As daylight falls on the airfield, the all-clear horn sounds. Rob and I hurry back to the aircraft, arriving before the rest of the crew. The long cord lies outstretched in front of the jet, headset still attached. Various articles of clothing, tools, and personal gear are strewn around, abandoned. The Starlizzard, still powered by the humming external power cart, sits contentedly without human accompaniment. Shortly the rest of the crew arrives in a breathless frenzy of conversation and falls hurriedly to prepping the jet for departure.
Very quickly we make ready for engine start. I'm sitting in the jump seat, programming the navigation computer while Rob and the pool pilot go through a nervous and hurried cockpit preflight. Glancing out the windscreen toward the maintenance trailers, I'm awestruck to see dozens of gas-masked men scurrying toward the bunkers. The fight is on again. I press the interphone and utter the two words, well recognized by all crewdogs, that signify trouble.
Once again the maintenance van brakes in front of us, and the driver beckons furiously for us to join him, which I hastily do. It seems reasonable to get to a relatively safe bunker rather than be strapped to a tremendous target full of jet fuel. But I quickly realize that I am the only member of the crew on the van; the aircraft is starting engines. The idea of being left behind has no appeal, so I abandon the van, which speeds away as I jump off. I race to the crew door and vault up, pulling the ladder up behind me. Larry slams the door down, and the jet lurches forward as I climb up to the flight deck. Vicious lies later circulate for weeks that I pounded on the closed crew door, begging to be taken in.
We depart what is to become known as Scud City with a multitude of sensations. The report of Israel's atomic attack was bogus, but still, Saddam had made it personal with us now. We will never know how close we came to being casualties. We will joke about it for weeks and take dubious pride in having been involved in the first surface-to-surface ballistic missile attack since World War II and in having been witnesses to the first missile-to-missile engagement in history. The name Patriot will take on an entirely new and lasting meaning for us. And we will listen with fascination to the even wilder and more spectacular Scud experiences of other crews in the weeks that follow. I will watch missile engagements from an airborne advantage. Other crews will fly through such battles, watching the rocket plumes flash by their wings in the night, the detonations lighting the skyscapes about them.
But a few days later, we hear sobering news of a C-5 crew from the New York Air Guard that was dispatched to Dhahran to evacuate the children of American residents. The Scuds came as the children were boarding. The crew quickly herded the children into the bunkers, and as they waited in the darkness, a man appeared in the entrance wearing a full complement of chemical gear. He warned them that a chemical agent was present, and casualties were resulting, then hurried away. The crew quickly pulled on their masks and adjusted the fit but then looked around at the children, who had no protection; their eyes were tearful, and a few were sobbing. Some of the kids clung to the airmen in fright.
Then the crew did the most gallant thing I have ever heard of. They removed their masks and gathered the children around them. Their self-sacrifice could in no way save the kids. But these brave men decided that it was not only preferable but also strangely appropriate that they die with the children.
Later, they learned that there was no gas; the Scuds had conventional explosives only. An airman had suffered an epileptic seizure, which resembles the sinister effects of nerve gas, and thus the alert had been issued.
Although above-average courage is expected of a person in uniform, it remains uncanny to me how America has always been blessed with warriors whose integrity and honor exceed those of the general populace. We joke a lot about that closing statement in Michener's The Bridges at Toko-Ri. Certainly the admiral would be more gender neutral if he cast his rhetorical plea to the sea winds today Still, it's really no joke. Where do we find such men? I don't know. I just thank God we've always had them in abundance.
Fourteen.
Dawn Patrol
Looking like dirty brown cirrus clouds, the normally blue skies overhead are corrupted with ominous, oily mares tails. The sky grows dimmer and greasier to the north, and as we begin our descent into the northern Saudi base at Jubail, we see a long, tarry black line where the horizon ought to be. The Iraqis have set fire to hundreds of oil wells in a despotic act of denial and defiance. Yet I've seen this before. It wasn't on this grand a scale, but it was a desperate struggle under murky skies like these. And it was a different kind of war-one fought right after Viet Nam, for me, and close to home. These smoky skies vividly remind me of one day in that campaign.
The telephone's ring was murderous. My hand fumbled in the dim morning light, trying to find the blasted receiver. I mumbled something and heard the operations dispatcher's pitched voice.
"The Loop's blown up!"
No more talk was necessary. I acknowledged and hung up the phone. It had finally happened. Our territory had been attacked by a vicious and relentless enemy. Attacked at our most vulnerable point. The campaigns of the last few weeks had been skirmishes by comparison.
I rushed to the airfield and dashed into the hangar, switched on the lights, and shoved open the big door. The dawning light spilled into the cavernous structure, bathing the sleeping planes in morning. I trotted over to the winged mongrel, picked it up by the tail handle and heaved it out backward. It was like pulling an unwilling dog out of his house by the hind legs. I could almost feel the wings stretching around behind me, rubbing sleepy windshield eyes.
"Naw, go away. lt's too early for this, man," whispered the Cub. I answered it as I strained to drag the main wheels over the hangar door tracks. "Gotta go, Buddy. Today's the big one. The Loop blew last night."
I ran through a quick preflight of N29FC, the 1952 model Piper Super Cub. She was a simple airplane, built of aluminum tubing covered with fabric, doped, and painted a shade of puke green, a 150horsepower Lycoming under her cowling and an old tube radio with a single frequency mounted in her wing root. "ALA FORESTRY COMM." was painted boldly under her wings.
The familiar sour, pungent odor of old fabric airplanes filled my senses and roused my spirit as I strapped on the Cub and primed the engine. The craft fit me well. It was good to sit centerline again and to have a stick control instead of the wimpy wheel that I had become accustomed to. I flipped the two magneto switches, which clicked with an irreverent loudness in the early silence of the airfield. Then I cracked the throttle and engaged the starter.
The starter motor sang. The prop swung. One revolution. Two. The engine coughed, shuddered, died. But still the prop swung to the starter's strained song.
Then came that explosion of the engine bursting into life, that blessed awakening of this noble creature. My heart soared at the engine's rumble and the sight of the prop blurring, then disappearing. A shudder ran through the airframe from nose to tail, like that of a dog shaking off a douse, as the heavy prop induced its torque.
I nudged the throttle and leaned to the side, peering ahead as the little tail-dragger rolled out. I taxied fast, checking the magnetos and flight controls as I went; there was no time to waste. The battle was raging, and I had a twenty-minute flight to reach it. I checked the final approach for traffic and took the runway, ramming the throttle home and walking the rudder pedals as the Cub surged ahead. Almost immediately, I applied forward pressure on the stick. The tail lifted and the Cub scurried ahead on its two main wheels. One quick glance inside and I saw that the speed was fifty knots. Enough. I eased off the forward pressure, brought the stick back slightly, and we were airborne. And what a glorious word it is: airborne, born of the air, born once again, renewed, refreshed-sweet release.