Star Girl (9 page)

“Fall back to a mile and a half sir, we’re going after the high one.”

“Rodger that.”

My turn is sharper and quicker, and I get an auto lock on from my radar on the Mig I am pointing right at, and I switch to a heat seeker and fire because he’s so close. I am past him in two seconds, and my text alert tells me I got him. Now for his buddy, where is he, check my damn six girl! I don’t see him so I go to radar, and use the look-down first as he was below us. There he is, just behind us and ten thousand below, but he is climbing I can see by his altitude increasing. I cut my throttles back as I roll into a break back towards him. I point my nose down at him and let the radar auto lock on again. I press the fire button for an AMRAM and in three seconds the text alert reads target destroyed. Hell yeah! Twin Fulcrums just like the Colonel did; simulated anyhow. The climbing Fulcrum makes some corkscrews towards the ground, and then levels off to wag his wings at us as he flies home. I wonder.

          At the final debriefing of the whole exercise I am again congratulated for my kills, and afterwards, the General tells us that we all performed exceptionally well, and would have won the war; it gets us all cheering. When the debriefing is over, the General leads a Colonel I’ve never met before over to me.

“Colonel Tucker, this is Lieutenant Romero. I’ll leave you two to get to know each other.” He smiles at me as he leaves.

“Lieutenant, I have been playing these war games for over fifteen years now, and only three people before you, have ever shot me down in that sweet little Fishbed. However, nobody has ever got me in the Fulcrum, until today.” He pauses looking me over with scrutiny. I just stand at attention.

“That was some of the best damn flying I have ever seen Romero. Nicely done.” He extends his hand for me to shake and as I do. He grows a big smile.

“If you don’t mind me asking Romero, just how old are you?”

“I’m twenty two sir.”

“Holy shit.” He chuckles. “Look Lieutenant, if you ever want a job with the aggressor squadron, just let me know. I will personally request it.”

“Thank you sir.”

“Outstanding! Uncanny as well. It’s like you’ve been flying jets for ten years or more.”

“It’s actually been nine years sir.”

He just blinks at that, and shakes his head.

“My dad is General George Romero of SAC. He had me flying jets since I was thirteen, Colonel.”

He smiles as if relived. “Thank you for telling me that, now I don’t feel quite as bad.”

          The squadron flies back to New Mexico the next day, and the Colonel tells me that I did the whole squadron real proud by shooting down Colonel Tucker twice. It seems he is considered one of the best damn pilots in the whole Air Force. Well he sure was a real tough cookie, he shot me down twice as well. Major Hoyt is also quite happy with my performance, and he tells me that he’s proud to be my wingman. I guess maybe the change is permanent.

Chapter 6

         
I am due another thirty days furlough as it has been a year since we returned from Iraq, and Colonel Hall tells us we will be deployed overseas again in six months. This time to Afghanistan though, as we are pulling out of Iraq presently. It is one of the things the brand new Obama administration is doing, and the reason I voted for him. I sure can’t tell anyone this, as everyone in the squadron is very hawkish with their politics. I just know the merciless killing needs to stop. I hate it. Thinking about what I’ve done make me sick to my stomach, but here we go back and I’ll have to do it again.

           Since we will leave in six months I decide to wait four months to take my furlough, so I can see my family before I go away again. Of course I call Debbie to see if she can take some furlough, but she can’t at the present. Though she does tell me to call her again before I leave. So when I get home I remember my promise to Carly, and I give her a call.

“Hey Carly, do you still want that ride?”

“Are you kidding me? Yes!”

“How about now?”

“Sure. My mom will baby sit for me for a little while.”

“I’ll pick you up in five minutes then.”

          She is fitted for a loaner suit and helmet, and we climb aboard the Eagle of my dad’s, or under his command anyhow.

“Are you sure you know how to fly this thing without killing me?” She is nervous as she starts to get into the rear seat.

“Relax, I know what I’m doing.” I give her my best Kurt Russell impersonation.

The crewman helps her get all strapped in and buckled up as he explains the ejection procedure to her. I watch her face turn white in one of the rear view mirrors. Then her helmet is on and her oxygen mask connected.

“Carly, can you read me?”

“Yeah Steph. I hear you.”

“Good, let’s have some fun girl.” I give the wind it up signal to the crew, and they start my engines up.

