[Matt Wiser]

Part II: the reporter and cameraman get their "Check Ride":



Over the Texas Panhandle, 1420 Hours Central War Time:


The two F-4s that made up Corvette Flight were headed west as they entered the old Scud Box. Bounded by Childress, Tulia, Abernathy, and Paducah, this had been one of Ivan's favorite Scud launch areas during the interval between PRAIRIE FIRE I and II that summer, and the 335th had spent a lot of time and effort, along with at least one crew, hunting Scuds. They had done the job, not always successfully, the pilots told their backseat passengers. Lots of places to hide in the day, and the bad guys were doing the old “Shoot and scoot” firing technique. Then there had been the air-to-air action, along with their usual strikes into the enemy rear.

“Wasn't this where you got your gun kill?” Trevor Scott, the cameraman, asked from 512's back seat.

“Who told you?” Major Matt Wiser asked. “You guys weren't with us then.”

“Sweaty and Hoser told us,” Jana Wendt called from 520. “They gave us the lowdown on what you guys did out here.”

In that bird's pilot seat, Captain Kara Thrace shook her head. “Figures,” she muttered. “Well, yeah, we did some air-to-air.”

“And she made ace out here,” Major Wiser replied. “Though her post-ace celebration was...memorable.”

“Guru, don't you start that story,” Kara shot back with mock indignation. “We're on an open channel here.”

“What happened?” Wendt asked. “If it's as naughty as you say, we can't air it.”

Kara shook her head. Might as well tell my version. “Well, I got a little drunk.”

“More than a little, I'll say,” Guru chimed in.

“Hey, this is MY story, okay?” Kara said. “I took a few guys to the supply tent to celebrate, then they found me the next morning.”

“As naked as the day she was born,” Guru quipped. “More than slightly drunk, sitting in the front seat of an F-4, and having puked all over the cockpit of said airplane.”

Wendt was surprised. “Not yours, I hope?”

“No, and before you ask, not the CO's, either,” Guru said. “It was that snotty Major we've all had problems with.”

“And his ground crew had to clean it up,” Kara added.

“They did,” Guru said. He checked his map, looked outside and below, then nodded. They were there. “All right, this is the Scud Box. Two, let's get down low, show our guests some of our old stomping grounds, then do some turnin' and burnin'.”

Music to my ears, Kara thought. “Let's do it. Hang on, Ms. Wendt, and you're about to have the most fun you'll ever have with your clothes on.”

“Oh, shit,” Jana Wendt muttered, then she pulled an airsickness bag from one of her flight suit pockets. The other female pilots and backseaters-GIBs they called themselves-”Girls in Back”-had told her to stuff her pockets with those bags. If she was going to fly with Kara, they had said, you'll need every last one you can find.

“Ready Mr. Scott?” Guru asked.

“Camera's ready,” Scott replied. “Let's go.”

Guru smiled beneath his oxygen mask. “Glad to oblige.” He then turned 512 into a hard diving left turn. “Follow me, Two.”

“With you,” Kara replied. “Like I said, hang on.” Then Kara followed the CO's bird down.

“Oh, shit,” Ms. Wendt said, holding onto the airsickness bag with one hand, and her camera with the other.

Guru and Kara went down low, down to 2500 Feet, then pulled up. After doing that, they went through some basic ACT maneuvering, then some barrel rolls, high and low yo-yos, even a couple of rolling scissors-one vertical, one horizontal.

“How do you like it, Mr. Scott?” Guru asked as they finished the horizontal scissors.

“Haven't had to use one of these bags,” the cameraman replied cheerfully. “I'm having a ball.”

“Getting some good footage?”

“You'll like it,” Scott said. “Jana, how's things over there?”

In 520's back seat, Ms. Wendt was groping for an empty airsickness bag. She had used several already. “Hanging in there,” she said, trying to be as stoic as possible, despite the queasiness in her stomach . She knew these fighter pilots were still hoping that they'd be able to scare her back to reporting on the war from CBS in Los Angeles, and she wasn't going to give them that pleasure, the CO's previous remarks notwithstanding. “You guys do this every day.”

“All the time,” Kara replied. “Boss, what's next?”

“You do the honors,” Guru said. “Show a SAM break. I'll call it.”

“Ready.”

“Roger that,” Guru said. He thought for a moment, then called. “SAM, Five O'clock.”

Without hesitating, Kara pulled sharply high and to the right, then she came around in a 180, before rolling back in. “How'd you like that?”

