Friend Zoned

He was about to move on to something else when Heidi Bronson cried out "TRUCK BITCH? I'm a girl!"

"Oh shit," groaned Wedge and he could picture Heidi complaining to some limp dick lieutenant and there goes one or two of his stripes fluttering away.

Heidi merely grinned, "I'm a TRUCK BASTARD!"

"God love ya Heidi. Any other words of wisdom? See you tomorrow... Roopy, you're not going anywhere." Wedge led Roopy off to a corner to talk about his issues, it appears that he's either found the girl whose life is falling apart that he wants to help, or some hooker is taking him for everything he's got. Roopy is one of those kids that wants to help everyone, but he's young, inexperienced, and not real bright. They started talking about the girl and what Roopy can do to help her when the new Second Lieutenant Keith Kenosha said, "Sergeant, I'll take it from here,"

"Sir, this is..."

"You are dismissed, sergeant." Then the Lieutenant flexed his little supervisory muscle. "AIRMAN PINES, you are an example of..."

"Sir, please," begged Wedge. "Let me manage my men."

"You are DISMISSED Sergeant Donovan."

"Aye aye, sir," and Wedge turned on his heel and left. "Aye aye," was not meant respectfully in any form. Wedge meant it to say, "You should be in the Navy getting your anus reamed by a lonely sailor."

Wedge slammed the clipboard down on Sergeant John's desk and groaned, "That lieutenant of yours is going to fuck that kid up."

"Take a deep breath," said Senior Master Sergeant Johns. "Try to relax, he'll learn." Sammy Johns was a smiling, happy black man who claimed to have armed Wilbur Wright's first airplane. He was Dan Baker's replacement; Dan will be heading to his next assignment after the new year.

He glanced through the window and saw that Roxie was waiting for him. "See you in a few hours," said Wedge.

"Take it easy," said Johns as he rolled a piece of paper in his typewriter.

"Hold on Sergeant," said Lieutenant Kenosha as he blocked Wedge's exit.

"You dismissed me sir, I am exiting the building."

The lieutenant continued to block the door. "I take it that you dislike my management style, Sergeant. Tell me what is on your mind, sergeant." He made the honorable title of sergeant sound like it was a turd laying on his tongue and was trying not to puke when he said it.

"Since you asked, sir, Management Style? Sir, you usurped a noncommissioned officer in the commission of his duties and inserted yourself into a situation you know nothing about, sir, and then you proceeded to berate a confused young airman that by PACAF regulations shouldn't even be here, sir. What machine shop taught you that 'management style' lieutenant?"

The lieutenant glared at Wedge and started to shake. "I could relieve you of your duties, Sergeant Donovan."

In a soft voice Wedge said, "Sir, in my personal opinion I believe you couldn't relieve yourself after a dozen BX tacos."

"That's it!" shrieked Second Lieutenant Kenosha. "You are confined to your dormitory room until I speak with the Squadron Commander about this."

"Aye aye, sir." And Wedge brushed past the lieutenant and went looking for Roopy, but he was nowhere to be seen. He stepped outside and grabbed his bike and caught up with Roxie as she walked back to the dorm. "What time are you coming back in?" Wedge asked Roxie.

"I get to sleep in," she said sarcastically. They don't want me back until seven."

"I'll have your breakfast ready for you at six. How do you like your eggs?"

"Over easy, what's my choice of sides?" she grinned.

"Sausage and potato patties."

"Sounds interesting. Oh, I heard a rumor that you were fired."

"Yep, kicked to the curb," said Wedge. "There's no room in Lieutenant Kenosha's air force for an effective, hard-working NCO with a very foxy looking girlfriend."

"Oh? I'm now your girlfriend? How did that happen?"

"School yard rules, you hold hands with a girl, she's your girlfriend. What makes you think I was talking about you?"

"You said foxy, did you not?" Roxie's grin was infectious, and it lifted Wedge's spirits.

"Yes I did, so... are you my girlfriend?"

"School yard rules apply, so I must be... and that makes you my girlfriend too."

<><><><><>

Breakfast next morning was delicious, Wedge broke out his griddle and made eggs, sausage, and potato patties which were grilled leftover instant mashed potatoes. He made coffee with a French press, and they ate a wonderful breakfast at the small table in his room. "How long are you going to be in the doghouse?" she asked.

"Only till lieutenant dumbfuck talks to the commander. I'm thinking they'll come begging for me at nine."

"Eleven," said Roxy. "Betcha a fried chicken salad at the Rec Center."

