West of the Rock

By Mark Marchione

To live the life of a Navy fighter pilot is the only way to truly experience it. This story will be as close as you can get.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hillcrest Media Group
• Release date: Jan 12, 2009
• ISBN: 9781635050417

Book preview

ILIAD

Part 1

Groucho

Western Mediterranean

January 1988

The dry winds of the sirocco screamed out the south from the Sahara into the Mediterranean, filling the air with dust and sand, turning the sky a dismal terra cotta. It was impossible not to inhale the African dust, and one knew the taste of Algeria without ever setting foot there. The sirocco reduced visibility so much that it was impossible to tell which way was up or down while flying. The sun and moon were obscured, with the days dull brown, the nights pitch black.

Groucho hated many things, but he hated the sirocco the most. If it had simply been cloudy he could always just continue to climb until his F-14 was above the tops and he could see the sun, unlike the other pilots stuck on the aircraft carrier. The sirocco consumed everything in its path, filling the air with dust into the stratosphere. Even an F-14 could not climb above it and Groucho knew that. The wind eventually shifted, however, and the sirocco gave way to the mistral, strong arctic winds that accelerated down France’s Rhone Valley toward the Gulf of Lyon.

Groucho hated the mistral too. Only not as much as the sirocco.

The storm that followed the mistral had raged all night and into the morning, so it was only now that Groucho was able to stare out into the sea. The hangar deck doors on the aircraft carrier had been opened and he stood on the edge where the elevator was poised to bring an aircraft down to the lower interior deck. As he stared with his arms crossed, white caps flecked ocean foam into the air and he could smell the salt of the Mediterranean. A school of flying fish swarmed into the air, gliding just above the tips of the waves and attempting to avoid the predators just below them. He could hear men moving aircraft around on the hangar deck as well as listen to vague conversations about repairs being made or bits of jokes being told.

He wanted only to be off the aircraft carrier and back home with his family. Away from the sirocco, away from the mistral. He had joined the Navy for adventure and to see the world, which he had done, but hate had given way to loneliness. He would leave the adventure to those younger who were not married, had no children, and could not understand exactly what he was feeling. He felt the ache that came from within someone’s heart when they had not seen the ones they loved for a seemingly endless time.

He had pictures of his wife and child and he constantly took refuge in them to soothe the pain he felt in his heart. Rather than soothe what he was feeling, it only served to make him question why he was so far from home. He knew why he was here, but the purpose seemed futile and without aim.

Groucho wanted to touch something real. He wanted to touch soft cloth and skin, and feel the warmth of another that he loved. He wanted to hold his daughter tightly in his arms, hear her giggle in delight while he tickled her and watched her smile stretch from ear to ear. If only he could hold his wife while she looked longingly into his eyes, wanting him.

Those were only vague memories, however, because it had been close to half a year since he had been gone. It was too long for him. He had been through this all too many times and he wanted out. He would leave the hollow glory and adventure to others. All he now wanted was to sit next to a warm glowing fire and listen to it crackle while he was surrounded by those he loved.

The others could hold the intangible threats of foreign empires and vague enemies at bay. To him they no longer existed and he doubted deep inside that they had ever been much of a threat. He wasn’t sure exactly why he was here anymore except for the fact that he had made a commitment to the Navy and owed them several more months before he could leave. Regardless of the fact that he knew his contractual obligations, without a direct threat to his country his enthusiasm had left him.

After almost twenty years in the Navy, Groucho only wanted to survive the next few weeks and go home. He, and most military men, were caught up in circumstances beyond their control and in an endless struggle that seemed meaningless except to their commanders whose careers were staked to how they performed in numerous missions against enemies real or imagined. They flew as if they were in a wartime situation knowing that if a war started, they would be ready. They practiced as Josephus had once said of the Romans: Their training was like a bloodless war, and their wars were like bloody training.

After months from home and with lives lost, a mundane slow rhythm filled their lives with their only real goal that it would end. All they had to do was survive until then. Some though were filled with a sense of impending doom from unseen predators that lurked within their souls, and they could not fly high enough to escape them.

* * *

The storm continued to wane during the day but was forecast to increase in strength by dusk and its effects could already be felt. They could feel the ship pitch and roll violently as they sat in their padded vinyl chairs during the brief. In spite of the weather they were still going to fly.

JD briefed with his Radar Intercept Officer, his RIO.

