None Braver by Michael Hirsh

Author:Michael Hirsh [Hirsh, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: General, United States, History, Military, Other, Political Science, Terrorism, Technology & Engineering, Modern, 20th Century, Afghan War (2001-), Emergency Management
ISBN: 9780451212955
Google: ZrKvUyeg1tgC
Amazon: 0451212959
Barnesnoble: 0451212959
Publisher: NAL Trade
Published: 2004-09-07T00:00:00+00:00

Radio operator Rodney Young’s slit-open flight suit has been replaced with a hospital gown so small he risks arrest for indecent exposure when he steps outside the FST unit. Neither modesty, nor the fact that he could freeze his ass off, keeps him from grabbing this opportunity to enjoy his first cigarette since leaving Jbad. And there is only a moment’s hesitation when he discovers that the pack of Newports that had been in his fleece jacket have been marinated in jet fuel. This is combat, where you smoke ’em if you got ’em. No matter what they’ve been dipped in.

Loadmaster Chris Langston discovers that his smokes have also become a casualty of the crash. The pack he kept in his lower leg flight-suit pocket was bloodstained. He’d managed to nick his shin during the crash and it took three stitches to fix it properly. Chris is also getting used to being called “Ninja Boy,” the nickname someone laid on him after learning about his perfect midair somersault during the crash.

Several hours after arriving at Bagram, the Ditka 03 crew is put aboard a medical evac Herc for the ninety-minute flight to Karshi-Khanabad. To stave off frostbite to vital parts, Rodney had managed to borrow jeans and a sweatshirt from another airman. A special in-flight medical team attended loadmaster Jeff Pohl, the only crewmember in critical condition. Navigator Don Tyler, his recently set shoulder still giving him off-the-scale pain, is doped up for the trip. Flight engineer Jeff Doss is still strapped to a backboard.

At K-2, more X rays of Tyler’s shoulder are taken, and it’s determined that he and Pohl will be sent by giant C-5 Galaxy jet to the principal U.S. military medical facility in Europe, Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, five kilometers from Ramstein Air Base, near Frankfurt, Germany. Aside from the fact that his pain isn’t under control, all Tyler remembers of that six-hour trip is that he spent four hours of it trying to pee, which is a good trick when you’re on your back, strapped to a gurney. He’d been told that a catheter with his name on it was standing by in case he couldn’t. It was an effective motivator.

Meantime, the remaining six members of the crew are hospitalized for observation—and they get an overabundance of that, medical and otherwise, since they’ve taken on the mythic role of “the crew that crashed their plane into a mountain and walked away.”

The day after they arrive is Ash Wednesday. Even though only a couple of the men are Catholic, it somehow is decided that they’ll go to Mass en masse. So, wearing hospital gowns and slippers, they walk the quarter mile down muddy roads to the tent that serves as the chapel in the middle of the drab tent city that has been built over the past couple of months.

Back at the hospital, they have access to phones, computers, and food that is head and shoulders above the bulk tray rations being served at Jacobabad.

And they have a lot of time to sit together and contemplate what they’d been through.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.