Blue Bloods of Bois D’Arc (10 page)

“Might as well, we have a lot of time to kill until 0800 in the morning.”

“Look at the bright side. We don’t have to roll out at 0500 and can take our time getting to the mess hall.”

Rod wrapped his pillow around his head, but couldn’t silence the morning reveille call piped throughout the barracks. He rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. It didn’t work.

“Man, I can’t go back to sleep. Can you?” Rod called up to Guy in the bunk above.

“Nah, we might as well get up and head over to the mess hall so we can be first in line to pick up our orders.”

Rod and Guy strolled to the mess hall and lingered over their blueberry pancakes, greasy sausages, and coffee until the sun lit up the base. It seemed weird to be able to walk around while other wings marched in formation to class. They were careful to walk in step side by side so as to look official in case they met any inquisitive MPs. They weren’t first, but the line at the squadron commander’s office wasn’t long. After they had their orders in hand, they decided to go back to the barracks to open them. Their pace was much quicker now. Back at the barracks, several other guys had stayed on base and were discussing their orders, too.

“You go first,” Rod said.

“Okay, here goes.” Guy ripped the manila envelope open, slid the orders out slowly and shouted, “Oh my God, I don’t believe it! I’m going to Arnold Air Force Base in Tullahoma, Tennessee! That’s only a few hours’ drive from home. Looks like you’ll be getting a wedding invite come June. I can’t believe the luck! Okay, open yours.”

“Let’s have a little drum roll.”

Guy made a noise that sounded a little like a drum roll.

“Here we go, I’m tearing the envelope open. Sliding the orders out and . . . I’m going to Monterey to learn Russian! More schooling before I get assigned to a duty station. How ’bout that? It says my test scores are in the top one percent of the class. Man, who would have
thought
? Mrs. Rodriguez, my high school Spanish teacher, might take exception to that. She’ll faint when I tell her I’m learning Russian. Sarge said this was probably the assignment I’d get because my test scores in languages were really good back in Texas. I thought he was kidding.”

“Well, I guess that’s it. It’s been fun being your bunkmate these past months, buddy. Maybe we’ll cross paths later before we muster out,” Guy said. “If not, you gotta come to my wedding.”

“Looking forward to it, my friend. I wouldn’t miss it.”

By week’s end, the barracks were cleared and waiting for the next flight of airmen. The two friends parted ways with handshakes and moved on to their new destinations. Rod was not as positive as Guy about his new assignment. He made decent grades in high school and could speak some Spanish after two years, but Russian?

Chapter 24

Defense Language Institute, Monterey, California

The base looked like the other bases Rod had seen with their boxlike barracks and buildings laid out around a quadrangle. The bus rolled to a stop in front of the receiving building. He hoisted his duffel bag over his shoulder and followed the training instructor along with the rest of the group to get assigned to his wing and barracks. This would be home for the next year.

The first day in class, the instructor opened his welcoming speech with, “Gentlemen, look around you; front, behind, left and right. Before this course is finished two or more of the people you just looked at will be gone. This is the most intensive training you will ever experience. But I assure you that if you are one of those that finish, you will be able to speak fluent Russian. And that’s important because this Cold War is heating up and we need to know every move the Russians are making. Intelligence, men, is the weapon of the future, and you will play an important role in keeping our defense alert and strong.”

He walked up and down the aisle of students and let what he had just said sink in. He returned to the front of the room and began again. “You will be assigned a roommate and after your classes begin you will speak only Russian. Is that understood? You will be monitored and tested often. It will be grueling with virtually no free time. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. Report back here at 0700 Monday morning ready to go to work. Good luck. Dismissed.”

***

“Hello, Momma. How are you doing? I wanted to let you know I won’t be able to call home every week like I have been. This school is really tough and we won’t have much free time. I’ll call as often as I can. I just don’t want you to worry, okay? Is Mr. Workman taking good care of you?” he asked. “That’s good, I knew he would, he’s a good man. If you need anything, don’t be afraid to ask. He’ll take care of it, okay? All right. How are Jessica and Mark doing? Good, sounds like they are growing up and pitching in. That’s good . . . I really miss you all.” He listened and answered, “Yes, I’m fine, even gained some weight on this Air Force food. Momma, listen, I have to go . . . I know but there are several other guys waiting to use the phone. I love you. Can’t wait to come home after I finish training here. Take care, Momma, I love you. I’ll call again as soon as I can. Goodbye.” Rod hung up the phone and tried to hide the tears welling in his eyes as he passed the waiting line.

