Time Flying (23 page)

"HA! Yea, right," Pat replied, voice rising, “I’ve had my problems with Uncle George, but he’s one of us, and that means he won’t stop until Saddam"s dead or in chains." President George Herbert Walker Bush had been a Naval Aviator in World War II, and as such got the support of pretty much the whole body of Navy flyers. He hadn’t been a paper tiger, either, having been shot down in the Pacific.

The truth danced around on the tip of my tongue, begging to be told, but I had no intention of giving in and spilling my secret again, not even to my best friend.
No way.

"You’re probably right," I conceded, unconvincingly.

Pat nodded. "Of course I’m right. The Air Force boys will knock his Air Force out in the middle of the night with their little 117s, and we’ll sink out all his PT boats, deliver him a lifetime supply of Rockeyes, and somebody’s bound to eventually drop a 2,000 pounder on his greasy head." Satisfied he had completely laid out our Order of Battle, Pat took a last pull off his beer and set the bottle down on the table.

"My guess is, his Air Force will run to Iran before the shooting starts," I countered, drawing a harsh laugh from my friend.

"Right. They’re such good friends," Pat chuckled, thinking my comment a joke.

"You watch," I told my friend, and silently saying to myself...Shut...Up...

Feeling, thanks to the beer, a little too "smooth" to argue, Pat let it slide, and got up, collecting the bottles, asking me "want another one?"

"No, thanks. I’ve got to go," I said, pushing myself up and grabbing the bottles closest to me. We took the them out to the trash on the way to my car, depositing them in the trash.

We were drinking and shooting the shit on a Thursday night, and we had a light day scheduled on Friday. No flying, only paperwork, and so I had planned to talk with Walter about my last conversation with Thelma, hopefully adding a little to his research, and curious if he had found anything else. Thelma telling me she was pretty sure her death caused her to return to her "native" timeline added one more bit of evidence suggesting that I would have to die to fully disengage from this timeline. I drove home in my Dodge Fury, which I had always regretted selling just after college in the original timeline. I hadn’t made the same mistake this time, keeping the car in even better condition than I had before. Pulling into the garage at home, I shut the Fury down, got out and stood in the crisp, November night, gazing at the stars overhead. I loved flying on a night like this, the dark closing in, insulating the cockpit, but yet opening up the universe to us. The air was usually so smooth, and the night made the world seem so quiet. I loved it.

I stood for probably 10 minutes, looking up at the universe, realizing the answer to all my questions were right there. I wasn’t dreaming all of this. Looking into the night, the light from the stars visible overhead had been traveling for eons. Hundreds of years, thousands of year, in some cases, millions of our years had passed since the light hitting my eyes left the star it traveled from. Light that was a collection of snapshots, a collage of pictures of things as they existed millions of years ago, all along the timeline I now traveled. I was seeing visions of reality cutting across the time between now and the beginning of the universe, and yet each and every event, every microsecond of light hitting my eyes right now, had been created at different times. When you look into a night sky and can see both the star Polaris (the North Star) and Mars, you’re seeing the visual evidence of events hundreds of years apart. The light hitting your eye left Polaris 430 years ago, while the light from Mars left about 16 minutes before. So when you look into the sky, you’re looking at a multitude of windows into the past. 

It makes you a time traveler.

Under the canopy of light and black, my strange journey didn’t seem nearly so strange. I tried to imagine what would come next. How would I get myself out of this complication I’d stupidly stepped into with my loose tongue in Indianapolis? How would this all play out?

While I considered possible futures, hands in my pocket, still staring at the night sky, the phone rang from inside the house. Somehow, I knew that what was to happen, was about to begin with this phone call.

“Hello, Girrard,” I said, answering the phone, after jogging up to the door, and slipping through into the kitchen and over to the telephone hanging on the wall.

"Lieutenant Commander Girrard?" A voice on the other end of the phone asked.

"Yes."

"This is Ensign Crawford from Ops. Commander, you are ordered by Commander Coleson to report at oh-two hundred for a squadron briefing," the voice said.

"2am?" I asked. "Tonight?"

