A Fine Mess

After sitting a few days in Germany after our Purgatory in the Sandbox, we recuperated quite well. German cuisine and beer can do that for you. As can sleeping in a real bed again.

However, we were all eager to go home. We were a few days late when we were finally alerted for a westbound sortie. But it was disappointing when our crew bus pulled up to our aircraft and we unloaded our bags to find the filthiest jet we had ever seen. Dirt was caked on the pallets and a fine sheen of dust settled over everything in the aircraft – even the cockpit. It was unacceptable. Knowing that US Customs would never allow the aircraft to pass inspection, our loadmaster passed our concerns to maintenance. The aircraft and cargo needed to be cleaned.

Maintenance deferred to the aerial port, the organization responsible for loading and unloading cargo. The aerial port personnel were quick to point out that the cargo had been loaded downrange – in the Sandbox – so they weren’t responsible. True, it was loaded downrange, but it still had to be cleaned. We could not transport dirty cargo in a dirty aircraft back to the States. We repeated our concerns that the aircraft and cargo needed to be cleaned. Or downloaded. But the aircraft would still have to be cleaned even if the cargo was taken off.

The aerial port supervisor – a civilian ironically named Mr. No (not sure how he spelled it, but that was actually his name) – refused to comply. His people would not clean the aircraft and cargo, nor would they offload the cargo. We were now in a pissing match with Mr. No, who promptly called our local command and control organization, the Air Mobility Command Center (AMCC). Instead of backing us, the AMCC tried to get us to take the cargo as is. They’re supposed to know our rules and regulations as well as we do, yet the AMCC sided with Mr. No. We stood our ground.

The AMCC bumped the problem up the chain of command – to Air Mobility Command’s Tanker Airlift Command Center (TACC) near St. Louis. A full colonel there tried to assure us that Customs would clear the aircraft. But we were far from assured that he could vouch for Customs. When the rubber hit the road, it would be the aircraft commander facing a $10,000 fine and I’m pretty sure that Finance would not reimburse a Customs fine on a travel voucher. We stood our ground.

The aerial port found a local US Customs representative and asked him to come out to “pre-inspect” our cargo, basically to ask him if the cargo would be cleared if he was the inspector stateside. He took one look at the mess and shook his head. We had our first ally in our struggle.

Hours passed. Nothing was being done. We figured out that the AMCC was letting us “burn” until we reached the end of our duty day, four hours after our scheduled takeoff, at which time we’d go back to crew rest and they’d simply alert another crew on the same jet. This was technically against the rules, but so was allowing a filthy jet to head back to the States. The AMCC would probably find a young active duty crew eager to get home, who either wouldn’t know about the regulations concerning a dirty jet or could be coerced into bending the rule. Full colonels have a way of convincing junior captains into doing whatever they want.

Mr. No grew impatient. He should have waited for our four-hour rule. But he called out the big gun – the aerial port’s operations officer, a major who came out to the jet armed with the latest regulations in his hand in an attempt to get us moving. It was Mr. No’s downfall. The major had brought us the written guidance backing our position: dirty cargo could not be transported back to the States. The cargo had to be cleaned.

Within 10 minutes, we had every available airman in maintenance and in the aerial port sweeping and vacuuming the jet. There was too much grime and dirt for a thorough cleaning, but they made a definite improvement. Once we felt it was within acceptable limits, we accepted the jet for flight. It was an extremely late takeoff, but we were finally heading home.

After landing on the East Coast to download the cargo and refuel the jet for the remainder of our journey to the Pacific Northwest, Customs officials met our jet as expected. They came aboard, poked around the usual places, and checked our paperwork. It was obvious that something was bothering them.

“Kind of a messy jet, isn’t it?” one of them asked. “It’s a good thing I’m in a good mood tonight; I’ll clear you this time. Merry Christmas!”

And it was only October.

Groundhog Day

Three days after arriving at the American airbase, we were still there, waiting for parole. It seemed tantalizingly close, yet as the seconds turned into minutes and the minutes turned into hours, we still were not alerted to fly. There we sat on Bravo alert, in our cramped tent, waiting for the pager to tell us to go to work. And the damned thing never went off.

Before we had been set up on Bravo, we had relatively more freedom. We had one day to enjoy our allotment of three beers, make a morale call home, watch the Sunday football games on a wooden screen at The Bra, and basically have the run of the base. It was initially pleasant to be set up for our Bravo with an expected alert time, which meant that we would eventually be allowed to leave. But as the time passed after our expected alert time, we learned that they were trying to fix our jet; the yaw damper was out and they gave us an estimate time to repair it.

That time came and went as well, as did all of the subsequent times they gave us. A Bravo alert can run up to 48 hours before we must be released or alerted, so our waiting turned into a kind of Groundhog Day. I’d sleep whenever I was tired, I’d sneak out for a bite to eat when hungry, even ventured out for a quick run in my civilian athletic clothes. I lost myself in reading, watched a movie or two on my laptop, and sneaked out to call home and grab a coffee. We were supposed to remain by the pager so that if we were alerted, we would be immediately ready to go to work. Yet at any given time, the five of us on the crew were scattered to all four corners of the base; it would have taken some time just to get the whole crew back together.

Most of the time, I was good and stayed in our tent. Depending on the sleep schedule of one or the other of us, the lights would either be full on or all off. The only constant was the monotonous hum of our air conditioner; during the nights it was quite chilly, but it barely kept pace with the searing daytime heat of autumn in the Persian Gulf. Afternoon windstorms were also quite common, rattling the sides of the tent like a tarp over a pickup’s bed on the freeway, and occasionally yanking the door of the tent wide open. In order for the door to stay closed, we would have to slam it a few times until it latched. It was like trying to sleep in a frat house without the partying.

As the maintenance crews tried to fix our jet, we learned more about its woes. A flight control module for the aircraft’s elevator was bad, but even after it was replaced, the whole jet shuddered when the flight controls were moved. Boeing was looking into the matter, which meant that nobody had any idea what was wrong with the jet. It all boiled down to the fact that we were leaving nowhere quickly. With three days left before our scheduled return date to our home station, the forecast for an on-time arrival looked grim at best.

So our Groundhog Day continued. Eventually, after more than 45 hours into our 48 window of availability, the pager finally went off. Another jet had come in, so we no longer had to wait for them to fix the other jet. We hurriedly packed the last of our bags and donned our uniforms.

Freedom was waiting.

Doin' Time

After our two-stop in the Afghan sandbox, we flew westbound toward our final stop of the day, an American air base in the Persian Gulf region. Thirty-four thousand feet beneath us, the city of Dubai unfolded from the sun-baked desert like a mirage, a rich tapestry of skyscrapers and man-made islands as out of place as a monkey driving a car. I immediately thought of another desert city half a world away, Las Vegas, yet the contrast couldn’t be more startling. While Dubai is known for its opulence, there is a noticeable lack of greenery in the city on the shore of the Persian Gulf compared to landlocked Las Vegas. Dubai is marked by its uniform shade of brown, at least from my vantage point in the sky.

Dubai’s man-made islands, two palm tree shaped island chains and a third collection of blobs vaguely resembling the earth’s continents, seem like the excesses of a society trying to mold the natural environment into an unnatural one. The islands are to be sold to the wealthy seeking beachfront villas, yet only a few of them seem to have been fully developed. It seems that erosion is a process that the builders cannot fully tame, requiring continual dredging and relocation of the dirt and sand to shore up the islands’ foundations. Experts have said that in the case of an earthquake along a nearby fault line, the islands would liquefy like sand in a sifter and sink into the depths of the gulf.

Sometime later, we were cleared for our final descent toward another Persian Gulf nation. There was an indistinct haze marring the horizon, enveloping the line between sea and sky in a choking layer of suspended dust. Soon, the coastline vaguely appeared, muted by the dust, and as I looked down, I had a hard time pinpointing exactly where the water and the land met, even from a few thousand feet directly overhead. Beyond the beaches lay a dry, dusty, brown world, unadorned by a single tree or blade of grass. Just a vast sunburned terrain stretching for miles; how anybody ever chose to call such a place home is beyond me.

Yet as we flew on, signs of life arose from the desert: highways connecting scattered villages, pipelines and power transmission lines, a vast refinery in the distance. A line of hundreds of gravel trucks snaked their way off-road through the desert like ants seeking out a picnic feast. At the terminus of the motorized ant path, a pack of earth movers chewed into a massive sand dune, emptying its remains one bucketful at a time into the waiting trucks. Nearby, an island of greenery appeared in the sea of sand, a desert estate with actual grass and a garden of trees and shrubs, perhaps the home of some wealthy desert nomad who hit the big time selling sand.

As we flew farther into the desert, the American airbase emerged from the ocher haze, far from any other sign of civilization. After landing, we taxied among rows of air force and navy airplanes, a collection of aircraft larger than many nations’ entire aerial forces. We shut down the engines and exited the aircraft into a blast furnace; it was only ten in the morning, yet a 95 F temperature was magnified by a 17 knot steady breeze. Welcome to fall in the Persian Gulf.

