Malone says, “You train and you live and you breathe to do that, and the young guys that got to do that will have that with them for the rest of their lives. Pretty good stuff.”
HAS with snow at K-2 (Michael Hirsh)
CHAPTER 3
BOYZ ’N THE HAS
“You gonna finish that?” asks one PJ of another, who has a half-eaten Three Musketeers bar on the table in front of him.
“No,” replies PJ Kip Wise, the owner of the candy bar.
“You mind if I have it?” queries the first PJ politely.
“No,” says Kip.
“Did you spit on it?” asks the first PJ.
“No,” responds Kip.
“You wanna?”
Who are the PJs deployed to Operation Enduring Freedom? They range in age from twenty-two to forty-six, their time in the Air Force from less than three years to twenty-eight. They’re white, black, Hispanic, and Asian-American. There are PJs who are single, married, and divorced—some, multiple times. Some are garrulous, a few taciturn. All of them are religious about staying in shape—just watching them killing flight time in the back of a C-130 by doing pull-ups from one of the plane’s structural crossbeams, or sit-ups and crunches on the angled ramp, can tire ordinary people out.
One of the newest PJs—he’s been in the Air Force less than three years— Senior Airman Adrian Durham—observes that all of them are variations on a theme: type A.
“See, that’s the cool thing about it. We’re all ourselves. We’re all type A personalities. But you got type A, type A small, type A big, type A bigger, all the way up, y’know? And type A small listens to type A bigger.” Durham is twenty-five years old, divorced, and the father of two-year-old Seth, upon whom he dotes. While the other PJs at K-2 wander off to bed by three in the morning, Durham is sitting in their day room drinking canned orange juice—the PJs refer to OJ as “free radical reducer”—and watching a financial news program on Fox News. He makes no comment on the fact that while he’s sitting in relatively crude quarters in a HAS in Uzbekistan, the conversation being fed to the war zone by Armed Forces Television is all about stock prices and what companies to buy and sell, as the graphic on the bottom of the screen says, The Cost of Freedom.
Durham isn’t certain whether or not he’s going to make the Air Force a career, or if he does, whether he’d remain a PJ. He knows he’s got an aptitude for medical work, and the notion of going to medical school pops into his head on a regular basis. But in the small hours of the morning, he broods over what life would be like if he weren’t a pararescueman.
“I know life won’t be as exciting as it is now. Our everyday life is jumping out of planes and doing high-adrenaline-rush stuff. It’ll never be the same. When I look at life now, what makes it great is the guys I hang with, no matter who they are. We can go anywhere and make a shithole seem like heaven, and that’s just ’cause you want the best for yourself. Life in the war zone is already fucked up, so why make it any worse? Try and make it better.”
Adrian’s biggest fear is that if he makes the leap to the outside, he’ll be someplace where people don’t understand him. “Everyone understands me here. They think I’m weird, y’know, but out there, it’s all different. It worries me in a way. How do you let it go? It’s hard to let go. And I know I’ll never find it anywhere else.”
S.Sgt. Kip Wise, a twenty-eight-year-old from Pasadena, California, who stands six-three, 215 pounds, is on the same wavelength as Durham. “There have been times where I’ve thought, ‘This really sucks today,’ but I think this is, by far, the best job in the Air Force, for enlisted, at least. We do just about everything. We parachute, we scuba dive, land, air, sea. I think we’ve got the best mission, to go out there and save lives. It’s so much harder to save lives. It’s easy to just kill somebody and pull the trigger and that’s it. But to plug that hole and make a difference, that’s the ultimate rush right there for me.
“PJs have this commonality, ’cause we all went through the same training. It’s probably the toughest in the military. And you form that camaraderie, even if it’s a person you don’t really care for; no matter what, you know that he’s got your back and you’ve got his back. It’s the same thing with the aircrew. We’re all one big team. We’ve got to look out for each other.”
