Another letter from Captain Steve, a USAF pilot based in Saudi Arabia. Cross-posted here, as usual.

Coffee, Machine Guns, Paper Mache

Our pilot did something funny the other night after he'd given control of the jet to the copilot. As is his habit, he headed toward the back of the jet to see if any of us wanted something to drink. On his way back he made a quick stop in the galley.

On this particular sortie we were lucky enough to get corn dogs with our meals. The pilot took a couple from the fridge and put them in the oven so that by the time he delivered everyone's drinks the dogs would be nice and warm. As an afterthought, he squeezed a couple packages of mustard into a Styrofoam cup. The cup would make a good place to set the dogs, and he could dip them in the mustard as he ate.

Then he filled his arms with bottled water and cans of coke and made his way to the back of the jet, stopping to deliver drinks and chat a minute or two at every work station. During their chat, one member asked the pilot to bring her a cup of coffee. He was happy to get her one, and when he'd distributed drinks to the rest of the crew he headed back to the galley.

By now the heated corndogs were filling the cabin with an appetizing aroma. Maybe that distracted him. It's hard to say. All we know for sure is that he took the nearest Styrofoam cup, held it under the spigot, and began filling it with coffee. When the cup was about halfway full he looked inside and was surprised to see that apparently cream had already been added to the coffee. Strange, but given some of the coffee we'd seen recently, not outside the realm of possibility. He added a couple packets of sugar, tossed in a stirrer, and delivered the coffee. By now things at the back of the jet were beginning to get a little busy. The war was going on below us and crew members were all business, talking on radios, adjusting equipment, staring at computer screens. The crew member accepted the coffee cup without an upward glance and the pilot returned to the galley and his corndogs.

When he took them from the oven though, he was annoyed to find that his cup of mustard was missing. He looked all over the counter, in the cabinets, and even in the fridge. No mustard. It just didn't seem right that while he was getting people drinks someone would swipe his mustard.

While he was wondering who would do such a thing, it dawned on him. He ran to the back of the jet, but didn't get there on time. The crew member was already lowering the cup from her lips, a dismayed expression on her face.

Needless to say, that's one crewmember who'll think twice before asking the pilot to get her another cup of coffee.

***

I walked by the armory during guard mount last night. The kids who man our watch towers and patrol our fence lines were coming in from the field, C-bags slung over their shoulders, weapons in their hands. The next shift was heading out. I walked behind a young airman who toted a package from home, an ammo can, her C-bag, and an M-60 machine gun. The M-60 was almost as long as she was tall, and with it slung over her shoulder she had to lean against its weight to keep the muzzle from striking the ground. (It never did.) She joined her shift on the curb where they waited for the trucks that would carry them to their posts. Feeling like a tourist, I asked if I could take their picture.

At first there were only half a dozen of them, but before I'd finished there were twice, and then three times as many, and they all wanted to be in the picture, first standing with their weapons in their hands, and then eating cookies from the airman's care package. And then they traded me weapons for my camera and took pictures of me holding the M-60, an M-16 with a grenade launcher, and then both at once. They had to stop taking pictures for a minute until I could stop grinning.

***

We're still flying nights, and that's just fine with me. I sleep through the hottest part of the day. In the wee hours, if I'm not in the air, I enjoy the illusion of a deserted compound. The light's no good for painting outdoors of course, but I've found I can work from memory in the library. Our library is one shelf-lined room of apparently randomly-arranged books with some desks and couches scattered around.

I would paint in my room if I could, but my roommates and I are all on different shifts. At any given moment one of us is bound to be trying to sleep in there. I don't know how long it's been since we had the light on. It's inconvenient to have to creep around, dressing in the dark, easing drawers open and closing them silently. In the dark though, the room never seems to need cleaning.

I've been running my daily 5 miles late at night or just before dawn. It's pleasantly cool, and the track is nearly deserted. I cruise along without having to talk to anyone or think about anything in particular. It's the most peaceful time I have here. This morning I was out as the sun began to rise. The sky brightened, silhouetting three distant mosques, their white domes still in shadow, the tops of their minarets just beginning to catch the first rays of light.

When the light is sufficient to distinguish a white thread from a black one, it is officially dawn, and the Imams issue the day's first call to prayer. The loudspeakers on the minarets impart a tinny quality to the already exotic sound, making it almost other-worldly. No matter how many times I've heard it, in no matter how many countries, that sound still speaks to me of intrigue and mystery.

***
When we got here we left our familiar squadron behind, and became part of an expeditionary squadron. This gave us a new mascot. I'm not sure how it came to be, or what it means exactly, but our symbol here is a bulldog.

I've never been a fan of bulldogs. They strike me as ill-proportioned and sort of comical. To my mind, the face is entirely too foreshortened, and certain features on the other end are ridiculously large, as if to compensate.

In spite of that, Doby, Sideshow, and I decided to build ourselves a bulldog to place in front of our operations building. We drew a series of sketches of a seated bulldog from different angles, and then we set out to scrounge for materials. We collected a large bag of finely shredded documents, (We were a little worried that someone would think we were trying to reconstruct classified documents, so we took the bag from a French dumpster. The only secrets they have probably belong to us anyway.) some flour from the chow hall, lots of newspapers, and several large cardboard boxes. We drew the profile of the dog onto cardboard and cut it out. Then we cut cross sections and glued them to the profile. We mixed flour and water and used it as a glue to hold strips of newspaper draped from one cross section to the next. When the newspaper skin had hardened we mixed the shredded paper with the flour and water and daubed it on a few square inches at a time. It dried hard as a rock, and with a rough, furry texture. We sewed a strip of black cloth and pushed nails through it to make a studded collar, and came up with a way to spray paint black markings on him. We ended up with a passable bulldog a little over four feet tall sitting down. It took us weeks to finish, but it was either that or bait the French for entertainment, and to tell the truth, we're getting a little tired of that.

When he was finished, our mutt occupied a place of honor on the front porch of the operations building. Last night though, we decided he needed to get some operational experience. While most of the crew was preparing to board the jet a couple of us borrowed a pickup truck and loaded the dog onto the back. Then after long pauses for explanations at every checkpoint, we delivered him to the jet, installing him in the cargo space between the cockpit and the galley. There was a moment of near panic when it seemed he might not fit through the door of the aircraft, but after some deep breaths (ours, not his) and some careful maneuvering we managed to fit him in. He looked like he was born to fly. We took plenty of pictures of him with all the crewmembers and when we landed, returned him to his porch. I wish you could have seen him riding down the ramp past all those warplanes, a big white dog with a black ring around one eye, his head cocked quizzically to one side. Everyone we passed put down what they were doing and stared as we drove by. We were a one-car parade.

As far as we know, he is the only dog with combat time over Iraq.

Steven

Posted By Meryl Yourish at April 17, 2003 10:50 AM | TrackBack