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Authors: William Robert Stanek
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not an enemy fighter that you see. But it is better to be safe than sorry.
“Crew, the briefing is complete. Interior and exterior lights checked. Radar altimeter is set. Co, you ready?” The rest of the front-end crew began to go through their checks, starting with the copilot.
Soon the pilot called out, “Crew, Before Takeoff Combat Entry Checks—Complete.”
That was our cue to give the thumbs up sign that we were ready for takeoff. “Pilot, MCC, mission crew ready for takeoff, sir!”
Interphone tweaked and the pilot called out the obvious, “Crew, we’re rolling!”
The Gray Lady rattled and hummed as we gained speed; then with a sluggish lurch, the wheels lifted from the runway. We were airborne. I gripped the armrests of my flight chair, eyes wide and staring straight ahead.
Once we reached our flight altitude, the system was brought up and we readied our positions. For me that meant logging onto the system when cleared and following a few other steps that I’d done a hundred times.
Private clicked and PBJ’s voice hissed into my headset, “There are flight meals around if any of you are as hungry as me.” Robert on One—we called him Bobby—unbuckled and attacked a nearby box of ready to eat meals (MREs), tossing them around to his fellow crewers.
MREs seemed to have improved tremendously since basic training or so I reckoned at the moment. I ate so fast that in a few minutes, nature was calling—that was another thing I hadn’t done since departing Germany besides eat. Yet the unwritten law among veteran crewers, and I was a veteran crewer, was: no shitting on the plane. There were a lot of unwritten laws among crewers. “MCS, Six, clear to the rear?”
“Clear to the rear, Six,” called back PBJ. As he was to my right, he shot me a knowing grin.
I immediately headed to the luxury powder room in the rear, a gray curtained open chemical toilet on a pedestal that needed to be manually lowered—I’d seen quite a few new troops hop up there without first lowering the platform. When a chemical shitter came crashing down with you on it, it wasn’t a pretty sight. Most probably this was the origin of the unwritten law among crewers: no shitting on the airplane. There was also a funnel shaped thing that passed for a urinal. The right paratroop door was close enough to the toilet so I could glance out the window. The sky was still shrouded in darkness. The Buffs had a predawn strike, so I wasn’t surprised to see darkness.
I had just plugged back up on headset when the MCC called out, “15 minutes to stations.” The adrenaline was pumping, really pumping.
The moment of truth was near. We’d find out not only who had done their homework as they should have, but also who really understood it. If the military had taught us anything in our however short or long careers, it was how to adapt. I’d been through years of training to get into this hot seat that I sat in now. I wasn’t about to blow it.
I took a deep breath and repeated to myself, “This is what it was all for.”
The pilot began the Airborne Combat Entry Checklist and I knew this was finally it. In five minutes we’d be on orbit supporting the first package: Buffs as they bombarded Kirkuk, a key airfield in Northern Iraq. This would be our first combat sortie. The time to rise to the occasion was now or never. For some, the time simply would never come. For those of us who did rise to the occasion, we’d never be the same again.
Two minutes to orbit now. I heard the Spotter calling out the location of traffic. The AMT had been there before; but now we needed him to do his job, and that job was to keep the system up and running.
The pilot called out, “Combat stations,” and the MCC relayed it. I punched off ship’s Interphone and pulled out the out-of-ship radio buttons so I could back up the
“Crew, the briefing is complete. Interior and exterior lights checked. Radar altimeter is set. Co, you ready?” The rest of the front-end crew began to go through their checks, starting with the copilot.
Soon the pilot called out, “Crew, Before Takeoff Combat Entry Checks—Complete.”
That was our cue to give the thumbs up sign that we were ready for takeoff. “Pilot, MCC, mission crew ready for takeoff, sir!”
Interphone tweaked and the pilot called out the obvious, “Crew, we’re rolling!”
The Gray Lady rattled and hummed as we gained speed; then with a sluggish lurch, the wheels lifted from the runway. We were airborne. I gripped the armrests of my flight chair, eyes wide and staring straight ahead.
Once we reached our flight altitude, the system was brought up and we readied our positions. For me that meant logging onto the system when cleared and following a few other steps that I’d done a hundred times.
Private clicked and PBJ’s voice hissed into my headset, “There are flight meals around if any of you are as hungry as me.” Robert on One—we called him Bobby—unbuckled and attacked a nearby box of ready to eat meals (MREs), tossing them around to his fellow crewers.
MREs seemed to have improved tremendously since basic training or so I reckoned at the moment. I ate so fast that in a few minutes, nature was calling—that was another thing I hadn’t done since departing Germany besides eat. Yet the unwritten law among veteran crewers, and I was a veteran crewer, was: no shitting on the plane. There were a lot of unwritten laws among crewers. “MCS, Six, clear to the rear?”
“Clear to the rear, Six,” called back PBJ. As he was to my right, he shot me a knowing grin.
I immediately headed to the luxury powder room in the rear, a gray curtained open chemical toilet on a pedestal that needed to be manually lowered—I’d seen quite a few new troops hop up there without first lowering the platform. When a chemical shitter came crashing down with you on it, it wasn’t a pretty sight. Most probably this was the origin of the unwritten law among crewers: no shitting on the airplane. There was also a funnel shaped thing that passed for a urinal. The right paratroop door was close enough to the toilet so I could glance out the window. The sky was still shrouded in darkness. The Buffs had a predawn strike, so I wasn’t surprised to see darkness.
I had just plugged back up on headset when the MCC called out, “15 minutes to stations.” The adrenaline was pumping, really pumping.
The moment of truth was near. We’d find out not only who had done their homework as they should have, but also who really understood it. If the military had taught us anything in our however short or long careers, it was how to adapt. I’d been through years of training to get into this hot seat that I sat in now. I wasn’t about to blow it.
I took a deep breath and repeated to myself, “This is what it was all for.”
The pilot began the Airborne Combat Entry Checklist and I knew this was finally it. In five minutes we’d be on orbit supporting the first package: Buffs as they bombarded Kirkuk, a key airfield in Northern Iraq. This would be our first combat sortie. The time to rise to the occasion was now or never. For some, the time simply would never come. For those of us who did rise to the occasion, we’d never be the same again.
Two minutes to orbit now. I heard the Spotter calling out the location of traffic. The AMT had been there before; but now we needed him to do his job, and that job was to keep the system up and running.
The pilot called out, “Combat stations,” and the MCC relayed it. I punched off ship’s Interphone and pulled out the out-of-ship radio buttons so I could back up the
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