What Kip Wise and Adrian Durham have found is a community into which they fit, into which they’re accepted for who they are and for the job they can do, a community where their race—African-American—is absolutely irrelevant.
It is surely hyperbole to say the PJs turned their Jacobabad dump into “heaven.” But when one considers that the Army troops at K-2 and most Air Force personnel at Jbad are living in tents while the PJs at both bases are living in relative comfort, indoors, enjoying life in the HAS, there’s a modicum of truth to what Durham says.
So what is a HAS?
A HAS is a hardened aircraft shelter. They can be found on military airfields around the world. Imagine a gigantic, concrete bandshell, the rear of which might be burrowed into an earthen embankment. The opening is covered with huge doors, as much as three feet thick, which are meant to be moved by powerful motors. Behind these doors is where an air force protects its fighter planes from enemy bombardment. The airfields that the United States is leasing at Karshi-Khanabad, Uzbekistan (K-2), and Jacobabad, Pakistan, are sprinkled with these shelters. Now the doors are permanently open, the motors that move them in various states of decay.
While the structures are no longer needed to protect aircraft, they offer a unique opportunity for upscale housing on these bases. And at their earliest opportunity, the PJs moved out of tents and into the HAS where they put their talents to work making life, if not good, then certainly less awful than it could be if they just had to make do with the basics. At Jacobabad, the PJs moved out of the hangar and away from its surrounding moat into one HAS, then moved a second time, into what they believed to be a more suitable HAS.
At both Jbad and K-2, in order to keep out the elements, especially blowing sand and dust, the PJs put up wooden framing in the open doorway, and built a huge wall of plywood. Inside the K-2 HAS, in addition to their combination day room/office/locked supply room, they have a two-story structure of eight-by-eight cubicles allowing each of the guys to have his own private room. Somehow the PJs convinced an Army Reserve engineering battalion to do the basic construction work, which included wiring each of the rooms with AC power. The accommodations were so nice that the Army command that runs the base at Karshi-Khanabad tried to evict the pararescuemen and claim it for their own. At first, according to the guys, they were told that the reason they needed to vacate the HAS was that it was sitting on radioactive waste. There is an area of the base that is, indeed, contaminated with radioactive material, but it’s nowhere near the HAS and the PJs weren’t buying the Army’s act.
Finally, when the effort to evict the PJs reached critical mass, so to speak, the guys pulled off their own little power play. They invited the Air Force commanders who were living in tents to move in and share the facility, recognizing that if the Army now tried to force them out of their HAS, they’d be in a battle with at least one full colonel, four other field-grade officers, and a chief master sergeant. Problem solved.
One room on the second floor at K-2 has been made available for visitors, and the sign on the door identifies it as K-2 Bed-and-Breakfast, while the adjacent cubicle is designated the Lt. John Shoemaker Suite. Shoe was the first combat rescue officer assigned to K-2 and supervised construction. Guests at the B-and-B find their room furnished with a cot, sleeping bag, electrical outlet, and various toiletries donated by good-hearted American citizens who want to support their troops overseas. The room also comes with a printed “History of the K-2 Bed-and-Breakfast.”
It was a cool fall evening in 2002 when the idea for the bed-and-breakfast occurred to John Shoemaker. Inspired by the rolling hills covered by lush foliage and the expansive, silky beaches, he saw the potential for a virtual parad
ise here on earth. With a keen eye for traditional décor, a taste for the finest in gourmet cuisine, and a desire for fine slumber on only the best bedding, he set in motion the blueprints that would become the world-renowned K-2 Bed-and-Breakfast. Please feel free to relax on our tranquil beaches, take in a breath of fresh dirt, and enjoy the gourmet meals while taking in the magic that is Uzbekistan.
THE MENU
Breakfast: Quaker oatmeal, Pop-Tarts, Grape-Nuts, Frosted Mini-Wheats, fresh fruit, assorted juices, coffee or Pork Chop MRE #12.
