Jason said a couple of words of good-bye to the airmen who’d helped him stand up the 60th in Djibouti. Normally, as part of the ceremony, the outgoing commander passed the unit colors to the new commander as the symbolic changing of the guard. Our unit was so new, having been inactive since Vietnam, that we had no colors to pass. Instead, we simply saluted each other.
“I assume command,” I said after I saluted.
I was now officially the first commander of the unit and turned to face my troops. Most of the troops were from Holloman. These were my guys whom I had worked with for the past couple of years. But Jon, my chief maintainer and one of the squadron’s senior noncommissioned officers, told me the boys were unsure what to think about having a pilot as commander.
Jon and I had met on the flight over. He was also from Holloman Air Force Base. Jon had a lengthy career servicing fighter aircraft like the F-16 before transitioning over to the Predator. We talked at length about striking a balance in the squadron so all of its parts—operations, maintenance, security forces—felt like they were contributing to the fight. He helped me understand the need to assuage the maintainers’ concerns by making sure they were an equal part of the team, not the guys who kept the pilot in the air so he could take the credit.
Air Force flying squadrons were separate units from their maintenance squadrons under normal circumstances. The pilots and the maintainers rarely got to know one another. This caused friction because the pilots had no idea what the maintainers did and vice versa. This led to problems because pilots rarely understood the work needed to keep an aircraft combat-ready and maintainers never experienced the rigor of flight and combat.
“It’s my honor to stand here before you,” I said. “I look at people with whom I have worked for years but have never gotten to know. I want you to know now that we are a family, all of us. The aircrew, the maintainers, and the security forces all belong to this great squadron. As we settle into our role here, understand that we have an important mission, one that is in the direct sight of the president. As such we need to ensure we are sharp at all times. We are not Creech. We don’t cut corners. We don’t use cheater checklists. We follow the tech orders to the letter. We do that and we will succeed, I have no doubt.”
I later dropped by 11 Degrees North, the base social club, to celebrate. Tables and seats filled a basketball court–size area in front of a stage used by USO performers. Outside, there was more seating and an open space where an inflatable screen showed movies. A bar sat at one corner serving both the inside and outside patrons. I sat at the bar and drank a subpar French wine served in a plastic single-serving bottle. I wasn’t antisocial. The squadron ran missions twenty-four hours a day. They had work to do. I didn’t yet. I started in the morning. Besides, I was a commander now. I didn’t have the luxury of friends, nor would I hang out with the guys. I had to get used to being alone out here.
As I sipped the wine, I savored the moment. I’d made command. But I still had a year to go and a mission to accomplish. I finished my drink and headed back to my quarters. After a quick shower, I flicked on my reading lamp to study the local procedures.
I would start flying soon.
CHAPTER 16
Losses
I keyed my mic.
“Chief, ready aircraft power.”
“Power coming on,” came the crew chief’s response on the radio.
Outside, the crew chief opened a side panel and connected a ground power unit to the aircraft. Then, he flipped a switch to close the circuit.
I counted to ten before the HUD came to life. It flickered with static until finally the ramp and telemetry appeared. The Gulf of Aden spread out in front of us. The water was a brilliant sapphire blue, morning light glinting off the gentle two-foot swells. Acacia trees and scraggly bushes blocked my view of the muddy beach.
The maintainers stood off at a safe distance while the Predator woke up. The aircraft’s main computer, the primary control module, sent out test signals to the Predator as it ran its internal checks. Power coursed through the aircraft, activating the various components.
“Power’s on.”
I ran through the checklist with my sensor, Han. He was a young airman just finishing his first deployment for the Air Force. His name came from the Star Wars character. It wasn’t because of his swagger, but a play on the airman’s name. Once he showed up at the squadron, there was no other choice.
This was one of my first flights as the squadron commander. I was finally flying after spending the first few weeks settling into the job and putting out the fires on base. In the cockpit, I was just another pilot, and all I had to worry about was the aircraft and the mission. I wanted to fly frequently because it was the only place I got a break from the pressures of command.
Han and I ran the checks to ensure that the aircraft was ready to crank. Some components needed to be on, others off. Starting with the wrong component could ruin a sensor or stall the engine.
Satisfied, I keyed my radio.
“Chief, ready to start engine.”
“Copy.”
A maintainer walked up to a panel on the side of the aircraft, pressed a couple of buttons, and waited. The aircraft rocked as the prop rotated once, twice, then caught. With a cough, the engine surged to life. I adjusted the prop lever to set the best RPM to warm up the oil.
Han keyed the mic.
“Chief, clear to activate the pod?”
We waited a moment for the chief to get back to us.
“Eyes are safe, clear to power up the ball.”
The targeting pod’s high-power laser had the potential to flash to life when activated. I’d never heard of it happening, but if it did, the laser would burn the eyes of anyone close to it. All of the maintainers moved out of the arc of the laser as Han worked on calibrating the pod.