Back in his room, Rod unpacked the last of his gear and set up his toiletries in the bathroom. A knock on the door got his attention.

“Come in, it’s not locked,” Rod shouted.

“You Rod Miller?” The airman came in and looked around at the room they would be sharing.

“Who’s asking?” Rod, said coming from the bathroom

“I’m your roomie for the next year. Man, this pad is really small. Guess it’ll have to do.”

“Sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Texas. You gotta be from Texas with that twang. Hell, half the guys in the Air Force must be from Texas. Teo, here.” Teo stuck out his hand. “Howdy, pardner,” Teo said with an exaggerated drawl.

Rod shook hands. “I’m Rod Miller,” he said, not amused at his new roommate’s attempt at humor. “Teo your nickname?”

“Short for Tedoro. Tedoro Benevenuto, third generation Sicilian. Tedoro means gift from God. It’s your lucky day, Tex. You don’t mind if I call you Tex?” Teo said without taking a breath. “I’m New York born and bred. Bronx to be specific. Got friends in the Mafia if you’re wonderin’.”

“No, I wasn’t wondering. But if you have Mafia connections, why are you in the Air Force?”

“Easy. If you hadn’t noticed, they’re drafting guys our age and sending them to Vietnam to get shot up by the Viet Cong.”

“From what I hear,” Rod said, “the odds of getting shot in Vietnam are less than getting shot on the streets of New York.”

“Ouch, Tex. You been watchin’ too much TV. That Elliot Ness show gives us a bad name. That was the old days. Nowadays most of the families are legit, run businesses just like regular folks.”

“Okay, but why are you in a school to learn Russian? Don’t you speak Italian?”

“Yeah, but we ain’t at war with Italy. So I joined up to get my ticket punched and go home and get into the business.”

“What kind of business?”

“You know, the business?

“You mean drugs? I thought you said they were legit now.”

“Yeah, well, you know somebody is going to be pushin’ the stuff, so why let the Colombians make all the money. It’s a business, like I said.”

“Just so you know, there won’t be any drugs in this room, understood? I’m here to learn a profession I can use when I get out and I don’t want anything or anybody to mess that up. Are we clear, Teo from the Bronx?”

“Hey, Tex, don’t get all heated up, man. We’re in this together. I wouldn’t do anything like that. I just want to do my time and get an honorable discharge so the draft board won’t be after me, that’s all.”

“Fine,” Rod said. “This school is really hard and we are going to have to work together to get through it. They’ll cram us full of Russian all day in class and we won’t be speaking English here. Or Italian.”

“Glad we got that out of the way, Tex. You know, I never met a Texan before?”

“I’ve never met anybody from the Bronx. That makes us even. Guess we better get to know each other the rest of the weekend. We won’t know enough Russian for a while to carry on a conversation.”

One month later

“I guess we can break the rules this once,” Rod said. “I’m really going to miss you. I didn’t think Sarge was serious when he said more than half the group would wash out. I’m sorry you had to be one of them. I was actually getting to like you, Teo from the Bronx. You’re the only Yankee I’ve ever liked,” Rod said with a grin as he gave his friend a big Texas handshake.”

“Yeah, me, too. It’s up to you now, Tex, to kick some Russian ass for me. If you’re ever in New York when you get out, look me up. I’ll buy you a drink and show you the town.”

“You bet. Do you know where they’re sending you?”

“Some Podunk base down in Louisiana. It’s the worst place they could find to send a New York Sicilian. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be okay, pal. Take care of yourself, Tex.” Teo hoisted his duffel bag on his shoulder, gave Rod a crisp salute, and headed for the bus to take him and several others who had flunked out to the airport to fly them to their new duty stations.

Rod was assigned a new roommate, and the next eleven months were grueling. Their daily routine was the same—class and workshops where students were given assignments they had to complete in a given time. Back in their barracks, it was more study and conversation in Russian with the roommate. Each week, a few more students dropped out of the program. By the time the group graduated, there were only a dozen students left.

