We're a Wonderful Wife Ch. 07

Lanh nodded, "We've been waiting so long."

~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~

"REGGIE!" shrieked Karole Krigbaum. It was five o'clock in the morning and she and her roommate don't have classes today they're on Christmas break, but she needs her sleep, Norma has to get up early to catch her flight home for Christmas vacay.

Her cry woke Norma who turned and kneeled over her panicked roommate. It has been over a month since the last time she dreamed of Reggie. Previously she just mutters and murmurs his name, but this is different, this is a gut twisting nightmare. "Karole, wake up, it's just a dream," she said as she tried to rouse Karole. But Karole put her hands on her flat tummy, her head rocking from side to side, her eyes open wide in terror.

"I'm losing Reggie! I'M LOSING REGGIE!"

"Karole, please, it's just a dream baby." She tried shaking Karole's shoulders which seemed to help. She got up and wet a washcloth with bottled water and returned to the bed and wiped Karole's sweat soaked face.

"It hurts... it hurts..." she groaned then sank back into a fitful slumber.

"What the fuck," whispered Norma as she got in bed and held Karole tight.

~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~

Both the doorbell and her cell phone woke Lanh, it was still dark out! She thought it might be time to milk the cows, but she wasn't in her cozy apartment in Minnesota. She pulled on Don's huge Turkish robe, the one that still smells like him, and shuffled to the front door. A bleary glance at her phone showed three calls in a row and several unread messages, she shouldn't have had that wine when she got home. Opening the door, she saw it was Colonel Gilliam again, and the first sergeant Dave Olson, and the chaplain Father Carl, their faces were gray as ash and set hard. "No," she gasped.

"Lanh, can we come in?" asked Dave softly.

"NO!" she screamed, her plaintive cry echoed across the houses and startled early risers as they prepared to head in to work. She sagged to her knees weeping "No... no... no..."

Their neighbor in their duplex apartment saw who was at the doorstep heading in for a day of early flying saw the men at Lanh's door and ducked into the house and called to his wife, "Darcy, there's a colonel and a first sergeant next door," his wife was almost back in bed when he added "They have the chaplain with."

Darcy's eyes flew wide open. That only means one thing. "Shit!" Darcy threw on her robe and slippers "Oh god damn it, Shit!" she raced across the lawn to her neighbor's front door and barged past the first sergeant and crouched down with Lanh who was chanting "Không phải Donovan của tôi" (Not my Donovan) as she wept.

"Lanh, it's Darcy, I'm here for you," but Lanh was unresponsive.

Another woman also wearing a robe appeared, "Honey, it's me, Lydia Olson, we're here for you." The first sergeant's wife looked at Darcy, "Let's get her inside, it's freezing out here." She looked up at her husband who gently knelt down and scooped the shuddering tiny Asian woman into his arms and lifted her up out of the light snow. She weighed almost nothing. He carried her into the house and sat her on the couch where Darcy and Lydia could sit on either side of her. Colonel Gilliam knelt in front of Lanh who was a thousand miles away emotionally.

"We just got a call, we don't have a lot of details, but there's been an accident. Your husband is alive, but he's been injured and is going to be airlifted to Wiesbaden hospital in Germany." The colonel suddenly looked incredibly old. "If you want, we can delay our flight and reroute in into Germany and drop you off so you can be with Don, would you like that?"

Lanh wordlessly nodded; her hands knotted into a ball on her lap.

"We had several people injured," the exhausted looking Colonel said, "I have more calls to make, but I will fly with you to Germany."

But Lanh wasn't registering what the Colonel was saying, her angel was in the room now. Tall and beautiful and definitely a woman her angel had long platinum hair that became purple at the tips "Come on honey, let's pack, we're going to go see Don," said the angel. Lanh has been seeing this angel on and off for years, but this was the first time she ever saw the angel clearly.

"Go see Don," repeated Lanh.

"That right," said Darcy as Lanh got up off the couch and moved toward the bedroom, almost sleep walking.

"Get your bag," whispered the angel, but Lanh froze.

"He's dead," she gasped in terror.

"No!" the angel crouched and looked in Lanh's eyes, the angel has pale green eyes, "He's alive, he's hurt, but he told me to tell you he's ok, and he loves you." That cheered the shattered little Asian a bit and she reached in her closet and pulled out her duffel bag, the one she took to Korea. For her part Darcy saw Lanh start to panic, then suck it up and start packing.

