Star Girl

by Alan VanMeter

  Leaving mom was the hardest, she was a sobbing heap of Jello again. We fly across the oceans and come to our home for the next year in Kabul. About half of the international airport has been turned into an Air Force base. During our in-country indoctrination we are told that the green zones are spotty and some are shaky at best. The safest place is right here on base, just like in Bagdad, meaning we will be captives of a sort again. We didn’t come here to tour the land after all, but we will be getting aerial tours all the time.

  Our quarters are not nearly as nice as our last deployment. There are no private or even double rooms, just open bay barracks. The women’s floor is for the few enlisted females as well as Captain Hanford and myself, with just some partitions to separate officer’s country. I don’t mind at all being around a bunch of young girls like myself. However I know better than to try anything, especially with an enlisted girl, that’s a one way ticket to washout.

  The chow is not near as good as before either, and there just seem to be no pleasant surprises. Then when I find out the very small PX has no hobby section at all, I am really beginning to despise it here, and this is my first damn day. Just then we feel the shock wave, soon followed by the thunder of a distant explosion. The alarms don’t sound, so we go look and see a plume of smoke rising from across town. A car bomb. We got used to those in Bagdad, and I see they have followed us here as well. I wonder why that is.

  It has been three weeks since we arrived in-country, and we have flown many sorties already. Fortunately, I haven’t had to drop my bombs here yet. I know it is coming, it’s inevitable. Then our base is attacked during our fourth week, by an Afghan soldier no less. He just opened fire on a couple of officers as they walked by. Bastards, this isn’t the first time they have done this sort of insidious attack by any means, but it is the first time that someone I knew was murdered. One of the officers was our squadron liaison officer with the Wing. I was merely acquainted with him, but it still hits home none the less. For some reason after this, I don’t dread my bomb release button as much as I had been.

  The enlisted girls all seem to like me, and some have asked several different times how old I am. When I tell them, they are usually mystified by this; and being a Raptor driver at just twenty two years old. One girl who is shorter and thin, like myself, really seems to want to bond and get to know me better, so I oblige. Her name is Corporal Miller, as an officer never gets on a first name basis with the enlisted. It isn’t allowed. I wind up telling her my story of how I got started so young and she seems enthralled, which is a nice compliment to me. Then like any good officer I ask her what her career goals are. She just wants to finish her enlistment so she can go to school with her benefits. I ask her what she wants to do after school, and she tells me that being a veterinarian has always been a dream. So I encourage her to make it happen, whatever it takes. That is how dreams are made to come true, by hard work and perseverance.

  During the third month I am finally called on to release my weapons again, the first time in Afghanistan. I do it without hesitation, but I still don’t like it at all. Once again I have no idea of what, or who I just killed. Very sterile indeed. Right then and there I decide that squadron brotherhood or not, this is my last deployment. I’ve paid my dues.

  Captain Hanford and I sleep in adjacent cubicles, and she is ever like my mom away from home, and the Colonel is my daddy. We talk all the time, and she really helps keep me grounded, as she certainly is. I have the greatest admiration and respect for her, as she was one of the very first women allowed to perform combat missions. She paved the way for me and all those after me also. We never talk private personal matters like sex, or religion, but politics are always there. Unfortunately she is very much a hawk, I guess she had to be, to break the barriers, I don’t know. I do value her opinion on politics, just not her candidates, though I do not tell her this. Being liberal in any way is much like being homosexual in the military. Keep it to yourself, or else.

  The next time I call home, I get the horrible news that Grandpa Joe has passed away. I break into tears right away. Then I realize that I am going to miss his funeral, oh my god. It shakes me up pretty bad. After I hang up and wander back to my bunk; Captain Hanford hears me sobbing and she is in my cubicle in an instant, hugging me and consoling me. All I can do is let the tears flow, as I remember his smiling face with love.

  For the next three weeks I am so down in the dumps that most everyone tries to cheer me up somehow. Only Major Hoyt has any success though with the very stupidest joke I have ever heard.

