Afterburners

by William Robert Stanek

  “Crew ready for taxi and takeoff?” tweaked the MCC’s voice into our headsets. We hoisted our thumbs high. “Pilot, MCC, mission crew ready for taxi and takeoff.”

  “Roger, MCC.”

  Finally we were ready to go. Strapped in, green nomex gloves on, seat facing forward, we listened to the pilot’s voice announce the obvious. “Crew, we’re rolling,” he said and we prepared for takeoff.

  Suddenly the eagerness to be airborne disappeared. A three-day TDY was before me and now all I could think of was what I was leaving behind. I imagined the rolling hills, the farmlands, and the thick green forests. Every German village I’d seen had been like the picture postcards of Europe I’d seen as a boy.

  I’d pursued each and every one of those pictures. I’d followed the Rhine River by boat, admiring the medieval castles that frequented its shores. I’d walked castle bulwarks at night when torches lighted them and their walls reflected an ominous orange amidst thick shadows, imagining medieval knights defending the great walls against invading hordes. I’d been to the Black Forest, bought my cuckoo clock. I’d wandered about Bavarian vineyards. But I’d never been to England, which is where we were heading.

  I had a full itinerary planned. Cambridge and London awaited if I got the chance to see them, and I hoped I would.

  When clearance came after takeoff, I removed my gloves and turned to face position Six. I lowered the zipper on my flight suit so it was away from my neck and stared at the blackened screen before me while I waited for system power to be brought up. Today we’d just check out the equipment and make sure it was all working properly. Tomorrow, a mission.

  My screen blinked. The AMT’s voice tweaked into my headset, “The system’s coming up. She looks good; no gremlins today.”

  I watched the blinking cursor and waited. The maintenance tech was busy bringing up the system, running around switching on boxes, cycling power on others.

  Pressure changes as we climbed again made my ears crackle and pop. As I adjusted the foam earplugs, the roar of engines came in booming.

  “AMT, MCC, system up yet?”

  “Hold one!” came the reply.

  I glanced at my watch; it was 09:15. So far we’d made good time though the three hours of preflight had crawled by.

  The system logo finally started scrawling across my screen. The system was almost up. The screen blanked out for a moment to be replaced by the log-in prompt.

  “MCC, AMT, the system is yours!”

  I looked left. Two positions down, the mission crew commander was logging in and checking out the system. A few minutes later, his voice coming across Private cleared us in.

  Above the keyboard were three long rows of keys, all labeled and in different colors: green, red, yellow, white and black. Each key pulled up a separate action menu. I punched the appropriate key to give me access to the log-in prompt.

  Once logged into the position, I performed the standard checks and waited for final clearance to the signal environment. I switched on the small spotlight above my position and aimed it at the now darkened keyboard as interior lighting had been brought down. I flicked through the settings on the displays above my position’s display, ensuring they were set properly. Now as I glanced about the cabin, the Lady looked exceptionally extravagant; but she still flashed her true colors only when we threw her into jam. During Green Flag we had live-jammed, but ordinarily we didn’t.

  Before testing the system, the MCC ensured the system was in dummy load, which meant no jamming emitted from the plane. The AMT confirmed this.

  We played around with the system for a time, but it just wasn’t the same as a mission. On a regular mission, we’d be humping the buffer zone, busily working a live signal environment. All in preparation for wars we hoped would never come. But we were combat crew, and preparation for the real thing was our livelihood.

  When we landed at Mildenhall, it was early afternoon and early evening before we settled into our rooms. The crew quarters, surprisingly, weren’t bad. But none of us really cared about the rooms.

  A group of us converted U.S. dollars to British pounds at an automatic teller machine. Then we set off for English fish and chips. Some sipped their first English ales before the fish and chips arrived. But that was about it for our big evening. Crew rest began at 22:00 and we had to return to our rooms. Crew rest meant twelve hours during which we were supposed to rest and weren’t supposed to be disturbed. We also weren’t supposed to consume alcohol in the eight hours immediately prior to flying, a rule that made good sense. Our lives depended on everyone’s being able to do what we got paid to do.

  Early the next morning we headed over to the Mildenhall operations center. The mission crew made the trek on foot because the crew van was nowhere to be found. Mildenhall ops was set up completely differently from Sembach ops. Here everything was crammed into tight quarters and buildings a hundred years older than any of us.

  The schedule for the morning was pretty much set in concrete. We’d be flying as part of an integrated package in a mini-exercise. Planning the mission was the responsibility of the mission crew. The eight of us each had separate tasks to perform, which involved planning and mapping out our orbit box, orbit times, jam windows, simulated targets, and the times over target for the simulated packages we would be supporting. The front-end crew would go over the flight plan and the mission route then make sure our windows of opportunity and orbit times corresponded with the navigator’s plans.

  The final stage of mission planning was reviewing the communications plan. After that we were ready for an onslaught of briefings. During the preflight brief given by the members of the mission crew, we reviewed the mission plan and maps. The big map displaying all pertinent target information was our best visual aid—it told all. After the preflight brief, the aircraft commander gave his spiel. He told us the estimated length of the mission with transit times figured in, skimmed over emergency procedures, and detailed other significant factors. Today the mission would be over water; life preservers and poopy suits needed to be readied. I hated the poopy suits, the black rubber that stretched from head to toe was nearly impossible to get into and even worse to get out of.

