Basher Five-Two (9 page)

Taking a stroll with my commander in chief, President Clinton, at the White House.
(Courtesy of AP/World Wide Photos)

W
ith the first light of dawn, I got a rude surprise. I was lying peacefully in the darkness on my tarp, the green side folded over me, with the camouflage netting spread on top. Even though my feet and head stuck out of the netting, I had thought the trees concealed me well. I had opened a flexipak and had taken my first drink of water in seventeen hours. Just as I was congratulating myself on fooling the enemy, I realized I wasn’t concealed at all.

The night had tricked me. The thick trees that by touch and through my dim sight had seemed so perfect had, in fact, very few low branches. I would stick out like an elephant to anyone coming up the path. I tried not to panic. Ever so slowly, I gathered my gear and slipped toward the clearing where I’d made my radio transmissions. Not far away, amid a stand of skinny trees, there were low branches I could hide under. And if I had to flee, I wasn’t trapped in a total dead end. I picked a hiding spot and prepared to burrow in.

Several years before, I had taken a two-week survival course at Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane and, later, a one-week water survival course at Holmstead Air Force
Base. I had learned tons of useful things in both courses, but the training at Fairchild was the most relevant now. My instructors had emphasized the importance of finding a good hiding spot, or “hole-up” site, as the military called it. A hole-up site was only good if you followed the BLISS principle. Your hole had to blend into the environment. It had to be low and regular in shape. And it had to be in a secluded area. It was also helpful if you had some protection from the elements, a way to escape when cornered, an ability to see the land around you, and clear radio reception. By itself each part was minor, but if you followed them all, they could add up to the difference between success and failure.

With my new hole I wasn’t batting a thousand, but as I set up my tarp and netting at a nerve-rackingly slow pace, I felt I was doing well under the circumstances. When I was finally settled in, I pulled my evasion chart from my G-suit pocket and began to plot the longitude and latitude coordinates I’d gotten from my GPS receiver last night.

My evasion chart, known as EVC—the military has initials for everything—was basically a topographical map of Bosnia. It showed all the hills, valleys, rivers, and land features around me. On its legend was other helpful information about local vegetation and animals, including a poisonous snake called the European viper. I wanted to be sure to avoid that. For all its usefulness, however, the
EVC had two major disadvantages. First, it was made of a heavy-duty, waterproof material that you couldn’t fold or unfold without waking the dead. Second, because the EVC was designed to serve in emergencies as a blanket or a splint or even a tarp for hauling supplies, it was huge—almost five feet by three feet. I used my knife to cut out the piece of the EVC that showed my immediate area, and I shoved the rest into my rucksack. Once I’d plotted my coordinates on my new, smaller EVC, I picked out a hill about two miles away that I hoped would make a decent stage for a rescue attempt. As I would be moving only at night, two miles was a lot of territory to cover, but reaching that hill became my new goal.

Setting goals was a necessity for me. Whether it was to grab a quick nap, find something to eat, or move a few yards closer to that final hill, having a goal focused my thoughts and energies. Growing up, I had always carved out one goal or another for myself. Whether it was making my high-school football team or becoming an air force pilot or getting rescued, I could never live my life any other way.

Lying there in that hole, I would at times grow sad and feel sorry for myself. That’s when I tried my best to remember that I had been extremely lucky so far. I knew the Vietnam-era stories of U.S. Navy and Air Force pilots who’d been shot down by the enemy and captured and who had then spent years in captivity. Many had died. If
I was captured in the days ahead, I too had to be prepared to give my life for my country. I knew I could do that, but I also knew that if I stayed alert and determined, the enemy would have to be very good and very lucky to find me. During the Vietnam conflict, an American pilot named Lance Sijan had been forced to eject from his plane over the mountains of Laos. His leg was mangled, and with no emergency rucksack containing water or food, he had to crawl through the Laotian jungle for six weeks, surviving on whatever he could find. Later he was captured, managed to escape, but was recaptured by the enemy. Eventually he died in a prison in Hanoi. Nevertheless, his strong will to survive and be free was an inspiration to every pilot I knew.

