Jean had needed a command in an aviation unit and this was the only one available in her specialty, which was aircraft maintenance. She'd had little choice but to accept the job. Although the position was professionally rewarding for her, the separation made both of them miserable. She worked almost every weekend to keep up with the demands of being a company commander, on top of her duties as maintenance test pilot. Since she had taken the command, they had gotten to see each other for only about half of any weekend.
As the train pulled out of Chongyangni Station, Mitchell was contemplating the prospect of another eleven years in the army under such intolerable conditions. He already had nine years in, but somehow, ever since he and Jean had gotten married, an army career just didn't seem that bright any more. He knew that as they both reached higher rank, the number of jobs would become more limited. Therefore, opportunities for them to be assigned together would also be more difficult to find. It was a trade-off he wasn't sure he wanted to make.
Mitchell decided to squelch his negative thoughts and occupy himself more productively. A Korean girl of about three or four was peering at him over the seatback. Mitchell knew that his short blond hair and occidental facial features made him stand out to the Koreans. He stuck out his tongue and she promptly grabbed her mother and pointed at him, yelling excitedly, "Mi-Guk, Mi-Guk" — American.
Mitchell feigned surprise and pointed back at the little girl, saying, "Han-Guk, Han-Guk" — Korean. The girl squealed and stuck out her tongue at Mitchell. The old lady, next to Mitchell, smiled and said something to the mother. The mother passed the girl back to the old lady, who perched the child on top of her bundle on the seat. The rest of Mitchell's train ride was spent entertaining the young girl with a variety of facial distortions and pidgin Korean.
Captain Jean Long was presently six thousand feet above ChunChon conducting a test flight of an OH-58 helicopter. The aircraft had just finished phase maintenance, and it was important to make sure that everything had been put back together correctly.
She sat in the right-hand seat, and a young lieutenant, new to the battalion, sat in the left. Jean liked taking up new lieutenants fresh out of flight school for test flights. It opened their eyes to what was required to check out a helicopter before it could be flown on missions. Sometimes line pilots treated their helicopters like toys, with little consideration for the amount of maintenance needed to keep them flying.
She was getting ready to do one of the more interesting tests. Slowly rolling off the throttle, she watched her N-l indicator until the engine clutch disengaged. The rotor blades, no longer powered by the engine, began to autorotate. That meant the blades were turning free, slowing the aircraft's descent as it plummeted without power. This was an emergency procedure normally used in case of engine failure. Jean knew that the young pilot next to her had done maybe three or four autorotations during flight school. As a maintenance test pilot, she did them almost every day.
She watched as the altimeter unwound, briefly checking the lieutenant out of the corner of her eye. She could tell that he wanted to grab the controls and get the aircraft back under power. She waited until she was sure that the helicopter was working satisfactorily, then slowly increased throttle, slowing the descent. Bringing the aircraft to a hover, she then began the approach to the airstrip at Camp Page. Carefully maneuvering the helicopter down the flight line, she slipped in between two parked Blackhawk helicopters and touched the skids lightly to the ground.
As the blades slowed she turned to the lieutenant. "What do you think? You want to go to maintenance school and become a test pilot?"
The young man shook his head. "Ma'am, it's all yours. I'd rather be in the line unit. We get to fly the real missions."
Yeah, right, Jean thought. What do you think we just did? That's why your knuckles were white from grabbing the side of your seat when I autorotated, she smiled to herself. Another manly man who wanted to do manly things. Thinking about men, her mind turned to her husband, who should be on his way right now. She looked at her watch and shook her head. She had so much paperwork left to do in her office that she doubted she'd be done by the time he arrived.
3
"Set the troops to their tasks without imparting
your designs: use them to gain advantage without
revealing the dangers involved."
Brigadier General Sutton looked over the group of men arrayed in front of him. USSOCOM hadn't brought very many people to run this exercise, he thought to himself. During some joint exercises, Tunnel 3 had been packed with up to forty various commanders and staff personnel, all of them tripping over each other. For Dragon Sim-13, the Tunnel looked almost empty, with just five people from the command at MacDill Air Force Base seated in front of him. The man in overall charge was the deputy commander for USSOCOM, Major General Olson. It was to him that Sutton addressed his inbriefing. "Good morning, General. Welcome to Dragon Sim-13. Before we get started with the briefing that describes what you will be doing over the course of the next week, I'd like to introduce the members of my staff."
Sutton pointed out his people as they were introduced. "Although I'm the head of Strams, as we call the project here, the real brain behind this setup is Doctor Meng. He is also the program chief of the first shift." Meng inclined his head at the guests. "The man in charge of handling all your communications and message traffic is Major Tresome. He's also the second-shift communications chief. Our second-shift program chief is Doctor Wilson. The first-shift communications chief is Master Sergeant Burns.
"As you can tell, very few people are involved in the running of this exercise. There are two major reasons for this." Sutton gestured at the electronic billboard behind him and then at the computer consoles. "The first is that the majority of the exercise is automated and we simply don't need that many people. The second is due to the fact that we are using real war-plan oplans — every mission is highly classified. The fewer people involved the better."
Sutton looked down and slid his notes for the formal inbriefing to the top of the podium. "Gentlemen, you all have copies of USSOCOM contingency oplan Typhoon 17-A. That is the oplan we will be using for Dragon Sim-13."
Sutton looked up at General Olson. "Sir, perhaps you could explain to us, so we're all on the same sheet of music, the significance behind this operational plan and why your staff developed it."
General Olson was a heavyset air force general with a ruddy complexion. He shifted in his seat as he handed off the question. "I'd like my operations man here to answer that. Colonel Moore?"
An army colonel with a Special Forces combat patch on his right shoulder fielded the inquiry. "I'm the assistant operations officer at USSOCOM. Our Typhoon series oplans are contingency and wartime missions for our Special Operations Forces in the Pacific targeted against China. Every special ops unit in the Pacific has various wartime missions allocated to them. The alpha at the end of this oplan signifies that the unit is army. The seventeen means that it is the seventeenth mission assigned to army special operations in the Pacific."