“Hello, Momma . . . Yes, I finally graduated from language school. It was really hard. How have you been? What did the doctor say about your arthritis? . . . I see. Don’t worry. Just take your medicine like the doctor says. I’ll keep sending money home for your medicine, okay? . . . No, I won’t have leave to come home. I’m going to Alaska. . . . Yeah, it gets really cold up there and there won’t be much to do, but I’ll have time to call you more often. Are Mark and Jessica still doing okay in school? . . . That’s good. She’s going to be the smartest one in the family. I just wanted to let you know where I’m going to be. I’ll call you when I get up there. You take care and let Mr. Workman know if you need anything, okay? . . . Goodbye, I’ll talk to you soon. I love you.”

Chapter 25

Shemya Air Force Base, Alaska

The small island base played an important role in the Cold War, flying racetrack orbits along the coast of Soviet Russia. Their mission was to monitor Soviet ballistic missile testing. The flights were long and stressful, intercepting and translating Russian voice communications at the testing sites. The yearlong training to learn the language was invaluable to the crews manning the equipment stations—they were on duty twenty-four hours a day.

The enlisted men’s club was Rod’s favorite place to hang out after his flight rotation. It was the
only
place for the young crew to congregate, have a few beers, and make phone calls to wives or girlfriends or family. It was their lifeline to the outside world. The tiny island with a landing strip was uninhabited except for the Air Force crews that operated from there. Every effort was made to keep the airmen from getting lonely during their isolation on the island they shared with a few seals.

“Hello, Momma. Sorry I couldn’t call sooner. We’ve been really busy getting settled into our quarters and our flight routines. What do I do? I can’t tell you except that it is pretty important. Yeah, I’m getting used to the Alaska weather. It’s not as bad as everybody said it would be. It’s cold, but we have heavy coats so it’s not too bad. Not much to do here when we’re off duty. We only go outside to get to the EM club and movie theater . . . stuff like that.”

Rod shifted the phone to his left ear. “It’s really a small island, oblong shaped, not much bigger than Brewster County. Close enough to Russia I think I could throw a football over there . . . nah, just kidding, but it is really close, that’s why we’re here. Can’t say anything else. Everything is so secret here. Oh yeah, I have my own room with a private bath. The curtains are heavy black drapes so we can sleep when it’s still daylight outside. I’m still not used to the long days yet. No . . . no roommate. I kinda miss having one. But I enjoy my privacy. Don’t worry. I’ve gotten to know the crew I work with pretty well. They’re a good bunch of guys. Anyway, here are some of the guys now. We’re going to the mess hall. . . . Yeah, they feed us pretty good up here. Better go now. I’ll talk to you soon. I love you, Momma. Goodbye.”

Rod hung up and joined his new friends for the brisk walk to the mess hall in the bitingly cold wind that constantly swept across the island. The camaraderie with his crew chased away the homesick feeling that crept over him when he talked to his mom.

The wind was howling outside the mess hall, making snowflakes sound like rocks hitting the windows. All surveillance flights had been grounded except for one aircraft that was on a ferry flight to another base for routine maintenance. It had left just ahead of the storm, but was caught by the fast-moving front. Rod and some of his friends had finished eating and were chatting about a rumor that was circulating around the base.

“Hey, Charlie, what’s the latest on Chris and his crew?”

“Doug over at the communications center said they lost contact at 1630 because of the storm.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Alex said from across the table. “Let’s fall by there and see if there’s any later word. I hope those guys are okay.”

“Yeah, me too,” Doug and Kaz said in unison.

The four airmen entered the COM center, stomping and knocking the snow off each other. They told the airman on watch they wanted to check on the missing aircraft. They were escorted to the workstation airman Doug Williams monitored.

“What’s the latest, Doug?” Rod asked.

“They’ve been off the radar screen for over two hours and we aren’t able to raise them by radio. They should have arrived at Eielson by now. Eielson says they haven’t seen them or seen them on radar. Command Center is preparing a rescue search team to leave as soon as the storm passes. Probably not until 0600 tomorrow morning.”

The aircraft and crew were never found. The secrecy of their existence and their mission kept the disaster from being reported by the Defense Department. The remainder of Rod’s tour at Shemya was without incident. He performed his duty as a cryptologist/linguist, translating the Russian activities only a short distance from the American shores of Alaska.