“Yes, sir, that is correct. Oh-Two-Hundred.” A pause and then, “Thank you, sir," before he hung up.

I stood in the kitchen, the phone up to my ear for a good ten-seconds, before replacing the handset back in the cradle on the wall.

NINE

Descent

Pat wasn’t so "smooth" when our eyes met in the briefing room at the base. The call that he received, and the coffee I assumed he had consumed after hanging up, had put him on edge. Middle of the night calls and briefings weren’t unheard of, but they were uncommon in our squadron.

Commander Coleson called the room to order five minutes after 2am, a flexibility reserved for a peacetime, middle of the night meeting. Those five minutes were also used to show this get-together was important, but not an emergency.

“Gentlemen,” Coleson began, “We have received orders to deploy to the Persian Gulf and participate in Operation Desert Shield, as part of the USS
Ranger
Air Wing. We will depart from San Diego on 8 December.

Coleson paused, looking up from his notes around the room and seeing slightly puzzled looks from some of the youngest officers, and rolling eyes from some of the older crews. "Departing from San Diego" meant we wouldn’t be flying our aircraft out to
Ranger
a few days after the ship got underway, but would be having our aircraft winched aboard. As the more experienced pilots and B/Ns were aware, this sucked. It meant that aside from the potential for damaging our airplanes in the loading process (no simple operation), once we got a few miles out to sea, the flying schedule would be high-pressure, since every crew had to carrier qualify before the ship got to blue water. The
Ranger
had a schedule to keep, and a LOT of aircrews to qualify, so the first couple weeks of the cruise would be hectic and exhausting as flight operations would be running non-stop so we, and the other seven squadrons, could get their day and night traps (carrier landings) and be qualified to fly during the cruise. It was all regulation, and there were no routes around it.

Commander Coleson continued with details about our deployment, and before wrapping up, said, “We're going to war, gentlemen. The operation is called "Desert Shield," but unofficially, I’ve been told that we’re to be ready for round the clock air operations not long after we arrive on station. Pack for a long stay, and make sure we take the real bullets and bombs." He smiled, as did most all the officers in the room. "Tomorrow’s early briefing is cancelled. Get some rest. Department Heads, we will meet at 1400 hours to work up our final deployment action plan." That meant the morning off so we could begin to get our lives in order and prepared for the most dangerous deployment of our careers.

"Dismissed."

We all got up with little talk or chatter, most of us heading for the door, and back home to bed. Before Pat and I got to the door, however, I heard the Commander’s voice.

“Pat, Rich?”

We turned around and walked back toward the front of the room.

"Yes, sir?" I replied from a few feet away.

"I need someone in San Diego ahead of the rest of the squadron to handle billeting and aircraft admin details."

Both Pat and I nodded as Coleson continued. "But I don’t want to take Commander Maney away from his family so close to deployment..." He didn’t need to say it. I was apparently going to be away from my family anyway. At least in San Diego, I would get to spend some time with my parents and sister while we got ready to deploy. I wondered briefly whether Pat had said something to Coleson, but quickly realized that he probably got word of my BOQ reservation.

"So, Rich, I"d like you to fly down to San Diego with Lieutenant Bradford in 232. He can assist you and get acquainted with the people at Miramar and North Island." Lt. (JG - Junior Grade) Chris Bradford was a pilot on his first assignment. He and I would fly the Intruder numbered 232 to San Diego, and then, I supposed, Pat would bring our aircraft down with Bradford’s” B/N, Lt. Commander Larry Thompsen, when the rest of the squadron make the trip.

"Absolutely, sir, I’m in." I said.

"Thanks, Rich. You know San Diego better than any of the rest of us. It’ll be easy duty. Get the ducks in a row and spend some time with the family, OK?"

"Yes, sir," I replied.

Pat and I turned, and Coleson slapped each of us on the back. “I’m counting on you guys. The Chinese curse — ‘May you live in interesting times’. Interesting times, indeed."

This time, Pat and I both answered "Yes sir" in unison.

