Fly Away - a fighter pilot story

Chapter 21 - Heroes

Six months ago, we were called to be at a specific point at a specific time. All four of us were there. Liam, James, Andrew and me. We were there even though we shouldn't have been. Not only was our team dispended due to change in command, but also partly reassigned to other squadrons.

While Liam and I were still part of 1st Fighter Wing, 27th Fighter Squadron and on deployment in Kuwait at that time, James was stationed in Afghanistan and Andrew... Oh boy, that guy had flown from Korea to be there. It should have been Liam's and my last day of our tour, and we should have been packing our things. He would have taken his new position as commanding officer of the F-22 Raptor Demo Team and the plan for me was to stay in the squadron until I would have received new orders.

They called us DaD. A code name that was given to us as we have flown so many missions together, bombed the shit out of the IS, the Taliban and whoever else was out there. Wherever we flew a high classified mission, we left death and decay behind, hence the code name. We didn't give a shit, if we were coming back as long as we killed as many of them as possible before they killed us. But we weren't reckless. We were calculated, stealthy and mostly one or two steps ahead of our enemies.

None of us had to lose anything anymore. Either there was no family left to go back to or we weren't on speaking terms with them.

Liam grew up in the foster system, because his parents were junkies. They overdosed shortly before we deployed. It took a toll on him, because he believed that his parents could change. He always had so much faith into humanity. He was even willing to help them to overcome their addiction. He was in so many ways stronger than I will ever be.

James has one of the saddest stories, I have ever heard. He watched his dad kill his mother before his eyes when he was seventeen and then his dad committed suicide in front of him. From that moment on he was alone. He joined to Air Force, and they were his new home and family. They gave him a purpose and a target to but his anger out on.

Andrew... Well Andrew was a very special case...9/11 was one of the most tragic days in our history and unleashed a war with even more deaths. His parents got killed that day. He was the one prone to getting killed at some point. It was only a matter of time. He wanted revenge. He was running of the feeling of anger. But that tank was almost empty. He was already at a point, at which he would have flown with his multimillion-dollar plane into a building, just like the hijackers did so many years ago.

He even had tattoos on the inside of his point fingers. The left one said, God's. The right one said, hand. The first time I saw it, I asked him what it meant. His answer was plain and simple.

"These bastards think that they can come here and bring war and terror to our doors. Nah, I am God's hand and with my left one, I will fly toward them and with my right one I will bomb the shit out of them."

That was pretty intense, but I understood his anger and frustration, even though I didn't lose anyone during that attack.

Everyone who knew about us, knew about him and he got mental evaluations pretty regularly. But they still trusted him with one of the most expensive fighter jets in the world for that night again after not being allowed in it for almost a year.

As for me, I got chosen, because my mother died in a car crash while I was at the Academy. I wasn't and I still am not on speaking terms with my father since I graduated from high school. As soon as I turned eighteen, I got my last name changed from Jefferson to Wilson, my mother's maiden name. I didn't want to have to do anything with that man anymore. He wasn't a father to me. I consider him as a sperm donor. Not more, not less. He didn't even care to show up to my mother's funeral.

During my first mental evaluation they found out that I was resistant to the thought of killing an enemy. I always told myself that in the moment someone attacked me or one of my brothers or sisters in arms that that person became my enemy, and I didn't give a fuck if it was a man, a woman or a child. I would kill them in the blink of an eye.