          She is breathing hard as I begin to taxi, and I close the canopy.

“This is really happening?”

“Rodger that Carly. Just enjoy the ride, I’ll keep it smooth.”

I call in to the tower and we are given permission to takeoff.

“You will feel some acceleration now Carly, just go with it.”

“Okay.”

I punch the throttle to full second stage after burners and we are both plastered back into the seats as the roar gets so loud even to our muffled ears.

“Holy shit!” She screams.

We are airborne in no time and I climb out at forty five degrees. I cut the burners off at forty thousand feet and six hundred knots to level out.

“It’s so beautiful Steph! I can see forever.”

“This is what I live for girl.”

“I don’t blame you a bit. Magnificent, and OMG that take off was the bomb!”

“I’m glad you liked it. I was going to ask for a pure vertical takeoff, but I figured to break you in slower.”

“You mean going straight up?”

“Yeah.”

“Thank you; that would have caused me to piss my pants, hell it almost did anyway.”

“Hey, do you want to control her for a bit?”

“What? I can do that?”

“Sure. See the stick between your legs?”

“Okay.”

“I’ll activate it in a moment. Just gentle slow movements now. Left or right banks us left or right. Push it forward to push the nose down and dive, and pull back to pull the nose up and climb. Got it?”

“Just like a video game huh?”

“Sort of.”

“Okay, I’m ready.”

“There, you have control Carly.”

She starts to giggle as she swoops the bird through the sky as she wills it. I keep my hand ready by the stick to take over if she does something crazy. She doesn’t, instead she really starts giggling as she learns how to roll us three sixty just by instinct.

“Nice Carly, that’s fun.” I also giggle.

“This air plane rules the skies Steph!”

“Yeah it does.”

          After about an hour she tells me that she’d better get home so her mom doesn’t get pissed off. So I take us on in to Offutt. On the way home in the car she is bursting with excitement.

“I actually got to fly an F… what again?”

“Just call it an Eagle.”

“An Eagle, okay. Hey do you think we could do it again sometime?”
“Sure, my next furlough?”

“When’s that?”

“It’s a full year off, sorry girl.”

“Oh, that’s okay. I can wait for that, even though I can’t wait!” She giggles with glee.

“I have to tell you something Carly. I’m being deployed to Afghanistan soon.”

Her bubbly mood disappears, and she hugs me as I drive.

“No Steph, not again. You aren’t like that. I know better.”

“I hate it already. Oh god I am so tired of the sick side of my job. It is perverse.”

“See, I know you girl.”

“Yeah, but I pretty much stuck with it.”

“Bullshit Steph. You have options. Look, it’s your life. If you want to go slaughtering people with it, too bad for you. That will change you in the worst way girl. It’s all over the news all the time. Those soldiers coming back from over there are certainly not the young people they once were, and never will be again. I can already see the change happening in you Steph.”

“What? How?”

“You’re just not as easy going and carefree as you used to be. Close, but I can see the difference.”

          When I drop her off, I meet her baby for the first time. Then I go home thinking about what Carly had said. Maybe it is turning me into someone else. At least it is not into someone who has a blood lust, that’s for sure.

          I only see Carly once more before I leave, and that is just to say goodbye. I also call Debbie before I go, like I had promised her I would. She has some rather depressing news.

“I screwed up so bad Steph, damn it!”

“What did you do?”

“Damn it! I’m pregnant.”

“Holy shit Deb!”

“I know. Damn it! They grounded me already, I can’t fly any more baby.” She starts crying.

“Oh shit girl, I’m so sorry.” I pause, and then I have to know. “Who’s the lucky father?”

“He’s a pilot in my squadron. I was on the damn pill Steph, and he always wore condoms… go figure, right?”

“That’s a raw deal girl. Is he supportive at least?”

“Oh yeah, he says he wants me to marry him, and he’ll take care of me… us.”

“That’s not so bad…it could be worse.” I think of Carly.

“What do you mean it’s not so bad? Not being able to fly Steph!”

I sigh, “You’re right, that is the worst.”

“I screwed up so bad.” She cries some more.

          Eventually she does wish me a safe deployment, but I can tell she’s pretty preoccupied with her own problems. I was going to visit my grandparents quickly in Indianapolis, but Grandpa Joe isn’t feeling well lately, so I give them a quick call before I leave.

          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.