"That girl is made of iron," Darcy said to herself, "she got up and she's doing it right."

"Ok," said the Angel, "we have underwear, shirts, skirts, slacks, what else?"

"I don't know," Lanh muttered, her brain was numb, she couldn't think.

"Let's get a nightgown, something Don will like, but not too sexy, don't want to get his doctors all hot and bothered." Lanh finished packing clothes and the angel guided her on packing her purse, "Get your passport, that's right, wallet, make sure your ID card is in in there, get your address book, good. Now change, you're in your pajamas still." She dressed in white stockings, a knee length dark plaid skirt of green, blue, and black, the Clan Campbell tartan, a white blouse with a notched collar, and a black cardigan sweater. With her reading glasses and her hair pulled back in a severe ponytail she looked like a sad Asian schoolgirl.

A black woman with blond hair in long cornrows was in the living room with Darcy, the Enlisted Woman's Club had sprung into action. Word went out and everyone knows what to do, luckily there's no children or pets, so the closest member raced over to Lanh's house, she is Laquisha Washington her husband, a tech sergeant, is heading out on this next deployment, she dropped him off at the air terminal over an hour ago. "Oh honey," wept Laquisha and smothered Lanh in a huge, motherly hug. "He's alive! If there's life there's hope, so he's going to be fine!"

"Listen to her," said the angel, "she's right."

"You go to Germany and be with your man," continued Laquisha holding Lanh out at arm's length. "He needs you now, more than he needs those Army doctors. And when he's all better, you whup that boy's ass for giving us all such a scare, ok?"

Lanh sniffed and nodded, then said, "I got something for you." Her angel had reminded her what's in the freezer. She walked into the kitchen and returned with an armload of lefsa, folded, wrapped, and frozen. She gave some to Laquisha and Darcy and put some in her purse.

"What is this?" asked Darcy.

"Oh girl! You made me lefsa? Oh, you are so sweet! I ain't never gonna talk trash about you behind your back again for a whole week!"

Darcy looked shocked that Laquisha would say something like that to Lanh, but Lanh just shrugged and said, "She's just trying to cheer me up."

"Ats right," said Laquisha, "Ain't no way to talk smack about my girl Lanh no matter how hard you try. When I grow up, I wanna be just like her." While Laquisha expounded on Lanh's lefsa, or as Laquisha called them "tater tortillas" Lanh wandered back into the main bedroom and reached into Don's top dresser drawer where all sorts of interesting things slept and extracted a switch blade knife. The blade is razor sharp, sharp enough to shave a frog's ass, as Don would say.

"Awww honey, you won't need that," whispered her angel, "he's going to be ok."

"I can't take that chance," sniffed a shattered Lanh as she slipped it in her purse. In case the angel is wrong, and Don doesn't make it, that knife is for Lanh's wrists so she can join him right away.

~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~

Swan 207, a charter DC-10 taking air force personnel from Holloman and Canon air force bases to King Abdul Aziz air base in Saudi Arabia and Incirlik air base in Turkey, sat at the end of runway 27 for over an hour. There was nothing they could do, when the "wing king" says "wait" you wait. Folks groaned and complained, but that's what enlisted people do. In fact, enlisted people believe it's their right to "bitch and moan." Finally, the plane's engines spooled up and the plane began to move, but only to taxi back to the ramp in front of the control tower and the building known as Base Ops where it shut down all three engines.

A large fuel truck pulled up to the plane and hooked up. The entire compliment of airmen groaned; the truck meant another delay. After what seemed like forever the truck disconnected and another truck pulling aircraft entry stairs pulled up to the plane and three people got on. Now the groaning started for real, they were held up for a bunch of misfit no-shows.

Colonel Gilliam, Lieutenant Colonel Dawson, and Lanh took seats in the forward center section of the aircraft where the traveling pilots were all sitting. Lanh's angel took a seat in front of her and occasionally turned around and peeked over the top of the seat back at her. "Call Ralph," her angel whispered, "before you take off and put your phone away."

Lanh nodded sadly and took her phone out and hit her number two speed dial. The phone rang twice and now Lanh heard her mother-in-law "Hello?"

"It's Lanh." That's all she could get out.

"Good morning, Doctor Lanh," said Sandy cheerfully.