Hey Bug, I don’t want to wear my drysuit tonight. I hate wearing that thing. Everyone hated them even though they were designed to save their lives if they ejected, or as they called it, went for a swim. The rule was that if the outside air temperature and the ocean temperature added up to 120 degrees, they didn’t have to wear them during a flight.

Let’s see. The outside air temperature is 64, and, let’s see . . . the water is 56. Looks like that’s 120. We’re wearing them. Bug was also the squadron safety officer, the enforcer of all things deemed needing safety. Which pretty much covered everything they did.

Bug, it’s 120. We don’t have to wear them.

It’s 120 which means we do. It’s a borderline call. I say we err on the side of safety and just wear them.

JD looked at him and said nothing, hoping.

JD. I am the squadron safety officer, you know. It’d look bad if we didn’t wear it.

JD always lost these arguments and surrendered quickly. Fine, Bug. Whatever you want. You know I hate wearing that thing.

We all do, JD. That’s not the point.

Even though he hated to admit it, he knew Bug was right. The temperature was forecast to drop rapidly over the next several hours. Cold fronts moved through this area of the world regularly during the winter. They were between the Majorca Islands of Spain to the west and Corsica and Sardinia to the east. France with its Cote d’Azur, otherwise known as the French Riviera, was to the north.

To JD, considering their location and the outside air temperature, it seemed almost balmy. With that, and the fact that he detested wearing the drysuit, he had done his best to convince himself that the weather was good. The drysuit was a body-clinging survival suit designed to keep anyone warm and dry long enough to survive an ejection from their aircraft into frigid water long enough to be rescued. From his experience so far, however, it was a survival contest just to wear a drysuit for the typical three-hour flight. Its elastic band around the neck made it feel like someone was choking him the entire time. They were also required to wear Nomex long-underwear as a fire protector plus an additional liner as an insulator. Most wore only one or the other, and even then the resulting heat build-up made them sweat so much that they were almost as wet as if they had gone swimming in the Mediterranean. If someone ejected and the drysuit was torn during the ejection, water would pour into it through the hole and its lifesaving qualities would vanish. He did not want to wear one tonight.

But he would.

After the brief they headed across the passageway to the paraloft where the flight gear was hanging. He took off his flight suit and struggled like a contortionist into the drysuit. After his head popped through the elastic neckband he spread his arms as wide apart as he could and had Bug pull the diagonal zipper across his chest to close it. The zipper ran from the left arm across the chest to the right arm. It was virtually impossible for anyone to zip into the drysuit without help, although some did try. It only started the perspiration sooner.

They donned the rest of their flight gear then headed topside to their jet. As they opened the hatch to the flight deck a gust of wind nearly drove them back inside. They lowered their heads and ploughed into the rain.

JD thought that his drysuit would at least be useful to keep him dry during the preflight of his airplane in the rainstorm. He and Bug dodged aircraft being towed by tractors to new positions on the flight deck and stepped over refueling hoses. Walking across the flight deck could be as hazardous as flying and they focused solely on safely reaching their airplane. Once they found it, they hurriedly conducted the preflight, shining obligatory beams from their flashlights on a few critical parts of the jet. They mentally ran through everything they inspected. Missiles securely attached and not going to fall off, cannon plugs (multi-pronged electrical cord plugs) hooked to them, rollers on the tail-fins of the Sidewinder missiles spin freely, take off the cover protecting the infrared seeker-head of the Sidewinders and inspect for damage, and so it went. If a part of the aircraft was parked on the edge of the flight deck and hanging over the water, it was not inspected. One hoped for the best.

They opened the canopy and jumped into their seats as quickly as they could. Not wanting to get the cockpit wet, they both yelled Clear! and held their arms tightly to their sides as the one-quarter ton canopy lowered itself to the frame then slammed forward to seat itself. They were now sealed inside the jet and it felt like home: familiar and dry.

In spite of the darkness, the wind and rain, the choreography of readying airplanes on the flight deck continued. Flight deck personnel positioned the jets, while others performed maintenance and fueled the airplanes. Aircrews climbed inside silent jets, brought their engines to life, had the tie-down chains removed, then were taxied into position to a catapult. Shadows spread across the flight deck as men and planes moved. The sun cast shadows in the day, the moon at night, and with an overcast sky this night the ship’s moon lights cast their own.