  “Hey Romero, did you hear about the sad horse that went into a bar?”

  I sigh and shake my head.

  “The bar tender asks him, ‘Why the long face?” And then he grins at me, waiting for it.

  It takes a second, and it brings out a giggle first, then a chuckle, and finally a laugh from me. “Mission accomplished sir. Thank you.” I grin back at him chuckling still.

  Towards the end of the fifth month, I totally lose any nagging feeling of doubt about killing these people. Today Corporal Miller was murdered while she was in town trying to do some shopping with a friend of hers. Her friend is in the CCU of the base hospital, waiting to be stabilized so she can be flown out. Another car bomb did it, killing dozens of Afghanis too. All her dreams she told me of; her future…it’s gone just like that. It breaks my damn heart. Suddenly I want a mission, and I want to bomb the goddamn Taliban. We chuck them, and they chuck them. I’m a chucker too.

  During the sixth month we start bombing targets predominantly in the north, instead of down south. This is very rugged and steep mountainous terrain, but we just cruise above it at twenty thousand feet. Command sends the coordinates, we fly within range and release our weapons. The GPS satellites guide them the whole way down. Probably the easiest combat missions ever flown. They use car bombs, and we use GPS bombs, the big difference is that they are trying to kill civilians randomly, while we really try to hit targets of military value. We could just start flattening all the mountain villages, but we try not to do that as a rule. I’m not just a cold blooded killer, no, I’m a cold blooded killer’s hunter. They can eat my thousand pounders any day of the week. I’ll provide them.

  Six weeks to go, and I am ready to get the hell off this base. Flying missions is my only relief from the boredom. I am not sure whether or not I will deploy again if called on. Now I do feel that every Taliban that I kill is a damn good thing. Less of them, less car bombs, makes sense. The Colonel had a double promotion ceremony this morning, where Captain Hanford made Major, and I was promoted to Captain. I just turned twenty three last month, and so I am the official youngest Captain in the Air Force. It would be nice if I can keep this trend going.

  This afternoon we have a sortie to fly, and I look forward to it. Instead of saying, ‘It’s time to make the doughnuts,’ I say ‘It’s time to kill the Taliban.’ To myself anyhow. Soon the Major is on my wing at altitude and we are flying over the snowcapped northern peaks. At the boundary of our patrol area is the highest peak around, Mount Dorah, at almost fifteen thousand feet. I decide to do a direct fly over of the peak just for the view. As we pass over it I peer down wishing I had a camera with me.

  Then in the snow and ice of the peak, I see a flash and a puff of smoke, followed by a trail of smoke winding away from the flash point.

  “SAM launch! SAM launch!” I radio. “Break right, break right! Flares!”

  The Major breaks first and I follow him close, protecting his tail pipes. A freaking SAM on top of the mountain? Shit! Must be a hand held SA seven, or even a Stinger. I am dropping flares as we both tightly turn. Then my missile warning alarm goes off, and I drop more flares. With a sharp lurch my bird tries to go sideways as I hear a muted ‘boom!’ Quickly I straighten her out as my master caution board lights up going crazy. I look behind me to see my starboard dorsal tail fin is missing and fire is spewing from the aft fuselage.

  “I’m hit! I’m hit! I’m losing her!”


  “Eject! Eject!” Major Hoyt calls back right away.

  I don’t wait a second as I reach and blow the canopy off and both my hands go above my head to grab the ejection handle, I pull straight down with all might, and it doesn’t want to move, so I pull will every muscle in my body, and finally it releases down into my lap. The seat is suddenly rocketed out of my burning bird as I am compressed into it. I watch as my Raptor spins out of control, blazing.

  “Mayday! Mayday! All channel alert. Mayday, Mayday. We have a pilot down. We have a pilot down. These coordinates.” I hear the major on my radio that is on the seat, and still feeding my head set. He gives my position, then waits for confirmation before telling me, “Romero, they are on the way. You just stay hidden until they get here. We will get you out Captain!”

