The hair on the back of Colonel Flint’s neck stood up, just like it had in ‘Nam 30 years before. He had been a 19-year-old Lance Corporal leading a squad of torn-up and scared Marines back to base after a brutal firefight. The trail had divided and he had taken the left fork — the more direct route — without thinking. That’s when his instincts began screaming danger at him. He had stopped inches in front of the tripwire that would have carved his name on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in the D.C. Mall for all time. He carefully backed up, took the right fork, and from that time forward vowed to trust his instincts whenever he got in a tight spot. And at this moment his instincts were on overload, screaming danger.
“Captain Bright, I’ve got a feeling that the Chinese aren’t bluffing this time around. We’re about to be in the middle of a war we weren’t invited to.”
“What do you suggest we do, Colonel?”
“Get me a little closer to land, captain,” Colonel Flint replied with a tight smile. “My Marines don’t swim too well.”
Captain Bright increased speed to flank and headed for the 12-mile limit — as close as they dared get to Taiwan in peacetime.
Lieutenant Colonel Dan Alexander of the California Army National Guard was trying to get some sleep. The flight from Ft. Polk in the C-17 began a day ago, technically two days ago since they passed the international date line, first an overnight stop in Alaska at Elmendorf AFB, then a mid-air refueling southwest of Shemya at the end of the Aleutian Island chain. They were now about to begin their second mid-air refueling west of Okinawa — nine hours into a 14-hour flight. Task Force Grizzly left Alaska at about five in the morning in the ever-light summer of the near Arctic and let the sun chase them west. By the time they reached Bandung, Indonesia, it would be about 1100 hours—11:00 AM National Guard time.
The bench of nylon netting that passed for seating on this aircraft was starting to cut into his butt. He unstrapped himself, looked enviously at his young snoring troops and went forward to chat with the Globemaster’s aircrew. The loadmaster was studying a math text—was that calculus? He brushed past the loadmaster and announced himself to the flight commander, Lieutenant Colonel Giannini, “Colonel, I need to whine, my ass hurts too much to sleep, I’m bored, your service is lousy, and the flight attendant is ugly!”
The loadmaster, hearing the last, put down his textbook and yelled above the dull roar, “Hey, sir, I resemble that remark!”
“Seriously, what’s up colonel, tell me where we are.”
Lieutenant Colonel Joe Giannini turned in his seat with a grin and said, “Pull up a jump seat and tell us why you’re going to Indonesia again.” He pulled off his headset and laid it on his lap.
Alexander gratefully sat down on something resembling a real seat, “Well, you see it’s like this: people hate each other, people kill each other, journalists broadcast the carnage, Americans feel bad, the President feels the pain, and we get sent in to tell everyone to get along or else we’ll kill all of ‘em regardless of their religion or ethnicity!”
The Air Force colonel fixed Alexander with a pilot’s gaze and said, “Don’t think the mission is worth your time?”
Alexander sighed, “Joe, I was in the L.A. Riots in ‘92. I was a company commander in the Cal Guard. As soon as we got on the scene, the rioting stopped. People would yell to us from their porches, ‘Thank God you’re here, God bless you.’ After Cold War ended and my life got busier, I wanted to quit. Every time I thought about quitting, I’d think of L.A.
“You know the difference between Los Angeles, California and Bandung, Indonesia? You know why L.A. didn’t tear itself apart again as soon as we left town? Two words: ‘freedom,’ ‘justice.’ We may have problems in America but we have a system to fix them. It’s not perfect, but it beats the hell out of all the other systems.
“The thing that frustrates me to no end with this deployment is the futility of it all. We’re simply going to Indonesia to stop the bloodshed. As soon as we leave, it’ll be back to bloodshed.”
“Well,” said Joe, “I’ve almost quit a few times myself for the same reasons. I only stay for the high pay and the pretty flight attendants!” Joe yelled the last comment.
The loadmaster looked up and made a kissy-face to his commander.
Joe grinned, “I won’t ask!”
“And, I won’t tell, sir!” The loadmaster went back to his book.
“Why don’t you quit, Joe?”
“Look, I stay in for the same reasons you do, ‘To support and defend the Constitution…’ professional pride, occasional job satisfaction. I know I could triple my salary working for the airlines, but then I’d just be doing a job.” Joe smiled warmly, his crow’s feet showing at the edges of his brown eyes.
The copilot pointed out the cockpit at 10 o’clock. Joe’s face lit-up, “Hey, have you ever seen a mid-air refueling from the cockpit?”
Dan was interested, “No. I usually catch up on my sleep on military aircraft.”
“Look over there. That’s a KC-135 tanker out of Okinawa. He’s going to refuel the lead C-17 first. After he’s done, we’ll move up a take a long drink from the straw. It will give us enough fuel to make it the rest of the way down to Java.”
Joe’s copilot motioned for him to put on his headset. Joe excused himself and turned to the cockpit. Within a few seconds Dan could see him toggle the intercom switch on the headset. The loadmaster stirred to life and brought Dan a headset, plugging it in as he did so. Curious, Dan listened in.
“Tango Five-Niner, this is Okinawa Control. We have a situation in the Taiwan Strait. Amphibious Squadron 11 has reported intense military air activity in the Strait. Suggest you exercise caution. Please come about to heading one-seven-zero degrees until you clear 22 degrees north latitude. PACOM has decided we don’t need any more U.S. military assets in the area at present. Please acknowledge.”
Joe responded, “This is Tango Five-Niner, that’s a wilco. Coming about to one-seven-zero degrees.” Joe pursed his lips and looked back at Dan, then he wrinkled his forehead in concentration.
“Okinawa Control, this is Tango Five-Niner. What freq is the Amphibious Squadron 11 on? I’d like to give them a call.”
Okinawa Control responded with an unencrypted voice frequency.
“Amphibious Squadron 11, this is Tango Five-Niner, a United States Aircraft en-route to Indonesia, over.”
“Last calling station, this is Amphibious Squadron 11, please say again last transmission, over.” The response was loud and clear.
“Amphibious Squadron 11, this is Tango Five-Niner, a United States Aircraft en-route to Indonesia, over.”
“United States Aircraft, please identify, over.”
“I’m a flight of C-17s headed south out of Elmendorf, over.”
“What are you doing on this frequency, over?”
“We got your freq from Okinawa Control. We heard there’s some action in the neighborhood. I like to know what’s going on in the world around me, so I decided to give the Navy a call, over.”
An older voice got on the radio, “United States C-17s, this is the USS Belleau Wood. We are picking up hundreds of aircraft flying east out of Mainland China towards Taiwan. We don’t know their intent yet, but you may wish to put some distance between Taiwan and yourself right now, over.”
“Roger. We’ll keep our eyes peeled. If we can do anything for you, let us know. We’ll monitor this freq. Tango Five-Niner, out.”
For the last three days the missile sat erect on its mobile launcher, a large, eight-wheeled vehicle that looked vaguely like a fire truck, underneath a huge spreading canopy of camouflage netting held aloft by 20 meter high poles. From the air, the missile site would look like the canopy of a giant, leafy tree. It blended in quite well with the surrounding terrain near the rocky Chinese coast.