us entrance to the runway. Once the pilot readied, he began the before takeoff checks.