men and women, all SAC warriors, weren’t going to war… at least not yet. It was easy to mistake General Cal Jarrel for just another one of the four hundred or so crew dogs at the Air Force Strategic Warfare Center, and that was just fine with him. Jarrel was an unimposing five foot eleven, one-hundred-sixty-pound man, with boyish brown hair and brown eyes hidden behind standard-issue aluminum-framed aviator’s spectacles. Many of those close to the General thought that he was uncomfortable with the trappings of a general officer, and everyone on the base agreed that at the very least he was the most visible one-star anyone had ever known. On the flight line or on the indoor track in the base gym, he could be seen jogging early each morning with a crowd of several dozen staffers and visitors, which was how he kept his slight frame lean and trim despite an ever-increasing amount of time flying a desk instead of a B-52 Stratofortress, B-1B Excalibur, or F-1 11 G Super ‘Vark bomber. He was married to an environmental-law attorney from Georgia and was the harried father of two teenage boys. Like many of the men and women in the Strategic Air Command of the mid-1990s, Jarrel appeared studious, introspective, unobtrusive, and soft-spoken-unlike their hotshot fighter-pilot colleagues, it was as if they understood that the awesome responsibility of carrying two-thirds of the nation’s nuclear deterrent force was something that was not to be advertised or bragged about. Certainly, the critics thought, SAC’s twenty thousand aircrew members had little to boast about and nothing to look forward to for the next century-the fifty B-2s and one hundred rail-garrisoned Peacekeeper ICBMs planned to be operational by then might very well be the only nuclear-armed weapons in SAC’s inventory. Virtually all of the B-52s, B-1B bombers, cruise missiles, and reconnaissance aircraft were rumored to be headed for conventionally armed tactical-support roles, in the inactive reserves-or, worse, in the boneyard. It was a winding-down period for SAC, which created questions about readiness, training, and motivation. That’s where Jarrel’s Strategic Warfare Center School, and the Air Battle Force, came in. “Seats, ” General Cal Jarrel said in a loud voice as he made his way to the stage. The aircrew members in the room took their seats and restlessly murmured comments among themselves as Jarrel stepped up to the podium. He was there to give the welcoming speech to a new crop of aircrew members that were to begin an intensive three-week course on strategic air combat-SAC’s “graduate school” on how to fly and fight. As was the case for the past year since becoming director of the Strategic Warfare Center, he had to convince each and every one of these men and women of the importance of what they were about to learn-and, in a very real sense, to convince the rest of the country and perhaps himself as well. Lieutenant Colonel McLanahan listened to General Jarrel’s comments, sitting on the edge of his auditorium seat. All around him were stealth bomber crews, who, like him, were there to attend the Strategic Warfare Center school. When General Jarrel acknowledged the B-2 crews in his opening remarks, a ripple of applause-and a few Bronx cheers-passed over the crowd for the B-2 crews. This is where I belong, McLanahan thought: in a flight suit, getting briefed with these other crew dogs. He had, he realized, been isolated at Dreamland far too long. Sure, he was one of the most dedicated and successful aircrew members and weapon-systems project managers in the entire military. But where had that gotten him? Flying a battle-scarred B-52 fully renovated with modern hardware deep into Soviet airspace to knock out Russia’s state-of-the-art armaments? It should have been the most rewarding mission in his career. Instead it had landed him at HAWC, where he’d been ever since. But flying was in his blood. McLanahan knew the score-because of the highly classified nature of his work he’d probably never get beyond 0-6 (Colonel), or if he was lucky, 0-7 (Brigadier-General). But at least they were letting him fly a dream plane. The only problem was he couldn’t tell anyone about it. His cover story was that he was “observing” the school for the Pentagon. Still . . . he was here. And the real excitement was coming. . General Jarrel was well into his talk. “SAC is being tasked with much more than delivering nuclear weapons-we are being tasked with providing many different elements of support for a wide variety of conflict scenarios, ” Jarrel went on, speaking without a script and from his heart as well as from the numerous times he’d given this speech. “The way we do it is through the Air Battle Force, ” Jarrel continued. “From this moment on, you are not members of any bomb squadron, or fighter squadron, or airlift group-you are members of the First Air Battle Wing. You will learn to fly and fight as a team. Each of you will have knowledge of not only his or her own capabilities, but those of your colleagues. The Air Battle Force marks the beginning of the first truly integrated strike force-several different weapon systems, several different tactical missions, training, deploying, and fighting together as one. “Because the Air Battle Force concept is new and not yet fully operational, we have to disband each task force class and return you to your home units. When you leave this Center, you will still belong to the Air Battle Force, and you are expected to continue