A bus eventually arrived and took us to the host nation’s immigration and customs, where signs advised us to treat the officials with the utmost respect; it is quite common for an unwary glance, foul temper, or some other perceived insult to result in deportation from the nation. Knowing the purgatory awaiting us beyond them in the American base, it was tempting to cast a disparaging look in order to be expelled onto the next airplane leaving for Germany. However, we were soon approved for entry and we were on our way.

The base is a work in progress, as it has been for years. Rows of motley temporary buildings with window air conditioning units like a trailer park on steroids are home for most of the base’s inhabitants; they are temporary housing in name only, since they have been used since at least 2003. Overflow housing consists of a handful of quonset hut tents; our crew of five was given a small tent with four bunk beds, a refrigerator, and two dim lights hanging from the canvas ceiling. A canvas air conditioning duct ran along the spine of our dusty quarters, complete with Velcro tabs to adjust the amount of air desired. New permanent buildings are slowly being constructed nearby, but since we are considered transient personnel, we merely rated a forgotten tent at the edge of the base. The latrines were a short walk away, across a white gravel landscape, entirely devoid of any sign of organic life. Nothing grows here, not even weeds. During the day, the entire scene is blindingly bright, making me squint even behind my sunglasses.

The perimeter was marked by an earthen mound stretching from horizon to horizon. Guard towers, razor sharp barbwire fences, light stanchions, and electronic intrusion devices further ensured our safety. The chow hall was a 15 minute walk to the other side of the base. The central part of the base is affectionately called The Bra; a double white tarp, shaped like a brassiere, covers an open air pavilion around which the Base Exchange, laundry facility, movie theater, fitness center, coffee shop, and, most importantly, the bar are located. We are authorized three drinks a day and few people let their allotment go unused.

Military protocol and regulations cover every aspect of life here to a suffocating degree. Only the duty uniform and a PT uniform are authorized for wear – no personal clothing is allowed, even caps. The PT uniform consists of a gray polyester T-shirt with a subdued but reflective air force emblem, a pair of ill-fitting blue shorts known for riding up the leg inappropriately, white socks, and athletic shoes. In a cruel twist of irony, the uniform is manufactured with low-bid federal convict labor instead of a high-quality athletic apparel manufacturer like Nike or Under Armour. The shirt must be tucked into the shorts, even while exercising. At night, we must wear a reflective belt, and if a backpack is worn, it too must wear a reflective belt, even in areas where vehicles are not allowed.

Offenders of any aspect of uniform wear have been yelled at across crowded dining halls by self-appointed uniform police, usually colonels and master sergeants. God forbid that you don’t tuck your shirt into your shorts while running; some do-gooder will literally chase you down and admonish you for single-handedly causing defeat in the war. They have lost sight of the big picture here by focusing on the minute details; the spit and polish military is dying a slow death. Sometimes it is amazing that we still have the most powerful military in the world.

Burdened by cradle to grave regulations, airmen are beaten down to submission. Perhaps one out of ten people can be seen smiling at a given time, but I am probably being overly generous with that percentage. Most of the happier people are civilian contractors, who are immune from byzantine clothing restrictions and who are paid far more than the airmen who form the backbone of the base workforce. The 1,000 yard stare is the common emotion displayed among military personnel. People here count the days until they can leave; ask anyone and they will usually know down to the exact hour. This place can really suck the joy out of serving the nation.

Sleep is the best way to pass time in this white-collar prison. It is the ultimate time machine; you wake up and it is time to leave. I have slept more than 12 hours at a stretch in the past. When I do get out, I do so at night, when it is considerably cooler. Night time is the right time here; the base is more crowded after sundown than a shopping mall full of teenagers on a Friday night. If you venture out during daylight hours, the base resembles a ghost town. Searing heat is common well into the fall.

At least our time here is limited; as a transient aircrew, we will leave as soon as our number is called and we are given a jet to fly. Until then, here we’ll sit, biding our time until our parole is approved. Maybe I’ll get some more sleep.

Afghan Two-Stop

It was a black night over the Black Sea as we approached our tanker. With two planned stops in Afghanistan, we would need at least 90,000 lbs. of fuel out of the 100,000 lbs. that we were scheduled to offload. With two qualified air refueling pilots in the seat, our plan was for me to take the first half of the gas and the other pilot would get the second half. So I crept slowly forward until we assumed the contact position, slightly less than 20 feet aft and below the KC-135 tanker. Since we were already heavy – with a full load of cargo and 80,000 lbs. of fuel already in our tanks – I had to be especially patient when moving the throttles. There is always a delay between power adjustments and a noticeable effect during heavyweight refueling. Add too much power too soon and you’ll quickly develop too much smash, leading to excessive closure – an obviously dangerous situation.

The boom operator flew the boom into our receptacle and we were taking gas. I made it to roughly the halfway point before I strayed too far left of centerline, and the boom operator disconnected. I had picked up slightly more than 40,000 lbs. I transferred the controls to the other pilot and he maneuvered back in for the rest of the fuel. As we approached the 90,000 mark, I noticed that we were approaching our minimum maneuvering airspeed, Vmma (pronounced V mama), the first margin approaching our stall speed. But before we could tell the tanker to accelerate, we stopped taking fuel. Our tanks were full after taking a total of 87,000 lbs. of fuel, short of the 90,000 we needed and well short of the planned 100,000 lbs. offload the mission planners determined we’d need.

After separating from the tanker, we picked up our flight plan to Afghanistan. I checked the fuel calculations in the computer, and sure enough, we wouldn’t have enough fuel to make it to our final destination. We’d have to get some at one of our stops in Afghanistan, perhaps 10,000 lbs. at most. Still, it was fuel that we’d be taking from an aircraft that needed it in country. Ten thousand pounds of fuel is a lot of gas for a fighter jet.

A few hours later, we arrived at our first stop, a Marine airbase. It was still dark and we were descending into a valley surrounded by mountains to an airfield none of us had ever been to before. Finding the runway was easy enough; missing a mountain was another thing. But with NVG goggles, terrain charts, and our GPWS and TAWS systems, we easily touched down and were soon offloading our cargo. As we finished up, I noticed two Marine Cobra helicopters takeoff – lights off- in a scramble. Marines on foot were taking fire somewhere in the valley and the two gunships wasted little time in responding.

We took off just before dawn with an empty jet, and proceeded to our next stop to pick up a load of cargo bound for the States. The sun rose above the low-lying clouds and the already white-topped peaks of Afghanistan, heralding the approach of the notorious Afghan winter. Above us, a brilliant deep blue sky stretched from horizon to horizon, nearly unblemished in its splendor. It was short-lived; we soon descended into another valley, one capped with clouds trapped by the peaks surrounding it. Before long, we were on the ground at another airbase, ready to upload our cargo, pick up a little gas, and be on our way.

We took off approaching the 18-hour mark in our day. As soon as we lifted off, we turned sharply, watching small walled courtyards and square fields from nearby villages pass under us like an ancient chessboard. Reaching our desired airspeed, I pulled the stick back, raising our nose above 20 degrees in a zoom for the overcast clouds above us. They can’t hit what they can’t see, so as soon as we reached the sanctuary of the clouds, I relaxed my tactical climb for the more sedate, and comfortable, climb typical of civilian airliners everywhere.

Another three hours of cruise and our day would be done.

Autobahn Blues

Sometimes you just know it’s not going to be a restful crew rest. I knew it as soon as we pulled up to our hotel near an American airbase in Germany. It was tucked away in a corner of a nearby town, right next to a bustling autobahn, 50 feet away at best from the cars and trucks speeding by. The sound of the racing traffic was simply deafening, even inside my room conveniently facing the autobahn. It was the closest you’d find to a Motel 6 in Germany, simple Spartan rooms next to a busy highway. But this place included breakfast – frühstück in German – so that made it a Motel 7 – Motel Sieben in German.

Most of the crew immediately made their way to breakfast – it was about 9 am – but I wanted to get a run in before I ate. After changing, I found a road leading under the autobahn that quickly petered out into a gravel road next to a fallow field, left dormant for the coming winter. The grass on either side of the road was thick with dew and the air was achingly chilly, making each breath almost painful. At the end of the field, I turned onto what we call a horse trail in Texas, a hardpack lane with grass in the middle, which ran alongside a gurgling irrigation ditch. I soon came across the airbase and emerged onto a paved running path that led across the approach lighting for the runway, just outside of the fence line. A hawk was circling over the end of the runway, looking for prey. As a C-130 lifted into the air, heading toward me, the hawk dove for the ground, either to catch its morning meal or to avoid the quickly approaching aircraft. The C-130 roared overhead and climbed into the gunmetal gray sky; I watched it as I ran until it was but a speck in the heavens.

I made it back to breakfast after logging four miles. The breakfast was decent, but since it was included in the room rate, I certainly had nothing to complain about. After eating my fill, I went back to my room to shower and get ready to sleep the rest of the day away. It was nearly two in the morning, Pacific Time, but despite how tired I was, sleep would truly be a challenge. My room had an aluminum shutter that could be rolled down in front of the window, like a blast shield, and it made my room as dark as a crypt when it was closed. It did mute the sound of the autobahn somewhat also, but I still had to sleep with foam earplugs in. Heck, I could still hear the rumble of heavy trucks passing even through my earplugs. I could also hear an occasional takeoff from the nearby airbase, especially when a C-5 took off. I finally drifted off to sleep, but it wasn’t restful. I may have slept maybe six hours total.