  The navigator briefed us on weather, which didn’t look good. The runway was sopped in and the cloud deck was thickening. Weather was always a critical factor; and if it didn’t clear, we wouldn’t fly. It’d be a No-Go.

  Next the MCC gave his briefing. He coordinated our windows of opportunity with the front-end once more. Planning and coordinating the jam windows was tricky business. We didn’t want our orbit box to be too short, so we were constantly making turns. We didn’t want it to be too long either. We didn’t want to be in the middle of a turn when a package element was coming in over target. We also wanted to make sure we used our jamming array effectively, switching our jammers on when necessary and switching them off when unnecessary.

  After the MCC brief we were ready to fly, but only if the weather improved. Flying a mission was always like that—planning, briefings, checklists and lots of waiting. When we were humping the zone, the adrenaline surging through our veins always compensated for all the fuss.

  Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you looked at it, the weather worsened and the fog rolled in. It was then that we knew we were in England for sure. Four hours of waiting crept by. The weather didn’t clear and eventually we were put on standby. We could go eat and whatnot but had to report back.

  Fly days were normally long, but they were especially long when, after a long wait, you actually flew. There were limits to the length of the crew day, but we were still well within the window. 12:00 was our return time, so we hurried off on foot to grab a bite to eat.

  I hated weather delays more than anything else. Some days you’d wait six or seven hours; then the weather would clear, and you’d go fly your full flight time. And a day that would have been twelve to fourteen hours turned into one that just wouldn’t end.

  Mildenhall was a base s
prawled across the English countryside, and the side of the base we were on was a good clip away from the place where we were quartered. The trudge back to our rooms and to the exchange concessions was long and cold. Needless to say, we weren’t the happiest bunch when we made the return trip after eating.

  The weather stayed bad, but we returned for show time all the same. One crew got off the ground, but our crew never did fly that day. Evening found four of us racing down a narrow English highway in a tiny rented car. We were headed for the county seat of Cambridgeshire. Our first stop was Cambridge University.

  We walked its hallowed halls and courtyards. Then for a time afterward we walked the streets of Cambridge itself, visiting shops and one pub along the way. English pubs were just as I’d always imagined them. Cambridge was a university town and so there was the usual university crowd gathered as well as those who appeared to be regulars. They were all having a grand time.

  We ordered drinks and a light meal. I watched the gents playing darts and a group of college girls, obviously Americans, who thought they were among England’s sophisticated elite. Everything seemed so rich in history and life.

  The inevitable happened on the way home—we got lost. Our driver had been to England before and didn’t seem too worried. Much to my dismay he stopped the car in the middle of the street and called out to one of the pedestrians. The passer-by was the typical English gentleman with an overcoat, plaid cap, and a thin black mustache.

  We did as he told us, taking two lefts, then we asked for directions again. The English are polite to a fault.

  At the Mildenhall operations center the next morning, it was back to business as usual. The skies were clear and our mission was a Go. We provided jamming support for the Falcons, Ravens and Eagles. The AWACS and others joined in the action and it was a sight to be seen.

  After that flight, the remaining days passed quickly, and before we knew it we were on our way home from cheery old England. We had a few extra passengers, pax as we affectionately called them. With their planes already deployed to the desert, Mildenhall had aircrew that needed flight time—part of the reason we were in England in the first place—and so some of them came back with us primarily to get flight time.

  They didn’t know our plane or our systems, so we openly referred to them as “excess baggage” and “dead weight.” Our AMT threatened to dump them out over the North Sea to save fuel. Aircrew rivalries were common. We were EC and they were RC. We were all friends, but it was just the sort of thing aircrews did to torment each other.

  On the way home, we had a special treat for our Mildenhall “buddies.” We flew a mission in the buffer zone with an aerial refueling track thrown in. Crow, the AMT, kidded them that it was a puke tolerance test. And it was.

  Christmas came and went a few weeks later. The holiday season just wasn’t the same. I loved holidays. I was fanatical about holidays. Gloom on the horizon darkened my mood.

  Katie and I exchanged our gifts, said our thanks, and not a whole lot more. It was a pretty somber occasion with the situation in the Gulf shuffling ever more into our everyday lives. Quite a few of my friends were in Saudi and elsewhere, waiting in the sand. We sent them care packages and thought about them, but things just weren’t the same without them.

  Across Europe, preparations were being made for possible terrorist activities. The flight line became a fortress. Traveling anywhere was a nightmare. We still hadn’t received official word that we were deploying even though more and more of our daily activities were directed toward that end.

  Family relations were being stretched to the limit. Mostly because everyone had been told that if hostilities started, dependents might be shipped back to the states for the duration to guard against expected terrorist activity. To make matters worse, we started working longer and longer days—dealing with a never-ending workload and then going home to a never-ending onslaught of questions to which we had no answers.

