Nerves of Steel by Captain Tammie Jo Shults

Author:Captain Tammie Jo Shults
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2019-08-21T16:00:00+00:00

Later, when I was getting checked out at the base medical clinic, as protocol dictated, the CO of VA-122 and his boss, the admiral in charge of all the A-7 and F/A-18 squadrons on the West Coast, stopped by. When I told them the story, the admiral smiled and said, “This isn’t the first time an A-7 has ended up in the mud. The only difference between your story and mine was that when I slid off the runway, I kept sliding all the way across the grass and ended up on a taxiway. I taxied back to the ramp, parked the jet, and acted like nothing happened.”

The CO, on the other hand, wasn’t smiling or telling stories. He was silent and seemed less than amused.

Everything checked out fine at medical, and I was back in the squadron the next day. Over the next two days, meetings were held. Questions were asked. “How did this happen? Why did this happen?” The investigation was standard for every incident of this type.

I was careful not to denigrate Black Socks, and I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. Circumstances in the air had been bad, and I couldn’t blame him for that. Something must have happened that required him to abandon me. But Black Socks had a different approach; he insisted that I couldn’t handle my aircraft even before I landed.

At one point he said, “Well, I knew she was a weak student when she was blown out of the holding pattern.”

I did a double take. He had been in the lead. He was the one who had been blown out of the holding pattern!

He ended his testimony with, “She called me when she ran off the runway.”

I longed to speak, but the CO was in charge of the hearing and never asked my side of the story.

Dean was away on a detachment the entire time. I called and told him my story, and he encouraged me. As a student, however, he had no more authority in the squadron than I did. There was nothing he could do.

After the inquiry on the second day, the maintenance officer—a lieutenant commander of equal rank to an Ops O—called me down to his office. He had been present at the hearing and said, “There were a number of times during the hearing that the look on your face made me think you had something to say. I’d like to hear it.”

“Sir, with all due respect, I really don’t know why Black Socks would throw me under the bus. I’m the one who ran off the runway,” I said. I told him I was partial panel and had given Black Socks the lead. He was the one who was getting blown out of the holding pattern.

“You were partial panel?” the maintenance officer asked. He told me he hadn’t heard anything about that, not even in the hearing. He advised me to go straight to maintenance control and make an entry in the aircraft logbook.

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