He turned to the TAO and said, 'Every ship in this battle group remains at general quarters, until I see that submarine moved out of torpedo range.
After that, you tell those skippers to stay in at least condition two. I don't want any surprises, people.'
'I wouldn't say we're the ones being surprised, not at all,' I heard myself say. There was a small, shocked silence inside the flag plot.
Then the admiral laughed. It was not a particularly pleasant sound.
'I guess not. We're rather the ones that started this whole thing, aren't we?' He pointed at the tactical screen, indicating the U.S. submarine.
'Or at least ? she did. But if I'm going to be able to keep up my part in this operation, we have to act like nothing is happening. Like it's a goodwill mission, that there's nothing unusual about submarines making a run on us. After all, it's only for another week.'
Another week. I remembered the meteorology report I'd seen the day before. The weather guesser warned all hands to stand by, that colder weather could strike virtually anytime. The storms that blew out of the north were unpredictable, difficult to anticipate.
I glanced at the camera showing the flight deck and, beyond that expanse of metal, the cold ocean around us. Even on the low-resolution camera, I could see the thin crust of ice forming on the horizon, the beginnings of the winter ice that would block this port in solid until the next spring.
The icebreakers, of course ? as a condition of participating in this mission, the Russians had guaranteed us primary use of their potent icebreaker force.
And just how long would that last? We had both thus far violated the basic rules of our agreement to prevent incidents at sea, with almost fatal consequences. Although no one had taken a shot yet, the admiral had six aircraft airborne just itching to fire a torpedo, a friendly fouling his field of fire, and Russian submarines up the butt.
Just what was it that the admiral was not telling me? First had been this presence of the U.S. submarine, and now it was this ill-defined and barely-hinted-at question of bigger stakes. We were supposed to be operating in support of the friendly competition, in short, not reverting to our old Cold War tactics against one another in the Soviet Union's old backyard.
Just what did Admiral Wayne know? And, even more importantly, when would he tell me?
The answers would probably be everything ? and when hell froze over.
From what I could see on the flight deck camera, that's exactly what was about to happen.
7
Over time, reality and dreams mesh until what remains is a mixture of truth and imagination. It taints one's reactions, coloring how one views current events and set scenarios. All reality is anecdotal.
The same can be said for what I once thought about being a flag officer. I had power, the power to do good. The power to affect the outcome of conflicts, to shape the squadron ? and later a carrier battle group ? in the way that I thought most effective to form a cohesive fighting force.
Much of that happened. I had had command of the superb fighting squadron, VF-95, the best Tomcat squad that ever existed. And command of Carrier Battle Group 14, one of the most grueling, challenging tours of my entire career. I had learned it was much easier to do the fighting and dying yourself than to order other men and women out to do it at your command. I hadn't expected the feeling of helplessness watching them launch, knowing that some of them wouldn't come back. Nor had I known then that so much had been kept from me, that the government had failed to live up to the promise that I made to every aviator who flew combat missions at my command that we would get them out. How could I make them believe me, when I knew I had believed ? and been lied to.
The cockpit that was once as familiar as my childhood bedroom was now just the smallest bit disconcerting, at least in the first few seconds after I strapped in. I had to make a conscious effort to readjust my way of thinking, to once again become the fighter pilot that I was. But in as few odd, painfully nostalgic moments, I stripped off the outer veneer that circumstances forced me to wear, and within seconds was as at home with the knobs, buttons, and flight controls as I ever was. In a way, it was like being born again.
But would I have changed my career path if I could have? Probably not. Competition is ingrained in every pilot from the moment he or she steps into basic training. You claw your way to the top of your class, knowing that if you are the best, the very best, you will have your choice of aircraft when you graduate. Later, as a junior officer, you learn what the checkpoints are ? what tours of duty are considered desirable for promotion competitiveness, what assignments spell out a dead end to your career. We scramble and scratch for the former, and to avoid the latter, fully indoctrinated in the quest for power we call building a career in naval aviation.
No one ever tells you, though, that getting what you think you want will strip you of the one thing you truly desire, the reason you chose this odd, demanding career path in the first place. It's gradual at first, the way you find more and more of your time taken up with leadership, paperwork, and developing new subordinates. These duties etch into your flight schedule time, until you finally find yourself putting notes in the Snivel Log, asking the schedulers not to assign you to flights during particular times. The transition of turning into a desk jockey is a gradual slippery slope.
Batman was one of the few men I knew who managed to alternate tours in Washington, D. C., while still maintaining his cockpit proficiency. True, a number of his shore duty tours had been squadron, or attached to the naval test pilot facility in Maryland, but he managed to put in his fair share of time in the Pentagon. Now, in command of CBG14, he was back at sea.
So when the inevitable invitations to tour other Russian facilities in the area came, I was not surprised. Not even dismayed. I accepted as many as I could, feigning good grace and eagerness to see the latest in Russian technology. But in truth, I would rather have been flying every second, and considered those political necessities a complete waste of time.
Not that we would have been doing much flying anyway. A storm had blown in from the north with a vengeance, grounding all but the most determined or critically necessary flights. There was no justification, not in my mind or in the Russians', for allowing either my Tomcat or their aircraft into the air.
According to their meteorologists, the weather would linger for three days. My calendar quickly filled with a host of social and political obligations. Gator, Skeeter, and Sheila would probably spend the entire time drinking vodka and getting to know their counterparts. I just hoped they'd keep their mouths shut. I'd rather have kept them with me, kept their collective mouths under close control. Whatever was going on with the Russians tinkering with scheduled competition evolutions, we were best off keeping it to ourselves now.
I had a host of possible bases to visit, but one in particular caught my attention. There was a naval aviation training facility located far to the south ? in Ukraine, actually. Kursk, a city located in the center of Ukraine, and one with a long military history.
Kursk had been a bloody, brutal battlefield during World War II. The Germans, plowing north in their tank battalions, had met a grim and determined Russian force there. It was winter ? cold and brutally harsh.
And German troops, unprepared for the snow and ice and frozen mud, floundered and stalled. The small, determined Russian force met them.
Met them and killed them.
Tourists could still see the old gun emplacements, rings of stone now grown over in the fertile soil that had earned the Ukraine the name of 'Breadbasket of Europe.' But underneath the inches of lush red topsoil, the blood of Russians and Germans ran deep.
One in ten Russians had been killed during that war. It was a price Americans have never paid on their own soil, and the results of it they will never really understand. It makes a nation rabid over the prospect of enemy boots on home soil, scars the nation's psyche in a way that the Vietnam conflict just barely scratched ours. Their experiences in World War I and World War II did much to shape the Russian ? or Soviet, if you will ? mentality,
