A Krissmas Karole

"Let's go," called Past Karole, startling Karole out of her romantic revere watching Don and Lanh cuddle in the morning light. "Come on, the worst is yet to come."

"Wait, what do you mean?" asked Karole, but Past Karole wouldn't say and continued the tour. Several assignments followed for Don, the hardest on them was Korea, he was on an isolated remote assignment, which means he couldn't bring Lanh with, so she simply flew over halfway through his tour and moved into his dorm room to spend Christmas with him... without telling him. Being a Non-Commissioned Officer allowed him a private room with a cleaning service. He failed to mention the cleaning service to Lanh, so when Don was on the flight line, Lanh arrived unannounced, identified herself to his next-door neighbor who was able to get Lanh into Don's room.

Don had a Korean mink blanket on his bed, an artificial fur that feels like mink pelt. After taking a shower Lanh lay back on the bed naked and writhed in boneless joy feeling the faux mink caressing her skin. She fell asleep on the bed but woke when she heard someone open the door. That's when the cleaning lady, known to the American service men and women as an "Ajumma" (Korean for "Middle aged lady") walked in and began shrieking at Lanh in Korean believing Lanh to be a Korean prostitute.

When Don got back to his room after a long shift, he saw Lanh's travel bag on the floor and her clothes were put in an empty locker, but he found that she wasn't in the room. Don knew that she would pull a prank like this. "Lanh?" he called. He looked in all the lockers, under the bed and in the larger cabinets because in a playful mood that beautiful little woman he married could hide almost anywhere. He stuck his head out in the hallway and called out again, "Lanh?" He got no answer, but he did hear the rattle of the privacy deadbolt on the shared latrine door slide open, then with a knock the door opened and his suite mate, Technical Sergeant Alice Griffin, a tall, slim, black woman poked her head through the door. "Knock, knock! She's over here!" He followed Alice through the shared bathroom, into her room to find Lanh and Ajumma sitting on Alice's floor engaged in an animated discussion.

Seeing Don enter the room Lanh jumped up and threw her arms around her husband as she cried "Honeeeey! I missed you!" and covered his face with rapid-fire kisses.

"Oh, you guys are so cute!" laughed Alice, "How long have you been married?"

"Eight years," smiled Lanh giving Don one more peck on the lips, then she dropped to the floor and returned to her machine-gun rapid conversation with Ajumma. In her turn Ajumma stood and bowed to Don several times.

"What are they saying?" laughed Alice as Lanh and Ajumma sat back down on the floor and resumed their conversation.

"Ajumma is telling Lanh all about living in Korea and is trying to convince her to stay. And they're both happy to find someone who can speak Vietnamese," sighed Don. "Hey, can Lanh borrow your bicycle for a couple of days while she's visiting?"

Alice's eyebrows shot up. "Hell no! You can borrow my bicycle, but only if you leave the seat and handlebars set where they are. You can set your own damn bike to munchkin standards for Miss Thing."

"Fair enough. Wanna head over to the club and join us for dinner?"

Alice looked at her watch, "no, I'm on second shift today, I have roll call at seventeen hundred. You need to collect your Asian harem and clear out."

"Roger that," sighed Don, then said to Ajumma and Lanh "Thôi nào, đi thôi" which is "Come on, let's go" in Vietnamese. Lanh and Ajumma rose and without a break in the conversation followed Don back into his room.

Karen held up a spectral hand, "Hold up! Don speaks Vietnamese now?"

Past Karen sighed and dropped her shoulders causing her spectral breasts to shudder. "Aren't you paying attention? They've been married over 8 years now, they were exclusive for over two years before that, OF COURSE Don can speak Vietnamese. He's not good at it, he speaks like a three-year-old, but Lanh's parents Mai and Duong don't know that which makes conversations at family dinners more interesting."

"What's up with the bicycles?" Karole asked as they followed Don, Lanh, and Ajumma down to the first floor and out to a bicycle parking garage that was filled with identical black mountain bikes. The only difference between the bikes was the different arrangements of yellow, blue, or green reflective tape on each bike.

"It's very hard to get a driver's license in Korea and cars are expensive. The GIs are only here for a year, so they go to the BX and buy a bike to get around on base," said Past Karole as they watched. "The BX only sells black mountain bikes of the same design, so the folks put reflective tape on in different patterns so they can find their bikes at night."