I monitored the engine. This was the longest part of the starting sequence. We couldn’t taxi until the engine warmed up. I was on guard as the Predator with tail number 193 hummed on the ramp. Gabby, as maintenance had named her, was a problem child.
Maintenance had a tradition, like pilots, of naming their aircraft. Our crew chiefs named each Predator after significant women in their lives. I asked about Gabby. Turns out she was named after the maintenance symbol GAB—ground abort. Apparently, Gabby didn’t like to fly. I liked flying Audrey more. She was named for the great actress Audrey Hepburn and handled with similar elegance.
Most of our issues existed because the Predator wasn’t sealed against the weather. Planes would fly a daylong sortie, then drop down into the moist air at the end of the mission. The supercooled instruments would condense the water in the air. Maintenance would refuel each aircraft and then launch it a couple of hours later. The water, still in the instrument bay, froze as the aircraft climbed to high altitude.
At twenty thousand feet, temperatures could plummet to thirty or forty below zero. In the cockpit, crews got false oil- or fuel-leak warnings. The pilots would bring the aircraft back to base only to reveal that the expanding ice had pushed a sensor out of calibration. We tried to explain the issue to the crews, to no avail. In the end, we had to land the aircraft, recalibrate the same instrument, and relaunch it.
It wasted valuable time. But we didn’t have a choice. The mission crews were on the hook and could lose their wings if they ignored a warning.
I scanned the gauges and finished my checks. I loaded our flight plan, tested the flight controls, and prepared to taxi. The flight controls were the most important part of our preflight. If they didn’t work, the plane wouldn’t fly.
“Chief,” I called. “Hands and feet clear, remove chocks, and make ready to taxi.”
Maintainers pulled the safety pins that secured the landing gear and armed the missiles. One maintainer stood close to the targeting pod, hand resting on an emergency cutoff switch. If anything bad happened, he would shut down the
aircraft.
Han and I let go of the controls so we didn’t accidentally move the rudder or flaps. Nothing ruined a man’s day like getting brained by a tailboard. The targeting pod remained fixed in place, staring at the maintainer while the others worked. The sensor on the ball was so sensitive that we could see the heat of his veins pulsing in his arms.
“That’s a good ball,” I said.
“It’s one of the best ones we have,” Han said.
The maintainers moved away from the aircraft.
“Sir, pins and chocks are removed, you are clear to taxi,” the crew chief said over the radio.
The pins armed our missiles. The chocks blocked the wheels to prevent the aircraft from rolling off on its own.
“Thanks, Chief,” I said, and released the brakes.
The aircraft waddled out to the runway. The steering was extremely sensitive, so the aircraft constantly wandered around the taxiway, pushed off course by light winds and the occasional bump. We had to fight the aircraft to keep it going straight.
“Tower, Bong Seven Zero ready for takeoff,” I called.
A thick French and Arabic accent answered me.
“Bong Seven Zero, hold short.”
The control tower wanted me to stay in my present position.
“Look left,” I said.
Han shifted the targeting pod to the approach end of Runway Zero Nine. A couple of miles out, a DC-9 airliner appeared, lining up with the runway and starting its final approach.
“I take it airliners have priority here.”
“Especially that one,” Han said. “That’s the eleven o’clock Ethiopian Airlines bird. The daily shipment of khat is onboard.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“There is only one pastime around here,” Han said. “Khat. And the only legal way to import it is via that aircraft.”
Khat was a narcotic drug in leaf form. When chewed, it released addictive effects similar to those of many opiates. Side effects included brown-stained teeth and a general lethargy. Nothing could happen in the country until this shipment arrived. It was the only thing that made the afternoon heat tolerable to the Djiboutians.
The aircraft touched down and pulled off the other side of the airfield.
“Bong Seven Zero, winds are calm, you are cleared for takeoff.”
“Bong, cleared for takeoff,” I replied, and pushed the throttle forward.
The little airplane rolled down the runway. We traveled nearly five thousand feet down the runway before the wheels lifted off the tarmac. I almost aborted, thinking something was wrong. We needed half the distance to launch at Creech, and that was at a higher altitude. Finally, the Predator started to climb. Our only indication was the sudden absence of vibration in the HUD. The altitude slowly ticked upward and we passed the shoreline.
The humidity really killed our lift. Heat was a problem, but the humidity before and after the afternoon thunderstorms created conditions in which Predators had never flown. They were built in San Diego, flown in Las Vegas, and eventually deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. All these places had one thing in common. They were dry. Admittedly, weather in Iraq and Afghanistan could inch up the humidity a bit, but never to this level.
Han tested the laser to ensure that it functioned properly, and then we headed out to sea. Our counterparts at Cannon Air Force Base checked into the chat room that they were ready to take control. Han swung the pod about to check on the aircraft. The pod swung to the undercarriage and verified that the landing gear had locked up into the fuselage.
Then it swung around toward the front. Below, the rusted hulk of a shipwreck passed by. Farther off, a bump on the horizon indicated a hill of some sort.
