Read an Excerpt
Tail of the Storm
By Alan Cockrell, Walter E. Sistrunk Jr. UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA PRESS
Copyright © 1995 The University of Alabama Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8173-9032-7
CHAPTER 1
THE WHITE SNAKES
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that rises with us, our life's star. ...
But trailing clouds of glory do we come.
— William Wordsworth,
Intimations of Immortality
Something bizarre is being born out there. An embryonic grayish white snake, gnarled and pulsating, twists and grows in the stratospheric hurricanes, then billows into an enormous caterpillar. A long, pointed snout emerges and approaches, imperceptibly at first but then gathers momentum and rockets inexorably toward us, its grotesque body billowing and boiling behind it.
A small arrowhead shape materializes at the point of the tentacle. Growing vestiges of wings, tail, and engines, it flashes underneath us at a closure speed equal to that of the turning Earth. And we fly onward above the wisps and boils of the dying snake, watching as the bluish gray expanse ahead gives birth to yet another white serpent.
On the cloud deck far below is the stain of a long comet on the satin surface. It's the shadow of our own tentacle. At the point is a nucleus — which is us — crowned with a rainbowlike halo cast by the refraction of the sun's rays around the aircraft. I've noticed at times, when the shadow is nearer, that the center of the halo is the plane's cockpit. I stare at it like a child spellbound before an aquarium.
And I chew absentmindedly at the hole. I'm one of the few heavy jet pilots who still wear gloves — a habit, I suppose, from my fighter pilot days. My right nomex flight glove has a hole in it on the index finger, where I fiddle incessantly with the sharp-edged autopilot controller. I need a new pair, but I like the feel of my old ones. This cockpit fits me like the gloves. It's old but warm and familiar. The seats and upholstery are frayed, like my gloves. The instrument panels and consoles are caked with the paint of countless brushes. I'm surrounded by the switchology and instrumentation of a twenty-five-year-old technology.
Yet, strangely, I sometimes feel like a nineteenth-century citizen cast in a futuristic dream, like a sojourner from the past living out a fantasy. I must have plowed up a magic bottle in a Pickens County cornfield and asked the genie inside to give me wings; to send me to some future world of adventure and excitement. And the genie said I had much to learn if I thought such things were the keys to contentment. Nevertheless, he would make it so.
I clearly remember Dave "Pink" Floyd's sobering remark that morning nine months ago. He was signing a hand receipt and holstering a .38 caliber revolver. The subject of a nearby conversation — one of many in the buzzing operations room — was the latest news release. Iraqi forces were steadily flowing south into Kuwait. The Saudi oil fields were in dire jeopardy, and the president had announced additional call-ups from the Air Reserve forces. The bell had tolled for us less than twenty-four hours ago.
Pocketing his twelve rounds of ball ammunition (the Geneva Convention had outlawed hollow points), he interrupted the conversation.
"This sounds like ..." The talk stopped. Heads turned toward him.
"Like ... Armageddon."
There weren't many biblical scholars in the room, but there were a lot of believers. A couple of people uttered affirmations.
I was still having trouble believing it was happening. Peace was supposed to be "breaking out all over," right? That was the fashionable phrase of the time. I had foolishly said as much myself to a large audience at Calloway High School just a few weeks ago, while awarding an Air Force Academy appointment to a graduate. Now I was hoping no one there remembered the faddish remark.
The call-up was no surprise — we had known for about two weeks that it would be coming. The Pentagon had planned to deploy several divisions of troops to the Persian Gulf area, and we knew, given the current level of airlift capacity, it would take thirty days to move just one division. Obviously, we were indispensable to the unfolding events 7,000 miles away. We all began to tie up the loose ends in our personal lives before the official word came. I had just returned home from a four-day trip with my airline job and called the Guard base right away. "What's going on?" I asked the flight scheduler. "Do you think we'll be called up?" His answer was immediate and business-like.
"You were next on my list to call. We're activated. Be here at 0900 tomorrow morning."
It was five minutes before nine, and the crowd of crew members and support personnel began to flow toward the large theater-style briefing room next door. I walked down the aisle, found the row with my name taped to it, and slipped in beside the men who would be my crew for the next six weeks. I sat down beside First Lieutenant Robert "Bones" Maloney. He had recently graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi and for the time being was Guard bumming until he could build enough hours to get an airline job. I hardly knew Bones and had never flown with him before.
Next to him was Master Sergeant Brian Wigonton from Haleyville, Alabama. Brian was a veteran jet mechanic from the active Air Force and had checked out as a flight engineer since joining the Guard. I reached across Brian and greeted the other engineer, Technical Sergeant Walt Chapman, the avid hunter from Meridian. Brian was older than Walt, but they complemented each other well and preferred flying together. I was tremendously glad to see them on my crew. Two good engineers would be a great asset and would make life much easier and would maybe even greatly prolong it. Sitting beyond Walt were Sergeants Jack Brown and Mike Gandy, the loadmasters.
