Chapter One: I Wanted Wings
1996, mention that year and people still shudder. With good reason, it was a year when the Human race faced total annihilation at the hands of an amoral alien invader. Their vast spaceships laid waste to mankind's greatest cities and murdered three billion innocent men, women and children. It's been nearly fifteen years and we still haven't fully recovered from that horrible week in July of 1996, it's doubtful we ever truly will. The old ways are over.
My name is Randy Douglass, I was only twenty three in '96, a young lieutenant flying F-16s out of Selfridge air base in Michigan. Some called me a hero after taking out the alien Destroyer poised to barbeque Milwaukee, Wisconsin but I was only doing my job. The greatest job in the entire world and one I prepared my entire life to do. There are many, many, many other brave men and women who took to the sky that July 4th who deserve to be called heroes much more than I do.
I was born on June 22, 1973 in Utica, Michigan. I was bit by the flying bug on my fifth birthday. My parents took me to Selfridge for an airshow. I can clearly remember watching with fascination at the supersonic jets pulling radical maneuvers that seemed to me like magic. How they flew with their wings inches apart, sending their sleek planes through loops and whirls and turns that blew my small mind. How did they do all of this without crashing?
After the show I stood gaping at one of those amazing machines. I took in it's sleek, graceful lines and powerful engines. The jet's pilot bent down next to me, a tall man with sunglasses. He smiled and asked if I'd like to see the cockpit. He scooped me and plunked me in the pilot's seat. I sat surrounded by a thousand buttons, switches, gauges and dials. I took the flightstick and throttle in my small hands and imagined flying through the heavens doing maneuvers like those magical fighter pilots.
"Kid, with that stick and throttle, you'll shoot straight to the moon," he said. I never forgot his words. The moment I climbed out of the cockpit I ran over to my Dad and announced I was going to be a fighter pilot. He laughed and ruffled my hair. He probably thought I was just overexcited but I meant every word. My mind was made up. I was going to be a fighter pilot and only a fighter pilot.
Fortunately, there was one family member who enthusiastically embraced my dream. Uncle Pete had been a fighter pilot in 'Nam, flying F-4s out of Da Nang. He happily spent hours with me, telling wild stories of dodging SAMs over Hanoi or dueling enemy MiGs over the Tonkin Gulf. His tales sent my imagination into afterburner. My desire to become a pilot only grew stronger.
By my thirteenth birthday I couldn't stand it any longer. I begged my parents for flying lessons but Mom said they were too expensive. I could tell she was using that as an excuse. I pushed and pushed and she finally told me flying was too dangerous and she wouldn't allow it. Period. I was crushed. But Uncle Pete came to my rescue. He and Dad and I presented a unified front and explained to Mom how safe flying really was and I chimed in that the chances of fighting a full scale war were pretty remote. Mom finally caved.
That summer I went to Uncle Pete's farm and did chores for him. My 'payment' was flying lessons. In the front seat of his old Stearmen biplane I got my first taste of the wild blue. And I loved it! Sure, the Stearmen was a beat-up, clunky beast of a plane but to me she was a beautiful warbird. By the end of summer Uncle Pete allowed me to go up solo and dust his crops. He even taught me a few simple combat maneuvers. I remember thinking it could not have been legal for a teenage boy to have this much fun.
Before I knew it, high school was over and I attended U of M on an Air Force ROTC scholarship. Four long, exhausting years later, yours truly wore the butter bars of a Second Lieutenant. My dream had come true: I was a fighter pilot. I entered the Michigan National Guard and was assigned to the 107th Fighter Squadron, the Red Devils, out of Selfridge. I had come full circle.
One weekend a month and two weeks a year, I became a twelve year old boy again, playing with the most expensive and coolest toy in the world, the F-16 Fighting Falcon. I'll never forget the first time I strapped on the jet and screamed into the sky. With the slightest twitch of my hand on the stick, my F-16 would go shrieking into the wildest maneuvers. More than once I pinched myself under my flightsuit just to make sure this was real.
Aside from my military duties, I lived the life of a young twenty-something. I had a day job, I went to parties and flirted with women. I had a kid brother named Sean who worshiped the ground I flew over. He was my shadow from the day he could walk, following me everywhere I went no matter how many times I yelled at him to stop. Sean was glued to my six and no amount of fancy jinking would shake him.
I eventually received a promotion to 1st Lieutenant and with my spiffy new silver bars came a free vacation to the Middle East. The Persian Gulf War was over but Saddam never seemed to get the message. Hence the UN enforced a No Fly Zone in the north of Iraq. It was my job to make sure Saddam behaved himself.
Mom was a nervous wreck when she found out. I tried to be all Han Solo about it but truth be told I was a bundle of nerves. Over there it wasn't training, it was war. The Iraqis really would be trying to kill me. But, I was also a highly trained, experienced fighter pilot flying the most advanced fighter aircraft every built. No clunky old Iraqi MiG would catch me.
Sean was jealous of course, that I got to go shoot down bad guys for real, just like we did during our video game sessions. His enthusiasm made me feel a lot better.
Patrolling the Zone was pretty boring. I stayed on my toes however. One lapse in judgment could get me or my wingmen killed. Iraqi MiGs would constantly fly right up to the border of the No Fly Zone and then turn and run home. Some of the more daring would lock missiles onto our AWACS birds, anything they could do to provoke an incident.
On the last day of my deployment, I finally found the action I had been craving. My flight was escorting an AWACS plane when my threat radar went crazy. Looking around, I spotted a gleam of sunlight on a pair of Iraqi MiG-21 Fishbeds screaming towards us from the southwest. My heart stopped. My hands were sweaty and cold. He's messing with you, don't give him what he wants.
Suddenly, the missile warning came on. Oh shit! A pair of Atoll missiles streaked directly towards me. They were actually shooting at me! I popped flares and broke hard to the right. The g-forces crushed me into my ejection seat. I can close my eyes right now and still see that huge missile rocketing past my canopy.
I chopped my throttle back, turned inside the MiG and released an AIM-9 Sidewinder heat seeking missile at him. The missile climbed right up his tailpipe and exploded. The MiG burst into flames and plummeted to the ground far below. Just like that, I was a genuine MiG killer.
Every now and again I found myself wondering what happened to the pilot I shot down. Did he eject from his MiG or did he burn with it? And if he did escape was he part of the massive multi-national dogfight against the alien Destroyer over Mecca on The Fourth? I will probably never know.