extraordinarily hard work, which was the time it took for a pilot to get his first assignment to a fleet A-6 squadron: a year and a half in pilot training; a month in the instrument squadron earning a fleet instrument card; and eight months in an A-6 replacement squadron. Only then did the fledgling report to a fleet squadron. The attrition rate along the way was high; men dropped out or were washed out. Some were killed.
“You have an awful lot invested in that piece of metal.” Jake gestured to the gold wings above the left pocket of New Guy’s khaki shirt.
“Yeah, but I really think I could make a better contribution doing something else.”
“You married?” Lundeen interjected.
New Guy nodded.
“What does your wife think?”
He became absorbed with his shoes. “She thinks the war is wrong and we ought to get out of Vietnam.”
“She’s got plenty of company. What do you think?”
“I don’t know.”
“If you keep flying, will that end your marriage?” Jake asked.
“It might,” New Guy admitted.
“She threatened a divorce?” continued Sammy.
New Guy shrugged.
“Well,” said Grafton. “This is your career, not hers.”
“It’s my decision,” New Guy insisted.
Jake gazed thoughtfully at that smooth, ingenuous face. “If you’re scared of bullets and SAMs, you’re in pretty goddamn good company. Everybody’s scared over the beach. That’s no reason to be ashamed or to quit.”
The new pilot shook his head. “It’s not that.”
“Then what the hell is it?” Lundeen demanded.
“I just feel that, everything considered, I would have more to offer the navy as a maintenance or surface officer.”
“Let’s cut the bullshit, shall we?” said Lundeen. “Go ahead and turn those wings in and leave the fighting to others. If somebody gets killed on a mission you should’ve flown, that’ll be just fine with you. Let the other guys do the bleeding and the dying.” New Guy shriveled under Lundeen’s wrath. “You yellow little coward. The States are full of assholes like you, fucking draft-dodgers who don’t want to hang their precious asses on the line. No, they want other people to do the bleeding and dying while they sit at home and enjoy their freedom and salve their consciences by assuring each other the war is immoral.”
“That’s enough, Sammy,” Jake said, aware that he had said much the same thing to Callie not many days ago. If Lundeen kept on he might shame New Guy into staying in the cockpit. Then what bombardier would you sentence to fly with him? Without self-confidence a pilot would never get aboard at night, never wait long enough before he outmaneuvered the SAMs, never try hard enough to get the bombs on target. Without faith in his own ability to conquer whatever might come, a pilot would be overwhelmed by the terror. No, if New didn’t have it, he didn’t have it. “You can tell the Skipper you talked to us. It’s your decision and your life. Maybe you’ve made the right choice.”
New Guy stood up slowly. He tried to smile but Jake’s cold eyes stopped him. Jake said, “This flying game takes a lot out of a man. You have to crawl up that boarding ladder into that ejection seat again and again. There’s nobody around to tell you you’re doing the right thing.” Jake lowered his gaze to his outstretched, palsied hands. He raised his head and stared at New Guy.
“I don’t know what you believe in, but I don’t think you believe in yourself.”
“You had better leave,” Lundeen told New Guy.
The skipper sent New Guy’s request for a change of designator to the Bureau of Naval Personnel, recommending approval. New became the permanent squadron duty officer in the ready room every day from noon to midnight. As lieutenants and below rotated this twelve-hour watch, New Guy’s assignment, which gave him half these watches, meant that the others would have to stand the duty only half as often. This they liked. Those who resented New’s decision made it known by not speaking to him except when they had to. Those who did this were few. Most did not shun New but treated him as if he were a somewhat impaired younger brother.
Jake Grafton and Tiger Cole trotted up to the dirty-shirt wardroom for a late dinner. They had been on a strike at noon and were ravenous. When each man had an aluminum tray full of creamed chipped beef toast, also known as Shit on a shingle-they looked for two seats in the wardroom. Cowboy Parker waved them over to his table. He was seated next to an officer wearing a green two-piece air force flight suit “This is Major Frank Allen. Frank and I went to school together at UT.”
“In Knoxville?” Cole inquired.
Jake grinned as Parker rose to the occasion and haughtily informed the bombardier that his alma matre was in Austin. Frank Allen smiled.
Cowboy told them his former classmate was visiting the Shilo under an unofficial ‘liaison” program that brought together navy airmen and the air force stationed at Nakhon Phantom in Thailand, a place referred to by the military “naked fanntail”. Two months earlier a captain stationed there who flew F-105 Wild Weasels, the air force’s equivalent of the A-6B, had visited the ship - Big Augie had then wangled a trip to Thailand to visit these brothers- in-arms when he returned had regaled his squadron-mates with such stories of bars and whorehouses that they almost believed he had spent his entire three days there in a sexual and alcoholic orgy of epic intensity. Big’s story had the effect he had hoped for on the Boxman, who had written three official requests to go to Nakh Phantom and had been turned down each time.
“Do you fly F-105s?” Jake asked Frank Allen.
“Nope. A-1s. Skyraiders- You navy boys call them Spads. I do a bit of search and rescue work when we not bombing with a F A C.”
“We’re taking him on a tanker hop tomorrow,” said Parker. “Gonna get him a cat shot and a trip so he c join the Tailhook Association and go to the next convention in Las Vegas.” Almost all the navy airmen belonged, and they considered the Las Vegas weekend one whale of a blowout.
After dinner the four of them retreated to Cowboy’s stateroom. In the course of a game of penny-ante poker, Jake mentioned the trip Big had taken to Thailand and his stories of goodtime houses and their effect on Box. After some discussion the Boxman was invited down. When he had won fifty cents or so in the game, the conversation turned to the city near the air force base where Allen was stationed.
Frank Allen shook his head. “They have the biggest whorehouse east of Port Said,” he confided. “It’s really something. Over a hundred women, just girls really, little brown fucking machines, and for five bucks American you can spend the night. You can have as many girls as you want, no extra charge.” Box tossed his hand on the table and stared at Allen.
“The thing I like the best,” Allen continued, leaning forward, “is when you strip stark naked and lay down on this table. These girls lick you all over until you have a hard on, then they lower a girl in a stirrup device right onto your crank. You are in her but the only contact is the sexual one.”
Allen shuddered as he appeared to recall the ecstasy. Grafton casually picked up Box’s discarded hand; Box had thrown away a pair of kings.
“Are these girls clean?” Box wanted to know, gulping down the last of his drink and holding his glass out for a refill. Jake couldn’t imagine why he asked, since he was now being treated for his third dose on this cruise.
“Oh, yeah,” Allen assured him. “They all wear white socks. That’s how you can tell.” The other men laughed. Box grinned ruefully.
Early the next morning Box wrote out yet another request to visit the sin capital of the Orient. The skipper denied the request by burning it in the ready room with Box looking on.
Frank Allen flew his tanker flight, got his trip, then gave a presentation on search-and-rescue technique and equipment at a specially called all-officers meeting He was invited by the CAG to repeat it for the other ready rooms. When Allen was ready to leave the ship, Cowboy and the others arranged for Boxman to escape in to the cargo plane and wished him bon voyage.
At three o’clock one morning Jake Grafton was in his flight suit alone in the dirty-shirt wardroom. He held the coffee cup with both hands to prevent the liquid from slopping onto the tablecloth. He was staring at the crumbs and stains on the cloth.