Later that evening, we walked over to the main part of town for dinner at an Italian restaurant. It wasn’t far; we just had to cross under the tracks at the bahnhof. Monday nights are slow wherever in the world you are, but it was especially slow that night in our tiny burg; however, we made the best of it. After a few hours, we all wandered back to our rooms to surf a dozen or so television channels, only one of which – CNN – was in English. You’d think after staying in German hotels through the years, I would have mastered a little more of the German language than I have, yet Pidgin-German remains the extent of my limited vernacular.

We spent a total of three nights there, waiting for a mission downrange. I made further use of the running trails – my best escape from the monotonous routine - and made nightly strolls into town for dinner. Sleep was always a chore, especially when our mission reporting time necessitated a change in sleep patterns. Finally, early one afternoon, we were alerted for our flight downrange, slightly tired but ready to leave our motel behind. It’s never good to start a long flight already tired, especially when the flight involved two stops in Afghanistan before a final stop for another crew rest at an American airbase in the Persian Gulf – where our accommodations there would make us long for the days spent at the Motel Sieben.

Autobahn and all.

Pearl Harbor Day

December 7, 1941; a date which will live in infamy. Yet today Pearl Harbor Day lies in the shadow of another date that lives in greater renown: September 11, 2001. Just as Katrina overshadows the deadlier hurricane that obliterated Galveston, Texas in September 1900, the events of 9-11 now eclipse one of the most iconic dates in American history. Not to take anything away from 9-11, but the lessons we didn’t learn from Pearl Harbor continue to haunt us to this very day. Americans seem to relish playing the role of Sisyphus, the Greek king condemned to eternity to pushing a boulder to the top of a mountain, only to watch it roll down the other side. With a sigh and a short memory, we trot down after the rolling stone to push it back to the summit.

In the months following the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, Congress and the American people asked how we could be taken by surprise. The commanding General and Admiral in the islands were both summarily relieved of command and the conspiracy theories that arose in the years after blamed even the President for letting the Japanese pull off a stunning surprise victory.

It was hardly a surprise.

As early as 1921, General Billy Mitchell predicted that the Japanese would launch an air attack upon Hawaii, an alarming prophecy that was lambasted by his peers and ignored by his superiors. Mitchell, an early aviation pioneer and staunch advocate of air power, is perhaps best known for his court marshal following his spat with the Navy. He boasted excessively how air power had made the centerpiece of the fleet – the battleship – obsolete. The Navy disagreed; how could the flimsy bombers of the day vanquish the unsinkable battleship? So Mitchell pulled a couple of captured German battleships from mothballs, anchored them off the Virginia coast, and with the naval brass watching from a safe distance, his squadron of bombers quickly proved his point. Ever defiant, the Navy claimed he cheated and when he did not back down from his rhetoric, he was sacked.

Moral: Americans do not like others to question their preconceived notions. And more often than not, our preconceived notions color our views of foreign affairs and warfare. We are always fighting the last war. Visionaries like Mitchell are seen as anachronistic barbarians, more easily dismissed than heeded. It is easier to change our behavior or concede our beliefs than to force adversaries to make concessions. In the midst of two asymmetric conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, our national leadership has declared that all future warfare will follow the current model. State versus state warfare is a thing of the past; low-level regional conflicts against non-state actors is the new vogue. They think it’s a new type of warfare, yet it actually extends to the beginning of recorded history.

To meet this new challenge, ex-Secretary Rumsfeld and current Defense Secretary Gates have slashed weapon systems left and right. Can’t use the F-22 to bomb terrorists, they say. The Comanche, the Crusader? Nope, don’t need them either. We’ve gotta make the army lighter and more organic. Hell, nuclear attack subs don’t fight terrorists either, yet we’re not scrapping them fortunately. But to look at the next 25 years, as the Defense Department’s QDR demands, the brain trust at the Pentagon doesn’t seem to think there’s a single nation out there that we might disagree with enough that might lead to warfare.

In a joint Indian-American exercise a few years back, the underdog Indian Air Force gave our F-15 drivers in the red, white, a blue jerseys a bloody nose. On the way out of the debrief, one of our boys, ever defiant even in defeat, seemed hopeful about the future, especially given the fact that the F-22 was slated for a large production run. We’ll get ‘em next time! The F-22 would ensure American aerial superiority over every nation on earth, unlike the aging F-15 so easily trumped in the mock war of the Ganges. By the time the rest of the world closed the technology gap with the F-22, perhaps 30 years in the future, we’d be off to the next generation fighter, thereby ensuring the home team would always enjoy a home field advantage. But with the recent cut in production for the F-22, we'll have to hang on to 35-year-old fighters barely better than anything our adversaries may soon have.

Then there’s North Korea, nipping at our heels like your aunt’s chihuahua, its eyes bulging out of its quivering skull like some kind of possessed rat. The North Koreans are just deranged enough that they might decide to end the cease fire and resume the war. Yes, the Korean War is still officially a war. There never was a peace treaty. No winner, no loser, just a draw. Who knows what may spark another confrontation? Another crop failure, China finally cutting off their allowance, a South Korean fishing boat straying across the watery DMZ – it could be anything. And North Korea is just dangerous enough militarily to cause some real pain for us and our allies.

The most obvious candidate is Iran. We’re trying hard to avoid warfare, but as they march farther down the road to the nuclear arms club, we’re going to have to do something. We’ve already used all our instruments of national power, except the military one, with little effect; what other tool in the toolkit will convince them to listen to us? Economic? We’ve had an embargo since the ’79 revolution and you can see how well that’s worked. Diplomatic? They won’t talk to us directly, so we have to use intermediaries like a kid passing a note in class. Informational? Let me know when that Voice of America broadcast starts to change the hearts and minds of the mullahs in Tehran. Intelligence? The CIA has been a dirty word in Iran since the Eisenhower days – think we’ll find willing recruits in Tehran today? At some point, we either have to accept the fact that they’ll get the bomb and hope nobody gets nuked, or we’ll have to actually do something militarily about it. Those are really our only two options and neither one looks promising. But if we have to go to war, we’d better have something more than a lighter, more agile army and a bunch of UAVs.

Back to Pearl Harbor. It perhaps is our biggest Achilles Heel. What worked for the Japanese will work for other nations, just as the Germans marched on Paris using the Schlieffen Plan time and time again. Who might have the most to gain from dusting off Yamamoto’s war plans and taking out the largest, most powerful bastion of military strength in the entire Pacific?

China. Don’t think Pearl Harbor couldn’t happen again? I hope not, but we have to be ready. And paring down our military to deal with non-state actors with visions of grandeur is playing into the hands of Beijing. Think about it; what is a bigger threat to the very existence of our nation and its liberties – Islamic terrorists seeking a new Islamic Caliphate or China? Sure Al Qaeda might take out an American city eventually – and that would be a disaster of epic magnitude – but our nation would not perish in its aftermath. But if the Chinese decided to go head to head with us, their missile technology is nearly good enough to wreak some serious havoc upon our nation.

What would be China’s motivation? Taiwan. They unswervingly claim that it is an integral part of China; they call it the One China Policy, which is the Chinese equivalent of America's Manifest Destiny. The United States is probably the only reason Taiwan is still free. If China decided to take the island by force, they’d have to neutralize an American response before it started. And they wouldn’t have to send a fleet of carriers halfway across the Pacific to do it like the Japanese did. Hawaii would face a rain of ballistic missiles, taking out every military facility in the islands, including our carriers. There would be other targets also: Alaska, Guam, Japan, and Okinawa. Every runway and port from which an American counterattack might originate would be rendered unusable. There might even be a space Pearl Harbor as well; take out a few military and commercial satellites and we lose communications, intelligence gathering, and precision navigation abilities. The Chinese would consolidate their hold on Taiwan before we could reconstitute our forces, effectively taking us out of the fight with a sucker punch in the first round.

We’d lose more than our Pacific military muscle; we’d lose the ability to project American power anywhere in the Pacific. Our diplomatic muscle would perish as well – why would the Chinese need to listen to us without a military threat? They already own most of our debt. We would have no recourse but to concede Taiwan along with our role as superpower. Some Americans may not think that our superpower status is vitally important, but that role guarantees the success of American commerce, and champions human rights the world over. Our entire way of life could change in the blink of an eye, forever changed simply because we have a preconceived notion that we do not want questioned.

We have to be ready for another Pearl Harbor as well as another 9-11. We cannot pretend that we only face one threat. America needs military forces able to deal with the kind of low-level asymmetric conflicts like we are currently facing, but to redefine the entire Department of Defense to face only one kind of conflict is to set us up for another Sunday morning surprise. Let’s quit fighting the last war. It’s time to be prepared to fight the next war, whether on the plains of a broken African nation, the deserts of Iran, or the Far East.

