THE CAPTAIN AND THE WAR
By Leonard Nemerovski
September 15, 2003
The dim glow of approaching daylight was a hazy brightening of the sky in the East. His watch read five A.M. and Fred had been awake and hard at work for over an hour. His job today is to report to the general in charge of today’s missions.
He is a pilot with the 84th Airborne brigade based in Saudi Arabia. His squadron has been part of the constant umbrella of American fighter planes keeping the no-fly zones above Iraq free of enemy aircraft. When he could change his concentration from the job he was preparing for, Fred would let his mind wander to his life back home.
He was a captain in the United States Marine Corps. He was a graduate of the Air Force academy, a husband. a father.
By dawn today, Fred had to be in aloft with his skilled crew guarding the lifelines of transit for the United States military over Iraq. His was a seemingly never-ending job dealing with the on-site battle between the Americans and the hostile Iraqis.
Fred was a mass of perspiration. It was hot. Unbearably hot. Three places in this God forsaken hellhole were the only air-conditioned refuge from the sodden humidity; his barracks, the briefing tent. and his airplane.
He came from Atlanta, where he thought the seasons of daytime scorching heat and humidity should have prepared him for duty in Iraq. He longed for home, his family and his normal peacetime hectic life. Duty here in the clogging desert was almost too severe to catch sustaining breath.
Fred was too old to cry. But his eyes did mist over as his thoughts lingered on his family back home. He had married his high school sweetheart, at the Academy, right after he won his wings. His two children, John and Carol were no longer babes in arms. Both were in pre-med. His son, a senior at Michigan and lovely Carol, just beginning at the University of Washington, were both the lights of his life.
Fred had been away from home before. On call on duty. But he never had encountered war and a guerrilla sniper war with sudden hostility beyond every corner. He came here to help his Army and the Iraqis, not to be smothered and ambushed by the never ending hidden dangers.
The squadron gathered in the duty room and Colonel Harris outlined the missions for the next eight hours. Our squad was divided into three time segments. Fred’s plane would take off first at 0645. The mission, which each unit would mimic, would take off at the
0045 hour. Each flight would last one and one quarter hours. For fifteen minutes of each hour, there would be two planes aloft. Each flight would return home at the 00 00 hour, land and be de-briefed.
Each flight would have three main assignments. First and foremost, fly the regular circle route between Arbil on the North to Al Basrah at the Port to the Persian Gulf. Then make sweeping lateral detours East and West to observe any unusual enemy buildup. Be sure to get on the radio immediately to report anything you had not seen before.
This war was not over and any change made by the Iraqis must be investigated. The Colonel emphasized the main mission was the enforcement of the No Flight zone. In addition, the flight crews had to pay particular attention to ground activities in and around Fallujah, the scene of last week’s mistaken shooing of the eight Iraqis security officers.
The civilians in the area were in high rage that has built up in Fallujah a bastion of resistance to U.S. occupation, 30 miles west of Baghdad. (CT 9 24 03 – 3).
Attention must also be given from the air to activity on the ground at Balad, and the new force of the newly reconstituted army, the Iraqis border patrol and the Civil Defense Corps. (CT 9 23 03 – 3).
After the usual checking of the maps, the crews left the briefing area to begin the day’s work.
The first plane off was Fred’s and each crew had to check the plane, confer with the ground crew chief, and prepare for takeoff at 0645.
TO BE CONTINUED
(CT is verbatim from the Chicago Tribune – date and page.)
LEONARD NEMEROVSKI
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