Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
Then, on the intra-flight Victor radio, I said to my wingman, “FANG 2 . . . do<br />
NOT arm up.”<br />
“FANG . . . this is Charlotte . . . we’ve got suspicious helicopters operating in<br />
our area!”<br />
Helicopters So al-Qaeda had helos now Didn’t think so.<br />
“Why are they suspicious” Leveling off at 20,000 feet, I pulled the power back<br />
to hold 400 knots and glanced at the radar. A few days ago it would’ve been full of<br />
contacts, but tonight it was empty.<br />
“FANG . . . uh . . . they’re not operating with lights . . . and they won’t answer<br />
our calls . . . and we’ve had reports of men . . . uh . . . jumping off to the ground.”<br />
I thought I could see where this was going, and I needed to stop the madness.<br />
Quickly.<br />
“Charlotte, did you bother calling Fort Bragg”<br />
The long, pregnant pause said it all, so I switched freqs and called up the Shaw<br />
AFB command post.<br />
“Shaw, FANG 69 . . . request.”<br />
“Go ahead.”<br />
“Get on the landline and call Fort Bragg. Find out what kind of air activity<br />
they’ve got going tonight and don’t let ’em give you any covert-ops BS. Tell them<br />
there are armed fighters overhead and if they want their helos back in one piece<br />
then they need to ’fess up with locations and call signs.”<br />
Fort Bragg, just east of Charlotte, happened to be home to the 82nd Airborne<br />
Division and the U.S. Special Operations Command. These people got paid to skulk<br />
around with no lights and no communications while performing suspicious-looking<br />
acts. At least suspicious to the uninitiated, which this guy plainly was. Turned out,<br />
that was exactly what was going on, proving again that we are our own worst<br />
enemy.<br />
A few days later, the approach controller at Atlanta’s Hartsfield airport asked<br />
me if I’d make a low pass over downtown Atlanta for morale. A show of force to<br />
reassure the folks that all was well. I was astounded. Downtown Atlanta But we<br />
did, at a thousand feet over the skyscrapers, with the speed brakes out so we could<br />
plug in our afterburners and make more noise. He asked us to come around again<br />
and later told me people were crying and smiling in the streets.<br />
That week affected me in an unexpected way. I mean, we were used to taking<br />
chances and were prepared, mentally and physically, to fight. But the average<br />
American is not, and I saw real fear on my neighbors’ faces. All my naive but<br />
generous, self-centered but well-meaning countrymen had gotten slapped in the
Change language