"You're on," he grinned, and he set her off to work with a full tummy, a kiss on the cheek, and a pat on the butt.

At 10:00 AM there was a knock on the door. "First Sergeant," a voice called.

"You have a key, come on in." Sergeant Schaffer opened the door and Wedge looked up from the books and papers he had set out on his table. "Long time no see, what's up?"

"The lieutenant would like to speak with you."

"I'm a little busy now, I'm writing a paper on the Battle of Kleidion... fascinating stuff."

"Sergeant," said the nervous Lieutenant, "I am ordering you to return to work right now."

"Aye aye, sir." Wedge got up from the table and slowly took off his robe showing that he was wearing sweats underneath. He slowly hung up his robe in his locker and thoughtfully selected a t-shirt. "In my opinion, sir, this is a very unique way of apologizing... does this t-shirt make me look fat?"

"This is not an apology."

"So I'm still restricted to my dorm room?"

"Yes... why are you sitting down sergeant."

"I was given conflicting orders, both sound lawful enough but... why am I restricted to my dorm room again?"

"You know why!" snapped the confused Lieutenant.

"Because I hurt your feelings," said Wedge, sounding like a concerned parent. "It happens, you..."

"For your insubordination," said the lieutenant, as Wedge very slowly pulled on his BDU pants.

"You asked me for my opinion, and I gave it to you. That is following your directions, tell me how you see that as insubordinate."

"Sergeant, I..." Lieutenant Kenosha fumed and sputtered as he searched for legitimate reasoning behind his decision.

"Enough of this!" barked the squadron Commander, LTC Walker as he stepped into Wedge's room.

"ROOM, TEN HUT!" shouted Wedge as he snapped to attention.

"Kenosha, my office! Wedge, get your ass back to work."

"Yes sir!"

<><><><><>

Alarm Black - MOPP Level 4. Normally the men and women of Kunsan Air Base hate alarm black and MOPP level 4. You're stuck in a shelter wearing your chem gear, full outer covering and gas mask, it's toasty warm, which was nice in the winter but horrible in a hot, muggy Korean summer. When the alarm went off, Wedge saw Roxie's truck diving into an empty aircraft shelter, and he followed her in. They closed the blast doors, and it became pitch black in the shelter.

Roxie waved an orange glow stick at Wedge, and he grabbed his clipboard and radio and followed her. They ended up in the rear corner of the shelter and sat down. "You should have been there," said Wedge. "The first shirt led the lieutenant into my room and Colonel Walker was outside in the hallway." As he talked, someone shined a flashlight at them. The flashlight's beam didn't have a colored filter as required, so it was bright white.

"What are you doing sergeant?" It was Lieutenant Kenosha.

"I can't understand what you're saying," said Wedge. "It's all muffled." The lieutenant asked again, this time louder. Wedge again said, "I can't understand, can you understand him Sergeant Dawson?"

"Not a word," she said.

There was a loud boom, it sounded like somebody set off a simulator outside of the shelter. A bit of light at the front of the shelter showed that someone came in through the personnel access door.

At the same time the frustrated lieutenant was waving around his flashlight trying to talk to Wedge who kept saying "I'm sorry, that mask of yours makes everything sound garbled, can you wait for the all clear?" The angry lieutenant pulled off his gas mask and said, "I need to have a word with you, sergeant."

"Oh, why didn't you say that?"

"STAND UP WHEN YOU SPEAK TO ME SERGEANT DONOVAN!"

As he said that, an NCO stepped up to the lieutenant and hung a "Dumb Dead" badge on the lieutenant's collar. "Report to the rec center," said the evaluator, a Senior Master Sergeant who was not wearing chem gear, mask or helmet, and was not taking any crap. He was wearing just his BDUs and a hat that said EET (Exercise Evaluation Team).

"Sergeant, I am a lieutenant and I need to...

"You need to tell me your name, rank, and last four. Now." That was the last time the lieutenant was seen for a while.

The exercise went on for nearly a full week, the sound of sirens and explosions rang through the Korean countryside. A series of Patriot Missile batteries were set up on base and occasionally they would relocate in the dead of the night to a different point on base. During the exercise, Roxie and Wedge would work their asses off all day long, launching, recovering, repairing, reloading and relaunching airplanes. Occasionally the EET would set out fake craters to simulate bomb damage and they had to route the planes around the craters while the runway repair team repaired a fake runway somewhere else.