Turkey two years later

Rod’s friends and fellow crewmembers from Shemya, Charlie, Alex, Doug, and Kaz, had all been reassigned to a base in Turkey. They flew a racetrack orbit along the borders of Turkey and Soviet Armenia, keeping a hundred-and-fifty-mile distance between them and the border. It was a typical Friday. The crew was anxious to get in the air so they could make it back for their weekly TGIF celebration at the base EM club. This flight was routine, the sky was clear, and weather reports were for good flying weather, just like they had flown hundreds of times before.

“Only a few more hours to go and we can backtrack this course and chalk up another week,” Rod said to Charlie, sitting at the workstation next to him.

“Yeah, I can’t wait. I think I’ve made some headway with the young Turkish lady who works at the club. Her English isn’t too good and my Turkish is nonexistent, but we somehow communicate and we have a date when I get back.”

“Man, these Turkish chicks are really nice, even better than my Japanese girls,” Kaz said.

“I don’t know about that,” Doug, the oldest crewmember, said. “I spent some time in Japan and they’re pretty nice. They know how to treat a man, and I’m not talking about geisha girls.”

“Yeah, man,” Kaz said. “The Japanese-American girls aren’t anything like the native girls from the homeland.”

“What do you know about the homeland? History 101? When’s the last time you were in Japan?”

“Okay, so I was born in Jersey. My mom and pop grew up in Japan before they immigrated to the states. They said they didn’t ever want to go back, too many bad memories of the war. Their home was destroyed along with the rest of the town. They hated Emperor Hirohito for getting Japan into the war.”

“Hey,” Doug said, “are you guys picking up any chatter? I got two unidentified blips on my screen headed our way.”

“Yeah,” Rod said. “They’re Russian pilots and they’re closing in really fast. What’s our position, Doug?”

“I can’t tell, I’m getting all kinds of crazy signals. We shouldn’t be within a hundred and fifty miles of the Armenian border, but I can’t nail it down. We’re getting interference from ground radar. It’s giving me false data.”

“This is Captain Morrison on the flight deck, are those Russian bandits?”

“That’s affirmative, sir. Those are Russian MiG-17s and they’re coming in hot.”

“Roger that,” Capt. Morrison said, but before he could order the pilot to break off course and get the hell out of there, bullets ripped holes in the fuselage and knocked out the right engine. The second MiG strafed the lumbering C-130, destroying the hydraulic system and disabling the flap controls.

“Prepare to bail out, bail out! We’re going down,” Capt. Morrison ordered.

“Where the hell are we?” Rod shouted over the whistling wind and whining engines.

“I don’t know,” Charlie said, “but put your chutes on and let’s get the hell out of this flying coffin.”

The MiGs were flying in tandem, making one pass after the other. The C-130 aircraft was riddled full of holes and all four engines were knocked out and on fire. The repeated attacks shot up the fuselage so badly the aircraft began to break apart.

“No time to shred documents and destroy the equipment,” Capt. Morrison shouted over the intercom. “Pop that side hatch and hit the silk. We’ll rendezvous on my flare signal. Good luck. Out.”

“Come on, guys, get those chutes on and—”

The MiGs’ final pass hit the wing fuel tanks and the aircraft exploded. A fireball blew the aircraft in half amid ship where the wings were mounted to the fuselage. Charlie was hit several times standing in the doorway preparing to jump and tumbled out. His chute never opened. Doug was wounded, but Rod dragged him toward a gaping hole in the fuselage and pushed him through it, yanking his ripcord in the process. Kaz was still strapped into his console seat with the gaze of a dead man, bleeding from multiple bullet holes in his body. Rod found himself slammed against the burning fuselage by a second explosion and sucked out of the crumbling rear section of the C-130 as it separated and plunged earthward. The sudden blast blew Rod clear of the burning debris.

He watched what was left of the tail section plummet to the ground. Rod pulled his ripcord and looked around for his crewmembers. He only saw one other chute—Doug, whose lifeless body drifted away from Rod. The flight crew didn’t make it out. The nose section became engulfed in flames as it hurtled straight down and exploded into a huge orange fireball on impact.