Past Karole led Karole over to the NCO club where TSgt Donald Campbell ate with his beautiful wife Lanh Campbell and his new friend Xuan Pham, AKA Ajumma. The club was festooned with Christmas decorations and the waitresses dressed like merry elves, but none were cute as Lan was nine years ago, thought Karole. As they dined on Mongolian BBQ, Don's first sergeant walked up to say something, and Past Karole pulled them away.

"Lanh fell in love with Korea," said Past Karole said, "later when they went out into the countryside and up to Osan she fell madly in love with the area. Here is when she began to study Korean."

"But I want to see..."

Past Karole ignored Karole's complaints. "Lanh and Don were able to get a follow-on accompanied tour to Osan Air Base then on to Minot AFB. However, the real world gets in the way and the nation's needs come first. Two years at Osan Air Base then back stateside with an Electronic Combat Squadron, after that they were hoping for England or back to Asia."

The views shifted and Karole found herself standing in the scalding heat of an alien landscape. Don is sitting on a bench outside of a building wearing a desert camouflage uniform, wringing his hat in his hands. His deployment commander asked for him to come to the commander's office, but he's been kept waiting in the Saudi Arabian heat. It was still morning, the sun was low in the sky, but the air temperature was nearing 100⁰ Karole looked around and she couldn't find Past Karole anywhere, the material girl had abandoned her.

The door opened and the First Sergeant stuck his head out the door. "Sergeant Campbell, the commander will see you now."

Don rose and followed the first sergeant through the empty air-conditioned waiting room, down a hallway to a door with a sign that read "Maj. Dale Hershey, Commander, 4404^th Provisional Air Wing, Det. 37." As they drew up to the door, First Sergeant Vanada advised "You need to report."

Report? This was serious. Don searched his memory for something that could have caused Major Hershey to order him to report, there was a lost tool last evening, but it was found... Karole saw the worry on Don's face as he drew himself to attention and knocked once firmly on the office door. After the longest 15 seconds in the history of seconds, the commander said "Enter."

The First Sergeant opened the door and Don walked up to the commander's desk, stood at attention, and snapped a salute, "Sir, Sergeant Campbell reports!" he said then he held his salute waiting for the commander to return his salute. Major Hershey didn't even look up, he was looking through a portfolio, which Don could tell was his personal records. A good survival tactic was to learn to read upside down, and Don got very good at it. He scanned every document on the commander's desk as the boss went through Don's personal records.

Major Hershey, normally a very warm guy with his ground troops, was cold as ice. This was Major Hershey's first assignment in a command position, and it appears that he's being careful to do everything right. He made Don hold that salute forever, plus a few more seconds, until he returned Don's salute, allowing Don to lower his. Making someone hold a salute that long traditionally means that the reporting person is in serious trouble. The major went back to looking through the records leaving Don to sweat in a very cold office at attention. Finally, he said "Stand at ease sergeant."

When standing at your commander's desk, the command "Stand at ease" does not mean "Stand at Ease" it really means "Parade Rest" which is actually "Attention," just shaped differently. Don stood sharply with his feet shoulder width apart, his hands clasped behind him at the small of his back.

The major finally wrote something on a yellow memo pad, then took that sheet from the pad and folded it in half. "First Sergeant, does Airman Cross have that phone call ready?"

"Yes sir, he does."

"Fine, send the call to my desk." A moment later Major Hershey's phone rang, and he picked it up. "Ma'am, this is Major Dale Hershey, commander of Det 37 of the 4404^th provisional wing here at King Aziz-Abdul Airbase, please standby for Sergeant Campbell." He held the phone out to Don. "At ease sergeant, take this. It's your wife."

"What the... Hello? Honey?"

"Don! What wrong? They drag me to wing commander office to talk you. It midnight! Are you ok?"

She must really be agitated; her accent came on with a vengeance which scared Don. Lanh became a speech pathologist to understand why she does that. He tried to calm her, but he was agitated as well, "I don't know honey I..."

Major Hershey held out that memo to Don. "Read this sergeant, you'll understand."

Don opened the folded paper, the handwritten note simply said, "You have a line number for Master." Don held back his first reaction, instead he said, "Oh you sons of... you got me."

"Baby what!" cried Lanh.

"I made master sergeant baby; we're getting promoted."

Lanh whooped and said, "Oh I'm so happy for you! And let Highway know that this was the best trick yet!"

Don was shocked at that statement, all pilots have a callsign, in the USAF they are strictly nicknames and never used on the radio like in the movies. Major Hershey's official callsign is "Bear" after the Hershey PA hockey team the Hershey Bears, unofficially and on deployments like this his call sign reverts to Highway, as in Hershey Highway. Also, commanders and ranking sergeants love to play pranks on the junior ranks to announce their promotion. As a military wife with a decade of experience, Lanh has seen plenty of tricks played on Don and his co-workers. "You were in on this too?"