On day six of the exercise there was a full push. Normally during the exercise there's an attack and everyone goes to shelter and gets a nap for a few hours. The last day was solid flying, recovering, and more flying. Everything that could get off the ground flew. When they got back to their dorm they were too tired to eat. They set their MRE's on the table in Roxie's room and said, "That's it." Roxie came out of the bathroom in a t-shirt and skimpy shorts, Wedge had already showered and changed.

"I can't keep my eyes open," said Roxie and she climbed into bed.

Wedge tucked her in and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Nighty nite."

"Tell me a story," she said with a smile, then lifted the covers.

Wedge lay down next to her, and they snuggled together, their body warmth warmed them up for the first time that cold blustery day. "Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess and an evil bomb loader."

"Oh no!" she whispered.

"And one day that evil bomb loader said, 'Beautiful princess, I am going to eat you,' and the beautiful princess said 'Promises, promises.'"

"Promises, promises," Roxie said as she drifted off to sleep.

Unconsciously she snuggled against Wedge, and he fell asleep too. They woke with Roxie's head on Wedge's shoulder, she was feeling so warm and secure until her alarm clock woke them. She reached up and shut off the alarm and they lay together in the darkness trying to wake.

"Morning, darling," groaned Wedge. His arm was numb from her sleeping on it all night.

"Tell me you didn't do anything."

"I didn't do anything," said Wedge as he mentally kicked himself for not doing anything.

"Damn. Let's get going. I need a quick shower to wake up," she said as she climbed over him.

"I could help," he offered, "I could get the spots that you miss."

"You have a much more important job. Go get the coffee ready."

He stumbled back to his room through the bathroom, did his morning thing, then while Roxie showered he started breakfast. He put on coffee and opened a Breakfast MRE, a cheese omlet, chopped it up, added some chopped hamburger from yesterday's MRE, some American cheese and threw it in the microwave.

"This is damn close to edible!" said Roxie as she tasted his creation.

"I'm out of everything, orange juice, coke, bagel dogs, salsa, pop tarts..." groaned Wedge. He had a drawer full of MREs but they were a last resort, he needed to go to the commissary.

Roxie leaned across the table and gave him a quick kiss on the lips. "Thank you for breakfast honey, let's go to work." Wedge sat marveling at her reaction, it was totally unexpected. "Are you going to join us?" she demanded.

"I'm coming," he said as he stood.

"Promises, promises," she grinned as she disappeared into the bathroom.

The flying was heavy that day. They were dropping little 25 lbs practice bombs, and they dropped a lot of them, each plane was loaded with four bombs. During the first days of the exercise, they were bringing trailer loads of 500 pound and 2000 pound bombs to each aircraft. The load crew would load half of the bombs or missiles, then take them down, counting the download as the second half of the upload. That way it showed on paper the plane had its weapons loaded, but in reality it was clean and ready to fly.

This part of the exercise the squadrons are bombing for real. Each bomb was kicked off the bomb rack by a small explosive charge called an "impulse cart" and when it hit the ground it set off a smoke charge so the drop could be scored.

They flew all day long and since the 25-pound bombs were carried and loaded by hand, his guys all had aching arms from the carrying and loading. "It ain't fair, Wedge," Senior Airman Prescott said. Nathan Prescott was a fresh-faced young kid from the Colorado mountains who looked as innocent as a newborn.

"What ain't fair?" Wedge knew something was up. Roxie was sitting in the jump seat next to him trying to finish up her paperwork, the status board in Wedge's truck showed a history of the day's flying better than any other resource.

"Specialists, we have to help them when they need help, fueling planes and pumping starter handles, but when we need help they can't help us."

"That's because they don't have your training. They'd blow themselves up and you would have to spend the day mopping their guts off the airplane."

"Oh. When are you and Roxie getting married?"

"We were thinking of a nice little double ceremony," snarled Wedge. "Us in front of a preacher, and behind the preacher would be your casket with your mangled corpse inside."

"Stop making me laugh," said Roxie as she tried to copy numbers off the status board.

Suddenly the guys in the back of the truck yelled, "STOP! Open your doors!"

They threw the van doors open to the cold early December wind and the base loudspeakers were blaring, "THE WING COMMAND POST HAS DECLARED EXERCISE ALERT LEVEL GREEN, THE EXERCISE IS OVER!" Wedge slumped back in his driver's seat and took off his helmet and ran his fingers through his hair. It's over! Roxie mouthed the words, "We made it!" and he chuckled and clasped her hand, they didn't care who saw that.