“How many Gs was that?” Ms. Wendt asked, trying not to throw up.

“Oh, only six,” Kara said.

Only six? It felt like six hundred, the reporter thought. “I'll take your word for it.” She reached for another bag-and saw she only had two left. Careful, now...

In 512, Guru grinned beneath his oxygen mask. If she's getting sick, good. Now they'll know what we do day in and day out. “Your turn, Mr. Scott,” he told the cameraman. “Ready?”

“When you are, Major,” Scott replied, getting ready to film.

“Kara, call it,” Guru said.

“Roger, Lead.” Kara thought for a second or two, then she made the call. “Lead, SAM, Eight O'clock!”

Guru pulled high and to the left, putting the F-4 into a turn that was high and tight, rolling inverted as he did. He rolled back, did a 180, then came in to join up on 520. “How was that, Mr. Scott?”

“Loved it,” Scott called back. Beneath his oxygen mask, he had a grin from ear to ear. “This is great!”

“Not so great when they're shooting at you,” Guru reminded him-and Ms. Wendt as well. “Watched a CO get killed on me, two weeks into the war,” he said. “Called the SAM, and next thing I see is that his bird's a fireball. Nobody got out.”

“Ugh,” Scott said.

“Yeah. Happened twice in those days, losing the CO, and lost an XO, too-on Day One. Those early days were rough.” Enough of that, the CO decided. “Two, let's get back down low. Show our guests some of our old targets.” Then Guru took 512 back down low.

“My pleasure,” Kara said. “Hang on again, Ms. Wendt,” she said as she followed the CO.

“Oh, God,” Wendt muttered as she reached for another bag as the maniac in the front seat-or so it seemed-took the fighter down.

They flew around for a few minutes, showing the reporters two of their old Scud targets, and a helo field that still had wrecked helicopters still sitting where they had been blasted. “When we did a Scud Hunt out here?” Guru said. “We also had other targets, if we couldn't find what we were looking for.

“You mean that chopper field?” Scott asked.

“No, that was a preplanned strike, but there were plenty of opportunity targets, let's put it that way.”

“If it was a military target out here,” Kara added. “Military traffic on the roads, a supply dump, truck park, and on and on. You name it, we hit it.”

“That we did,” Guru said. “Before that, we put the hurt on the bad guys retreating from Amarillo. They're still clearing wreckage from I-27 and U.S. 287. All right, now. Let's show these two an Immelmann, then stay high. Almost time to go home.”

“Right with you,” Kara said, joining up on her Lead.

“Ready...Ready.....NOW!” Guru pulled back on the stick and applied full military power. Kara did the same, and both F-4s pulled up. They went through the cloud deck, coming out at 19,000 Feet, then they split-Guru going right, and Kara going left. They leveled out just above the clouds.

“Is that it?” Ms. Wendt asked, and everyone listening could hear how shaken she was.

“It is,” Guru said. “Two, on me, and let's go home.”

“Roger that,” Kara said. She did a 180, then joined up on Guru, who then turned east towards Sheppard.

“That was interesting,” Scott said. He glanced around, then above, and something caught his eye. “Major, somebody's above us, and they're really high.”

Guru looked up, and sure enough, so high one could barely make out an aircraft, but it was there. “He's smokin',” the CO noted. The bogey-whoever he was, was going fast. “Too fast for a U-2.”

“Who is it?” Ms.Wendt asked. She couldn't pick out the aircraft, but was taking the CO's word for it.

“That high?” Kara said. “Either an SR-71 or a Foxbat recon bird. What they call a MiG-25R or RB.”

“Can you get him if you had to?” Scott wanted to know.

“Too high, and too fast,” Guru said. “Only way to nail a Foxbat in an F-4 is to jump him on takeoff-which is how I got my Foxbat kill. Or you get him on landing. Other than that? You need an F-14 or F-15.” Though a blue-suiter to the bone, he was enough of a professional to know that a Phoenix from an F-14 was the best Foxbat-killer out there. And he'd seen it happen more than once.

“Well, this has been interesting,” Scott said, looking around. All that was beneath them was clouds. “And for Jana's benefit, how do you know when we're back?”

“Just time and distance, since normally I'd have Goalie in the back seat working the nav system, but we're almost home.” Guru then took 512 down into the clouds, then came out beneath, with Kara right behind him, and the Wichita Falls area was revealed. “Here we are,” he said. Then the CO called the Tower for landing instructions.

“Major, could you have Kara come in a minute or two behind us?” Scott asked. “I should be behind the camera when she gets out.”