"Oh yes, we had a long talk this afternoon." Lanh finally dropped the excited accent, "they visited me today and told me what they would do, I'm on the autovon phone in Colonel Gillian's office, he has news for you too, but not as good as mine. Here's Daniel..."

"Daniel?" thought Don in shock, she's on a first name basis with the Wing Commander? What the...

Suddenly an authoritarian voice came on the line, "Sergeant Campbell, this is Colonel Gillian."

Don unconsciously came to attention, "Yes sir."

"I've been in the Air Force over twenty years and in my entire career I've never, ever had the opportunity to say the following words, so here goes. I received notice from the base education office that the University of New Mexico at Portales has approved your doctoral thesis. Congratulations Doctor Campbell, you are a PhD. Major Hershey will hand you a copy of the notice I received."

Don was stunned, he handed in that thesis over six months ago, he expected it to be thrown out and possibly burned because it espoused a need to overemphasize the "three R's" in education as a way to overcome social and economic disparity. Damn! He is now a Doctor of Education! Lanh has finished her schooling with a Doctorate in Speech Pathology, there's no way that they will be denied the opportunity to adopt now! "Thank you, sir, this is exciting news." That was all that could come out, he was so excited he could barely speak.

"No, thank YOU Doctor Campbell, I want to see you in my office in seventy-two hours. Let's talk bootstrap. Here's the other Doctor Campbell."

Bootstrap? Don's head almost exploded - bootstrap was a program to elevate enlisted men into the officer ranks.

"Honey, we only have a few minutes, but I got the call yesterday from the adoption agency, everything has been approved! On Christmas eve the agency will come to our house to sign the final papers and Sue Lynn will be our baby!"

Don practically howled with joy and Karole broke down in tears, she's watched Lanh and Don struggle with their desire to have a baby and now it is finally going to happen. Her sobs of happiness were so loud she was sure that she could be heard. After protracted goodbyes Don handed the phone back to Major Hershey who held the receiver with two fingers and said, "It'll be ok after it dries out." Then to everyone in the office "Ok, last day of flying! Maintenance roll call in ten minutes, balls deep in 72 hours, let's get going!"

At the maintenance roll call, all of the aircraft maintainers stood in the shade of the camouflage netting mere yards from where their aircraft were parked. Being the last day of flying for this rotation many of the pilots and electronic warfare officers were in attendance also. Major Hershey stepped forward and read off the long list of accomplishments of the past 90 days. He then turned the roll call over to Senior Master Sergeant Durkee who thanked his troops, handed out ceremonial coins authenticating this combat rotation of the USAF "Fat Tails." He ended his speech with the word "Shirt!"

SMSgt Durkee stepped aside and Master Sergeant Vanada, the deployment first sergeant, stepped forward and thanked the troops for keeping their quarters in good condition, and their outstanding conduct on and off duty. "OK! Line numbers came out this morning, when I call your names, step up and get your stripes." He called out Senior Airman Wendy Addams, the engine troop. Tall and slim with raven hair, she bowed to the applause and squealed when Major Hershey handed her a set of Staff Sergeant stripes. "Sergeant Cynthia Daniels!" Buck Sergeant Daniels, small and curvaceous woman with a huge smile stepped forward and received her set of Staff Sergeant stripes.

"Finally," said MSgt Vanada, "Technical Sergeant Campbell, step up here." Reluctantly Don stepped forward and received his first set of Master Sergeant stripes. However, since the way the USAF promoted, it would be almost a year before he could put them on and say officially, he was a Master Sergeant. Until that time, he was expected to fulfill the duties of a Master Sergeant as training for his advance in rank. He started to return to the formation, but the first sergeant said, "Hold on sarge, I ain't done yet."

"Oh crap," thought Don as MSgt Vanada droned on. "I want to hold up Master Sergeant selectee Campbell as an example to you all, not ONLY was he able to study to achieve the prestigious rank of Master Sergeant, not ONLY was he able to lead you as maintenance expediter to heights of excellence heretofore unrivaled in the gloried history of this squadron, but he also did this all WITHOUT becoming a pompous ass like me," he paused for raucous laughter.

