AMERICA ONE (6 page)

His mother, Meredith, ran the base commissary and worked long hours. His only sister, Beth, three years older than he, was at the stage of noticing teenaged boys and disliked her brother’s attitude enough not to worry if his usually dirty and freckled face didn’t appear in her small vision of life for days on end.

The Jones family was the usual military family, always busy, often separated, and really enjoyed laughter, jokes, and life during their infrequent get-togethers, especially at a friend’s or base party.

So, Jonesy went about getting hours in the air another way. Many aircraft took off daily from Andrews—fighters, bombers, cargo aircraft and fuel tankers. There wasn’t enough room for a boy his size to slip aboard a fighter, nor were the bombers much use. Who wanted to sit on top of tons of bombs for a free ride? Not many, but if that was the only choice available he sometimes considered it.

One of the earliest times he was caught Jonesy was thirteen; he was at Ramstein Air Force base in Germany sneaking out of a just-landed transport, and into a second one about to head back stateside to Dyess Air Force base in Texas. His father, based at Dyess at the time, was phoned about his son appearing suddenly at Ramstein. Within thirty-six hours, Jonesy was back at home at Andrews, via Italy and Dyess, where strong discipline was administered courtesy of his father and his leather Air Force belt.

Another time, two months later, he was found scrounging for food outside the rear kitchen entrance to the Officers’ Mess at Misawa Air Force base in Japan. His father, still at Dyess, pleaded with the Air Force military police to return his boy to Andrews. This time it took him two weeks to return, the happy boy flying in the cockpit of several aircraft from Misawa to Andrews, via Korea, Turkey, Germany and the Azores.

He was banned from approaching any aircraft, or even the runway areas and, because of him, several additional cameras were mounted around the inner base of Andrews Air Force Base.

With the added surveillance on him, he was now grounded for a year before his father was relocated to Ramstein in Germany, and his family followed him there. By now Jonesy was an expert in free military travel and within twenty-one days of moving into base accommodations, the recently-erected security cameras at Andrews recorded him enjoying his newly achieved freedom. His father was again warned and all he could say to an angry base commander, was that all his fourteen-year old son wanted, was to fly.

Jonesy was caught three times in his fifteenth year, and six times in his sixteenth year. On his seventeenth birthday he was discovered again monitoring the controls of a Boeing Stratotanker over the Pacific. The flight was enroute to Hawaii from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina. He was dressed as the co-pilot of the long flight’s second flight crew. He even had even arranged to wear the sleeping pilot’s jacket.

The first flight-crew’s pilot-in-command was rather shocked upon returning for his second shift, and noticing this rather young looking captain monitoring the cockpit while the pilot-in-command was fast asleep and snoring loudly next to him. The co-pilot was also found fast asleep in the small quarters behind the flight deck; nobody had awakened him.

Jonesy had already forgotten how many times he had been caught actually flying aircraft. Again he was in real trouble, flying a USAF jet without a license, even a motor vehicle license, and for the umpteenth time his father, a newly-promoted colonel, was brought before a panel of senior officers.

For two days they grilled the poor man, who hadn’t actually done anything wrong, about controlling his son. After pleading with the panel, Jonesy was to be automatically accepted into the next year’s group of Air Force recruits, if he stayed away from all U.S. military aircraft.

Achieving what he had set out to do, Jonesy agreed, entered the United States Air Force at eighteen, and easily achieved active-pilot status pretty rapidly, helped by the extra hours of actual flying he had achieved before his eighteenth birthday. In his home-made flight logbook he already had logged over 80 hours of being in control of several different very large jet aircraft, including their most modern, a C-5A Galaxy for three hours over the Atlantic!

A decade later in 1989, he became one of the youngest Air Force test pilots and his father, now retired, was extremely proud of his son. He also became an official test pilot at the lowest rank a pilot had ever been promoted into the elite group.

Twice in his career he verbally fought with superior officers and spent time in a cell, with orders to think about showing respect to senior officers.