In a few minutes Captain Jeff Carter, the first pilot, squeezed by and sat down, completing our crew. He worked hard managing his laundry business in Jackson and was worried about how an extended absence would affect it. There was no one else who could effectively take over. Being in the Guard had always been a risk to Jeff. If something like this ever happened, he could lose the business that had been handed down in his family for generations. This crisis had to end quickly or he was in trouble.
After some opening remarks in which Lieutenant Colonel Bill Lutz, a lawyer until today, welcomed us to the "longest UTA in history," we began our inprocessing. They checked our emergency notification files for currency. They issued us green cards to replace our red identification cards, so that we were indistinguishable from regular Air Force personnel. We filled out forms, registering our families in government military medical programs. They checked our immunization records and medical files. We ragged and bantered with a few unlucky ones who, grimacing, were found delinquent and were pulled aside for shots.
The intell people made us review and initial our SAR cards. The cards were made primarily for fighter pilots, but just in case we crash-landed our behemoth jet in enemy territory and survived, the rescuers needed some way to establish our true identity via radio before coming for us. Bitter lessons were learned in Viet Nam when English-speaking enemy soldiers seized the survival radios of downed airmen and lay in wait for the rescue helicopters. According to plan, the cards would contain questions that the rescuers would ask of us. They were personal questions that we each had listed and would answer by way of survival radio. I don't remember all of the ones I listed. One was "what color was your first car?" I had listed fire engine red, but that was unacceptable. They said that I would probably not remember it under stressful conditions. I shortened it to just red, and they accepted it.
Then they checked our dog tags. "Is this all current?" the clerk asked. I looked at them.
Alan H. Cockrell
523-70-3180
20 July 49
B-Positive
Southern Baptist
"Hey, man, what could have changed?" I asked.
"Well, you could have converted to Islam, maybe. ... Get outta here."
At the next table a military lawyer offered to write up a will on the spot, but I told him I had one. I did sign a power of attorney, though.
The chaplain told us he was available for counseling and offered Bibles, but I had one of those already, too.
Finally, we filed into the big briefing room again for the chemical warfare briefing. When it began, the huge room fell quiet. We had sleepily sat through countless routine training classes over the years, but this was different. This time our attention was riveted on the briefer. Saddam had chemicals and had used them against some of his own people. He could use missiles, aircraft, or artillery to deliver the sinister gasses. Now, for the first time since chemical warfare training had been introduced years ago, we paid attention.
Plastic zip-lock bags were passed out to each of us. I knew what they contained, and a ripple of foreboding swept through me. I thought of my kids. I wanted to drop the bag with its repulsive contents on the floor and kick it away. But I opened it and pulled out each item as the briefer instructed.
First was a packet of twenty-one pyridostigmine bromine tablets. Under the label was the note "Nerve Agent Pretreatment Tablets." The written directions were ominous.
Directions for use:
1. Commence taking only when instructed by your commander.
2. Take only every 8 hours.
3. It is dangerous to exceed the stated dose.
Next was the nerve agent antidote. The briefer continued. "You have been issued three injectors of atropine and three injectors of 2-PAM chloride. You will self-administer this only [he emphasized "only"] after exposure to nerve agents to counter their deadly effects. Injections are made through your clothes into a large muscle in the outer thigh or in the upper buttock." He simulated giving himself an injection. The situation in the Middle East had caused an abrupt attitude adjustment among us. No longer did the thought of giving ourselves these shots seem so repulsive. Nerve gas causes an ugly death. The victim's mouth foams, his body convulses, and he jerks and quivers, like a fish out of water, until sweet death intervenes.
The green injectors read "ATROPINE INJECTION, 2 mg. For use in nerve gas poisoning only." The second, fatter syringe read "PRALIDOXIME CHLORIDE INJECTION, 300 mg, for use in nerve agent poisoning only." I wanted to ask what would happen to us if we injected the stuff prematurely or by mistake, but I thought the better of it.
All the while, as I listened, questions fell through the cracks in the floor of logic and reality somewhere high above my head. This scene had to be a bad dream. The things this guy was saying didn't happen to real folks, let alone me. Why was I really there anyway? I blew off the standard old answers. Duty is as inherent in me as a bodily organ, and patriotism is the fuel that sustains it, but the real reason I was there was categorically selfish: I'm driven by a passion to fly airplanes. But was this the price? The atropine became a symbol of all the absurdity and wickedness in the world, and yet without it I probably would never have been able to pursue and capture this dream of jet flight.
Next was the protective suit demonstration. Our suits were at that moment being loaded on the aircraft. The suits, known in military jargon as the "aircrew ensemble," consisted of numerous items each of which had to be put on, or donned, as they more often said, in a specific sequence. It was important to protect the whole body if possible because chemicals could come in the form of liquid droplets as well as gas. One drop on the skin could be fatal.
