his photo-album of corpses and burnt-out vehicles, still open on our ‘pedestal,’ the instrument panel between the two flying pilots. He’s been sitting in the jump seat explaining his maneuver.
The Iraqi’s had dug miles of east-west trenches, and had hundreds of thousands of their young soldiers in them. These kids and their rifles were facing south towards Saudi Arabia, ready to repel our invasion.
Unwilling to be there, drafted, kidnapped off the streets, these young kid soldiers had Sadam’s Republican guards sitting behind them. They were told to stay and die for Sadam, or if they bolted, be shot in the back of the head by Hussein’s loyal butchers.
For twenty days and nights, these poor, young bastards endured the B-52 Carpet bombings all along their lines. Terrified, deaf and shell-shocked, they were finally buried alive, as our sand-pushing tractors filled in their Maginot Line in the desert.
“How long were the trenches?” I ask.
“I’d say about a hunnert, hunnert-fifty clicks,” answers the Looey. That’s about 60-90 miles.
D.B. and I look at each other, then back to our cockpit visitor. We know that hundreds of thousands of Iraqi mothers and fathers, people who never wanted war and had no say in it, would never see their sons again.
Would never know where their sons died, how and where they were buried.
God & Beliefs
I have a secret, I am spiritually bankrupt. The reason I tell you this upfront, is that I’ve always worried that it showed.
Commercialing, sitting in any airline passenger seat, I try to establish a pecking order of importance with my neighbors. Peeking at their paper-worked laps or their laptops, deciding this one’s a lawyer, that one’s a Corporate V.P…. I start playing my head-games.
I’m better than he is, smarter, more worldly than that one, but close calls require that I pull out my passports, with their stamps and visas from all over the world, pretending to need some info from these passports (busy work), I break the tie… See, I’m the biggest dog, look where I’ve been, fool!
Considering my need to do this, I have little hope for my future growth towards emotional or spiritual maturity…I’m not better yet! When I try to think why I’m thus driven, I avoid looking too closely. It’s very uncomfortable.
I asked Kiley to listen to my CD of Rach-3 from start to finish… I told her, if she listened to my Rach-3, I would listen to whatever she wanted me to listen to. I wanted (really) to get her impression of the piece, since I love it so.
To give her credit, the first movement is more than 15 minutes long, and the whole more than half an hour. She declared, after the second movement, and unable to sit through any more, “it doesn’t go anywhere!” (too slow moving, is how I interpreted her critique.)
I understood. At her age, she didn’t have the patience to allow the three movements to develop, and to therefore appreciate the whole.
I remember my father calling me over in Synagogue to point out the English versions of passages he must have found particularly meaningful. All the “praise God, Glory to God” stuff… I couldn’t
believe it. He seemed like an idolater. Didn’t he realize, I thought, that any real God wouldn’t need to hear all that bullshit?
I don’t think much about God, but when I do, I’m always brought back to a dark night, in a rain soaked jungle. I am standing still, wet through for days, numb, exhausted beyond caring, I have shorted out. The rain, coming straight down now, pours through the flash suppressor ports of my M-14, slung upside-down from my sopping shoulder.
Staring straight ahead, unseeing, I’m quits. Suddenly, standing there in front of me, within my pool of darkness, is a man. The fact that he’s wearing a Marine Corps khaki poncho and fatigues doesn’t yet register. He is facing me, and sees through my eyes and into my heart. We say nothing, but he knows… without a word, he takes my weapon, then removes the heavy pack from my back. He strips me to my waist. In my pack, he finds a towel and some dry shirts, rolled within my poncho. Briskly, he towels me dry. Working quickly now, he pulls a dry t-shirt over my head, buttons me into a new fatigue shirt, and pulls my poncho down, into place.
Instantly, I begin to come alive, the warmth floods life back into me. The man eases me back into my pack, and re-shoulders my rifle, now with my help. He looks me in the face for a moment, and then he’s gone. That man in the jungle, thirty-five years ago, was Jesus Christ. Through the years, my New York cynic, Jew-brain has twisted and turned-upside down, all religious conviction. I’ve tried every way I can to explain this experience to myself, even believing it to be the delusional byproduct of my then wretched condition.
No… the one thing I’m sure of, as sure as I am of any real thing, is that that was Jesus Christ there, in those fatigues, saving me.
As I said, I don’t dwell much on God, and I hope, after all I’ve done since then, that he doesn’t spend much time thinking about me.
Months later, I’m home, watching the Gulf War Victory Parade on T.V., our proud troops are marching down Pennsylvania Avenue, in Washington, D.C. My stomach involuntarily rebels, and I choke back
the vomit until I just make it to the toilet. On my knees now, spitting the final, sour acid juices from my mouth, I’m wracked with tears, trying to feel patriotic and proud of what we’ve done over there.
Chris Smith’s First Trip
Chris Smith, a better looking Tom Selleck, was a crash pad buddy and flying colleague over at Eastern Metro. Married to a devout Baptist woman, father of two children (his family lived in Charlotte, heart of Jesus’ Heartland ), Chris was always being chased by the ladies, sometimes successfully.
Chris was the first of our gang to be hired by a Major Airline, every Atlanta based Commuter pilot’s first choice, Piedmont Airlines. He came back to visit all of us at our College Park complex, after completing Initial Indoctrination. We were rapt as he described the President of Piedmont’s greeting to Chris’ new hire class on their first day: “Welcome to Piedmont, the last Airline you’ll ever work for!” Man, that sounded great, what a lucky guy.
Months later, we meet up again, and he tells me about his first trip as a brand new Second Officer/Flight Engineer. “The Captain and everybody were great, all real nice to me,” he says. It was a five day trip, and he’s not sure, but he thinks the girl Sue, serving the coffee and meals to the cockpit, is coming on to him. “She’s been kinda brushin’ up” against his back, arm and shoulders as she goes forward to hand the Pilot’s their coffee and meals, he’s not certain, but “some of it might have been unnecessary,” and he’s heard all the stories about layovers and such.
On their third night out, now in Savannah, the crew gets together in the evening for drinks… they’re not flying again until the next evening. Everybody’s chatting and sipping, and suddenly a real mellow live band kicks up in the cocktail lounge. The whole crew jumps up together, all ready to dance. They laugh at their own eagerness, this is great, nice people, laid back. Eventually, Chris is dancing one number with the cockpit queen that he thought may have been coming on to him. She is very reserved on the dance floor, very proper, but when nobody is looking, she slips her room key into his pocket, whispering for him to wait at least an hour after she leaves and before he shows up… be discreet… Holy Shit, it’s gonna happen.
Chris waits about half an hour after the girl, Sue, has left. He excuses himself, says goodnight and goes to his room. While he waits, he brushes his teeth, applies more deodorant and recombs his hair. Finally, gently, he lets himself out of his room, and quietly makes his way to Sue’s room. Knocking softly, he lets himself in… she’s in the shower, yelling for him to get himself a drink (there are minis and ice on a sideboard), and to join her in the shower. Chris knocks back a fast vodka, rocks…. “it hasn’t even had a chance to cool down, but I needed it for my nerves,” he laughs. Then he strips naked and pulls back the shower curtain. “Welcome to Piedmont Airlines!” the whole crew yells, sitting, hiding on the floor of the tub in their bathing suits, Sue standing there in hers. They are laughing and
