Force of Eagles Read Free Page A

It’s like he’s considering each move. Nothing’s natural, nothing flows. For a moment there I thought he might hyperventilate he was breathing so hard. I get the feeling I’m in the cockpit with a second lieutenant on his first ACM ride. You wouldn’t believe he’s downed a MiG and has over a thousand hours in the bird.”
    “He was my first flight commander,” Rutherford said. “He was a good stick…he was a lieutenant when he caught the tail end of Vietnam. In fact, he flew combat with the Triple Nickel out of Udorn in Thailand. Flew F-4s then. The squadron was the MiG killer in those days and got over forty MiGs.”
    “He’s changed, sir.”
    Rutherford reached into his memory, tapping his experience, education and training to figure out what ailed Stansell. His ability to solve problems was one of the things that had earned him the command of the Triple Nickel. That, plus the fact that he could fly the Eagle like a demon and the men trusted him. “Right now he’s too deliberate, cautious, but it shouldn’t be a big problem to overcome. Probably tied in to that business in the Persian Gulf when the base at Ras Assanya was overrun, his C.O. caught it and he just got out thanks to a couple of sergeants. Yeah, I think the key is in what happened to him at Ras Assanya, must’ve been pretty traumatic for him…keep working with him, schedule me in the same flight when he flies tomorrow.”
    “Thanks, appreciate the help,” Donaldson said as he stood up. He knew from past experience that Rutherford would take an active role with Stansell’s training and start taking the heat if the colonel couldn’t hack the program. It was one of the things he liked about the L.C.
    Rutherford tapped his desk with a pencil after the captain had left, considering what to do. The Air Force system identified men who had been through the crucible of combat and when they performed as well as Stansell had, they were given the inside track for command. But if the colonel could not put the traumatic effect of his last experience behind him and do the job demanded, he would be put out to pasture in some meaningless slot, passed over for promotion and retired at his present rank. Rutherford did not like what he had to do if Stansell couldn’t cut it.
    The debrief of the flight went as Stansell expected, and Donaldson came right to the point. “Colonel, let’s talk about what went wrong now and not in front of the rest of the flight. You started the engagement with your radar at forty miles range, not eighty. Then you were going to take your final lock-on too soon, giving your opposition plenty of time to react. When I told you to break you started a Split-S toward the ground, but I didn’t think you’d continue it until your tail was pointed at the threat. You should’ve reversed back into the fight when your nose was about ninety degrees to the threat. When you did come back, you over-G’d the bird. You missed the voice warning, sir. Not good.”
    The instructor pilot was using two foot sticks with F-15 models on the end to demonstrate how Stansell should have maneuvered. Then he moved to the white board on the wall of the small briefing room and used four different colors of magic markers to diagram how he would’ve engaged the two F-15s. Finally he ran the video tape that had recorded the flight through the Head Up Display.
    Stansell sat quietly, making notes, accepting what the captain had to say, and only nodded his head when Donaldson had finished. Get it together, he raged at himself. What’s wrong? This course should be a piece of cake.
    The other three members of the flight came into the squadron for their debrief. Snake was loudly telling anyone who would listen how he had “knocked their dicks in the dirt.” Again, the colonel sat quietly through the debrief, thinking how much Snake was like himself when he was younger.
    When the debrief was over he escaped from the squadron and headed for the condominium he was