  “Rodger that sir.”

  My chute has opened, but I have to dump the seat real quick as I am not that high above the tall mountainous terrain. So I manually activate the kick-plate to set it free, and falling away. Now I have no radio, just my transponder woven into my flight suit. As I am coming down I see some people running down in one of the deep ravines below, my welcoming committee I guess. I have a nine millimeter with thirty rounds of ammo, it will have to do.

  The ground comes at me quickly as I steer for the ridge line below me as best I can. I remember to do a Parachute Landing Fall, or PLF before I hit. It’s a weird type of fall, as you can’t tuck and roll into it at all. Your torso is being held up by the chute as your legs hit first. I tuck everything close to my body as I hit and try to just take the fall on my side. It’s a jarring rough landing on rocks, and it hurts. I try to get up, slipping the first try, then I gather my parachute up so I don’t get blown of the ridge. After disconnecting it from my harness, I look to hide it quickly. So I stash it in a crevice and put a rock over it to conceal it. Suddenly I hear someone yell something I don’t understand from behind me. I turn and see a Taliban man aiming an AK forty seven at me. He shouts again and motions upwards with the barrel of the gun. My hands go straight up in the air.

  Another man comes up the steep ridge to us, breathing hard, and he covers me with his gun too. The first guy carefully approaches me, and takes the pistol from my holster, sticking it in his belt. He signals for me to turn around, so I do. This is it? Then he roughly grabs my hands down behind me and ties them together tightly. Next he spins me around again, and takes my helmet off real rough like. He sees my face, and does a double take. Then he says something to the other fellow and they laugh.

  They pull me down the steep rocky slope, and I slip and fall on my ass a number of times. They just pull me onward. At the bottom of the ravine five more Taliban greet us, and they seem to be discussing what to do with me. In a few moments they seem to have decided, and the first two push me along a trail cut into the steep sides of the mountain. They try to hurry me along, but I am going as fast as I freaking can. However they don’t care that I have short legs, at all. We jog for several miles, and then they take me up a trail into a ravine that leads to a small cave. The sun has just gone down and I will be glad not to have a forced march in the dark, at least I hope not. I had to get my dumb ass shot down, and captured by the very people I have been bombing. It is pretty obvious where this is going to go. Jet noise comes from all above, as it has since I went down. They are looking for me, I know it. My training cost them way too much damn money for them not to.

  I am taken in front of the obvious boss man in the cave, when he sees me he starts yelling at the two who brought me in. Suddenly they both start ripping and cutting my flight suit off of me, and then all my skivvies too. Seeing me naked gives them all a pause, and then they all start laughing. I guess they thought I was a boy. Then the boss man gets angry again, shouting stuff. He grabs up my clothes, and has the others even take my boots off. The he takes all my clothes and hurries out of the cave. Oh, shit! He must know about the transponder it seems.

  The first man who captured me kneels in front of me as I was tossed on the ground when they took my boots off. He grins at me with hatred, and then he punches me in the face. As the stars clear, I see he has his member out, and he punches me again. Then I feel him penetrate me, and he rapes me. It takes him five minutes at least, and I see number two already in line. The second guy just has venom in his eyes at me, and he beats me worse as he rapes my dumb ass.

  Just then the boss man comes back in and really goes ape shit yelling at the two men. He’s pointing out the mouth of the cave and then to his watch. Like he’s telling them that they should have been gone with me ten minutes ago. I hear a pop like an air gun pop, and then another, and the boss man drops to the ground with a couple of holes in his forehead. Two more pops and my two rapists fall down dead. I look up to the cave entrance and a big, fully camouflaged, man with a silenced sub machine gun enters the cave.

  “Captain Romero?” He runs right up to me.

  “Yes! Yes!” I start to cry finally, as he cuts the rope binding my hands. Another man comes in behind him, and he pulls out a blanket from his backpack quickly to hand it to the first man. He drapes it over my shoulders, and then just picks me right up over his shoulder like it was nothing.