  More aircrew arrived from Mildenhall. Our job was to train them to use our jamming system. The real nature of their presence was apparent. They were expert Arabic linguists.

  I’d already decided on my New Year’s wishes and resolutions.

  Friday, 11 January, 1991

  It was my birthday. I was the big two-five. My birthday present to me was my last will and testament. I filled out the paper work for my will and a general power of attorney at the base legal office.

  Katie threw me a birthday party complete with cake, presents, and friends. We celebrated, but it was clear that our thoughts were on other things.

  Navy reservists had been arriving since the beginning of the week. One of the KCs out on the pad was named The City of Pensacola in honor of Pensacola, Florida.

  Transport KCs were ferrying supplies and troops to the Gulf. They’d be the ones to bring back the body bags if the war really kicked off.

  A great deal of uncertainty then. Every day, it looked more and more like we’d be going soon though I would always tell Katie I’d heard nothing.

  For some time at work we had been studying Iraqi tactics and getting lessons in identifying the Iraqi dialect from the numerous Arabic dialects. Now we were studying key words, phrases, and their number system.

  My journal that up until then I’d written in only sparingly was getting more-and-more frequent entries. All my other writing projects were on hold. I decided to pack away the book I was working on. There was just too much going on. I put it into a box with the others.

  Work was different that day. It seemed as if everyone wished he were some place other than work. We moved up to forty-eight-hour standby. Now with as little as forty-eight hours’ notice, our whole unit would be expected to pack up everything and deploy to the Gulf.

  Uncertainties were rapidly diminishing. Our mission, should we deploy to the Gulf, was clear-cut. We’d jam Iraqi command and control communications and transmissions from ground and air targets. It was a mission we had been preparing for since early August. One we were more than ready to do.

  The deadline for Iraqi forces’ withdrawal from Kuwait was only four days away, yet Saddam Hussein didn’t even want to meet with our Secretary of State to work this thing out with some level of civility. Saddam Hussein was still hedging his bets. The answer would most likely be war. Iraq had the fourth largest ground army in the world, an army tempered by the long Iran-Iraq war. The United States had the seventh.

  We had an ace in the whole, though; Saddam Hussein didn’t fully recognize the significance of air power though he had a sizable air force. Nor did he believe the United States was willing to commit to full-scale war. He firmly believed our current society could not accept the level of war casualties he was willing to make.

  No matter how willing you were to serve and no matter how gung ho you were, there was always a level of uncertainty that prodded at the back of your mind—a thousand images of Vietnam played along with it all the time now.

  I’d been putting off making that return trip to legal to pick up my will for several days. Eventually, I finalized it with little reservation. Afterward I put it in a locked box.

  Katie saw it. She nearly came to tears. It’s unexpected that a simple piece of paper signed and notarized means so much.

  Monday 14, January 1991

  The weekend was hardly a time for relaxation. Things at home were visibly tense though Katie and I pretended they weren’t. She wanted to know for sure if I would go and I couldn’t honestly tell her yes or no.

  Arrival at work Monday morning brought the grim news of an upgrade to twenty-four-hour notice. Old Jimmie’s advice was to get those things done you’ve been putting off. To find your A-bags and properly fill them. To spend some quality time with your family because there won’t be any real soon.

  The deadline was one day away. Saddam Hussein wasn’t budging. His troops were digging in. They were prepared to wait or fight, prepared for the long haul. I could only pray we were, also. I could only wonder if all this could have been avoided som
ehow.

  That day the deployment board said that I’d be on mission-planning cell if I did go, which meant I probably wouldn’t fly right away. Yet the crews listed there one-by-one on the board were by no means final. The names were, in fact, being juggled on an hourly basis. In the course of a single day, my name was scattered all over the board along with everyone else’s. Old Jimmie and the major were trying to get the best crew mix without sacrificing planning.

  Countless phone calls came in from concerned friends and family. All had their opinions of the encroaching deadline and the possibility of war in the Gulf, to which I responded almost casually with “Uh-huh,” finally ending with “I love you, too.”

  I wasn’t at liberty to discuss anything and I didn’t.

  Tuesday, 15 January 1991

  The deadline came and went. No one moved. Nothing happened. No one really knew what was going to happen, though officially we were told to go to minimal manning and again to spend time with our families. I knew for sure we were going though I hadn’t been told.

  We had known our deployment destination for some time, but we weren’t at liberty to discuss it with anyone outside work. I called my mother and we talked for a long, long time.

  She could tell something was wrong, but I said nothing. I wanted to tell her, “Mom, I’m leaving for the Gulf,” but I couldn’t. When she finally did ask if I were going, I told her, my voice clear and firm, “No, Mom, we’re staying in place. My unit isn’t going.”

  It was one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do.

  Katie and I were in bed by 20:00. In her motherly way, Katie wanted to make sure I got enough sleep before anything happened.

  The inevitable phone call came at 23:45. I heard the first ring. My eyes popped wide open, and I jumped out of bed. I knew what the phone call meant and ran to catch the phone before it rang again. I didn’t want it to wake Katie.