We, as a nation, have vowed to remember 9-11; nearly our entire military has been remade in a model to ensure that we will not let it happen again. But let us not forget Pearl Harbor. Let’s stop pushing the heavy stone up the mountain. Let us ensure that another Pearl Harbor can never happen again.

Intercept

We watched the horizon change from pitch-black to gray to a dozen shades of color from violet and blue to red and orange before the sun finally split the horizon with a fiery flash. I lowered my seat and moved my sun visor forward, trying to spare my retinas from the solar assault. It did little good. Until the sun rose higher into the sky, we were essentially flying blind.

I glanced at the mottled panorama passing by beneath us, sullen gray clouds tinged with red from the sun and muted fields of green visible through scattered cloud breaks. England. With the Atlantic behind us, there were less than two hours remaining before we’d touchdown in Germany. We were cleared to a point above East Anglia, then out over the Channel, where we said goodbye to London Military Control and switched to Dutch Mil.

“Good morning, Reach,” the controller answered. “Would you care to participate in a practice air interception?”

There is really only one answer to that question. With our affirmative reply, he cleared us for a descent and began vectoring a flight of two Dutch F-16s toward us. We picked them up on TCAS first, noting their excessive rate of closure. Soon we picked them one of them visually, rapidly approaching from our eight o’clock position. We never saw his wingman, yet our TCAS informed us that he was in our six o’clock position – the kill position. Had we been a hostile aircraft, we never would have made the Dutch coastline.

The F-16 off our wing settled into a wingtip formation with us, perhaps 50 feet off our winglet. We waved and took a few pictures before he waved back, turned up his afterburners, and surged ahead. It sounded like thunder, even over the sound of the airstream, our engines, and the electronic hum of our cockpit. We watched as the fighter broke left and dove downward toward the Channel, quickly lost to our eyes.

...For Spacious Skies...

With a full load of cargo bound for the war, we lined up on the runway in Southern California for our flight to Germany. We would meet a tanker off the coast of New England some six hours later, so it was important to take off on schedule. At the designated time, the co-pilot pushed up the throttles and we accelerated quickly and majestically rose into the air. We hadn’t even climbed more than a couple of hundred feet before the greenery seemingly so predominant at eye level was quickly replaced by the desert that Southern California really is. Here and there I could still see blossoming isles of green amidst the desert – a golf course here, a park there – but as we continued our standard instrument departure, even those oases of incongruous emerald were lost to my sight.

Following the magenta-colored line on our flight displays depicting our departure routing, we made a broad turn to the south. The Channel Islands were visible just offshore, and hundreds of boats of all shapes and sizes were plying the waters of the shimmering Pacific. We continued southward until we were no longer a traffic conflict for other airborne arrivals and departures for the half-dozen or so airports scattered beneath us. So Cal Departure Control finally gave us a turn to the east, and we soon climbed out over Palm Springs and the Salton Sea. It was clear ahead of us for probably a hundred miles, and I could already see the Colorado River snaking its way through the otherwise barren desert. It was a good day to be flying.

We crossed central Arizona south of Flagstaff; the Grand Canyon was just a little too far north for a bird’s eye view, but was still a spectacle, as always. Continuing eastward across the parched landscape, we passed Albuquerque and the Rio Grande Valley before losing sight of the earth completely due to a frontal line over the Texas Panhandle. Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri all passed beneath us sight unseen obscured by the undercast. Somewhere over the Midwest, we ran out of daylight; the shadow of the earth arced into space above us as we flew into the darkness beyond. The amber lights of cities appeared across Indiana and Ohio sparkling brilliantly 35,000 feet below us. I could almost make out Lake Erie to the north by the cities clustered along its darkened shoreline.

The tanker crew began calling us; they were eager to arrange an early rendezvous. Instead of meeting at the tanker track off the tip of Long Island as scheduled, they would fly westbound to meet us over western New York State. They figured that the earlier they gave us the required fuel, they’d head home early for the night. It made little difference to us; we still had a seven-hour flight across the pond. So we agreed to help them out, as long as they could give us a little extra fuel. I didn’t need the refueling, but another pilot did, so I hopped out of the seat so he could get the gas.

Air Traffic Control helped us coordinate a new rendezvous point and we descended to 20,000 feet. We started looking for the tanker, a KC-10, and it wasn’t long before we saw it at our three o’clock position, 1,000 feet above us. We continued on a converging heading as the tanker grew larger, its lights and rotating beacons somewhat reminiscent of the mother ship from Close Encounters. The KC-10 is a large, make that gargantuan, tanker; receiver pilots refueling with the KC-10 for the first time often underestimate how close they are. They might call 100 feet in trail while they are actually 200 feet or farther away.

The pilot crept in slowly and steadily and we were soon taking fuel. I noticed the lights of New York City growing brighter as we approached; our next turnpoint on the flight plan was JFK airport, so we’d fly just south of the city. I was sitting just behind the pilot, so I’d have a bird’s eye view from the left window, directly into the heart of the Big Apple. I was not disappointed; the elegant iridescent lights of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge crossing the Hudson, the stark outline of darkened Central Park, the twin transcendent spires of the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings bathed in illuminated splendor, the abounding radiance of Times Square, and a playoff game in progress at Yankee Stadium. I could practically see the pulse of the city through its lights.

The tanker dragged us along Long Island out to Hampton VORTAC, a navigation station at East Hampton; we had already received enough fuel to finish our flight to Germany, but they kindly allowed several of us to get some practice time on the boom. Reaching Hampton, we turned north along the New England coastline while our tanker turned south for its base. As the city of Boston glittered west of us, Boston Center cleared us direct to our coast-out point off the coast of Nova Scotia. They soon handed us off to Moncton Center and we left the States behind. Our passage of American skies was complete as we were soon cleared to our 50 West crossing point, somewhere above the dark restless Atlantic.

Back on the Line

Two weeks at home went by quite fast and I soon found myself at the top of the scheduler’s list of available pilots. I was still a little fatigued from my last trip, but I knew the odds against two bad trips in a row were low. So on a cool, misty Sunday morning I loaded my gear into my truck and headed toward base for yet another flight. Autumn was in full swing, bringing its usual wet and dreary days to the Pacific Northwest, so despite the fact I’d be away from my family for at least the next 11 days, I would not miss the steadily shortening days of fall.

After loading our gear into the aircraft, we started our pre-flight checks, assuring us that everything would work as advertised. Our auxiliary power unit, hydraulic pumps, airflow manifolds, and electronic alarms combined in a cacophony of sounds that assaulted our ears, even through my foam earplugs. Before long, we were ready. After starting our engines and finishing our last checklists, we taxied toward the runway through the steadily increasing rainfall.

It didn’t take long to leave the dreary landscape behind. We climbed from the dismal morass into a sky of boundless blue, leaving the layer of clouds beneath us like a sea of gray. Mt. Rainier rose from the clouds like a majestic island, its crown already dusted in white from its first snowfall of the season. As we rose higher, Mt. Adams and Mt. St. Helens were visible as well, likewise endowed in a splendor of white. As we headed south, the other grand peaks of the Cascades shared similar fates, as far south as California’s Mt. Shasta.

We soon descended over the San Bernardino Mountains of Southern California and easily spotted our destination. My co-pilot reported that we had the airfield in sight to SoCal Approach Control as I maneuvered for a right base. We configured for landing and I flew a visual final for the runway. After touchdown, I eased the thrust reversers out and gently applied the brakes. After taxiing clear, we preceded to the ramp and shut down.

It was a glorious day in Southern California: 79 degrees and sunny, the antithesis of cool and rainy Washington. I passed on the crew bus ride to base operations and enjoyed the warmth of the sun on my face as I walked across the ramp. We had a long flight ahead of us, an aerial refueling flight all the way to Germany. So I’d soak up all the sunshine I could, especially since the same weather we left behind in the Pacific Northwest likely awaited us in Northern Europe.

Rest for the Weary

Upon our arrival in Germany with our wounded troops from Iraq, it was disconcerting to discover that our trip from hell continued. We seemingly could not catch a break. We were tired, past our scheduled return time (SRT) to get home, and some of the crew were openly hostile toward each other. It was time to go home.

Unfortunately, there were no missions leaving Germany for our home base in the Pacific Northwest. But there were several jets available to return to their East Coast bases just waiting for a crew. Since we were past our SRT, we were set up to take the first flight out, even if it was a mission that terminated on the East Coast.

So when we landed in sunny South Carolina the next day, we were on our own. The Air Force really didn’t care about us anymore. We didn’t even count against their record for SRT busts anymore – a list seen by a general officer every day. Without a tail number to link my crew with, it was like we didn’t exist. It would be up to us to figure out how to make it the rest of the way home.

We checked into a hotel and made commercial travel arrangements to get home. Despite all the equipment and bags we had, we wanted to get home and there were no military flights available. So after a short night’s rest, we headed to the airport with a mountain of bags. We had to accept the fact that our entire day would be spent in TSA screening lines, airport terminals, cramped commuter flights, and several transfers.