"IN ADDITION, Master Sergeant selectee Campbell was able to find time to earn the title of Doctor of Education of which he just found out today..." he paused for wild applause, "but he was ALSO able to apply himself in other fields of endeavor, and in that end, he has earned the position of FIRST MAN OFF THE AIRPLANE!"

The men and women surged forward to congratulate Don with cheers, handshakes, slaps on the back, and hugs. Even the officers took part in the congratulations. In the melee Karole discovered that the first men off the airplane are the guys whose wives were pregnant or gave birth while they were deployed. She passed through the crowd and whispered in Don's ear "I'm so happy for you and Lanh, I love you both so much."

Don looked in her direction a little confused but continued to thank his men and women until Senior Master Sergeant Durkee restored order. Once the troops were back in line, he handed the clip board to Don who thanked the troops then began giving out their assignments for the last day of flying. Most of the work was clean-up getting the squadron area ready for their replacements. He ended up by saying "Anyone who was handed a stripe today has EOR!"

EOR stands for End of Runway, probably the most important, and most fun job that Don ever had. Being a Master Sergeant, he's going to end up in an administrative position, so this may be his last chance to touch an airplane. At each end of the runway is a small parking ramp where launching aircraft stop for a final safety check and to get their weapons armed. Landing aircraft were inspected for damage and had any returning weapons set to safe. It was loud, smelly, hot and exciting. Don loves the chance to give aircrews heading off to war a sharp salute, and to be the first to welcome them home when they land after their mission. For their part, the aircrews loved seeing Wendy Addams and Cynthia Daniels in t-shirts scurrying over their planes.

Once the first two aircraft were inspected and their defensive countermeasures were armed, Wendy and Cynthia lined up alongside Don on the left side of the lead aircraft, gave a sharp salute, and as required, the aircraft pulled forward 300 yards before turning right toward the runway. This move prevented the maintenance crews from being hit by the exhaust blast of the jet engines.

At the edge of the EOR ramp there was a pavilion to shade the EOR troops, and today there were quite a few, several units were flying over Bagdad today, including some interesting looking F-15's. They looked like they had conformal fuel tanks installed and the weapons pylons looked small and stubby. Don, Wendy, and Cynthia chatted with the troops and the factory reps from McDonnell Douglas, who were in charge of EOR for the Saudi Air Force, now today they were working on these four oddly unmarked F-15's. They had no marking to show their allegiance with any air force or country, they just had a number painted in medium gray on the light gray tails. As usual the "Micky D" reps were trying to convince Don to come work for them. They guaranteed $80,000 a year tax free, but Don had other plans, he wanted to go home, hold his wife, welcome their new baby, then spend a few years somewhere else, back in Seoul Korea at Osan Air Base, or Okinawa, or England, or even back to Germany.

Don's handheld radio squawked to life, but he couldn't make out what was being said over the shrieking and roaring of the unmarked F-15's that were preparing to launch. He shouted to Wendy and Cynthia to get their gear ready, the last sorties were on their way, then walked over to his dispatch truck. As he went inside the truck, he told EOR troops from other units to get off the ramp and get in the shade of the shelter. Then he climbed inside the big boxy delivery van with the door closed and he was able to hear the radio.

Meanwhile, out on the EOR ramp, the lead mystery F-15 had some minor problems and his three element members taxied forward and turned to the right and taxied over to the end of runway to wait for him. The pilot of the lead aircraft was angry at the SNAFU, when the McDonnell Douglas mechanics had him fixed and he was able to taxi, he decided to get on to the runway first. There's a taxiway directly to his right that would put him ahead of his flight on the runway. He turned right immediately to the shortcut and opened his throttles wide. Turning right aimed the exhaust of the most powerful jet engines ever installed in an American fighter aircraft directly at a dozen maintenance personnel who were standing in the shade pavilion.

The jet blast knocked over everyone in the EOR pavilion and rolled the McDonnell Douglas technicians for a hundred feet. The blast incinerated the lead McDonnell Douglas engineer and sent his corpse flying toward the shade pavilion. The jet blast hit Don's truck and launched it off the shoulder of the ramp and over a fifteen-foot embankment with sharp boulders at the bottom. Don had the feeling of weightlessness and he saw pencils, pens, tools float around him and he remembered thinking "They need to clean out the trucks before we leave." The truck slammed down on those rocks, and Don was seriously injured. He was leaning against the driver's side door when the truck hit those rocks on the driver's side. Another truck blown off the side of the ramp landed on his truck squashing his truck down on him more. He was still conscious when the 150 lbs. fire extinguisher that was launched by the same jet blast slammed into the wreckage of his truck and exploded.