0630 - The alarm goes off in the squadron
commander's stateroom. His hand flails around in the darkness, trying to find
it, trying to silence it. It is absurdly early for a carrier pilot at sea to
wake up - he landed at 2330 last night, finished debriefing at 0100, wrote a
brief email home at 0125 and fell into a restless sleep at 0145. Being on flight
status, he is required by regulation to get eight hours of uninterrupted rest
whenever possible, and from the way he feels right now, he knows that he is well
short of that number.
He finds the
alarm and shuts it down, he drifts back towards the land of nod. Just when he is
at the point of no return, he remembers: He is charged with conning the carrier
alongside the oiler today for an at-sea refueling. He must be on the bridge by
0715, ready to take the conn. He must be awake when he does so: When the carrier
is alongside the oiler, separated by 150 feet of tensioned span wire and
refueling hose, 175,000 tons of grey-hulled steel will be a half lob wedge away
from each other, and he will be responsible for ensuring that they neither close
to putting distance, nor open to wedge range. The one would lead inevitably to a
collision at sea, while the other would result in snapping high tension wires
and maimed personnel on deck. Both would lead to professional oblivion, for
himself, and every other officer on the bridge. Including the Captain - a grave,
inscrutable, almost fearsome man.
Not
for the first time, the squadron commander wonders why it is necessary for a
career FA-18 pilot to conn a ship alongside. After all, there are black shoes,
surface warfare officers, who are paid to do that very thing. He is a brown shoe
- more than that, he is a strike fighter pilot, paid to put warheads on
foreheads, to bring the heat to the foe at five bills, to wield the hammer from
above, to swagger down main street. He's better than this.
Except that the company does not
agree - no, not at all. The company thinks that he is a by-God naval officer,
and naval officers ought to be able to conn ships. So that one day, if called
upon, they might responsibly command them. The company feels this very
strongly. So strongly that if he should fail to achieve this simple
qualification, he will be un-promotable - his career will be over. He is not
sure that he knows what he wants to do when his twenty is up. He might fly for
the airlines. He might teach high school. He might stay in and try to make
captain. He doesn't know. What he does know is that that he wants to have a
choice.
So he curses quietly but
vehemently, earnestly. Turns on the light. Sits up. Rubs his face. Looks again
with jaundiced eye at the alarm. Sighs, and moves towards an inner door - today,
for the first time this cruise, he'll beat the ship's operations officer, with
whom he shares a connecting bathroom, to the shower. He takes no pleasure in
this fact.
Clean, dressed in his
flight suit and fed in the wardroom (ham and cheese omelet, side of bacon, wheat
toast, grits and black coffee - what the hell, he muses: He never eats breakfast
anyway - might as well live a little - anyone who lands fighters on aircraft
carriers at night and worries about heart disease is an irrepressible optimist)
he heads up to the strange, almost hostile territory of the bridge. Being a mere
commander, he is required to wear headgear while on the bridge - it feels
strange to be covered inside the ship, at sea. No one on the bridge welcomes him
- he is not of their tribe, he is an aviator (and not even ship's company!). He
does not stand watch. He looks the bosun's mate of the watch in the eye, and
receives a neutral, "Good morning, sir." No hint of warmth, all respect a mere
formality. He understands - he has not yet earned
it.
The Captain is in his chair on
the port side, wrapped in the austere mantle of his absolute authority,
impossibly distant, almost imperial. The very light around him seems to hide,
he seems to be in the shadow of some dark, electric storm. Seeing him, the
squadron commander's lips move silently as he quickly runs down the memorized
checklist of commands he will use to set the ship up behind the oiler, to bring
her safely alongside, to check her forward motion, to stabilize her position.
Seeing him, the squadron commander, an expert in his chosen field, selected from
among his peers for excellence to command, feels the first moment of real doubt
he has felt in a number of years. Seeing him, the squadron commander hopes that
he is up to this unfamiliar task, in this strange and unforgiving environment,
in front of people who are not his
friends.
To regain some sense of the
familiar, he walks to the Navigator's chair on the starboard side, looks down to
the flight deck some 60 feet below. There he sees one of his squadron's aircraft
cocked and locked in the alert row, ready upon the drop of a hat to be launched
from the deck into the sky to defend the strike group against any and all
threats. Something doesn't look quite right, so he borrows a pair of binoculars
from the junior officer of the watch. With these in hand, he discovers that the
lieutenant sitting in the alert seven aircraft is sound asleep, mouth open,
apparently snoring.
The squadron
commander is pissed. More than that, he is frustrated - there is nothing he can
do in this environment to wake the pilot up which will not redound to his own
discredit. Lips pursed, he vows to have an old-fashioned ass-chewing contest
when he gets off the bridge at the end of his watch. Smiling pleasantly on the
outside, but burning on the inside, he turns to say good morning to the
Navigator.
Well below him, down in
the bowels of the ship in Combat, the operations specialist third class races
his trackball's cursor across the radar display to a glowing slice of target
video. He checks IFF modes, airspeed and altitude. Nodding slightly, he updates
the HAFU (hostile - assumed hostile - friendly - unknown) symbology covering
what appears to be the scheduled Tehran-to-Dubai shuttle, and looks once more
through sad eyes at his wristwatch: Two hours, forty minutes to go. He is so
very tired.
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." - John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Ceasar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friederich Nietzsche