We made it out of the local airport just fine, but we hit a snag in Atlanta as we waited for our next flight. It seemed that even the national airlines have some of the same maintenance problems we have in the military; our jet was broken. So we retired to a bar in the terminal and waited while they replaced a hydraulic pump on one of the engines. We fully anticipated having our flight cancelled outright, and trying to find a decent hotel near the airport for yet another night away from home.

However, the light at the end of the tunnel grew brighter; our flight was fixed and they began boarding. The end of the trip from hell was nearly at hand. Fortunately all of our trips weren’t this painful. After a few weeks at home, I’d be ready to go out again to do my part. In the meantime, I eased the seat back and rested my weary head as the airliner took off into the darkened skies above Atlanta and headed west - toward home.

Sometimes it's nice to let somebody else do the flying for a change.

The Hot Seat

The flight to Iraq proceeded normally, even our tactical approach and landing at a large American airbase there. A fleet of ambulances began to arrive as we shut down, but aeromedical evacuation missions take considerable time to load patients and takeoff, so we knew we’d never make our scheduled takeoff time several hours away. It was quite hot outside, and as our engines wound down and our APU, or auxiliary power unit, took over the air load for our air conditioning system, we knew we were in for a sweltering ground time. The APU’s insufficient air flow did nothing to hold off the steadily mounting air temperatures outside, and it was not even past ten in the morning yet.

By the time half of the patients were onboard, it was nearly 100 degrees in the cargo compartment. Upstairs in the cockpit, it was even worse; with all of the electronic flight displays and other avionics equipment, it was topping 117 degrees. We asked maintenance for an air cart to pump cooler air into the aircraft, but they had to borrow one from a fighter squadron down the ramp. But we eventually had two air carts pumping air into the aircraft through our crew entry door.

It was like trying to use an air conditioner at a backyard cookout in Houston – in August. It felt great if I was standing right in front of the duct, but if I moved a foot to the side, I was back in the furnace. Patients were still slowly arriving, and one of the recent arrivals, a civilian contractor with chronic emphysema, was having complications. They were trying to stabilize him for flight, but things were not looking good. He desperately needed better care than he could receive in Iraq, but if his condition didn’t improve enough, we’d have to leave him behind.

Since we had only planned for a short flight from Turkey to Germany, we did not bring enough food for a longer day. The crew was getting hungry, so we sent somebody to load up on food from the chow hall. Soon we had a feast of imitation scrambled eggs, greasy sausage, French toast sticks, and fruit to hold us over. The temperature was holding steady, but maintenance was unable to fix the problem. We’d have to take off in a flying furnace.

They finally stabilized the patient and the medical crew was soon ready to depart. We started up and taxied out, eager to takeoff for Germany. We lined up and pushed the throttles up and began our takeoff roll. Passing 60 knots, one of our engines red-lined with an over-temperature. Reluctantly, I pulled the throttles back to idle and we taxied back to maintenance. If there was much damage to the engine, we’d be stuck, waiting for a new engine to arrive from out-of-country. It’d be days before we made it out, if we were lucky enough to have another engine nearby.

While the maintenance crews inspected the engine, we called for a third air cart, in addition to the others already being rolled back into place. Soon we had a duct snaking up the flight deck, and we enjoyed much colder air in the cockpit. For the first time in over 16 hours, it was almost perfect conditions to take a nap.

But it was not to be. Maintenance found no damage in the engine, so we readied ourselves for another takeoff attempt. We pulled out the duct work, started our engines, and taxied back out. But we had a better plan for the second attempt. We turned off all the bleed air from the engines (which provide air for the air conditioning and pressurization systems) and took our time advancing the throttles to max power. We were able to takeoff before the engine over-temped, but since we were airborne, we elected to pull the power back slightly and continue onto Germany with our mission.

It was still unbearably hot in the aircraft and it would take two hours into the flight for the temperatures to drop to a comfortable level. We’d have to write the air conditioning system up, as well as the engine, which would eventually need to be changed. But despite our problems, at least we were able to deliver our patients to the medical center in Germany.

And we wouldn’t have to spend the night in Iraq.

The Microsoft Jet

I was a little surprised when we were alerted shortly before midnight, exactly as planned, after limping a broken aircraft into Turkey with significant electrical problems. These things usually take a little longer to fix than planned, since maintenance problems sometimes require parts that aren’t readily available or the labor takes longer than expected. Perhaps the electrician had found the electrical short right away, they had the part in inventory, and they had no problems installing it. At any rate, it looked like we’d be back in Germany by morning.

Upon arrival at the command post, we learned that our mission had changed; we were now scheduled for another aeromedical evacuation flight, this time to Iraq. It made sense: our aircraft was already configured for the mission, we had a full aeromedical crew with us, and we were only a couple of hours from Iraq. We picked up our gear, out-processed through Customs, and headed out to the jet.

After arriving at the aircraft, we checked in with maintenance to see what they did while we were in crew rest. To our surprise, an electrician had never even looked at the jet. The maintainers we debriefed after we landed didn’t even pass along any of our concerns to the crew that was preparing to launch us. In between, maintenance simply rebooted the aircraft, just like a troublesome computer. The C-17 truly is the Microsoft Jet.

We had some concerns, but maintenance insisted that the problem could not be duplicated. We still suspected a short in either the comfort pallet or its controlling electrical bus, but maintenance felt we were good to go. However, during the loadmaster’s pre-flight, he was required to turn the power on for the comfort pallet…and we were amazingly plunged back into darkness. So much for the Microsoft fix.

They finally called an electrician out to the aircraft. He felt that the problem lay with the comfort pallet, not the bus, even though he did not actually look at anything. After debating back and forth among the crew about the worst case scenario – an electrical fire in flight - we felt we could proceed with the mission with the comfort pallet disconnected from the bus. If the bus was later found to be the culprit and an electrical fire began, at least we would know which bus to depower to put the fire out.

However, before we could wrap things up and takeoff, maintenance discovered yet another problem: our weather radar wasn’t working. But they did have the part in stock. So they literally popped the hood - the aircraft’s nose cone - and began repairing the radar. Since we had already out-processed through Turkish Customs, we were stuck at the jet in the interim – until we were either fixed or our duty day ended. In the event of a maintenance problem before takeoff, we are limited to four hours after our scheduled takeoff time, with an optional extension to six hours with the concurrence of the crew. Since there were wounded troops in Iraq waiting for us to arrive, we elected to wait as long as we could so we could transport them to Germany for treatment.

The sky had turned a pale shade of gray by the time we were fixed five hours after our original takeoff time. Sleep had been impossible with the number of crewmembers onboard, maintenance activity and a pitifully weak air conditioning system in the cockpit. We were tired and were only planning on a relatively short flight back to Germany, so we didn’t even have much food with us. And we couldn’t get back through Customs to get anything.

But we were finally fixed and there were a dozen or so wounded troops waiting for us in Iraq. It was finally time to go to work. It was time to fly.

Lights Out

After landing in Germany following our trans-Atlantic flight from Maine, we were given the bare minimum time off – 16 hours to our next takeoff – for a mission heading downrange to the Sandbox. It was an aeromedical evacuation flight to Afghanistan, a scheduled run to pick up troops returning to Germany for treatment they could not receive downrange. I have always liked flying medical flights; it is much more rewarding for me to transport our wounded warriors than moving boxes and crates containing who knows what.

The only drawback to these flights is managing the chaos; trying to get all the people and agencies responsible for an on-time takeoff is somewhat like herding cats. The medical crews arrived with their equipment and supplies, the aerial port had installed a comfort pallet onboard – containing two additional lavatories and a large galley with additional refrigerators and ovens, maintenance was working a last minute problem, and not enough fuel had been loaded. Yet it all came together and we managed to take off late, but before the airfield closed for the night.

I was in the seat for the flight for several hours as we crossed Eastern Europe and coasted out over the Black Sea. After reviewing our routing into Afghanistan, I climbed out of the seat to heat up my dinner. Just as I put my food in the comfort pallet oven, most of the lights inside the aircraft went out, plunging us into near darkness.

I practically vaulted up the stairs to the flight deck as alarms were alerting us to a major electrical failure. We pulled out our technical guidance and determined that we had lost two electrical buses controlling all of our exterior lighting and much of the inside lighting. In addition, we lost part of our flight controls (we have redundant systems, so it was a negligible loss). It was also impossible to fix during flight. It didn't seem wise to continue to Afghanistan with an aircraft with electrical problems. If we couldn’t fix it on the ground there, we’d be stuck. So we elected to divert to Turkey.

We coordinated for a 180-degree turn over the Caspian Sea and pulled out our charts to figure out the best routing to the American airbase in Turkey. Since the war in Iraq in 2003, the Turks have only allowed a certain number of cargo aircraft supporting the war to transit that base on a regular basis. We knew they’d have issues with us diverting there, so when Ankara air traffic control started asking why we were diverting, we declared an emergency. They immediately gave us the green light and direct routing to the airbase, which we happily took. Had we neglected to declare an emergency, it was likely that we would have been denied entry.