The exterior lights came on all over the base, every single aircraft shelter's lights came on, and cops all over the base were launching illumination flares, bright white flares were drifting down under parachutes as Lee Greenwoods "God Bless The USA" blasted over the loudspeakers. The six weapons troops that were in the back of Wedge's truck hopped out and began to sing along with everyone else on base, waving their Korean windproof lighters like they were at a concert.

<><><><><>֎<><><><><>

"Are you ready yet?"

Roxie entered Wedge's room wearing a red dress trimmed with white fur and of course the mandatory Santa hat. Wedge's breath caught in his throat, she was beautiful, the white fir of the trim around her cleavage was striking against her mocha skin. "You like?"

"I... my god... you're beautiful."

"I know, right?" she laughed. She did a slow turn showing off the skirt that reached mid-thigh, the red nylons, red high heel boots and she flipped up her skirt to show the tops of her red stockings and red satin panties. She finished her turn and saw that Wedge was entranced. She put on her green shorty blazer to complete the outfit. "What do you think?"

"All I can think is... 'promises promises.'"

Remembering the joke Roxie's eyes lit up. "You wouldn't be lying?"

"You're gorgeous, and I'm such a schlub."

"We're a set!" she said. Wedge was wearing a dark green shirt, matching trousers, and a cherry red tie with a cherry red blazer. "Don't be calling yourself a schlub, you're mine. I won't put up with it." He held her coat open for her and grabbed his matching over coat. When the announcement for the squadron Christmas party was made, they went downtown to a Korean tailor and Momma Park whipped up their outfits in a couple of days.

"Let's go," and they stepped out and walked over to the Officers Club. There was about three inches of new snow on the base, and they walked the ten blocks to the O Club and when they got there they made a big hit... Correction, Roxie made a big hit. Being one of only ten women in the squadron she was incredibly popular. There were a few Korean girls there, a couple of guys were married to Korean girls, and they lived off base, on the economy. One of the guys who works with Roxie's specialists, Don something, he lived down the hall from them and he had a tiny Asian woman hanging off his arm but other than that, Roxie, Heidi and the other eight girls enjoyed their popularity.

Roxie had a crowd of men around her all evening, buying her drinks and peering down her dress. After a dinner of "Rubber Chicken" Wedge hung out with the senior sergeants in the squadron. As they talked, Roxie broke free from the crowd that hung around her and joined the folks around Wedge. Their commander, Lt Colonel Walker, was telling "Wedge Stories" to the new NCOIC of the weapons flight. Roxie hung on Wedge's arm with a huge smile on her face as Colonel Walker told the story of how the 80th Fighter Squadron nuked South Korea.

"It's not me, it's you, sir," said Wedge. "When you're not around life is normal. The dumb shit happens when you're there. If you weren't there when Captain Simmons landed the D model he wouldn't have freaked out Colonel Getz."

"What?" asked Wedge's new boss, Sergeant Sams.

"Oh god," laughed Josh. "That was classic!" He was there to watch the show too.

"Colonel Getz promised us a new roof on the MARS shack if we make contact with the space shuttle via HAM radio. Captain Simmons said he could do it if he had the orbital data of the space shuttle. So, I got the data and wrote it down on a piece of paper. That day Captain Simmons flew the flight surgeon in the D-model and got him to puke so everyone was there when he landed."

Roxie said, "we walked up to the plane as they're trying to get the surgeon out of the back seat and Wedge shouts, 'I got the data!' and he waves it around."

"Captain Simmons sees me holding the paper," Wedge continued, "and he jumped out of the cockpit without a ladder, takes the paper from my hand, reads it, then eats it and leaves."

Roxie laughed long and hard. "The wing commander was demanding to know what was on that piece of paper and I just said, 'It's a secret,' and I left and let the Wing Commander grill poor Wedge."

"And you just stood there and let it happen," said Wedge to Colonel Walker.

"Yup, I sure did."

"Isn't it cute how they finish each other's sentences?" said Dan Baker.

"Should I find a crowbar and pry these two apart?" asked Sammy Johns, indicating Wedge and Roxie who were holding on to each other.

"Don't you dare!" said Josh Gravely. "They have the Weapons Flight and Field Maintenance working together nice and smooth. It drives Occasional Maintenance crazy." Field Maintenance is an old term that used to describe Roxie's team, Occasional Maintenance refers to the aircraft crew chiefs.

"So when is the happy occasion going to be?" asked Colonel Getz as he came up behind Wedge and Roxie.