“That hill is in Somalia,” Han said. “We’re only about ten miles from there. The base is just south of Djibouti City. DJ is the only deep-water port in this part of Africa. All our aid to the interior comes through here.”
Djibouti City spanned out onto a small pointed peninsula to the north. On the western side were the massive docks and cranes of the port. On the east side of the city were the beaches, hotels, and embassies. Han set the pod on the Gulf of Aden. We did all of our work across the water.
President Obama had refocused our efforts from the search for Osama bin Laden to Yemen and a new target, Anwar al-Awlaki.
It fell to the Predators to find him.
Anwar al-Awlaki was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, in 1971. He lived in the United States until his family moved to Yemen when he was seven years old. He returned to the States in 1991 to attend Colorado State University and went on to earn his master’s in education from San Diego State University and a PhD in human resources from George Washington University.
He portrayed himself as a moderate who did interviews for NPR, and he went to a breakfast at the Pentagon after the attacks on September 11, but the FBI started watching him after they discovered he was in contact with three of the hijackers.
Al-Awlaki left the United States in 2002 and moved to London, where he started preaching about the United States’ war on Islam. Two years later he left London for Yemen, where he taught and preached in mosques in the southern part of the country. Al-Awlaki was arrested and sent to prison for eighteen months in 2006 on charges of kidnapping and taking part in an al Qaeda plot to kidnap a US military attaché. He was released in 2007 after his tribe intervened. But by then, al-Awlaki’s fiery English sermons were inspiring terrorists in the United States and Britain.
In November 2009, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, killed thirteen people in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood. He had exchanged emails with al-Awlaki. After the attack, al-Awlaki praised Hasan.
“Nidal Hasan is a hero,” he wrote in a widely publicized blog. “He is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people.”
Intelligence officials started to monitor al-Awlaki’s communications, which showed the cleric’s growing role in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. On Christmas Day 2009, a twenty-three-year-old Nigerian named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab carried an underwear bomb onto a passenger jet headed for Detroit.
Al-Awlaki was his inspiration.
Abdulmutallab told interrogators that al-Awlaki helped plot the attack. In the eyes of American officials, the American-born cleric was more than a skilled propagandist. He was a terrorist.
The Task Force started to track his network all around Yemen. To do it, we had to launch every sortie we could muster.
Maintenance had the biggest piece of this puzzle. The squadron’s aircraft had come from Iraq and Afghanistan. All were old and worn down. We got the pigs that never seemed to fly right and hangar queens that the other bases could never keep repaired. I actually didn’t hate the other squadrons for this. I would have done the same thing if ordered to give up an aircraft.
Once operations kicked off, maintenance worked twenty-four hours a day to get these aircraft in shape. And my crews got each aircraft airborne as fast as possible. We didn’t get the payoff of flying the combat portion of the mission, but without my maintainers and crews, the Predators would never have made it into the skies over Yemen. I’d already worked the flashy part of the job. Now all my energies were focused on making sure the behind-the-scenes part got done so the pilots could do their part.
The mission became a grind. After a month in Djibouti, my internal clock was busted.
—
A tray of food sat untouched in front of me as I sat in the DFAC, or dining facility. By the looks of my meal, it was dinner. Like the rest of the squadron, I worked when there were things to be done. And it seemed there was always something to be done. It was impossible to keep a regular schedule.
As I sat there enjoying the quiet, not the food, Ziggy passed by my table. He was picking up a to-go order on his way back to the s
quadron.
“Sir,” he said, greeting me near the door.
Ziggy was a lieutenant and a recent graduate of pilot training. On his first deployment, he had proven himself to be skilled despite his inexperience.
“How’s the launch coming?” I asked.
He had a mission scheduled later that night.
“On time,” he said. “Just getting something to eat before the chow hall closes.”
I nodded.
“It’s going to be a busy night.”
“Oh?” I asked.
“Bong is RTB for an engine malfunction,” Ziggy said.
I stared at him.
“Are you kidding?” I asked.
Ziggy looked at me and shrugged.
“The aircraft is too far out,” he said. “The crew reported the same problems we’ve seen the past few days. Nothing significant.”
“Yet they are coming home early,” I said.
“They think it is worse,” he said.
The previous few nights, the aircraft had exhibited mild erratic RPM and oil-pressure readings. Nothing pushed any limits or caused any problems. The crew chalked it up to turbulence and the engine’s attempt to compensate. But something wasn’t right with the engine.
I checked my watch. My crew day, as defined in Air Force regulations, was limited to twelve hours. I still had a few hours left, so I decided to land the aircraft.
“All right,” I said. “Cover the launch; I’ll recover Bong.”
Walking back to the squadron, I wondered how much grief the Task Force would give me for yet another early return. I hoped maintenance could find something wrong with the bird. The last time, they had found zilch despite rebuilding the engine. Ziggy slipped into the cockpit nicknamed “Steelers.” I took the other one, named “Pirates.”
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