Lunch: Your choice of MRE. We’re currently out of MREs 2, 19, 6, 13, 4, and 7.
Dinner: Our chefs scour the countryside for the freshest ingredients each day to bring you something delicious and exotic each night at the following hours: 1600 to 1900 local. Please, no hats in the dining facility, and with regard to breakfast, our senior airman will deliver to your door.
You’ll note that neither aperitifs nor other alcoholic beverages are offered on the menu. That is definitely not an oversight, for as anyone who has met them knows, the PJs are a cultured group and have a deep appreciation of fine spirits, wines, and cigars. (S.Sgt. Rob Disney personally recommends the Rose-mount Shiraz from southeastern Australia, which, he says, at twelve dollars is a very good value.) The reason there’s no liquor served is the notorious General Order Number One, which also prohibits materials that are pornographic or sexually explicit, as well as gambling throughout the entire war zone. It’s been expanded upon by the Army commander at K-2 to forbid sunbathing by female service personnel wearing bikinis. As one PJ observed, “General Order Number One takes away everything good about being an American.”
Some elaboration is required on the prohibition of pornography. By definition handed down from commanders who feel the need to be deferential to the religious beliefs of some of the host countries, anything that shows completely exposed erogenous zones is considered pornographic. Thus, Playboy is verboten, but Maxim is not. Mullah Omar has probably not divined that distinction, but this is the military, and what the commanding general says, goes. Throughout the troop living areas at K-2, the CG has thoughtfully placed “amnesty boxes” into which conscience-stricken troops can conveniently deposit anything that might cross the panty line into contraband.
Newly arrived Air Force personnel at Jacobabad are informed by old hands that the local interpretation of General Order Number One is that not only is porn prohibited, but sex is also disallowed. Leaving no investigative stone unturned, the details of that interpretation were sought, resulting in several interesting discoveries. One point of view expressed by certain pararescuemen holds that General Order Number One was intended to say, “Don’t get caught” with booze, porn, or having sex. Some aircrew officers, who try to use the fact that they’re not PJs as ipso facto proof that whatever they have to say on the subject is credible, declare that there is, indeed, a prohibition on sex in the AOR, but add that the rule has a corollary which states, “If sex is unavoidable, use a condom.” (Condoms are available at the BX.) Further investigation determined that the corollary was not actually part of the general order, but was promulgated at a medical orientation lecture that included warnings about insect-borne diseases, heatstroke, and the need to avoid coming into close personal contact with the monitor lizards and cobras that also live on the base.
At K-2, the Army forbids visits by the opposite sex in tents between the hours of 2200 and 0800. The Air Force, however, has no such rule. Tents are assigned to entire flight crews, irrespective not only of gender, but rank. The reason is simple: “hard-crewing,” as it’s called, keeps the same group of cockpit and backenders together under the theory that people who fly together regularly make better, safer aircrews. Also, because of crew-rest requirements, it makes sense to have a crew that’s flown together sleep in the same tent, undisturbed by the comings and goings of extraneous personnel who may be working different hours.
But enough about sex. Back to the Boyz ’N the HAS.
At Jbad as at K-2, the pararescue detachment used as its raison d’être to claim a HAS the legitimate need to have a place to lock up narcotics and other medications, as well as an array of weaponry. Rather than a bilevel cubicle complex, however, they constructed a one-story apartment complex, then turned design and construction of improvements over to S.Sgt. Terra Barrington. A millwright before joining the Air Force five years earlier, Terra got the nickname “Bob Vila” after proving himself adept at turning two-by-fours and plywood into all sorts of creature comforts for what they describe as “This Old HAS.”
Terra enlisted when he was twenty-two after growing up in California’s wine country, the son of an impoverished hippie mom. He’d decided he wanted to travel and see the world, and felt a compulsion to give something back to his country, which still surprises him, considering that the community in which he grew up was pretty much post-Vietnam hard-core antimilitary.
