Chapter 5

"History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by soldiers, mostly knaves and by rulers, who are all fools."

- Ambrose Bierce

- 1842 - 1914

As the FNG, John expected his fair share of harassment and tall tales of the dangers of the desert, officer or not. It was a tradition handed down forever and he really didn't mind when he'd first been told about the camel spiders since he'd come from the land of the OMFG BUGS! He pretended to take the advice quite seriously. John didn't really believe there were spiders in the desert that big. What the hell would they eat? However, just as he was entering the barracks late at night one of the spiders chose that moment to exit said barracks. Luckily, his first impulse to clamp his hand over his mouth cancelled out his second impulse, which was to scream like a fucking girl. John decided that particular piece of legend about the size and speed of the spiders just might be real.

Once John saw one of the camel spiders for himself, he became irritatingly careful of the area where he slept, shaking out and inspecting the bedding. His boots were treated to the same thorough shaking as was any clothing which had been folded and stored out of the way. He listened to every horror story about the spiders to gain knowledge of where they were most likely to be found so he could avoid those spots. Finally, however, a worried Sergeant took John aside and told him the truth about the pests. In spite of their size and horrible appearance plus their speed when disturbed they were, in fact non-venomous. Just to be extra reassuring to the young Major, the older Sergeant cheerfully informed him that he had a much better chance of being stung by a scorpion than being bitten by a camel spider. After that, John had yet another creepy crawler to worry about.

Aside from the lack of good coffee, the abundance of fine, irritating sand, the camel spiders and the scorpions, he wasn't necessarily unhappy here. He was on the rotation to fly as often as he could be allowed and he could fly anything they put him in. Fly like it was second nature to him. Any kind of helicopter, it didn't matter. He had the magic touch. John didn't say much over his mic when he was on a mission. After the pre-flight and whatever else was necessary if he had soldiers to drop off, he retreated into silence. He was listening, but not to the meaningless chatter and posturing of the nervous men in the back and only peripherally to HQ. He listened to the chopper, to the feedback he got from whatever machine he was in. It was almost as though he was plugged into it somehow. He knew automatically when something wasn't right, when an instrument wasn't reading true, when the rotors were spinning just a hair slower than they should be. He listened and he paid attention. That was his advantage over other pilots who were just as skilled and had more air time than he did. He trusted his helicopters and the information they gave him.

John never talked about the connection to the choppers except to his maintenance crew. They were the only ones who understood and respected him for the information he passed on. If he'd told anyone else about it he figured it would earn him a few trips to the psychiatrist and weeks of downtime. The ground crew in charge of keeping the helicopters airborne knew he was almost always right when they checked on whatever problem John had mentioned. As far as John was concerned, these crews had the most important jobs on the base. So he just kept his mouth shut in front of anyone else. He was really good at that, too. Plus, at his embarrassed request, before every one of his flights his choppers were inspected and cleared of every conceivable place that a camel spider or scorpion would even consider hiding.

He certainly wouldn't discuss anything actually important with the guys in his unit. They did all the things that soldiers everywhere did to stave off the boredom until the shit hit the fan and there was no more boredom. They played cards, usually with the decks that pictured the Taliban's most wanted. Now that they had acquired some hand-held video games they passed them around when they could get batteries. Someone even scrounged up the occasional laptop they could use for a while. The laptop was good for Freecell or Spider Solitaire. Minesweeper was just a little too real. Sometimes they watched DVDs they'd seen a hundred times. A few of the men who had gone home sent some Classic Football DVDs which was enough to lift everyone's spirits for a solid week. Sports magazines were, strangely enough, in much higher demand than porn. They drank all the water the medics pushed on them, aware of the dangers of dehydration. A couple of the guys would have sneaked alcohol, but alcohol in this country was impossible to get. It wouldn't have helped anyway. It never did. As well as pushing water, the docs pushed pills. All you had to say was that you couldn't sleep or that you did sleep but the nightmares woke you up and you'd leave the Med Tent with a few blister packs of Ambien and Xanax if you didn't have a mission the next day. The Docs didn't even bother with adding the meds dispensation to the charts, the group of pilots was so small they'd know if anyone was overdoing it. No point in documenting information that would follow a pilot around in his med records unless it turned out to be serious.

TBC