I could see the airbase fire trucks waiting for us while we were still 10 miles out on final approach. As we crossed the runway threshold, they started rolling and met us as we taxied clear of the runway. After determining that we were in no danger, they terminated the emergency and we taxied to parking, where we gave the jet to maintenance. We had previously chased down wiring schematics in our technical data, leading us to believe that either the comfort pallet installed in our cargo hold was to blame or there was a short in the electrical bus that controlled power to the comfort pallet.

At any rate, our day was done. It would take electricians too much time to determine where the electrical short was, so we headed off to crew rest. By the time we checked in our equipment, cleared the notoriously slow Turkish Customs, and found billeting rooms for the medical crew and my flight crew, the sun was already up. We were set up to takeoff in 16 hours – the bare minimum – if we were fixed. Another aircraft had been tasked to pick up our mission, so we’d return to Germany and wait for another mission downrange. Some of the crew was eager to hit the local off-base market to shop, but it had already been a long and tiring day. I was quickly off to sleep, despite the daylight streaming through my broken window blinds, dreaming of Turkish delights.

The Plot Thickens

Day two of the trip from hell started out normally, with a planned flight from Andrews AFB to a nearby Army base for a cargo upload and an aerial refueling en route to Germany. However, the plan quickly changed; our tanker cancelled, leaving us with a fuel stop in eastern Canada. Since weather was a factor at our usual Canadian airfields, we would stop in Halifax, the largest city in Canada's Atlantic provinces. It would be a long day, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Our takeoff from the DC area went smoothly, but we soon ran into thunderstorms as we headed south. A line of storms faltered just offshore in Virginia and across the Carolinas, threatening our approach and landing at our destination. However, we easily made it in without any of the previous night’s headaches and proceeded to upload our cargo.

It was night by the time we took off and flew northward along the eastern seaboard sleeping beneath us. Much of the East Coast was socked in by a layer of thick clouds, but the glow of the major cities illuminated the clouds from below. After we leveled off, we checked the weather for Halifax, the only destination in Canada’s eastern provinces that was forecast to be VFR.

However, once we began our descent, the weather began to change for the worse. It was still clear – with nearly unrestricted visibility – but a ground fog quickly formed that reduced visibility at the airport to Category III ILS conditions – zero ceiling and zero visibility - flown with an autoland capability. The C-17 is capable of flying an ILS to Cat II conditions – down to approximately 100’ ceiling and 400 meters visibility – but does not have the ability to autoland as required by a Cat III approach. We were out of luck.

We established a holding pattern several thousand feet over the airport while we checked on viable alternates. As we circled, we could see the sparkling city lights of Halifax and the resplendent suspension bridge spanning the glittering nighttime harbor. We could even see the runway lights burning brightly through the ground fog. It was so close, yet so far away. Even if we had tried to fly the approach to land, we’d see the runway until maybe a hundred feet above it, but then we’d be flying blind precariously close to terra firma.

Our planned alternate was another Canadian airport far to the north, but we found a closer airport back the way we’d already flown – Bangor, Maine – a short 45 minutes away. So we climbed up to altitude and flew back to the US. A short approach and landing later, we were on the ground and watched the sky turn pink as we refueled the aircraft. Our already long duty day had just turned a little bit longer.

It still wasn’t the trip from hell, but it was already a more challenging mission than most, given two days of weather woes. As we set out again over the Atlantic Ocean, our spirits were still high, but we could not imagine the immense challenges that awaited us over the next ten days.

The Trip From Hell

I had to pay dearly for my ‘vacation’ in paradise; for every good deal you get in this business, a bad deal is not far behind. But my next trip started innocuously enough – it even looked like another good deal. It was a Stage mission to the Middle East – surprise! – but it began with a flight south of the border, a trip to Guadalajara, Mexico to pick up President Obama’s Secret Service contingent and their vehicles. It came on the heels of his summit with Prime Minister Harper of Canada and President Calderon of Mexico and would end with an overnight stay for us at Andrews AFB, outside of Washington DC, where I have a brother living nearby.

We arrived in Guadalajara easily enough, where the airport ramp was sporting more firepower than a gun show in Texas. The President had already departed on Air Force One, but we had to wait for the Secret Service and their vehicles to arrive. After loading the vehicles, we were soon airborne. We dodged a few thunderstorm cells over northern Mexico and soon crossed into Texas. It was smooth sailing all the way to the East Coast, except for a line of storms directly over Washington DC. One storm cell was nearly on top of our airfield. We considered diverting to our alternate, but the same line of storms threatening DC would hit our alternate airfield before we could arrive there as well.

We called the control tower at Andrews for the latest weather observation. The storm had not yet hit, but it was blocking our path to the runway. However, there was only a light tailwind from the opposite direction, well within our limits for a tailwind landing (normally we land into the wind). So we cautiously probed around the monster thunderstorm and came in from the south. The aircraft isn’t quite as stable while making an approach and landing with a tailwind, but we made it in with no problems before the rain began. We taxied clear and planned for an evening in DC.

The trip didn’t have the markings of the trip from hell yet, but the writing was on the wall. Weather would be a significant factor during each of our subsequent legs, and other challenges would make this mission one for the books, and not it a good way.

As it turned out, our first day would be our best day during the entire trip.

Down Under

Once upon a time, my squadron flew a wide variety of worldwide missions, from destinations across the Pacific to South America, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. However, since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have found ourselves flying almost exclusively to Europe and the Middle East, month after month. It is uplifting when we are offered a destination anywhere else, anything out of the ordinary. So when I saw a Down Under mission to Australia on the scheduling board early last summer, I eagerly signed up as visions of tropical beaches danced in my mind.

The scheduler warned me not to get too attached; it was a low priority mission liable to be cancelled not only for a higher priority mission, but also if maintenance simply could not provide an aircraft to support the mission. I fully expected the mission to go away, but as I was flight planning a day or so prior to the scheduled takeoff, I was told that the mission would go, even if it was listed as a lower priority flight. Apparently we were supposed to move cargo that had people in some very high places watching, even if the priority did not reflect it.

I departed with a crew of four pilots, three loadmasters, and a flying crew chief. After a stop to pick up cargo in California, we headed out on the Pineapple Tracks, the aerial routing from the mainland to Hawaii, where we had a scheduled 28-hour ground time. Several of the crew was worried that we’d be billeted at Hickam AFB in 1970s-era quarters notorious for mold and air conditioners that barely work. A bigger concern, however, was the fact that staying on base meant that we wouldn’t be staying at one of the posh resorts in Waikiki, a mere volleyball’s throw from the beach. I felt confident that if we called ahead of time, the base would ensure there would be room for us there instead of downtown. If we didn’t tell them we were coming, perhaps there would be no room at the inn for us, at least on base.

Fortunately, my gamble paid off. Within an hour of landing, we were heading downtown to the Outrigger Reef. We made the usual rounds: the oceanfront bar at the Hale Koa for Mai Tais, dinner and beer at the Yardhouse, and listening to live music at an Irish pub before getting a good night’s rest in a cool room free of mold. We even had time the next day for lunch at a noodle shop before being alerted for our flight to the South Pacific.

We are normally scheduled for a fuel stop in American Samoa on the way to Australia, unless we are flying a C-17 with extended-range fuel tanks. But there is usually mail or passengers for Pago Pago, so we were required to make a stop at the American territory. But the airport snack bar makes great fish and chips, so we usually don’t mind too much.

It was early afternoon the next day by the time we made it to Australia, where we saw a great view of downtown Sydney under cloudy winter skies. But winter isn’t too cold Down Under, and after we landed at a nearby RAAF base, it was a chilly 60 degrees. We had to wait in the jet with the doors closed for Australian Customs to clear us; after displaying the bug spray cans from the pilot’s side window, they gave us a thumbs-up to open the door. Swine flu was in the news and everyone from America was suspect; the Aussies were hoping to keep it from reaching their shores. They asked questions about our health, checked our documents, and finally cleared us to depart the aircraft.

We had about 20-hours off before an out-and-back mission the next day, so we were lodged at an older, but well-maintained, hotel in a nearby town. A couple of the crew had never been to Sydney, so they caught a train for the two hour ride into the city, while the rest of us opted to enjoy the evening at a pub in town. As it turned out, they only had a couple of hours before they’d have to return before the trains stopped running for the evening.

The next day, we departed for our short out-and-back to a remote airfield in the Outback. We made good time and made it back early enough for a second evening on the town, this time with the entire crew. We enjoyed another 18 or so hours off before our return flight to Pago Pago and Hawaii, where we enjoyed yet another 24-hours off before flying back home. We were even fortunate enough to score rooms at the Reef again.

It is trips like the Down Under that revitalize crews beaten down by the monotony of flying the Stage in Europe and the Middle East. While I enjoy the flying we do in support of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, I do not miss the inadequate billeting, transportation, and dining options that is so common in the theater of operations. Staying at four star hotels, sipping a Mai Tai on the beach, and drinking a Toohey’s Ale at a pub Down Under helps us forget about the sacrifices we make for our country, such as inadequate sleep and missed meals. Waikiki is a long way from the dusty tents and bad chow halls we frequent on a regular basis. I can almost forget that there’s a war still going on, at least for a little while.

