Dick Couch - Out of the Ashes

“They’re a little stressed, Admiral, that’s for sure,” his COS replied, “but it’s not because we’re deploying to the Middle East. They’re all ready to do their duty, but everyone counted on this final period in port to spend some quality time at home. They all had to scramble to get a bunch of last-minute things done before leaving their families behind for six months.”

The loud, persistent hum of the air conditioning allowed Flynn and his COS to have a private conversation in the corner of TFCC. Across the dimly lit space, the two officers and four sailors in the command center tracked ship and air traffic on their two seventy-two-inch large-screen displays and on multiple smaller workstations. Status boards displaying all manner of tactical and operational information competed for space on the steel matte-black bulkheads of TFCC. Transmissions from several radios periodically crackled from various speakers in the overhead.

“I know that, COS, but this crisis has reached its flashpoint. The president has always called on the Navy to be his first responders,” Flynn replied. “Remember what happened in the Mideast in 2011? All it took was for some damn street vendor in Tunisia, what was his name, Mohammed Bouazizi, that’s it, to set himself on fire in December 2010, for God’s sake, and that started a crisis that snowballed to a half dozen countries. And things haven’t calmed down there since.”

The COS nodded in agreement, knowing his admiral was right. Despite major diplomatic efforts by every American president stretching back to Jimmy Carter, the greater Middle East remained a strategic riddle and one that demanded constant attention. Now, in the aftermath of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and in the wake of the forces unleashed by the 2011 Arab Spring, Mideast tensions were high. In Ben Flynn’s professional experience, they were higher than at any time since Saddam invaded Kuwait and threatened Saudi Arabia in 1991.

Yet the immediate reason for the Truman strike group’s rushed deployment was Iran. The theocratic government, now widely thought to be armed with nuclear weapons, had ratcheted up its rhetoric toward Iraq. The United States had spent enormous blood and treasure to oust Saddam, quell a long-running insurgency, and prop up the fledging Iraqi state. Virtually all U.S. ground forces were out of the Middle East. Now it was up to U.S. Navy carrier and expeditionary strike groups to deter Iran from moving against Iraq or threatening their other neighbors. If the United States had learned anything during its long history of trying to ensure stability in the Middle East, it was how counterproductive it was to put boots on the ground. All that did was enrage potential jihadists. No, naval presence was the answer and that was precisely what Flynn and the Truman strike group were going to bring to the region— presence . As radicalized as the mullahs governing Iran were, they did understand the firepower a U.S. Navy carrier strike group could unleash.

Flynn turned to his operations officer. “Ops O, once we get that COD aboard, what’s next?”

“Admiral, Fleet Forces Command gave us thirty-six hours to get all our people and parts flown out to the strike group before we put the East Coast behind us. Then it’s a dash for the Mediterranean and through Suez. We’re actually ahead of the power curve and still have about sixteen hours to get everything done.”

“Then stay on it,” Flynn replied. “I want those supply pukes to get us everything, and I mean everything, we need for this deployment.”

“We’re on the phone with them continuously,” said his logistics officer, raising his voice to be heard as an F/A-18F Super Hornet came aboard. The screech of the jet smashing into Truman ’s flight deck and the near deafening, grinding sound of the arresting gear drowned out the man’s words. Reflexively, everyone in TFCC paused and looked up at the small camera monitor in the corner of the command center that showed the aircraft safely snared on Truman ’s flight deck. Not all of those in TFCC were aviators, but they all knew the landing of a high-performance aircraft on a carrier was a crash landing — a safe landing, but nonetheless a crash.

“We’ve been fortunate so far, Admiral,” the logistics officer continued. “If the weather holds, we’ll be able to run our COD flights continuously, and with any luck we’ll get all the gear we need.”

On board the COD at that moment, Laurie Phillips felt anything but lucky. “What was that?” she asked of no one in particular as lightning flashed on both sides of the aircraft. The bird continued its rapid decent through the clouds as it was tossed about in the severe turbulence. Laurie flinched as the lightning flashed again and the booming thunder made it sound like they were inside a kettledrum. She watched the man next to her cinch his harness tighter and she followed suit.

“Forty-five seconds till landing,” shouted the COD crewman as he waved his arms animatedly to ensure the eighteen passengers crammed into the COD’s tube knew they were about to impact Truman ’s flight deck. If they weren’t terrified enough already, the crewman’s crazed look and maniacal gesturing now put them over the edge of fear. As she screwed her five-foot eight-inch, 135-pound frame down into her seat and braced for the impact of the landing on Truman ’s flight deck, Laurie began to dread what she suspected would be an equally harrowing helicopter flight onward from Truman to Normandy .

The Normandy . Once she got to Normandy, she had no idea of what to expect. She had never even been on the ship; the Center for Naval Analyses typically didn’t have their analysts show up on their assigned Navy ships until a few days before a scheduled deployment. All she had to go on were sea stories from CNA colleagues who had had similar assignments in the past, and one e-mail from the ship’s operations officer. Normandy ’s ops officer had told her that she’d “enjoy her challenging assignment.”

Her mind snapped back to the COD as it continued dropping out of the sky. The challenge of staying alive in this rattletrap aircraft is more than enough, thank you .

“WHACK!” The COD smashed into Truman ’s flight deck at 120 miles per hour and Laurie prepared for what she had been told would come next, the aircraft jerking to a halt as the arresting wire snagged the bird — but they were still moving!

Up in the cockpit of the COD, the drama of the carrier-landing dance took a turn for the worse. “Bolter, bolter, bolter,” shouted the landing signal officer, or LSO, the pilot on the platform jutting out from the port side of the flight deck who was in charge of coaching the COD down to the ship’s deck. The LSO watched the Greyhound’s arresting hook hanging down under the aircraft skip over each of the four arresting wires, or “bolter,” and saw the plane continue hurtling down the carrier’s deck.

“Power, POWER,” shouted the COD’s pilot to his copilot. The copilot needed no further urging; she had already fire-walled the engines, jamming and holding them into position to generate the power needed to get the lumbering aircraft away from the water a hundred feet below them.

“POWER, keep it climbing!” yelled the air boss from his perch in Truman ’s tower high above the flight deck. The COD crossed the deck edge and begin settling toward the sea’s looming surface, now less than seventy-five feet away.

The COD wallowed as it slid further below the level of the flight deck, its engines howling in protest as they strained to arrest the descent. The pilots pointed the gawky plane straight ahead, trying to minimize their control movements as the Greyhound clawed its way back into the air and away from the menacing water below.