your studies and perfect your combat skills from within your own units. If a crisis should develop, you can be brought back here to be placed back within the Air Battle Force system, ready to form the Second or Third Air Battle Wings. Eventually, Air Battle Wings will be formed on a fulltime basis for extended tours.” Jarrel talked for several more minutes, giving the history of the Strategic Warfare Center’s mission, which since 1989 had conducted strategic combat training exercises through sorties that were spread over three thousand miles of low- and highaltitude military training routes over nine Midwestern states. When he had finished, he said, “All right, ladies and gentlemen, get out there and show us how a strategic battle can be fought by America’s best and brightest!” The auditorium erupted in cheers, and somewhere in the middle of the crowd, Patrick McLanahan was cheering the loudest. Late one night a couple of days after General Jarrel’s Strategic Warfare Training Program was under way, Brigadier General John Ormack, who had come with Cobb, McLanahan, the EB-52 and B-2 bombers, and the rest of the support crew from HAWC, found Patrick McLanahan sitting in the cockpit of his Black Knight. External power and air had been hooked up, and McLanahan was reclining in the mission commander’s seat with a computer-generated chart of the Strategic Training Range Complex on the three-by-two-foot Super Multi Function Display before him. Patrick had a headset on and was issuing commands to the B-2’s sophisticated voice-recognition computer; he was so engrossed in his work-or so deep in daydream, Ormack couldn’t quite tell which-that the HAWC vice commander was able to spend a few moments watching his junior chief officer from just behind the pilot’s seat. The guy had always been like this, Ormack remembered-a little spacy, quiet, introverted, always preferring to work alone even though it was a genuine pleasure being around him and he seemed to enjoy working with others. He had the ability to tune out all sound and activity around him and to focus all his attention and brainpower on the matter at hand, whether that was a mission-planning chart, a bomb run at Mach one and a hundred feet off the ground, or a Voltron cartoon on television. But ever since arriving here at Ellsworth, McLanahan had become even more hardworking, even more focused, even more tuned out-to everything else but the task at hand, which was completing the curriculum at the Strategic Warfare Center and the Air Battle Force with the highest possible grade. Even though McLanahan himself was not being “graded” because the HAWC crews were not official participants, he was slamming away at the session as if he were a young captain getting ready to meet a promotion board. It was hard to tell if Patrick was working this hard because he enjoyed it or because he was trying to prove to himself and others that he could still do the job. . But that was Patrick McLanahan. Ormack stepped over the center console and into the leftside pilot’s seat. McLanahan noticed him, straightened himself up in his seat, and slid the headsets off. “Hey, sir, ” McLanahan greeted him. “What brings you here this evening?” “Looking for you, ” Ormack said. He motioned to the SMFD. “Route study?”
“A little mission planning with the PACER SKY processor, ” McLanahan said. “I fed the STRC attack route through the system to see what it might come up with, and it turns out if we attack this target here from the west instead of from the northeast, the MUTES in Powder River MOA site won’t see us for an extra twenty-one seconds. We’ve got to gain sixty seconds after the Baker bomb site to get the extra time to get around to the west, so we’ll lose a few points on timing, but if this works we’ll gain even more points on bomber defense.” He shook his head as he flipped through the computer-generated graphics on the big screen. “The rest of the crews in the Air Battle Force would kill me if they knew I had something like PACER SKY doing my mission planning.” “That reminds me, ” Ormack said. “General Elliott got a tasking for NIRTSat time for a Joint Chiefs surveillance operation. Something to do with what’s going on in the Philippines. You might get tapped to show your stuff for the J-staff.”
“Fine. I’ll water their eyes. “The guard said you’ve been up here for three hours working on this, ” Ormack said. “You spent three hours just to save twenty seconds on one bomb run?” “Twenty seconds-and maybe I take down a target without getting ‘shot’ at.” He motioned to the SMFD and issued a command, which caused the scene to go into motion. A B-2 symbol on the bottom of the screen began reading along an undulating ribbon over low hills and dry valleys. Dead ahead was a small pyramid symbol of a target complex-small “signposts’ on the ribbon marked off seconds and miles to go to weapon release. Off to the right of the screen, a yellow dome suddenly appeared. “There’s the threat site at one o’clock, but this hillock blocks me out from the west-whoever surveyed the site for positioning this MUTES site obviously didn’t think crews would deviate this far west.” The computerized mission “preview” continued as the yellow dome began to grow, eventually engulfing the B-2 bomber icon and turning red. McLanahan pointed to a countdown readout. “Bingo-I release weapons ten seconds after I come under lethal range of the MUTES site. If I carry antiradar missiles, I can pick him off right now, or I just turn westbound