Staring out at the Bosnian countryside, I began to wonder what was happening at Aviano. I knew it was too early to assemble any kind of rescue attempt. No one had proof that I was alive or knew where I was. But I was confident that I hadn’t been forgotten. I hoped that Wilbur and other pilots were flying overhead looking and listening for some sign of me. My friends weren’t going to let me down, just as I wouldn’t have let them down if they had been in my shoes. Teamwork is the cornerstone of the military. From the first day of your training you learn to trust and rely on the person next to you, just as he or she trusts and relies on you.

In the middle of my thoughts, I suddenly heard two
male voices in the distance. I immediately pressed as deeply as I could into the ground. The voices grew clearer and louder. Soon I could hear footsteps. Where had they come from? Were they soldiers? I curled my body into a tight ball and once more held my breath. I was staring into the ground and couldn’t see their faces. Though I wore my gray ski mask, I didn’t risk looking up. I knew from survival school that just the whites of your eyes were enough to give you away.

The two men came within feet of me—as close as the grandfather and grandson had come yesterday—and, miraculously, they walked on.

I don’t know how long I waited before I turned my head and gazed back at the countryside. Everything looked peaceful, but my ears told me a different story. I could hear gunfire in the distance, and after a few hours the rotor blades of a helicopter vibrated in the sky. The chopper was skimming the tree line and for a few seconds hovered nearby. My heart leaped to my throat. Could it be from Aviano? I twisted my head up and recognized a Soviet-made chopper called the Gazelle. The chopper belonged to my enemy, not to any of my rescuers. I could actually pick out the faces of the two pilots, and even though I was well hidden, I worried about their spotting me by chance. The fact that the Serbs were now mounting an air search meant that I was a very valuable prize. More soldiers and helicopters would probably be coming.
Minutes earlier, I had boldly thought of trying to make radio contact during daylight. The sight of the Gazelle chopper convinced me to give up that fantasy. I couldn’t risk having my signal intercepted by the enemy and being found.

There were no more incidents the rest of the day. I could hear cows mooing in the distance, but no sounds of people. By evening I was prepared to move again. My goal was to make my way toward that hill I had marked on my EVC. I didn’t know how long it would take, and I wasn’t going to fix a deadline. I was mentally prepared to be in Bosnia for weeks, if necessary, because I refused to rush into careless mistakes.

Sometime around nightfall I made the decision not to pick up and run. Despite the encounter with the two men this morning, my hole-up site gave me decent cover, and I wasn’t risking too much by sticking around another twenty-four hours. There might also be something to gain. First, I needed to conserve and even build my strength. If I got some sleep, I’d be in better shape for tomorrow night’s journey. I hadn’t slept in thirty-six hours. Why struggle ahead now, when my mind wasn’t clear? Second, I’d have ample time tonight to try my radio again. Third, I could keep observing and listening to what was around me. I could do some intelligence gathering and maybe pick up a pattern of enemy activity.

The night went by peacefully. I tried my radio two or
three times in the nearby clearing but heard only the familiar pattern of static. I took several short “combat naps.” These are fitful rests at best, during which you’re just on the edge of unconsciousness, ready to wake at the slightest noise. Dawn finally came, damp and chilly. I kept my arms close to my torso, hugging myself to keep warm. Even though this was summer, the mountainous climate made for cold nights and gray, drizzly days.

I also woke up hungry. When it came to survival, I knew that food was not nearly as important as water or even sleep. You could live weeks without eating, but not more than a week without some kind of liquid. Go even three days without water, my instructors had told me, and your thinking would become unreliable. But I wasn’t terribly worried about water at the moment. I still had most of my flexipaks, and from the dark clouds that had gathered yesterday evening, I guessed there would be rain soon. Mostly I was just hungry.

I hadn’t spotted any fruit or berries in the woods. Boldly, I picked a leaf off a tree that I couldn’t identify. Oval, pointed at one end, and thin, the leaf looked harmless enough. Before you stick anything strange into your mouth, you are supposed to test it for harmful effects. The first step is to rub the plant or leaf on the outside of your lip. If your lip becomes irritated, the leaf is no good to eat. If there is no irritation, you rub the leaf on the
inside
of your lip, to see if that causes a reaction. If not, the next step is to put it in your mouth for a few minutes. If there is no burning, itching, or nausea, you can swallow it with some confidence.