  “Forgive my impropriety ma‘am, but we are getting you out of here right now.”

  We are out into the night air, and he is running fast. I see more dark shapes moving near us as we run back up the trail I was brought down. In about a hundred yards we veer off the trail heading up a ravine, and then he keeps running right up the steep rocky slope, not slowing at all, to a wide ridge. There is a helicopter set down there with its engines running, yet it is very quiet. My rescuer runs right up to the open dark interior, and hands grab me, pulling me inside. I’m fastened to a seat in the dark, and I see my rescuer move away from the bird.

  “Why isn’t he coming?” I ask the darkness.

  “They’ll catch the next ride. Relax Captain, we’re taking you home now.”

  The bird rises into the night and we are off. My mind is reeling from what just happened. I can’t quite grasp it, but I am forced to replay it all in my mind again.

  We land on the base hospital’s emergency pad, and a gurney is waiting for me. They take me right in to be treated. The good doctors and nurses clean up my face from the cuts and bruises inflicted, and then they discover my being raped. They ask me and I nod crying. They clean me out and get contraceptive creams up in me and some medicines down me as well. Then there are a number of preventative injections last. Finally I am taken to a room on the gurney, in my little, not so cute, hospital gown, and transferred gently to the bed there.

  I have three visitors right away; the Colonel, Major Hoyt, and Major Hanford. She comes and hugs me like mom would, and she immediately asks the nurses for juices, and some food for me. Then she gets the extra blankets down from the room closet, and gets me all comfortable. The Colonel and Major Hoyt just hold my hands with genuine care.

  “I am so sorry kiddo.” The Colonel coos. “But I am so glad you are here with us, alive.” He pats my hand.

  “You took a missile for me Romero.” Major Hoyt shakes his head as if in wonder. “You crazy, crazy kid.” I see his normally stoic face shedding tears.

  “The Major has already made his action report, and he detailed how you got right behind him to take the damn thing instead of him.” Colonel Hall also shakes his head. “I don’t know whether to spank you, or hug you Captain.”

  “I would prefer the hug sir.” I smile as best I can.

  He actually leans over and hugs me.

  “Don’t do it again.” He sighs.

  Major Hanford stays with me after they leave, and I fall asleep with her right there looking over me. When I wake up, she is right there with anything I need. I tell her that she’s also my mom, and that I love her like that too. She responds with a big hug and a kiss to my cheek, and calling me her baby. I so eat it up. When someone loves you and cares about you, it’s really nice. She tells me that the doctors had informed the Colonel
of my being raped, and he had only told her, so she could maybe help.

  “If you want to talk about it baby, I’m here. If not, that’s fine too.”

  “It’s weird… I’ve been thinking about it. The boss man seemed to be aware of the transponder in my flight suit. That’s why they stripped me. He took all my clothes out of the cave, to get rid of them somehow. I think the other two guys were supposed to get me to another location, but they stopped to take the time to rape me. When the boss caught them in the act, he seemed more upset that they were still there, than what they were doing to me. That was when those wonderful men killed them all, and rescued me. You know, if they hadn’t taken the time to rape me, I might not have been found.”

  “That is weird. I’m just glad those bastards got what they deserved.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  By lunch the whole squadron has been by to see me, and to bring me little treats. Just after the noon meal, a psychologist stops by to talk with me, and asks Major Hanford to step out as we do. She does it begrudgingly.

  “I just wanted to talk to you about what happened to you Captain.” He smiles smugly.

  “About getting shot down? It sucks, trust me.”

  “No, about what happened to you after you were captured.”

  “Oh, you mean when they beat and raped me, I understand. It sucks, trust me.”

  He cocks his head at my casual attitude. “Captain, was that the first time something like that has happened to you?”

  “No, the first time was by guys on our side.”

  “I see, this was in civilian life before the Air Force then?”

  “No, at the Academy.”

  “But I don’t see any mention of this in your service record Captain.”

  “I didn’t report it.”