Shell Game

Back when I was flying the C-141 Starlifter, flying a mission for the air force was much less complex. When I left home station, we typically kept the same jet the entire trip. Crew rest between flights was dependable, we always had hot meals, and we could leave some of our professional gear on the aircraft instead of taking everything with us once we landed. There were times when we’d change jets in the middle of a mission, but it was quite rare.

In the C-17 Globemaster III, however, the opposite is true. It is a rare event when a crew keeps the same aircraft for an entire mission, especially those transiting the Sandbox. When we land at the end of our day, we have to haul everything we have with us and we are often on call for hours waiting for a jet to arrive so we can pick up the mission.

The concept of the airlift stage is simple in theory; the jets keep moving after a crew change at an en route location. That way, cargo and troops reach their destination with little delay. It requires significant coordination at the local and global level, as well as “seed” crews to ensure that a fresh crew is available at any given time. To do so, we are often placed in a bravo status, in which we are placed on a standby alert. Since we are never sure when the phone will ring, I find that I am never well-rested, since we must be ready essentially at any given time.

Furthermore, when C-17s depart stateside bases, they are flown by crews stationed at the same base. However, since any crew can fly any jet from any base once in the system, sometimes a crew from a West Coast base ends up arriving stateside with a jet based on the East Coast (or vice versa). The stage manager, the local representative responsible for the stage at a given base, attempts to pair up jets returning stateside with crews from the same bases, but sometimes it doesn’t work out. Like the victim of a shell game, the losing crew ends up at a base on the opposite coast with no ride home.

As luck would have it, we took off from Spain for an East Coast base with an East Coast jet. Originally, we would have returned to Germany following our stop in the Sandbox and probably would have been paired up with a jet from our home base. However, due to weekend operating hours at several European bases, we were flying back across the Atlantic with the wrong jet.

We arrived stateside in sunny South Carolina and immediately set out trying to find a ride back to the Pacific Northwest. The ramp in Charleston was full of C-17s, but unfortunately we couldn’t fly any of them. We decided to wait a few days in case one of our aircraft came through, but it was soon apparent that we’d be dragging our bags and gear home with a civilian airline.

So after two days of fun and sun in Charleston, we booked a flight to Seattle with a stopover at Atlanta. Usually, flying commercial from Charleston meant a cramped flight in a puddle jumper, but we lucked out with a Super 80, an older model full-sized aircraft. The hardest part of flying commercial with all of our military gear is merely checking in and processing through the TSA screening. Between the five of us on the crew, we probably had 20 bags, and we were booked on a one-way flight – a typical red flag for additional screening. But once we checked in our bags and endured the TSA’s additional scrutiny, it was smooth sailing.

It was worth the hassle; we were going home.

A New Pin in the Map

After departing Iraqi airspace, we turned west over Turkey and settled in for the long flight to Spain. I had been to Spain many times before, yet the base we were flying to was a new destination for me, surprisingly enough since it is a regular stop for AMC aircraft. In all the years of flying I’ve accumulated, I’ve only had one other chance to stop there; as a brand new co-pilot in the C-141 Starlifter many years ago, we were flying from Turkey to Spain and diverted into Sicily after an engine failure. Now the loop looked like it was finally coming closed. I would be putting a new pin in the map.

The base on the coast of Spain had a reputation for sun and fun. Miles of beaches and streets lined with tapas bars and cafes made for a great crew rest location; I could already practically taste the sangria. It wouldn’t be a long crew rest, but we’d be there early in the morning, enough time for a run and perhaps some quality beach time.

The mountains of southern Turkey passed beneath us, their crowns dusted with heavy snow. Winter precipitation is not unusual in Turkey, but it was early May, usually a great time to hit the beaches of the nearby Turkish Riviera. Yet snowfall was visible all across southern and southwestern Turkey, and not just in the higher elevations. As we left Turkey behind and flew the length of the Greek island of Rhodes, I noticed what looked to be snow covered peaks in the distance ahead; even the peaks of Crete were painted white in the wake of a late season storm.

Hours later, we arrived in Spanish airspace and started our descent for our much needed crew rest. But it looked like the weather would not cooperate. Low clouds and heavy rain blanketed Spain’s Atlantic coastline. And since it was a weekend, the most precise instrument approach at the airfield, a controller-guided PAR, was not available. We’d have to fly a full procedure non-precision circling approach down to minimums just to land. We thought about diverting to another Spanish airbase, but the weather was just good enough for one approach.

We finally broke out of the weather as we began the approach but a strong and steady crosswind made for a challenging landing. As we taxied clear of the runway, we saw that the base had been practically flooded. Puddles of water and broken tree limbs marked the passage of a powerful storm that had just passed through. It was still gusty and quite cool, so spending the day at the beach was looking doubtful.

But at least I finally had a new pin on the map.

Gas & Go

Our mission following our short crew rest at a Persian Gulf airbase was a planned seven hour flight to an American airbase in Spain, instead of Germany as originally scheduled. It was a Sunday, and quiet hours at German bases prohibit takeoffs and landings until the afternoon so as not to disturb Sunday church services in the devout regions of southwest Germany. Our mission had to move as soon as possible for diplomatic reasons - they wanted our persona non grata out of the country immediately - so we refiled our flightplan to Spain.

However, since we carried a full load of cargo on an older jet with a limited fuel capacity, we would be unable to make it without refueling somewhere in between. Our flight dispatcher checked all the usual suspects – American bases in Italy and Greece – but long lead times for diplomatic clearances or airfield closure times (it was a weekend) prevented us from stopping. The American airbase in Turkey has severe restrictions about which jets can land there, so that was out of the question as well. And getting a tanker for an aerial refueling would take a miracle, given their poor maintenance reliability and high usage rates for other missions. We had to think outside of the box for a solution.

Unfortunately, none of the locations we preferred, such as Romania, would work. But the dispatcher found one that would.

Baghdad.

The thought of taking a $200 million dollar aircraft full of cargo into a combat zone for no other reason than a fuel stop did not sit well, especially since personnel at the American airbase in Greece were enjoying a weekend off (I was shocked that anybody in the military gets weekends off in a war). But there was no other choice. So like good airmen we took off for a gas and go at Baghdad International Airport.

But it would fortunately still be night when we arrived, and our aircraft was protected by the latest countermeasures for man-portable surface-to-air missiles. We descended into the murky night toward the Iraqi capital city and made an uneventful approach and landing. We didn’t need much fuel, maybe 40,000 pounds, so we quickly topped off the tank and were on our way before sunrise. We leveled off over northern Iraq and enjoyed a brilliant sunrise over the mountains of nearby Iran.

We were now leaving the war behind and heading home.

The Great Game

In 1882, the young British writer Rudyard Kipling moved to Lahore, British India (now Pakistan) where he worked as a military correspondent covering the British experience on the northwest frontier. The Second Anglo-Afghan War had just ended two years prior to his return to India (he was born in Bombay), yet the British involvement in Afghanistan greatly influenced his writings during his seven-year tenure in Lahore and Allahabad. A keen observer of the strategic contest between the British and the Russian Empire, Kipling wrote extensively about the rivalry known as The Great Game in many of his works, especially his defining masterpiece Kim. Although the term ‘The Great Game’ has its origins long before Kipling’s day, it was Kipling who introduced its usage to popular culture.

The Great Game refers to the political and military rivalry between Britain and Russia in Central Asia from 1813 to the early 20th Century. Imperial Russia was expanding southward, incorporating the region just north of Afghanistan which today makes up Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The British felt that Russia’s interest in the area threatened its own interests in India, and the two empires soon found themselves in a subtle game of imperialistic diplomacy and militarism that never materialized into direct warfare between the two sides. Located between Russian Uzbekistan and British India, Afghanistan became the chessboard between the two sides, each rallying local support and proxies to counter the other.

Britain’s role in The Great Game came to an end with Afghanistan’s independence in 1919, but Russia’s interest in Afghanistan continued. Russia has always viewed Central Asia as its backyard, a view which culminated in its 1979 invasion of Afghanistan. Russia today remains concerned about its dominance in Central Asia, and especially about American involvement in Afghanistan. Moscow believes that we have resumed the British role in The Great Game, even though we have been unwillingly thrust into the game by the events of 9/11. Russia and other nations remain suspect of our long-range intentions in Afghanistan.

China has also increasingly become interested in Central Asia, but for different reasons than Russia. Following the First Gulf War, the Chinese were alarmed at the rapid dismantling of Iraq’s defenses, and especially with the vulnerability of Iraq’s infrastructure to precision aerial attacks. The Chinese knew that it they ever faced the U.S. in warfare, its infrastructure would similarly be targeted. At great expense, they moved much of their command and control facilities and vulnerable infrastructure farther inland, out of range from Tomahawk cruise missiles and carrier strike aircraft, as well as USAF aircraft based in Japan and other Pacific Rim bases. However, with the US presence in Afghanistan, the Chinese are now concerned about the proximity of their facilities in far western China to US bases in Afghanistan and other locations in the region.