JD started both engines and waited as the brown shirts removed the chains from his F-14. He was then directed to taxi and he focused solely on the yellow shirt taxiing him toward the catapult. Everyone working on the flight deck had a specific job and was identified by the color of his shirt. Brown shirts worked with the planes, yellow shirts moved airplanes, purple shirts fueled them, red shirts were emergency and safety workers or ordnancemen, while green shirts were aircraft mechanics. At night, the colors were muted but still recognizable.

JD fixated on his yellow shirt with an intensity usually used for flying. He could feel his pulse quicken and his blood pressure rise. He felt flush as his skin tingled slightly. His left hand was on the throttles, his right barely resting on the stick since it was useless while they taxied. His feet steered and stopped the jet. He moved the aircraft with precision as the yellow shirt directed him. Waving the lighted wands slowly meant, add a little power. A slight head nod to the right: steer a touch to the right. The wands coming together: get ready to stop. Wands crossed together: stop. He was then signaled to kneel the airplane, drop its nose lower to the deck, and lower the bar used to hook the aircraft into the catapult.

After he was hooked to the catapult he was directed by the yellow shirt to look at the catapult officer who then gave the signal for full power as the jet was put into tension, that is, armed to fire. He felt the catapult shuttle, the part of the catapult that hooked onto the bar, grab onto it with a jolt, as both his engines wound to full power. He heard the afterburners light as they pressure-fed raw fuel into the massive tailpipes. Blue and orange-tipped flames hit the giant jet-blast deflectors that were raised from the flight deck behind him. The jet rumbled and shook as the engine whine pierced every molecule on the flight deck.

He stared with intensity at the engine gauges as he pushed the stick forward, back, left, then right, to check the flight controls. Everything looked okay, so he turned his head slightly to his left, saluted the catapult officer (his ready-to-go signal) then put the back of his head firmly against the seat. And waited.

The catapult officer carefully studied the sea. The deck was pitching from the swells and waves so the timing of the launch was critical. If the catapult was fired with the deck pointing skyward, by the time they came off the end, the ship would have pitched bow down and they would fly into the water. The deck had to be pitching upward as they reached the end of their cat shot. On a pitch-black night like this, it was something that was not so much seen as felt. One felt lighter as the deck went down and heavier as it went up again. The catapult officer waited for the bow to finish its descent and pause, pointing directly into the sea, just before it began to travel upward once again. He could feel his normal weight return as he squinted into darkness. This was the perfect time to launch a warplane. He hoped.

As JD felt the bow travel downward, pointing into the water, he knew what was coming next. Just as the nose of the F-14 started moving skyward with the bow, he squeezed his abdomen muscles as hard as he could, then started a low moaning grunt, and strained to push as much blood into his head as he could. It would help him focus better on the gauges as the G-forces on launch drained the blood from his brain for two precious seconds.

The catapult officer stuck his arm out straight toward the bow, the direction of the launch, touched the flight deck, and then lifted his hand to point straight ahead again. This was the signal he gave to the petty officer on the launch platform to fire the catapult.

JD felt his torso and helmet instantly press into the back of the seat, then they began accelerating and everything blurred except the two small gauges that could determine his next move for survival if one of them spun counterclockwise, indicating an engine failure. The needles didn’t move and suddenly he could focus again, slightly feeling himself lift off his seat, almost weightless for a split second as they were cast into blackness. They were briefly like a rock flung from a slingshot before they crossed that threshold where they could control their own destiny. They were flying.

There was no horizon tonight so JD concentrated solely on his gauges. The gusts of wind barely shook his machine but he could feel them. There was a flash, like a puff of smoke, as he flew through a small cloud, but it was merely a reflection from his position lights that had in the past startled him. Tonight it was merely a brief mental observation.

He reached ten miles from the ship then began a slow climb to orbit overhead the carrier. His pulse began to slow and he felt secure inside the world that he knew. Nothing would likely kill him now but his mind slowly drifted to what the landing would be like. He pushed the thought to the back of his mind, where it would stay lurking, and for now he would enjoy the moment. They climbed higher, turning to the left as he twisted in his seat, looking through the back of the glass canopy as they turned. The weather had begun to lift somewhat as he could see the carrier now. There were few clouds below them and the rain had stopped. He knew that the wind velocity was gaining in strength as the front passed through, which would cause higher waves and make the deck pitch more. That would be one more thing to deal with when it was time to return and land.