The Navy recruiter was his first stop, but after taking the required test, he decided he didn’t like the Navy vibe. So he wandered down the hall to the Air Force office and told the sergeant that he wanted to fly planes. Not having a college degree made that a nonstarter—Terra didn’t even understand the concept of officers and enlisted ranks—but the sergeant picked up his test results from the Navy office, came back, and said, “You can do anything you want to do that’s enlisted. You scored a ninety-nine.”
Barrington asked if that was good. The recruiter said, “That’s ninety-nine out of ninety-nine.” That’s when Terra discussed the kind of life he wanted with a visiting TACP, who described himself as a radio operator attached to infantry or special-ops units. “And he said, ‘Well, y’know what? If you really want to do something hard-core, don’t be a TACP. You gotta go PJ.”
Despite the fact that he’s only five feet, six inches tall and weighs 145 if his hair is wet, the physical demands of becoming a PJ weren’t daunting. He wasn’t a jock in high school, “just an all-around stud” whose lifestyle included a variety of outdoor sports. “Mountain biking, hang gliding. I hang glide right now. That’s kind of my dangerous pastime. And just being out in the woods. Hiking. I’ve done a few peaks—Shasta, Whitney. I don’t do any technical stuff. Mount Whitney’s the tallest peak in the U.S. I actually didn’t summit Whitney. I got to about eleven thousand feet and got altitude sick, but I’ve done Shasta twice, which is six hundred feet lower.”
Swimming was a problem for him during indoc. He claims to have barely passed the distance test in the time allotted. He also had a problem with sit-ups that caused him to get sent back to start the indoc cycle over with the next group of candidates. He says he missed the minimum sit-up requirement by only one, and fully expected the NCO to cut him some slack and click the counter an extra time or two because he was a good guy. No such luck. Ultimately, it took Barrington nearly two years to get through what is typically a ten-week indoc followed by fifteen months of the PJ pipeline. But he made it.
Now he’s the pull-up champ of the HAS, capable of doing twenty-six, with his nearest competition, Lt. Rob Taylor and S.Sgt. Rob Disney, reaching only the low twenties.
Barrington is one of the guys who figured out the way to do an entire exercise routine in the back of a Herc. After realizing that they might spend fifteen hours a day inside the aircraft, and that it was cutting into their workout time, they began developing the midair routine. “You can do back and bi, you can do chest and tri, and legs all on the airplane. We go up into the back, right into where the tail is in a V, and there’s a couple of bars right there. You can do incline on the ramp, decline. You can jack your feet up on the benches, wide grip, narrow grip. That gives you a well-rounded chest exercise. And then the same thing with pull-ups, narrow grip, wide grip.”
To say he’s smart understates the obvious, which makes one wonder why he didn’t go to college. The short answer—he’s an iconoclast who graduated at the bottom of his high school class. That compels the longer answer.
“I don’t like homework. It’s the w
hole rule thing. They want you to know that A plus B equals C; then you’re going to go home and you’re going to write down, ‘A plus B equals C. B plus A equals C. C minus B equals A,’ and you’re going to do that for forty problems, a couple pages’ worth. You got an engine in your car that needs working on, a new exhaust system to put on, and the lawn mower to fix. You’ve got countless other projects going on in the meantime, and you know very well that A plus B equals C. You got that figured out, so why are you going to waste two hours out of your life to write it down a bunch of times?
“I was the top student in my classes in tests, but I wouldn’t do my homework for a month. I have a fundamental belief, if it was a waste of time, I wasn’t going to waste my time on it. So my grades suffered. That’s just the way I am.”
This exposition on Barrington’s attitude toward the regimentation of public school education in America comes on the heels of his elaborating on “the rule thing” as viewed by pararescuemen. “We kind of don’t belong in the military. My rule for being pararescue is, break at least one rule a day. Never be in a uniform. If you are in a uniform, take it off at your earliest convenience. And make sure you’re not wearing a perfect, proper uniform. Those are my rules.”
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