Taking the recommended time between each step, you could spend up to four hours just waiting to swallow your first leaf. I didn’t feel so patient. After dining on my first piece of greenery, I waited a full hour, felt no ill effects, and swallowed several more leaves. I tried to pick clean ones, without any spots or marks. They had no real taste, and my mouth felt terribly dry afterward. Rather than fill my stomach, the leaves simply made me thirsty. For the rest of the morning I downed the water in several of the flexipaks, including two within a thirty-minute period. Even under normal circumstances the body requires about two quarts a day, with stress, you are supposed to drink more. What little I had, I did my best to enjoy. Each sip tasted more glorious than the freshest glass of orange juice. I kept looking up to the sky, praying for rain. By late afternoon a few drops had landed on my face. Then the sky closed like a door.

Throughout the day I heard cowbells, and I worried that a herd and its handler might be coming my way. The Soviet-made helicopter made another pass above me before drifting on. Several times I turned on my radio, fitting in my earpiece snugly so that no sound could escape.
There was little to hear besides static. Was the radio broken or the batteries not strong enough? Or was I just out of transmission range?

My morale worsened by the end of the day. I wondered if the lack of water was starting to affect my judgment. Had I wasted a whole day here? Was I really strong enough to move on tonight? Doubts about being rescued dampened my mood. I closed my eyes and said another prayer, a special one this time, inspired by the very country in which I was now so hopelessly lost. The previous winter, when I was in the States for training, I had visited a friend of my mom’s. Her name was Anita, and she’d just come back from the town of Medjugorje, in the south of Bosnia, where many locals and visitors had sworn they’d seen the Virgin Mary. I had never believed in miracles, but I suddenly found myself praying to the Mother of Medjugorje. I began to feel an inner peace, a certainty that I wasn’t alone in the world. I felt that a lot of people were praying for me and my safe return. It was almost like a chorus of voices, and it renewed my courage.

Late that night, I rose stiffly from my hiding place with slow, disconnected movements. My goal was not to disturb a single twig as I pushed to my feet. Once again, I checked off the items in my rucksack and made sure my radio was secure in my survival vest pocket. I plugged in the earpiece so that I could listen to the radio as I walked. In between my vest and my flight suit I stuffed my tarp,
the netting, and the large portions of my EVC, until I looked as though I were several months pregnant. I carried my rucksack like a backpack. I stepped into the meadow and began traveling southeast, heading toward the hill I had indicated on my evasion chart.

My day of rest in the woods had not been wasted. While I was still thirsty and hungry, I felt a new reserve of energy. Although there were more stars out than last night, making me more noticeable to any sleepless Serbs, I looked upon the night as an old and reliable friend. My legs pushed me up a hill, over its crest, and into an open field. I hesitated. The thought of being exposed as I marched across the field worried me. It made more sense to take extra time and walk along the borders of the field, where there were trees to conceal me. Then I remembered the motto of the Juvats, the Eightieth Fighter Squadron, with whom I had served in Korea.
Audentes fortuna juvat,
I told myself. Fortune favors the bold. I began walking across the open field.

Maybe I suddenly had get-home-itis. The desire to get out of Bosnia
now
fought with the more cautious voice inside me, the one begging me to slow down and be careful. As I navigated across the field, my pace quickened along with my heart. After about fifteen minutes I came over a rise and stopped cold. A pair of steel power line towers, about a quarter mile apart, dominated the landscape like a couple of giants.

I began to worry about being near a population center. Worse, it was less than an hour before daylight. Birds were already starting to sing. As I hurried ahead, the field narrowed into a broad path, which led up a slope to some dense foliage. With the rucksack bouncing on my back, I sped up my pace toward what looked like a secluded cove, bordered by a steep six-foot-high granite ledge. Still in darkness, I dropped into a maze of bushes and trees.