Chains of Command

by Dale Brown

  First Lieutenant Mark Fogelman seemed amused by the egg on her face, and Furness wished she could kick him in the balls for wearing that damned grin during open-ranks inspection. Hembree cast an angry look at Fogelman’s deployment bag and gave him and Furness a stern, warning look, then moved along. It was obvious that he knew Fogelman didn’t have all his gear, and he was silently telling both of them that he knew, but he chose not to put them in a brace about it. That would come later.

  “Major Furness, at eleven-thirty A.M. you will brief me on the contents of Air Force reg 35-10 regarding personal grooming standards,” Hembree snarled after he finished inspecting Bravo Flight. “Most of your people don’t seem to know what those standards are, and since there seem to be so many violations of those standards in your flight, I assume it’s because you aren’t familiar with them. You will also personally ensure that your troops have complied with those regulations. If they have not complied by tomorrow’s inspection, you will lose a half day’s training for each violation. Is that clear?”

  It was clear—and extremely severe. But Furness answered, “Yes, sir.”

  He finished the inspections for Bravo and Charlie flights quickly, finding one WSO’s deployment bag missing a pair of long underwear and nearly throwing the bag out into the hallway in disgust. He went through the crew chief’s ranks with the same zeal, this time venting his displeasure at Master Sergeant Tate, his NCOIC, when he found a discrepancy.

  “I want another inspection before this week is over, and this time if I find one discrepancy in a deployment bag, I’m sending the offender out in the street,” Hembree warned. “This unit will be fully combat ready by the end of this week or I’ll recommend that Fifth Air Battle Force stand this entire squadron down. Our job is deployment, people, and if you’re not ready to deploy when you have five days to get ready for it, how the fuck are you going to do it when the call comes in the middle of the goddamned night? Jesus Christ, I will not stand for it! I want performance, I want perfection, or I’ll shit-can everybody. Is that clear?” Wisely, no one replied. Hembree scowled silently at the entire squadron for a few more seconds, then snapped, “Major Jamieson, take over—if you can.” Major Jamieson called the squadron to attention, but Hembree was already out the door.

  They spent a few minutes going over the results of the open-ranks inspection. Mark Fogelman and Paula Norton had been written up for 35-10 violations, and Norton had also been written up for not wearing cold-weather gear for the inspection—she wore a regular cotton T-shirt instead of turtleneck thermal underwear. Furness had Fogelman empty his deployment bag, then turned to Paula Norton. Long hair had to be off the collar while in uniform; she had left two thick strands hang down on each side of her head: “Paula, what gives? You forget how to pin your hair up?”

  “Hey, what’s with the old man these days?” Norton asked by way of a reply. “He’s really got a bug up his ass.”

  “Forget about the Colonel and fix your hair,” Furness said angrily, “unless you want to get kicked out of the program just because some hair is out of place. You know the regs. Why push it? And where’s your cold-weather gear?”

  “Hell, the Colonel never checked us that close before,” Norton sneered. “Usually he checks out my chest and moves on. Did the guy swear off women or what?” Paula Norton was young, blonde, and beautiful, with bright blue eyes and a full, rounded figure. Men of all ages and ranks felt so self-conscious staring at her, especially during an open-ranks inspection while standing at attention, she usually received only cursory glances up close. Hembree was obviously not so distracted this time. “Besides, we just change out of thermals right after the inspection for PT.”

  “So you thought you’d get ahead of the program by showing up for a winter inspection in a T-shirt?” Furness asked. “Real smart. You have thermals with you, don’t you?” Norton nodded. “Have them on for the next inspection. And when it’s time to get serious and play war, Paula, even boobs won’t distract a guy all the time.”

  “Tell me about it,” Norton lamented as she started to rearrange her hair.

  Furness then turned her attention to Fogelman. The little prick had his bag open, but had not begun spreading the contents out as she had asked. “Let’s go, Mark, hop to it.”

  “The Colonel didn’t write me up, Major,” Fogelman hissed. “Not on my gear.”

