“A little too uppity, sir?”
“Dammit, Wilson!” Saint thundered, as he rose to his feet. “Get the hell out!”
Wilson, also enraged, sprang to his feet and took a step toward the senior pilot, who flinched ever so slightly. “XO, I’m a naval officer and Hornet pilot who happens to be black. Nobody gave my wings to me. I earned them myself. The airplane does not care who’s flying it, male, female, black or white. The Navy does not need quotas. It needs warriors to stay for command, and I am a warrior. If I do resign, this meeting will feature prominently in my letter.”
“DISMISSED!” Saint roared back, inches from Wilson’s nose. Wilson stepped to the door, and as he passed through, Saint added, “And take that chip on your shoulder with you!”
Wilson closed the door with a firm grip. When he turned to head forward, he met the eyes of the Spartan’s XO who had opened his door half expecting to break up a fight. Trembling with anger, Wilson passed Dutch without acknowledging he was there. “Hey, Flip,” said Dutch and stopped to watch his department head bound forward. Finally, Wilson realized someone had addressed him. He stopped and turned to see a bewildered Dutch about five frames back. He then saw Saint appear from his athwartship passageway. Their eyes met, and Wilson spun for his stateroom. Dutch looked at Wilson and then at his XO. What just happened? he wondered.
Wilson burst into his stateroom to find Weed typing on a laptop. “Kimo sabe,” Weed greeted him, without taking his eyes off the screen. When Wilson answered only by yanking open a drawer, Weed knew something was wrong. “What happened?”
Wilson unzipped his flight suit and worked open the laces of his boots. “Oh, just a come-around with the XO. Seems my department’s Navy Relief numbers are short of the squadron goal.”
“Bummer. Should we call a stand-down to address the problem?”
“Yes, we should,” Wilson answered. “Your department is only at 77 percent, but the OPS department is making you look good. We’re last at 50. Admin is at 100 and the one-person Safety Department is also at 100. We’re both on his shit list, but at least you aren’t last.” Wilson slipped out of his flight suit and put on his black gym shorts.
“Thanks for the heads up and for making me look good. What else?”
Wilson bent over to tie one of his sneakers. “Well, we then had a counseling session. Seems the Navy needs black officers to stay, which it does. What I got from Saint, though, was that he doesn’t particularly care for black commanding officers, but he wants me to ‘please stay’ for the retention numbers.” Wilson pulled the laces tight.
Weed looked at Wilson as he worked the other shoe. “I may have overstepped,” Wilson added.
“Whad’ya mean? He throw you out of the room?”
“Yes.”
“Oh…”
“I will not be placed in a box!” Wilson continued, still furious. “I’m a Navy fighter pilot. I am not a black Navy fighter pilot. I’ve only had to deal with two guys in my whole career who judged me for my color. You know, one guy in flight school, and now the XO.”
“Master Chief Morgan?” Weed added.
“Oh, yeah, okay. Three guys in 13 years.”
“Not a bad track record.”
“Concur! The Navy’s been great to me every step of the way, and I’ve had it a lot easier than my dad did in his day, with the race riots and everything else. At least here you get promoted on merit. You work hard, play by the rules, and compete. I love that.”
“Why don’t more African Americans come through the front door?”
“Hell if I know! I’m tellin’ ‘em all the time! I go to friggin’ Norfolk State, family gatherings. I’m spreadin’ the word, tellin’ the homeboys they got nothin’ on my posse. Brothers are joining and they have bright futures, but not many go air.”
“Why’re you so fuckin’ pissed off?”
Wilson stopped and looked at Weed, who was giving him a wry smile. Weed is right. I am furious — but why? Wilson already knew, everyone knew, the XO was an arrogant bastard… and he had still let him get under his skin, especially with the “chip on your shoulder” crack. Was he angry that Saint treated him like a number, a quota, instead of a key member of the squadron, even a person? Did that surprise him? Was he angry that it did? Was he angry with the Navy and the sacrifices it demanded of Mary? He looked forward to his run so he could think.
Weed then added a typical Weed comment. “It could be worse, you know. If you were a woman, the XO could be after you!”
Shaking his head in disgust, Wilson turned for the door. “Man, you are one sick puppy!”
“I’m thinking Tyra Banks with a big — ah — Adam’s apple.”
“I’m outta here,” Wilson said, still smiling in spite of himself.
“Where ya goin’?” Weed asked.
“Topside for a run.”
“It’s 30 knots up there.”
“Perfect,” Wilson replied.
CHAPTER 36
“Lead’s air speed, angels on the left.” Prince transmitted from a mile abeam.
“Two’s speed ‘n’ angels on the right,” Wilson replied.
“Take a cut away,” Prince ordered.
“Two,” Wilson acknowledged.
With that, both pilots pushed the throttles to military and banked away from each other for the last of three engagements they had briefed for this good deal flight, a 1v1 air combat maneuvering training sortie. This was Wilson’s favorite part of the hop: the neutral setup where both aircraft extend away from each other to build separation and then, on signal, turn back toward one another. The track the airplanes flew on this maneuver resembled a butterfly wing, hence the name, “butterfly set.”
Wilson steadied out on a heading of 210 and scribbled some notes on his kneeboard card, with a drawing of a God’s-eye picture of the two aircraft heading 180, and taking cuts away from each other. He drew a circle to depict the sun ahead of them and wrote the number “60” to indicate 60 degrees up.
Prince was leading because he needed the hop for his flight-lead-under-training syllabus. After 15 months in the squadron, it was time for Prince to become a section leader, the flight lead of two aircraft. Wilson was disappointed with Prince’s performance on this qualification flight. It began with the brief, when Prince did not know the ship had moved south during the night. His perfunctory preflight briefing was nothing more than satisfactory, and his performance on this flight, so far, was unsatisfactory.
In both his offensive and defensive setups Prince had mismanaged his air speed and lift vector. In the first, Prince allowed Wilson to escape when he began the engagement behind him in a firing position. In the next setup, when beginning from a defensive position, Prince was unable to shake Wilson from shooting him with a tracking guns shot. Although Wilson possessed 2,000 more FA-18 hours than Prince, and was a TOPGUN graduate, he was upset. “C’mon, Prince, pull!” he had muttered as Prince arced above him and let up on the pressure. Wilson liked to win an engagement as much as anyone, but it was as if Prince had been just going through the motions, not challenging Wilson or himself. The two pilots were not friends and there was a clear superior/subordinate relationship, but as Operations Officer Wilson wanted and needed Prince to qualify as section lead to allow more flight scheduling options. After the last fight, as they climbed to altitude, Wilson had radioed a simple comment to him on how to improve his lift-vector placement. Prince had answered with a glum “Roger.”