“Not a problem,” Guru replied. “Two, wait a couple minutes, then call the Tower and come on in.”

In 520, Kara grinned beneath her oxygen mask. “My pleasure.”

“Oh, God,” Ms. Wendt moaned. She was out of airsickness bags.

Guru heard that, and grinned himself. “All right,” he told Mr. Scott after hearing from the Tower. “We're coming in.” Guru then got into the pattern, waiting for the eastbound C-141 to land, then he made his approach and landing.

After touchdown, he taxied in, and popped his canopy. A good-sized crowd was watching: AF, Marines, Navy, and RAF. They saw him taxi into the squadron's dispersal area, then into 512's revetment. Before shutting down, he called the Tower and told them to go ahead and clear Corvette Two in.

Then he and Mr. Scott got out, and after a quick post-flight, shook hands with Sergeant Crowley, who, as usual, had a bottle of water for both. “How'd it go, sir? And for you, Mr. Scott?”

“New experience for me,” Scott replied. “I've been in helicopters, but this was totally different. There, you're packed in with a dozen or more people, and you're low and slow enough anyone can shoot at you.” And often did, he remembered from his Vietnam days, the last one a ride in a South Vietnamese CH-47 going back to Saigon from Xuan Loc two weeks before the end of that war.

“Leave that to the rotorheads,” Guru said, even though a good friend was such a driver, and had brought back two of his own after they had to bail out-a few days into being a squadron commander. Then Kara's F-4 made another flyby. “Kara's coming in. Get your camera ready.”

Scott produced his 8-mm, and both he and Guru went to watch as Kara's F-4 came in and landed. The F-4 taxied in, front canopy popped and raised, before taxiing into the squadron's dispersal area, then finding its revetment. Only after shutting down did the crowd approach, and at the lead of that was Colonel Brady.

“Major, Mr. Scott,” Brady said. “How'd it go?”

“I'll defer to Mr. Scott, sir,” Guru said.

“It was one hell of an experience, Colonel. Wouldn't mind doing it again,” Scott said. He looked at 520 as the ground crew brought the crew ladder.

“Want to do it with the Marines?” Brady asked. “Say the word, and I'll arrange it.”

“Love to, but I don't now about Jana,” the cameraman replied, nodding at 520.

“Then we'd best go see,” Brady said.

Both canopies were now open, and Kara had taken off her helmet, and both she and her Crew Chief were helping Ms. Wendt. The reporter shakily stood up, then climbed down from the Phantom. Then she got down on her hands and knees and promptly threw up! “Where's Doc?” Kara asked.

“He's comin'”, said Guru as a Dodge Crew-Cab pickup arrived, and the flight surgeon got out. “You have to arrive in style?”

The flight surgeon was cheerful. “First semi-emergency call in a while,” the sawbones replied. “And she may need a ride back to Medical.”

“Got anything?” The CO asked as they went into the revetment.

“Dramamine's right here,” Doc said, producing a bottle.

They went over as Ms. Wendt sat up, and Kara was standing over her. “You all right?”

“Like shit,” the reporter moaned. “Is that all right for you?”

“For a first-timer, it sounds good enough. Doc's here,” said Kara as the CO and the Flight Surgeon arrived.

Doc came up. “Want something for your stomach?”

Ms. Wendt nodded. “Please,” she moaned. The sawbones gave her two pills, which she swallowed, and then guzzled some water. “Thanks....”

“Was it worth it, Ms. Wendt?” Guru asked as he got there, with Colonel Brady and quite a few others behind.

“You still trying to scare me out of here?” Wendt asked as she staggered to her feet. “Told you guys I was staying. And I mean it,” she added as she staggered towards Doc's truck.

Guru nodded as Mr. Scott kept filming. “I know, but still...Had to ask.”

“You're not getting rid of me that easy,” the reporter said as Doc helped her into the right front seat of the truck. “How many Gs was that? Five million?”

Guru looked at Kara, who shrugged. “Just six,” Kara said.

Goalie came up. “She pass?”

“Just,” Guru said. He turned to Kara's crew chief. “Sarge, how many bags did she leave?”

“How many did she have?” The Staff Sergeant wanted to know.

Mr. Scott got close. “Jana, how many bags did you take?”

She moaned. “Twelve...”

“A dozen,” Guru said to the Crew Chief.

The Staff Sergeant nodded with a look of disgust on his face. “Twelve here,” he said. “Good thing she didn't puke all over the cockpit.” At least he'd have the assistant CC clean them up.