For now though, the task at hand was to set up for the exercise for which they had briefed. They would orbit at 15,000 feet as two A-6 Intruders, which were to take off immediately after them, flew to a point about eighty miles from the ship. There they would turn back inbound and simulate Soviet low-level bombers. All he and his RIO had to do was to find them and simulate shooting them down. As always, the emphasis was on simulate. They carried live missiles, two Sparrows and two Sidewinders just in case they would ever be needed in a real fight. Occasionally pilots had selected the wrong switch and actually shot someone down. He had heard the explanations and they were always amazing.

Once a pilot, the son of a senator who had always been leniently graded in training and apparently had trouble separating reality from fantasy, shot down an American Air Force F-4 with a Sidewinder heat-seeking missile. The missile flew up the tailpipe of the F-4 and detonated. All the F-4 pilot saw was an engine fire light and then all the surrounding aircraft were screaming for him and his RIO to eject. Both did so immediately and were picked up by a helicopter orbiting the aircraft carrier. They thanked the Navy for picking them out of the water, but were less than happy when the carrier’s Captain informed them what had happened. Prior to saving them, the Navy had tried to kill them.

The Navy pilots later noticed that Air Force colleagues were more than just a little intimidated by them. They learned what he too discovered over time: that even as the elite, professional, fighting corps they were, there were still a few nut cases and incompetents around and anything could happen. Maybe one did have to be a little crazy to do what they were doing.

JD leveled off and started a gentle turn inbound to the ship. The cold front had passed and the clouds were breaking up. He put the plane on autopilot and relaxed. He traced the stars with his eyes as the Romans, Greeks, Phoenicians, and others before them had once done as they traveled the Mediterranean. He saw Orion on his side, with his belt and sword. There was the Big Dipper, which the Romans knew as Ursus Major, Big Bear, and it pointed the way to the North Star. The Little Dipper, Ursus Minor, Little Bear, was next. He saw the Evening Star, in actuality Venus, the goddess of love, to the west, and then Mars, the god of war. Men on earth had named the sky he was in and he understood how they thought. They lived for the hunt, and for combat and war. Yet these same men also loved. Time had not changed many things.

He had fought but it was the love that consumed him. He was a warrior but he could think only of her. As they turned, the nose of their aircraft passed through north and he thought of Nice and what lay there waiting for him.

Even though he studied her picture frequently, the memory of her had faded somewhat. He wasn’t really quite sure he remembered every detail of her face even with the photograph he had of her. A photograph wasn’t the same as being there. There was always much more to a memory than a face, a visual image. He thought his last image of her would be watching her walking away from him. But from the distance he had seen her turn and look at him one last time. Like now, he had not been able to make out the details of her face even though he knew her as well as he had ever known anyone in his life. He remembered the emotions though. Those never left him and they pulled him to her.

It was winter and his memory was dormant wanting to be awakened, but he waited, only just surviving until he saw her again.

JD waited for the exercise to begin as Bug, from his seat in the back, tested out the radar on some airplanes in the distance. They checked in with their radar controller on the carrier who would direct them to the incoming enemy aircraft during the exercise. Everything seemed to be working fine as he started a slow left-hand orbit over the ship. There was no moon tonight but the Milky Way glistened above them, the starlight melting over them.

JD dropped his gaze to the instrument panel and sniffed.

Oh, God! Did you fart? JD was not wearing his oxygen mask, most of them did not unless they were fighting or flying around the ship, even though it was mandatory.

Who me? Bug chortled. Aren’t you supposed to wearing your oxygen mask?

JD quickly clipped his oxygen mask onto his helmet as he coughed. It was so powerful it had leaked out of Bug’s drysuit.

God, you’re killing me! JD inhaled and exhaled as quickly as he could to clear what he was breathing. He blinked as his eyes started to burn. There was no easy defense when flying with Bug.

My eyes are burning! What did you eat for dinner? JD shuddered.

Chili with extra jalapeños. It was delicious.

Oh my Lord! Uhh!

JD closed his eyes and waited. Luckily the autopilot was on. It was one of the few hazards of having two people in the same airplane, especially when Bug was one of them.

They orbited several times as the air cleared in the cockpit. All indiscretions were quickly forgiven but JD remained wary. His oxygen mask stayed on. It was taking a while for the exercise to begin. They orbited a couple of more times as time passed.

Hey Bug, ask them when the exercise is going to begin. They both had radios but the RIO was in charge of routine communications.

Bug skipped the formalities usually used in transmissions. They had been on cruise too long. Billy, when is the exercise gonna begin?

There was a pause, as if Billy were choosing his words carefully. "I don’t think there’s going to be an exercise tonight, sir. I think