  “Who said anything about your gear, Mark?” Furness asked. The little creep, why in hell would he show up for a required formation knowing he wouldn’t pass inspection? “The Colonel gave you a break, then, because your hair is too long and he knows and I know that you don’t have all your stuff.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Fogelman, are you really that dumb or just pretending to be?” Furness said with total exasperation. “Your bag is half the size of everyone else’s. Now open it up.”

  “I wish you’d stop picking on me, Major,” Fogelman whined, raising his voice a bit so others in the squadron could hear his complaints. “If you want me out of the flight, just say so.”

  “What I want is for you to open your damn bag, Lieutenant,” Furness said, eyes dead-on him.

  He finally did as he was told. “Missing two flight suits … no mukluks … no mittens … no long underwear … no socks,” Furness summarized as she rifled through the musty, wadded-up clothes and gear inside. She found condoms, money, odd pairs of ski gloves, receipts with women’s names and numbers written on them, and parking tickets. Lots of parking tickets, some months old. They hadn’t yet shown up on his civil records check. “You left all your winter stuff up in Lake Placid again, didn’t you?” Fogelman didn’t answer. He liked to use his military cold-weather gear when he went up to his family’s resort in Lake Placid—he thought wearing military gear on the slopes made him look cool, like he was some Special Forces arctic commando or something—and he often left the stuff up there. “I hope it’s not too cold or too snowy, because you got a long drive ahead of you.”

  “You want me to drive all the way to Lake Placid? In this weather? After the first day of Hell Week? How about lending me some stuff out of your spare bag?” Fogelman asked in a loud voice. All of the flight commanders had a spare deployment bag filled with odds and ends; Furness had two full.

  Furness shook her head. “Because this isn’t the first time I’ve bailed your ass out with my spare bag,” she replied, trying to lower her voice to avoid attracting any more attention to her secret stash of gear, “and because you still haven’t returned the stuff you borrowed last time—you probably gave my last set of thermals to one of your ski bunny friends. Forget it. Figure out what you’re missing and go to Supply during lunchtime. Tell them you lost your stuff, and they’ll issue you new stuff.”

  “And make me pay an arm and a leg for it!”

  “It’s your fault, Mark. And get a damned haircut.”

  Physical training (PT) was held every morning of Hell Week and was mandatory for everyone who was not flying. Furness had a good opportunity to observe Hembree during the PT test, and what she saw made her a bit nervous. Instead of allowing each squadron member to count his own reps and laps and report the score to the executive officer, Hembree and Lieutenant Colonel Katz supervised each event themselves, even to the point of coaching squadron members who appeared to be relaxing or quitting. Their voices, especially Hembree’s, could be heard echoing throughout the gym, and they weren’t words of encouragement—they were words of provocation, even admonishment. Since everyone in the unit could run pretty well, the two commanders carefully supervised the strength exercises, even getting down and yelling at members to grind out one last pull-up or do two more sit-ups “for the Seven-Fifteenth!” It was, she realized, an extremely intense display of… what? Determination? Although Hell Weeks in the past had been tough, the commanders usually tried to keep things relaxed and businesslike, not harsh or intense. The more she thought about it, the more Rebecca began to realize that this display by the commanders was more than determina
tion. It wasn’t out of pride or creating an esprit de corps.

  No, it was a display of concern.

  And urgency.

  Perhaps even fear.

  Something was going on.

  FIFTEEN

  Everyone passed the PT test, although many had scores that Hembree found unacceptably low, so another test was going to be run at the end of Hell Week. The squadron members had ninety minutes to shower, change back into flight suits, grab a breakfast-to-go from the Burger King right outside the front gate, and report to the squadron for academics, testing, and situation briefings.

  The RF-111 Vampire reconnaissance/strike aircraft had twelve “bold print” items—124 words, 27 lines—of such critical importance that they had to be committed to memory and written out or recited word for word. The rest of the morning was taken up with aircraft systems-and-procedures lectures, followed by a multiple-choice test. Fortunately, no one scored below 80, but Furness got another warning stare from Hembree when it was discovered that Fogelman got the lowest score in the squadron.

