In Whom Do We Trust
By Cam Torrens
In early January 2003, I command a squadron of over 500 operations and maintenance personnel and 18 C-130 transport aircraft based in Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas. Our mission is to deliver combat troops and supplies anytime and anywhere, either by parachutes out the back end of the plane, or by landing on whatever flat surface is available. A mantle of trust drapes my shoulders. My loyalty is unquestionable, but I’m hesitant to reciprocate that trust.
I’m cynical about a war twelve years earlier, where we declared victory but allowed a tyrant to resume his role as the leader of Iraq. I’m jaded over a presidential election that took the US Supreme Court weeks to adjudicate. I’m frustrated because I just returned from a deployment to Afghanistan where it seems our country is no closer to finding the mastermind of 9-11, and instead, appears to be manufacturing reasons to shift our focus from Osama bin Laden to Saddam Hussein. Poised at the prime of my operational career, I’m so wrapped up in how to keep my team at the leading edge of the fight that I offer nothing but complaints towards those working at the strategic level. When anyone over the age of fifty tries to give me the big picture, I stare at them like they’ve got a dick growing out of their forehead.
My midday summons to my commander’s office doesn’t help.
“I don’t have the details. All I know is we’re not stopping short this time. Be prepared to head out in less than a month. Questions?” My boss might be under the age of fifty, but his lack of specifics about our upcoming deployment just outside the border of Iraq inspires little confidence.
I stride across the street to my squadron, mulling over my boss’s words. So much for commander’s intent. The only useful information I cull from our meeting is I need to have my squadron ready to deploy to the Middle East in less than a month. I smile, then check to see if anyone’s watching the newest squadron commander talking to himself. I don’t need more guidance. I might not control where we’re going and what we are fighting for, but I’ve sure as hell got a unit that knows how to get out of Dodge, set up an operating base, and get shit done.
We spend the next five weeks prepping the crews with airdrop training at night and short-field landings on unimproved surfaces. My ops officer runs that training and I make sure I hop in the aircraft commander’s seat enough that I’ll be ready to fly in the lead wherever we end up going. I study the crews flying with me. Although I am the senior and most experienced aviator in the unit, commander duties keep me out of the cockpit and on the ground more than other pilots. I need a crew that’s been flying their asses off. Not just to make up for my recent lack of flight hours, but also because when the shit hits the fan, I need a crew I can bond with—one that I trust.
The basic crew on a C-130 is six: pilot, copilot, navigator, flight engineer, and two loadmasters. We’ll probably take a mechanic if we land in the combat zone, but I’m not worried about who that will be. My maintenance leaders will send me the best airman they got. I’ve already filled most of the flying crew, as well. My enlisted positions are senior NCOs that earned their rank through performance and common sense. My navigator used to fly with me in my last unit when I was a major. The toughest decision I make before departing our home base is who will be my copilot—my number two. My staff recommends two lieutenants to fly with me before we leave—so that I can make the choice myself. Andy Smith and Deanna Franks.
My ops staff assumes I’ll pick Andy. I suspect the only reason they don’t just assign him to me is so I’ll think I’m deciding and not them. Andy’s a good ol’ boy with a reputation for smooth flying, a raunchy sense of humor, and the ability to make a crew bond quicker than a middle-schooler’s tongue on a frozen flagpole. You can count on him to buy the first round, know the name of the girlfriend of the youngest guy on the crew, and fly better than half our aircraft commanders. A week before we leave, I take him out on a night tactical airdrop training mission and let him fly the plane for twenty minutes in formation. The rumors about his flying instincts are true. Hands of glass.
On the run-in to the airdrop, I run our plane one hundred feet higher than we plan. I do it on purpose, gauging Andy’s reaction. He doesn’t say a word. He is supposed to—the copilot keeps the pilot on airspeed and altitude while backing the navigator up to make sure the plane is going in the right direction. On the return flight to base, Andy rips a fart, tells a bad joke, and has the whole crew laughing—including me. We have an hour left on our mission and are scheduled to practice short-field landings using our night-vision goggles. This is an aircraft commander qualification and I’m the one doing the landings. After the whole ‘silent Andy’ thing with my airdrop altitude, I consider coming in high on the short-field landing just to see if he will point it out. But these night assault landings are nothing to mess around with, so I table that plan.
I screw it up anyway—carrying too much speed across the overrun. When I pull the power, we float out of the zone, my wheels touching six hundred feet down the runway instead of the required five hundred feet or less. I should take it around, but don’t. Mashing the brakes, I lift the throttle handles and pull them into reverse, bringing the plane to a stop.
“Nice, Sir!” Andy bobs his NVGs up and down like an agreeable grasshopper. “You just got it in the zone.”
An endorphin rush blooms in my chest and I quell it. The hardest thing about command isn’t the increase in responsibility, but the people always telling me what an expert pilot I am, calling me an awesome commander, and hinting how much they like me. Every time it happens, I get that rush; and it takes all my effort to remind myself I’m not invincible just because I’m in command.
