Viper Pilot_ A Memoi..

“I—”
“C’mon boy . . . spit it out!”
A large, hairy paw appeared on my shoulder and I turned to see Orca standing
next to me. “Y’all leave him alone . . . he did just fine. Hosed down a coupla SAMs
near Mosul and didn’t lose sighta me once.”
Catcalls and booing followed that pronouncement, but Orca just smiled. “And
he didn’t shit his pants when the Patriot tried to kill him. In fact”—he winked at me
—“the kid armed up and tried to roll in and strafe the damn thing!”
Slight stretch of the facts there, but we lived by the 10 Percent Rule (only 10
percent of any story had to be true) and, in fact, I hadn’t shit all over myself like
the two tanker pilots.
More catcalls but everyone laughed and cheered. Arms grabbed my shoulders
and propelled me up to the bar. MooMan grinned at me and raised his glass. “To
the Elephant!” We clinked and I drank. Then gagged. He chuckled.
“What . . . is this . . . stuff” I wheezed as my eyes glazed over.
“Applecorn . . . with some Jeremiah Weed for flavor.”
Apfelkorn was a thick, sweet liqueur beloved by American fighter squadrons in
Germany. Jeremiah Weed was a pet drink of fighter pilots everywhere, along with
Jack Daniel’s and Drambuie. Individually they were bearable, but mixed together
they were nearly lethal.
There was lots of action all around, and I sat and watched, happy to be one of
the boys. To be part of any elite group is something you can carry with you for the
rest of your life. At first it’s all about ego and “making it.” But that gets beaten out
of you one way or another, as others quit, wash out, or die. In the end, if you make
it, you’re left with the greatest prizes of all: the quiet respect of your peers and the
knowledge that you have nothing left to prove to anyone but yourself. I took
another cautious sip of the horrible stuff and thought how lucky we were to be part
of this. Bases back in the States were full of fighter pilots who were home with
their wives tonight and wishing they were us.
I was proud. As I saw it then, America’s interests had been threatened and we’d
been brought in to solve the problem. Iraq had the fourth largest military in the
world, hundreds of jet fighters, thousands of SAMs, and we’d just kicked open the
front door. They’d actually shaken their hairy fist at the most powerful country on
Earth—basically, gave the United States the big middle finger—and today we’d
snapped it off at the knuckle. Tomorrow we’d go and cut off their balls.
And here I was, to do it.
Off to my right, beyond some tables, a huge group was playing Crud. This is a