  Then came the blood tests at the base hospital. Along with a severe downsizing in the American armed forces and the growth of the Reserve forces after the 1992 elections was a general distrust of the military, especially the citizen-soldiers who now flew such advanced warplanes. Every military person on active duty, and those Reservists federalized for active duty, was routinely screened for substance abuse. They also tested for sexually transmitted diseases, such as AIDS, and weight and blood pressure, which were considered telltale signs of stress, poor health, and subsequently poor performance.

  Rebecca passed all of her physical training, academic, and medical tests, but by the time she had finished all these Gestapo-like “preventive” and “zero tolerance” screenings, gulped down a rabbit-food lunch at the Officers’ Club, and reported to the wing headquarters building at one P.M., she felt as worn out as if she had ran a marathon—and the afternoon sessions were just as demanding.

  The first order of business was a worldwide intelligence briefing. The officer giving the Hell Week intelligence briefing was one of the sharpest and—in Rebecca Furness’ opinion at least—one of the most interesting and best-looking guys in the entire wing.

  “This briefing is classified secret, not releasable to foreign nationals, sensitive sources and methods involved,” Major Tom Pierce began, “which means you probably saw it first last week in Aviation Week or will see it tomorrow night on the six o’clock news. Anyway, make sure the door back there is locked and let’s get started.” Major Thomas Pierce, the wing intelligence officer, was tall, trim, and good-looking, with close-cropped brown hair, an infectious smile, and round glasses which made his boyish face look even more innocent and inviting to Rebecca. Unfortunately, he was also very married, and apart from her self-imposed ban on dating members of her own wing, married men were definitely off-limits as well. Pierce was an ex-flyer who was bounced out of active-duty flying during the RIFs when the Air Force refused to grant any more medical waivers for his color blindness, so he joined the Reserves as a senior staff officer. He was a major filling a lieutenant colonel’s billet, which made him a real fast-burner in the Air Force, and it showed every time he gave one of these briefings.

  As it had been for the past year, problems in Europe took center stage. “The conflict between the Ukraine, Russia, and Moldova over the disputed Dniester Republic seems to have gotten worse over the past few weeks,” Pierce began. He had an Operational Navigational Chart of the area in question, with the disputed region outlined in black—roughly five hundred square miles in southwestern Ukraine and central Moldova. “Now we know how bad it really is, because Russia tried to launch an air attack last night.”

  The room erupted with surprise and chaos. Pierce let it burn on for a few moments until they were ready to hear more, then continued. “Well, I see you fly-boys and fly-girls are keeping up with world events. Yes, as you children were sleeping, thinking you were safe and sound, it appears that Russia tried to launch a number of conventionally armed cruise missiles from Bear bombers. Likely targets were air bases in the Ukraine and possibly in Romania.”

  “Who stopped them?” someone asked. “What happened?”

  “The Ukrainian Air Force, such as it is, jumped them in MiG-23s, shot down five, and got the other estimated twenty Bears to turn tail,” Pierce replied. “The whole thing lasted about three minutes. No cruise missiles were launched. A few more seconds, and at least one Ukrainian air base would’ve been history. Four Ukrainian fighters were shot down by Russian fighter escorts.

  “As you all remember from my briefings in the past, the Russians living in the Dniester region of central Moldova, including the cities of Bendery and Tiraspol, and assisted by units of the former Red Army’s Fourteenth Motorized Rifle Division in Kishinev and the Twenty-eighth Motorized Rifle Division headquarters in Malayeshty, declared themselves independent when the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic split from the USSR and declared its independence back in 1991. Although the Russians are a minority in Moldova, they comprise most of the inhabitants of this particular region, which is the industrial heart of Moldova and a major manufacturing and shipping center. Mother Russia has no direct access to the disputed Dniester region, except in accordance with the outlines of the Commonwealth of Independent States treaty between the former Soviet republics. The CIS treaty allows member nations to cross one another’s borders in times of emergency. Russia has been stretching this definition to the very limit, thanks to their wonderful President, Vitaly Velichko.”