I had a number of Commanding Officers in my time in the Navy, but without a doubt, Commander Coleson was the best. Virtually all of the people I considered friends in my second trip through those years exist in this timeline, but a few don"t. I miss a lot of them, almost none more than Tony Coleson. Though the C.O. of the VA-145 that I was a part of in the first Gulf War is today alive and well and living in Coronado, California, preparing for retirement, I can’t help but get a lump in my throat when I think about the last time I saw the Tony Coleson I served with. The one who today wears the rank insignia of Admiral wouldn’t know me from Adam. He"s never met me, just as the one I knew never advanced past the rank of Commander.

So much to regret.

The Intruder banked sharply to the right, turning onto a long final to Naval Air Station North Island, the collection of runways at the end of Coronado Island, across the bay from San Diego. With not much for me to do on a clear, sunny, late autumn day, I sat, oxygen mask hanging down from one strap, and admired the Bay Bridge, curving across the water from the mainland to Coronado Island. The pilot, Lt. (JG) Chris Bradford kept his attention focused on landing the aircraft. It was odd not flying with Pat, every bit as serious and efficient, but possessing a well-practiced ease that made the whole thing much more familiar. Pat would be flying our aircraft down in a week and a half. Commander Coleson had sent me ahead to help get some details arranged for the squadron's arrival. The frustrating decision had been made to load our aircraft onto
Ranger
, rather than fly them out to the ship a few days after she left San Diego, which none of us were happy about, because it made things a lot more complicated.

The decision to winch our birds aboard
Ranger
was bad for us for a couple reasons. First, we'd have to put up with the tedium of leaving port on the boat, which meant we were cargo. Secondly, not flying the planes to the ship meant that once we did get out to
Ranger
, the rush to get everyone qualified for the cruise would be a nightmare. Each pilot and B/N would need to get a number of daytime and nighttime landings, or “traps” on the carrier, as would every pilot and aircrew on the ship. When everyone flew out to the ship, their arrival checked off one trap, giving everyone a head start on the process. Sitting and waiting for the boat to get far enough out of port to do qualifications, and then flying our asses off to get them would be stressful on crews and aircraft. But, the decision had been made to winch our birds onto the ships, and since we didn't get a vote, that's what we would be doing.

Settling onto final approach, we glided by the condominiums built on the beach at Coronado, followed by the red roofed, spired Hotel Del Coronado. Bradford's landing was near perfect, not too far from the numbers, right landing gear wheel touching down half a second before the left, as he compensated for the slight onshore breeze coming around Point Loma at the entrance to the bay.

“Greased,” I said flatly without looking at him, checking my Bomber/Navigator electronics for any fault resulting from the approach and landing. “Got a ‘pass,'” I continued, meaning Bradford had done nothing during landing that needed criticism, though if we'd been trapping on “Ranger,” the LSO, or “Landing Signal Officer” would undoubtedly have found something to bitch about. No one ever got recognized for a textbook, perfect landing.

Bradford's reply consisted of a slight, modest nod. Not an approval seeker, I thought. Good, but surprising, since his father had been a Naval Aviator, flying F4 Phantoms off Kitty Hawk in the Vietnam War.

None of us currently flying in VA-145 had been shot at, but many of the pilots and B/Ns had enough experience to understand we were mortal, and there were a million ways to die flying Navy jets. When high-velocity lead and hostile missiles flew in our sky, that number doubled. The few new pilots in the squadron hadn't yet puked their guts out after a harrowing night trap on a heaving deck with rain and almost no visibility, so it remained part video game to them. I didn't envy Chris Bradford and his newbie brethren. They'd get their trials by fire with a lot of determined Iraqis shooting at them. So, out of pity, I didn't give Bradford, call-sign “Frecks” (again, I don't intend to explain the call-signs here, since I believe many of the guys in the VA-145 of this timeline have the same monikers), a hard time about his unearned cockiness and swagger.

He'd learn soon enough.

We taxied to our parking space at a leisurely pace, since there wasn't a long line of aircraft waiting to land, and by the time we got the final “cut engine” signal from the ground controller, we both were eager to move and stretch our legs after the long flight from Whidbey. The ladders appeared  as our canopies retracted back, and the salt air flooded into the confined cockpit of the Intruder. San Diego smells so good, like no other place on earth. It was good to be back.