First you put on one of two pairs of cotton long johns, followed by a pair of cotton gloves and tube socks. Next you put on plastic bags over your socks. Then you stepped into one of two pairs of the charcoal fiber coveralls. They feel like coarse, fibrous wool, with a texture that makes your skin crawl, and they cook you in heat, both absorbed and retained. They were good for fifty hours wear time, after which they lost their impermeability and had to be discarded. The gloves and plastic bags were then taped to the coveralls with masking tape to make an airtight seal. Next you donned the standard issue USAF nomex flight suit over the charcoal suit, followed by the usual flight boots. After that, you pulled on rubber gloves over the cotton ones and standard issue USAF nomex flight gloves over those. By then your hand was so stiff that it was almost useless. Next you strapped an air filter pack to your side and adjusted it. It had an outlet that plugged into the aircraft's oxygen system and another that plugged into your mask.
Finally the brain bucket came on. We each had a custom-fitted USAF helmet to which was attached a chemical warfare protective mask. The mask was not specifically designed to be worn independently of the helmet, nor was it intended to be worn alone, for example when we were outside the aircraft. No one ever expected us to need it for that. A totally different kind of mask was available to soldiers and ground service personnel but was not issued to us. Our masks, unlike the ground masks, were awkward because you couldn't make yourself heard from them by shouting. Unless you were plugged into an aircraft interphone system, communication was almost impossible.
Once the helmet was on, a large plastic hood spread over the helmet and shoulders with an opening around the mask. Last we wore two ghastly large transparent plastic bags that covered our entire bodies. I had worn the complete suit in an exercise the previous year and did not relish the thought of putting it on again.
The suits were very impractical. A practiced person needed about twenty minutes to put on the whole outfit with the help of a buddy. The whole concept was designed for use in flying in a known chemical environment where you had plenty of advance warning. But it was almost useless for no-notice alerts. The gear, already sized and customized to fit each individual, was packed into huge, cumbersome rubber bags weighing about forty pounds each that were tied at the top. To be carried they had to be toted the way a drifter bore all his belongings in a gunny sack, slung over the shoulder or heaved with a fisted hand. We suspected the sack was about to become our constant but loathed companion, yet few of us realized that it foretold perilous times ahead.
Finally, Day One ended and we went home to a last night with our families.
The Charles Sullivan Air National Base, located among the tall pines on the north side of the Jackson, Mississippi, International Airport, was a madhouse on the morning of Day Two. Under the watchful and wet eyes of our loved ones, we made ready for bag drag number one.
Our chemical sacks were loaded for us on the aircraft by the unit's Aerial Port personnel. This was the last time anything would be carried for us. We picked up our chemical gear and revolvers and bullets and were told to be discreet about having them. The roving newsmen and cameras might get wind of our defensive gear — and we didn't want to alarm the American public, now did we?
Joining our chem sacks was a host of other bags and containers which we had to carry. We each had a main bag, usually a government issue B-4 bag weighing fifty to eighty pounds packed with personal gear. Our helmet bag contained not a helmet but a communications headset, checklists, gloves, a flashlight, and various other trappings of long-range fliers. Some of them weighed ten or twenty pounds.
Then there were the individual flight kits, fat briefcases into which was stuffed the literature of military flight: The "Dash-1," which was everything you ever wanted to know about the C-141 and more, much more; the "Dash-1/Dash-1," which contained the C-141 performance charts and test data; Air Force Regulation 55-141, which described down to a gnat's hair the science of flying C-141s the Air Force way; Air Force Regulation 60-16, the science of flying anything the Air Force way; Air Force Manual 51-37, the instrument flying handbook; Air Force Manual 51-12, the weather manual.
Along with the flight kit each crewman had a personal bag, which I called a survival kit. It could be placed beside his seat for easy reach. Everyone's kit was different, built to suit individual tastes, but the kits were necessary for the maintenance of our sanity. Mine was a blue fabric bag with an abundance of zippered compartments containing some essential trappings: binoculars; a camera; a Sony Walkman with microspeakers that would fit neatly inside my headset; extra batteries; a collection of tapes with the music of Phil Collins, Tinita Tikeram, the Moody Blues, Alabama, and songs of the Civil War; three books — the Bible and Major British Poets, both mainstays, and a techno-thriller of some sort; a plastic bottle of distilled water to stave off dehydration in the plane's super-dry atmosphere; and an assortment of munchables.
Then there were the communal bags. Each crew carried a "trip kit," another fat briefcase containing various regulations and reams of forms and paperwork: per diem vouchers; noncontract fuel purchase, forms 1801 and 175 for filing flight plans; aircraft commander's reports on facilities and crew members; forms, forms, and more forms — and requisition forms for forms.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Tail of the Storm by Alan Cockrell, Walter E. Sistrunk Jr.. Copyright © 1995 The University of Alabama Press. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA PRESS.
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