  Pierce pointed to the ONC chart and went on. “As you can see, Moldova is surrounded on three sides by the Ukraine and on one side by Romania. Moldova was once a province of Romania.

  “This situation obviously stresses out the Russians still living in Moldova because they believe they would become a persecuted people, so in August of 1991, just before Moldova itself declared its independence from the Soviet Union, the Russians in Dniester declared themselves independent from the Moldavian Soviet Republic and formed the Dniester Republic. They formed a militia soon afterward, comprised mostly of men and equipment from the Red Army Fourteenth and Twenty-eighth divisions. The Russians claimed that these two divisions had disbanded and had returned to Russia, but in fact they went underground in the Dniester Republic.

  “Like most of the Republics, Moldova tried to annex all Soviet military bases within its borders except for strategic installations like bomber and intercontinental missile bases. They were not successful in Dniester. When the newly formed Moldovan Army tried to enforce the new law, Russian soldiers from Malayeshty resisted. When fighting broke out, the Russian military, contrary to orders from then-President Yeltsin, sent troops to the region to reinforce the militia in the two cities and beef up the Russian garrison.”

  There was no reaction to any of this, so Pierce raised his voice and stepped closer to the crewmembers to get their attention. “But how, you may ask,” he shouted, causing one sleepy WSO to jump in his chair, “did they get troops into the Dniester area to help out their fellow Russians?”

  “They bullied their way in,” someone responded.

  “Exactly,” Pierce acknowledged. “In fact, Russian supply ships had sailed from the Black Sea Fleet ports near Sevastopol, into the Dnestr estuary, and up the Dnestr River to Bendery, and Russian naval aircraft also landed in Tiraspol’s airport—all this without consulting the Ukraine or requesting permission for access or overflight. This obviously ticked off the Moldovans, who accused the Ukrainians of duplicity, so Moldova sent troops to the Ukrainian border, which pissed off the Ukrainians. But the Russians also pissed off the Ukrainians because it was a violation of their sovereignty and a violation of Commonwealth of Independent States joint military agreements.”

  “And the Ukraine was already pissed off at Russia about the Black Sea Fleet,” Furness chimed in, getting into the lively exchange. Pierce had a habit of turning these otherwise dull intel briefings into rather enterta
ining history-current affairs discussions. “Boy, it sounds like everyone’s pissed at everybody else.”

  “Exactly, O curvaceous one,” Pierce said. The room erupted with a few chuckles. Pierce continued. “The disposition of the Black Sea Fleet, about 120 warships and about 300 combat aircraft, including 28 submarines, one aircraft carrier, and one vertical takeoff and landing cruiser, has been a major problem between the Ukraine and Russia since 1991. The original plan was to let Russia keep all the nuclear-capable aircraft and ships, then split the remaining ships equally between the two. But Russia claimed that all but 34 vessels, mostly mine warfare ships and small patrol corvettes, were nuclear-capable—Russia was going to cede only 17 patrol ships to the Ukraine and keep the other 86 ships for itself, as well as the bases on the Crimean Peninsula, which are some of the best pieces of real estate in all of Europe.

  “Since 1991, the Ukraine and Russia have been tap-dancing around the issue. There were a few incidents—a Ukrainian crew mutinied and hijacked a frigate to Odessa, a few collisions and near-collisions between ships in the Black Sea, things like that—but negotiations were going along smoothly until the Dniester Republic conflict blew up. So, enough history. Let’s bring you up to date on what the hell’s going on over there.”

  Pierce pointed to several large circles near Odessa and other towns near the Ukrainian-Moldavan border. “The Ukrainian president, Yuri Khotin, has been trying to gently defuse this entire situation and keep on a defensive stance only, but they’re getting pressure from the Ukrainian parliament to act. So recently the Ukraine set up an air defense battalion at the small airfield near Limanskoye, which is right on the border of the disputed region, armed with mostly older 100-millimeter antiaircraft artillery pieces and SA-3 surface-to-air missile units, in response to their warning to Russia to stop overflying their territory. The Russians simply circumnavigate the area. The weapons would not have been capable against the AS-4 cruise missiles, had those Bear bombers managed to launch them last night.