“You guys aren't scaring me out of here that easy,” Ms. Wendt said, staggering to her feet. “Besides, I've still got stories to do.”

Sweaty was standing next to Kara. “Told you,” she said.

Without a word, Kara opened a flight suit pocket and pulled out several $20 bills. She handed one to Sweaty, another to Goalie, and then Flossy, KT, the XO, Cosmo, Revlon, and a couple of others.

Then Guru, Goalie, Kara, Sweaty, Flossy, the XO, and Brainiac all got close to Ms. Wendt. “Well, Ms. Wendt, you and Mr. Scott now know what we do day in and day out,” said the CO. “With one difference.”

“What's that?” Mr. Scott asked.

“Simple,” Kara said. “Nobody was shooting at us,” she nodded. “No SAMs, no Triple-A, no MiGs. Or seeing somebody in your flight-or another friendly-turn into a fireball or having to bail out.”

Guru nodded. “And we've all seen that too many times,” he said.

“Some more than others,” Colonel Brady said. “Well, Ms. Wendt? You still want to fly with the Marines?” He was referring to a previous offer for a backseat F-4 ride with one of the two Marine F-4 squadrons in MAG-11.

“Once was enough for today,” Wendt moaned, staggering around. “I need to lie down.”

“Want to go to your quarters, or to Medical?” Doc asked.

“Whichever's closer.”

“Come on,” Doc said, taking her hand. “We'll get you to Medical, and I could give you an IV.”

“Just get me lying down, until the world stops lurching back and forth,” Ms. Wendt said as she was helped into the truck.

After the truck drove off, and people thought that Doc, at the moment, couldn't be more happier. He finally had a semi-emergency case, and was back in his element. “Doc looks like he's on Cloud Nine,” Goalie observed.

“Can you blame him?” Sweaty replied. “After that last air strike, the most he's had to do was an appendectomy.” To her, and the others, it seemed that the Doc was eager for something to happen, just to break the monotony.

“No,” Guru said. “Dave,” he turned to Squadron Leader Dave Gledhill. “You going to take her and Mr. Scott here up?”

“I think my guys and girls can show them a thing or two,” the RAF officer said. He, too, had a grin on his face.

“Anytime,” Scott grinned. “Even if Jana doesn't want to, I'm game.”

“Be careful of what you wish for,” Guru warned the cameraman. “Because you usually get it-and more, besides.”

“All right, people!” Colonel Brady said. “Still got some time before we can knock off.”

As the crowd broke up, Guru went to his PAO, Lieutenant Patti Brown. “Patti, you guys get your pictures?”

The PAO turned to the airman who was the squadron's photographer, and he had a camcorder in hand. The airman nodded, and gestured to one of the sergeants in the PAO shop, who had a 35-mm camera as well. “Got all we need, Major,” Brown said. “We'll share it with the newsies, and one of the guys wants to do an article for Airman.”

“Good,” the CO nodded as Goalie came up. “Get what you need?”

“Twenty years from now, if we're all still alive, we'll have a field day with these,” she grinned, having borrowed Kara's own camcorder.

The CO grinned, but then turned serious. “First we have to get to the 'after the war', first,” he pointed out. “That caveat is in force.”

“Isn't that the truth?” Goalie asked. “At least my IN box is empty.” Though only a First Lieutenant, she was Senior WSO.

“Lucky you,” Guru said. “Okay, make sure it's empty. I need to check mine, get one of the newbies in as SDO as Digger should be cleared, and pair him up with another newbie.”

“Still pairing old hands with FNGs?”

“Yep,” Guru replied. “That has a habit of keeping said FNG alive. When I can't pair old and new, we lose people.”

“Sad, but true,” Goalie admitted. “You still need to slay the armchair warriors?” She had developed a loathing for the AF bureaucracy, and she also knew that the CO had done the same.

“Unfortunately,” said Guru. “I'll see you in the Club.”


After Guru returned to his office, he found a few things in his IN box. Mostly memos about matters that might make sense-to someone flying a desk, but not to him-or anyone else flying combat. Shaking his head at one memo that was critical of “excessive expenditure of flares, either for IR deception or for night illumination”, he couldn't shred them, but instead simply filed them. One of these days, when either General Tanner, or better yet, Sundown Cunningham, paid a visit, Guru vowed to show the offending paperwork to the generals, and hopefully, said paper-pushers would get a royal ass-kicking, preferably followed by a trip to the front lines or up north to shovel snow at someplace like Gander or K.I. Sawyer.