China has worked diligently in Central Asia to counter the American presence. In concert with Russia and the five northern Stans – Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan – the Chinese have forced the closure of key support airfields in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan and Karshi-Khanabad, Uzbekistan, as well as a critical refueling stop in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. With the loss of almost all northern air access routes into Afghanistan, we now have sole access to Afghanistan across Pakistan. If the somewhat American-friendly government in Islamabad falls, we will lose Afghanistan, despite any progress we may see there. If we cannot fly in vital supplies to the land-locked country, or ship them overland from the port of Karachi, we will lose.

I doubt that is the result either Beijing or Moscow really want, much less the capitals of the five Stans. If we fail in Afghanistan, it will become their problem, and they don’t seem to be willing or able to combat the threat an unstable Afghanistan poses. Heroin and Islamic extremism will flow unchecked as if through a sieve into the Stans and onward to Russia and China as well. China is already facing an Islamic insurgency in its Xinjiang region in western China, which will only grow stronger. Instability in the Stans should be a great concern to Moscow, since unchecked poverty and a lack of economic growth will create an emerging recruiting market for the jihadists. And since international borders are routinely ignored by those groups seeking a global caliphate, Russia will see greater unrest in its own southern regions.

Russia may be on the verge of checkmating us in the New Great Game, but in the end Russia may lose as well. If they don’t realize that America has no long-range goals in Central Asia other than the eradication of extremism, then the world will see that when it comes to playing games with imperialistic diplomacy and militarism, there truly are no winners.

Afghanistan - Part II

Maybe the British were on to something; after more than eight decades of intervention in Afghanistan, the last of their soldiers marched through the Khyber Pass into British India in 1919, leaving Afghanistan to fend for itself. Even though the British won all three wars they fought with the Afghans, they finally decided enough was enough. The only reason the British were ostensibly in Afghanistan in the first place was to check the ambitions of the Russian Empire to the north. And Russian designs toward Afghanistan wouldn’t be realized for another 60 years.

So what would happen if, after our brief nine years’ stay in Afghanistan, we decided to go the way of the British?

Plenty. Afghanistan’s government is woefully unprepared to lead its cities, much less the country as a whole. Corruption and internal strife are rampant, its police and military forces cannot guarantee adequate security, there is no infrastructure to speak of, it has no control over the flow of narcotics, and President Karzai has virtually no legitimacy among his people even though he won his last election. In addition, the Taliban are enjoying resurgence in both military strength and increased acceptance by the people, especially the majority Pashtuns. The government is often more feared by ordinary Afghans than the Taliban in some areas.

But how can we afford to stay? How long could it take to stabilize something as broken as Afghanistan?

Therein lies the rub. We don’t have enough troops to maintain security in a largely mountainous country the size of Texas; to compensate for insufficient manpower, we have resorted to using aerial strikes, which can be imprecise and indiscriminate when trying to maintain security. (It’s hard to make friends and influence people when you’ve just blown up the wrong house). We haven’t properly trained the locals to take over either, since our special operations soldiers are up in the mountains going after Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters, who often enjoy sanctuary across the Durand Line in Pakistan. Iran is meddling with Afghanistan’s internal matters as well. Our work is cut out for us.

Nation building is an integral aspect of our national security objectives. Ungoverned territory is extremely dangerous to the interests of the industrialized world. Look at what has become of Somalia, yet the world’s navies are nearly impotent in halting the piracy running rampant in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean. We can no longer tolerate lawlessness and chaos in these forgotten lands. If we do, then we’d better be prepared for another 9/11; the next horrific attack will originate from the minds of zealots safely ensconced in these lawless lands.

We have to redouble our efforts to get Afghanistan up on its feet. It will never be a beacon of light in Central Asia, but as long as it can hold its own against its neighbors and force the local warlords to bow to Kabul’s rule, then we might have a chance to leave with our heads held high. If legitimacy and security are the keystones to successful government, we must entice the Afghans to institute significant reform of its institutions, starting from the top down. We must adequately train police and military forces to do their jobs as well, since without security, the country can never experience capital investment from the world – paved highways, power lines, pipelines, perhaps even railroads – that are so desperately needed to form the framework of a nation. Only then can we enable the Afghans to conduct successful counterinsurgency operations that will root out those who are impeding the reconstruction.

There are those who would stop us though, and they are growing in power every day that we do nothing. First and foremost, we must defang the Taliban. As loathed as they are for providing sanctuary to Al Qaeda before and after 9/11, we must remember that they are not directly responsible for the attacks. They have paid a high price for their indirect participation. In Afghanistan, it is common practice that once an Afghan provides shelter for an outsider, he must defend him from all harm; the Taliban just made a bad choice in sheltering those responsible. If we can bring the Taliban to the peace table and perhaps offer them some say in the future of Afghanistan, then we may see a dramatic decrease in violence in Afghanistan. If we make that offer contingent on the Taliban parting ways with their old houseguests, Al Qaeda, then we may further alienate Al Qaeda’s radical ideology from the Main Street of Islam.

The other troubling aspect to overcome is the reluctance of the various tribes and local warlords to accept national sovereignty. Filled with centuries of hatred for each other, they are not eager to find common ground in Kabul. Furthermore, their concepts of blood feuds, subservient status for women, and other issues complicate the creation of a cohesive nation. Unfortunately, this aspect may be impossible to overcome.

We have to be prepared for a long struggle. The goal posts will seem to move away from us as we painfully advance yard by yard. But we cannot drop the ball if we want to win the game. A turnover in today’s Great Game in Afghanistan could spell disaster, not only for Afghanistan, but also for our own national security as well.

Afghanistan - Part I

“Afghanistan is not a nation, it is a collection of tribes.”

I am always amazed when I fly into Afghanistan from the former Soviet Republics to the north. It is a study in stark contrasts; modern networks of highways, rail lines, and power grids crisscross fertile farm fields north of the Amu Darya River that marks the border. South of the river there is no infrastructure of any kind. At night, the contrast is even more startling; there is a sea of lights from towns and villages to the north, but a gulf of darkness stretches as far south as the eye can see. It is almost like flying off the edge of the earth.

And that is why Afghanistan is the biggest challenge facing us today. We do not want to leave behind a broken nation when the last of our troops leave. But Afghanistan is really a nation in name only.

Its population of Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Aimaks, Turkmen, and other ethnic groups still live in the same tribal societies that have prevailed in this barren and mountainous land since the dawn of time. Dozens of languages further divide its people. The tribes are fiercely protective of their territories and do not take lightly to each other, much less Americans. There are no resources to speak of and the only crop that can be grown in its poor soil is opium poppies. The only roads that connect its major cities are unpaved strips of gravel and dust on which travelers must be wary of precipitous dropoffs, washed out bridges, and bandits. Afghanistan is the land that time forgot.

Afghanistan has seen more than its share of warfare through the ages. It has defined its people. The Mongols, British, Soviets, and Americans have all come to this backwater land for various reasons. While the Afghan warriors have a formidable and well-deserved reputation for their prowess in battle, the myth of Afghanistan being the graveyard of empires is not entirely accurate.

British losses at the end of the First Anglo-Afghan war were the result of inadequate occupation forces – they were lulled into complacency and paid a heavy price. As long as the British maintained proper force levels, Afghanistan was fairly calm under Anglo rule. Following the Second Anglo-Afghan War, a fragile peace held for 40 years. After British troops were recalled to fight in Europe during WWI, restive warlords stirred up trouble once again that led to the Third Anglo-Afghan War and eventual independence. The British won all three wars, but in the end, they decided it just wasn’t worth it.

The Soviet foray into Afghanistan was a much different picture. The Afghan tribes united against the Soviets, backed with funding and weapons from the United States, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and other countries. At the beginning of hostilities, the Afghans were hopelessly outgunned, with many Afghans carrying WWI-era Enfield rifles into battle. Faced with increasing resistance, skyrocketing costs and budget shortfalls, and inadequate military doctrine, the Soviets tried to shore up the pro-Soviet government and pulled out in 1989.

Now it is our turn. After years of civil war and Taliban rule, we have inherited a mess in Afghanistan. The Taliban government crumbled quickly before our onslaught and Al Qaeda fled to Pakistan, leaving us trying to put the pieces of the country back together. Until we withdrew the majority of our troops in late 2002 and 2003 to fight the war against Iraq, things were actually somewhat stable. But as time progressed, the natives grew restless. We are now facing increased Taliban activity in most of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. In addition, we have lost much of our support in Central Asia and a highly unstable Pakistan threatens to further hinder our access to Afghanistan.

But we have read the Afghan’s playbook; it is required reading for the Marine Corps Officers’ Course. We know how they fight. We know their strengths and weaknesses. We are more than capable of countering their moves. As long as we have the proper force levels, we can put down any uprising from the Taliban or any other ethnic tribe trying to destabilize the fledgling democracy taking hold in Kabul. But that won’t win the war. We could be there 100 years, and as soon as we leave, it’ll devolve back into hell on earth. That much is evident from the British experience.

How do we create a lasting infrastructure that will endure long after we have left? Can we really create a nation where one has never really existed? And perhaps Afghanistan is the least of our worries in Central Asia. What do we do about Pakistan? Great Britain’s Great Game is a never ending game; it just has different players. How do we win a game that never ends?