One talent the Air Force couldn’t overlook was his flying ability. He was not only a natural at flying any type of aircraft, he somehow bonded with the aircraft around him and when he flew, the plane and pilot became one, so much so, that he often could foretell a problem to the mechanics and technicians before the actual problem reared its ugly head. Several colleagues stated under oath at the couple of court-martials for swearing at his superiors, that they believed he had saved several very expensive aircraft and crew by warning the mechanics and technician about a problem long before they ever found it. Most often, Jonesy was right.

Jonesy lived in a different world when he flew, bonding with the aircraft and the flight crew; but on the ground, he rarely listened to orders, or often was still in flying mode when he walked past the odd general or president, often forgetting to salute.

In 2005, he reached the pinnacle of his flight career as he had managed to stay out of trouble for several years; he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel and second-in-command of all Air Force test flights, often accepting only the most dangerous flight work.

Unfortunately in 2007, a new commander of his unit arrived, a man who had rarely flown any aircraft and who was promoted to the position through political maneuvering, and who did not like any insubordinate ass of a test pilot.

Fourteen months later, in 2009, Jonesy was released from confinement for attacking his commander, General Joseph Bishop, in his office for some argument about fuel discrepancies, was found guilty of assaulting a superior officer, demoted, spent a year in Air Force prison, demoted again to captain, and then dishonorably discharged.

****

At about the same time, Ryan Richmond received payment for the sale of most of his stock in his internet investments, and Victor Isaac Noble was in Baghdad.

Victor Isaac Noble dreamed weird dreams which felt like they went on and on for a very long time. Again, and again his mind was brought back to reality by the continuous beeping of monitors. He was starting to get used to them, and his drugged brain realized that if he could hear these monitors that meant that he was still alive.

After one long dream of seeing men who no longer lived, the beeping returned. This time there was only one monitor beeping, not the usual three. The light outside his closed eyes did not seem so bright, and he carefully opened them. Everything looked blurry around him; dark colors seemed to move here and there. One was a cream color and as his eyes became accustomed to the light and he was able to focus on the moving shape, a nurse in a white uniform appeared staring at him.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, Lieutenant Noble,” the vision stated to him as he watched her red lips move. “It has been a week now and the captain stated that it was time to let you come around. She will be in, in a minute to check up on you.”

“Everybody is a she around here?” he managed to move his dry mouth and mumble.

“It seems so,” she replied. “Far too many for my single-woman liking, Lieutenant.” A second white coat approached out of the corner of his eye and had a shiny silver thing around her neck.

“I see you are back with us Lieutenant Noble, welcome back,” stated the second white coat and his eyes managed to focus on her face.

“I assume you are the doctor?” he asked weakly.

“Yes, and the bearer of good and bad news, Lieutenant. Which do you want first?”

“I’m sure there is more bad news than good news, so tell me the good news first.”

“Actually I believe it’s the other way around. Your spine was whipped around pretty badly, but luckily you didn’t suffer anything more than a few well exercised and maybe bruised vertebra. Your brain was also pretty beaten up with the odd chip out of your skull, but again nothing I couldn’t fix. You have the full use of both of your arms, though one was broken in two places. Colonel Guy, our senior surgeon, did a good job on plating your left humerus and left radius together; you should have the full use of your arm after a few months of therapy and the plates are removed in about six months’ time. I recommend you don’t go through too many metal detectors at the airports for a while, once you get back stateside.” She paused to think about the next item.

“I assume you have got to the bad news, Captain?” he asked, his eyes now fully focused on the doctor’s rank on her epaulettes.

“Unfortunately, yes, Lieutenant. The colonel couldn’t save your legs. He did his best and had you in surgery for over six hours. Your lower legs were very badly hit by the brunt of the explosion, and the shrapnel in the vehicle was your worst enemy. Lieutenant, both your legs have been amputated just above the knee. The steel seat you were sitting on, I believe helped save your upper legs. The prisoner who was sitting between you and the blast was a total mess. His whole body looked like your lower legs, and his sitting in the right place saved your life. Your vehicle was hit by more than 100 pounds of explosive and you were the only one to survive the blast. I’m sure the loss of your legs will be a mammoth shock, but that you are alive is a miracle in itself. Never forget that, Lieutenant Noble!”