After finishing the papers, he got up and took a look outside his office. While combat ops had not yet resumed, the transports were busy-with the eastbound C-141 taking off, having unloaded its cargo, and a C-130 was coming in, along with what looked like a Special-Ops MC-130 getting ready to depart. The “Snake-eaters” were always busy, and whatever they were up to, no one outside their compound, which included the old SAC Molehole, had any “need to know.” Whatever they did to put the hurt on the bad guys and make Ivan's life behind the lines miserable, all power to 'em, the CO thought. Then there was a knock on the door. “Yeah? Come in and show yourself!”

The XO opened the door. “Boss, got a couple of things for you before we knock off.”

“What have you got for me?” Asked the CO.

“First, all twenty-four birds are going to be up and ready in the morning.”

Guru thought for a minute. “Well, now. Last time we had that?”

“Yeah?”

“You, me, and Don were at Nellis. Day One.”

“That is something,” the XO admitted. “And crews?”

“I'm going to put Digger in with an FNG-and the same goes for Hacksaw when he's cleared. If we put vets with FNGs, the survival rate goes up,” Guru said, reminding the XO of a bitter truth.

“And if a crew is all newbies, they have, what, a fifty-fifty chance of not making it to ten missions,” Ellis nodded. It wasn't a question.

The CO nodded back. “Ain't that the sorry truth? All right, that's done. What else?”

“Weather update. Not quite CAVU tomorrow, but close,” the XO said as he handed Guru the weather report.

“Okay...Partly to mostly sunny, highs in the mid-60s,” Guru read the weather summary out loud. “Cloud base 12,000 to 15,000. Tops out at 20. The stand-down was fun while it lasted.”

“It was,” said Ellis. “Eastbound C-141 brought the newspapers, and everything on our supply list. Kev O'Donnell's pretty happy: two new ejection seats, radar parts, hydraulic fluid, brake fluid, engine oil, and the scroungers also came through.”

“As in?”

“Two dozen new Paveway kits.” Paveway meant laser-guided bombs. “All for GBU-10.”

“More UNODIR, if necessary,” Guru smiled. More laser bomb strikes-if they couldn't get any in the ATO, they would pull assigned ordnance and hit a point target with Paveways-Unless Otherwise Directed. “General Olds did give us the go-ahead for that.”

“He did. One other thing: Ryan Blanchard's CSPs found somebody in a hideout northeast of the base. Found the guy in what was a bombed-out house about five hundred yards north of Runway 17L. They caught him trying to get into the storm cellar-and he shot it out.”

Guru wasn't surprised at hearing the news. There was still an active Spetsnatz and PSD threat to the base, and though a PSD agent had been caught during General Olds' time on base-and later executed, the threat was still there. “They take him alive?”

“No. Ryan's people shot him full of holes.”

“They saved the OSI and Army Counterintelligence people a couple weeks' worth of work,” the CO observed dryly. “Find anything?”

“Yeah, he had two AK rifles along with the one he tried to use,” Ellis said. “Plus some explosives, timers, and so on. Plus a shortwave radio, one-time pad, a notepad, and a map of the base. Problem with the latter two? The notes in the pad and on the map are in shorthand, and it'll take some work to figure out what kind.”

“Too bad,” said Guru. “Because you can't interrogate a corpse. Anything else?”

“Aircraft status report,” Ellis replied, handing the CO the form.

Guru signed it, then asked, “That it?”

“That it is.”

“Okay,” Guru nodded. “Thoughts on this afternoon's excitement?”

The XO thought for a minute. “No way did we scare her back to Nellis or L.A.. If we did, she would've been telling her people to pack the minute she staggered to her feet.”

“I'll go along with that. She still wants to fly with the Marines, and maybe the RAF now,” said Guru. “She's made of more sterner stuff than we thought. If that Su-24 strike didn't prove that, this did.” The CO was recalling the last air strike, and Ms. Wendt had disdained the shelters, instead, going out and filming-as the strike came in. Her only regret, she had said to their temporary PAO, that they weren't on the air live.

“Looks like it. We may have turned her into an adrenalin junkie. If she wasn't when she got here, she's one now,” Ellis pointed out.

Guru winced, but knew the XO was right. “She told us she was staying back when General Olds was here. This was her way of proving it.” The CO looked at the clock. It read 1702. “Anything else?”

“Not until morning,” said Ellis.

“Good,” Guru said, standing up and grabbing his bush hat. “Then let's hit the Club.”