“Yes, sir,” Mark told him. “Seems like it.” He adjusted his blue-and-white wrestling shoes, pulling the tongues up on each foot.
The room was disconcertingly quiet, and the team sat in thought. After a few seconds, Calvin Burns stood, followed by Mark and Robert. He grabbed his pen and pad, his eyeglass case, and made his way toward the conference room door.
“All right, all right. Definitely the director, and I’m leaning on telling the secretary. Mark, get me options,” said the deputy as he left the room.
Ford left the DIA Headquarters building and went for a run around the base, taking in some fresh air. He always carried his running gear with him when traveling because not only was it cost effective, but he could run anywhere. He didn’t need a gym to get in some exercise, which was not only good for keeping fit in the cockpit but allowed him to eat desserts. It helped him burn off the stress.
What also was helping him burn off the stress was turning to the drink, which according to Emily, was troublesome. Ever since his wild days at Notre Dame, he’d been fond of alcohol. At first beer, then liquor. Maybe I do drink a lot now? Nope, he said to himself. Since the loss of Wu, he had been suffering in silence in his own way.
Guys in the squadron knew he drank, because many of them were just like him. Ford did get drunk a lot lately, though. He did text and email drunk, as Emily accused him of. She had, in the recent past, found him lying on his bed naked, drooling. Sometimes he had one leg down on the floor, attempting to make the room stop spinning. Ford had also hidden his drinking from others, mostly out of embarrassment, particularly from nonpilots, who just would not understand, and especially this latest mission, which no one could ever fathom.
Professionals called someone with this condition a high-functioning alcoholic. At least 20 percent of alcoholics were high-functioning alcoholics, meaning they were successful in their personal and professional lives. Researchers had recently found that in America, the top 10 percent of alcoholics who drink, which was about 24 million people, consumed an average of sixty-one drinks a week. About 15 percent of these people consumed 75 percent of the alcohol domestically in the US. One or two drinks a day was healthy by many standards, resulting in reducing heart disease, diabetes, and stroke, but more than that and it was a medical issue. Alcohol overworked your liver and increased your blood pressure and chances of cancer, in addition to decreasing your immune system.
“What the hell is she talking about?” Ford said out loud, referring to Emily. He carefully reflected on his past few months. Ford was a responsible, productive military officer and pilot and showed up for work each day with vigor. He was an achiever. Ford was also in denial. I don’t have a problem.
Experts on alcohol abuse say people can drink heavily, be professionals, and come from all walks of life. Ford’s drinking increased to heavy drinking status over the past few months because he was easily having more than four drinks a day. Because Ford was blind to it, only Emily could see the signs. She saw in him that he needed alcohol to relax, that he sometimes drank alone and often, and that he was now denying his drinking. Ford had also gotten heated after Emily confronted him, adding yet another red flag to her informal list. His actions were causing concern to her, who loved him dearly. It was Ford’s true ding in a perfect hero’s armor.
Ford stopped at the Potomac River after putting in three miles, hit the stop button on his watch, and sat in the grass overlooking the water. The so-called white space on his schedule helped him think, and if done properly, his mind would solve the most difficult of problems for him in due time. His meditation routine, once laughed at by the other pilots in the squadron, was now catching on with others, and the quiet time helped him settle his mind. It also aided him with the fact that he had a job in which he faced death regularly, in peacetime or in war, because every time he took up an aircraft, or jumped out of one, he took great risk. The meditation helped him with self-discipline and focus.
His civilian peers from Notre Dame, now selling insurance, running numbers in finance, showing real estate, practicing medicine, or working in air-conditioned offices in places like Cary, Malibu, St. Louis, Orange County, Fairfax, or Grosse Pointe, would never comprehend his lifestyle. The Zen thinking, which Ford was attracted to, enabled him to move forward 100 percent once a decision was made. This aided Ford to push forward on difficult missions, not letting anything get in his way toward success.
To Ford, quieting the mind and emptying it freed him from the uncertainty and fear that could seep into the untrained pilot’s mind. Ford was taught to consider all options before he acted, whether on the ground or in the air, but then once a decision was made, he pressed on. He was also aware that to someone who was using mindfulness, overthinking led to people being paralyzed thought-wise, and usually at the worst possible times. Ford thought that moving forward, curbing his ego, and pushing toward a mission with the smallest amount of thought and reflection produced mission success.
Some of his pilot buddies busted his chops when they saw Ford meditating. Ford usually responded with a humorous one-liner, but other squadron pilots eventually caught on to the idea, especially since it helped them deal with death and fear. The saying in one of his squadrons was “Train like you fly, fly like you train.” To Ford, his mind could get seized by negativity before the fighting even began. He trained himself to not focus on his personal or professional problems or the criticism from others, or he would no longer be able to act unconventionally and autonomously. Meditation allowed Ford to face challenges with a positive attitude, attempting to overcome his weaknesses. Today, though, it helped him think through what Lieutenant General He Chen might be up to in China.
Ford let out a little laugh, finally understanding why Chen drank. Most likely due to the stress, Ford thought. I get it, believe me. Wow. The loss of Wu and this past mission is really affecting me. Am I an alcoholic? He was as torn as ever on this topic. Nah.
Sitting in the grass on the Potomac shore, Ford’s mind drifted. He was now thinking though the history of US stealth aircraft, along with Chen’s desire to have these types of stealth aircraft.
Ford was not serving in January 1991, but back then, ten F-117 Nighthawks were able to quietly penetrate Iraqi airspace at the start of Operation Desert Storm. No one saw them coming, especially the Iraqi radar controllers using old-school Soviet air-defense equipment. The Nighthawk, Devil Dragon, and now, it seemed, Black Scorpion were all designed to reflect radar returns away. Each of the aircraft were painted the same flat-black color, while their exhaust was discretely lost and diversified with cooler air. It was brilliant.
Each of the aircraft, for the most part, could be flown EMI free, too. If you shut down the electronic transmissions of the navigation data, radios, and even the radar and radar altimeters, it was like flying a World War I aircraft when radar didn’t exist. How many does Chen have? What’s he up to? Ford thought.
Ford looked across the water to the United Airlines 737–800 aircraft taking off to the south at Reagan National Airport, while a JetBlue Airbus A320 was getting ready to land, hugging the river. The commercial jets were loud, as the uninterrupted sound easily traversed across the one-mile distance to the airport’s east. Wait a minute… sound. Sonic booms and lasers. They can be detected and measured! Will have to make note of the idea for later… I need evidence to show Mark and the team. The white space was helping him think.