She paused to allow what she had just told him to sink in. She had done this pretty often, and every man she had told reacted in a different way. The lieutenant’s reaction was the most common.

“Can I still have children, Captain?”

“Yes, and a healthy sex life, Lieutenant. And I have noticed that Nurse Seymour here seems interested in the latter item. Nurse?” The doctor turned towards the reddening face of the younger, pretty nurse and smiled. Nothing missed the doctor’s scrutiny on her rounds!

“What about new legs?” the still weak man in the bed replied.

“Once you get back stateside in a day or two, I’m sure they will fix you up with a modern pair of legs, Lieutenant. These days they can work wonders in the prosthesis department. I’m sure they will have you chasing nurses pretty soon. Nurse Seymour, the man needs to get a little more shuteye. Tomorrow we can start work to get him stateside.” And with that she smiled and left.

A week later, VIN Noble, now in a U.S. military hospital in North Carolina, was visited by the major in charge of the hospital’s prostheses department.

“The surgeon did a good job with your legs. I will be able to fit both your legs with off-the-shelf prosthetic limbs and we should have you up and walking in a month or two,” he explained. “I’ve been told that you will be discharged from the Marine Corps once you can walk again. Of course, you will be receiving your third Purple Heart and full discharge package for your eleven years of service. You can return here for therapy as long as needed, and as soon as we can, we will transfer you to civilian therapy if it is needed.” With that he was gone.

VIN was a pretty tough soldier, but he had actually never thought that he would end up limbless. A few bullet holes here and there, yes, but no legs! Once he realized that he had lost his legs, he automatically assumed that he would have an opportunity to at least get a desk job back at base. He had never thought about having to leave the Corps. He was too young!

With his new legs fitted onto his stumps, the therapy crew got him walking again, but it took a couple of months longer than expected.

Six months later VIN received his next two medals, one for the last attack in Balad Ruz, the final battle of his military career, his second Silver Star, and his third Purple Heart.

He also received his discharge papers and was informed of what was due to him for eleven years of service and his two lost legs. Not enough to live on for the rest of his life, not very much at all. He had done his best to stay, begging them to find a desk job for him, but with so many amputees already filling the jobs, there wasn’t one for him, and he suddenly found himself in a foreign world, the world of civilian life.

Victor Isaac Noble had no family. He was the only child of young parents who had been killed in a car crash when he was a senior in high school, just south of Fayetteville, North Carolina. He wasn’t a southerner either, but had grown up in Santa Fe, New Mexico as a kid. His father had been an insurance salesman, his mother a paralegal and the family had moved to just south of Fort Bragg as his father had been posted by his company to this growing piece of real estate. VIN’s father had worked well selling life and health insurance to ex-military personnel and families, and Fort Bragg was tipped to be one of the fastest growing bases in the next decade.

VIN Noble was returning home from school one day, a month before his last year at high school was to end, and a good-looking blonde girl, a police officer, waited at the bus stop for him to get off the yellow school bus.

She explained the horrific car crash on I-95 which involved seven cars and a tractor-trailer, and killed six people. His parents were returning from a business meeting on the South Carolina border. She broke the news to him the best way she could.

The officer allowed him to take in the news, sitting next to her in the patrol car, and waited for the usual reactions.
“This kid took it better than most,”
she thought to herself. “Are you eighteen, Victor?” she asked.

“Will be in five days,” he answered in a far-away voice.

“Then I think I can leave you at your house, but I’ll get someone to check up on you for a few days, until you are eighteen,” she replied. “At eighteen, you are not really of any concern to social services. Will you be OK? I can stay and make you a glass of iced-tea, or a juice or something.”