"Momma," sniffed Lanh trying to choke back the tears. "I need to talk to papa. It's important and I don't have time."

"He's right here sweetheart, Ralph?"

Sandy handed the phone to Ralph, "It's Lanh dear, and she doesn't sound well, something is going on."

"Hello? Are you ok Lanh?"

"It's Don poppa, he's been hurt. I don't know how bad it is. They're flying me to Germany right now to see him."

The cold pit of ice that fear builds in your stomach suddenly burst to life in Ralph's gut. The first time he felt this terror the marine barracks in Lebanon was bombed killing 241 of his brothers. He still carries a wound from that day, but the fear is there and he prayed that he would never feel it again. But he felt it when he was told his Emily had cancer and he felt it every day of that horrible year that it took his Emily to die, and now his boy! His only child dying in another country, Ralph never felt so helpless in his life. But he's got to buck up for his beautiful daughter in law, she's counting on him. "I'm sure he's ok," said Ralph unconvincingly, he had to get off the phone before he puked, but this was Lanh, "You give him our love and tell him to get home soon, ok darling?"

"I will, thank you poppa."

"Lanh... baby girl... I love you."

"I love you too poppa."

With a shaking hand Ralph slowly hung up the phone, but he ended up dropping it on the floor... he's never felt so old and so useless in his life. He's a marine! He should be better than this, stronger, he should shake this off with a laugh and get back to work. When he turned around and looked at his wife, she knew it was bad, whatever it was.

Just then Kim-ly strolled into the dining room full of vim and vigor, flexing her arms like a body builder putting on a "gun show." She just came in from the barn where she hauled down a couple of bales of hay for this evening's milking. "All done! I moved two hundred and fifty tons of hay in five minutes!" She flexed her arms like Hulk Hogan and tried to imitate Randy "Macho Man" Savage. "Oh yeah! Them cows is gonna eat good tonight!" Then she noticed Ralph's face, he was ashen, he looked like he aged fifty years in the past five minutes. "What's wrong poppa?" she said in a small voice.

"It's Don, he's been hurt," he said in a shaky voice. "Hurt bad, Lanh is flying to Germany now to be with him."

"Oh shi..." The room went dark, and her eyes rolled back in her head, Kim-ly never finished her expletive as she fainted, her secret love for Don still a secret.

~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~

As the big three engine passenger/cargo jet taxied out to the end of runway, the flight engineer came back and leaned over the seat back and said to Colonel Gilliam, "Sir, we may have to delay eighteen hours, with the temperature rising and our fuel load we may not have enough runway..."

Colonel Gilliam dismissed the flight officer with a wave of his hand. "Use the overruns, both ends if you have to." And that was that.

The warmer the temperature gets the less dense the air becomes, and an airplane's wings are not able to generate as much lift. Cannon AFB has a very short runway, 4,295 feet and has traditionally supported fighters and C/AC/MC-130 aircraft which do not need a long runway, but a DC-10 needs a lot of concrete ahead of it to take off, even in December it can be too warm for a loaded DC-10 to take off, especially with a belly full of fuel.

The flight officer returned to the cockpit with Col. Gilliam following. The pilot was reviewing his revised flight plan. "What the fuck is this crap, Ramstein? Who authorized this mess?"

"I did," said Colonel Gilliam and very softly he explained that he was transporting Lanh to Ramstein Air Base to be with her husband who was gravely injured. "Any questions?"

"Not a one," said the pilot, a retired USAF B-52 driver. He turned to his co-pilot, a recently retired Navy P-8 Poseidon flier. "Let's get that lady to Germany."

"Aye, aye skipper," and soon the big plane pulled onto the runway and turned to face into the west, ready to take off. The engines revved, their pitch growing higher, the scream getting louder, the engines started to roar and the plane started to roll... backwards.

The pilot had engaged the reverse thrusters and began backing the plane onto the soft overrun as far back as he dared while the Control Tower counted the distance to the edge of the runway.

"Ten feet... five feet... two feet... that'll do." There the giant plane stopped, its tail hanging out over the desert and inches from striking the approach lights.

Again the engines began to roar, the passengers, all flight savvy technicians and air crews looked at each other in excitement. They knew they were on the overrun, this was unbelievable! The engines began to rev up until the plane was shaking roughly, the roar of the engines was tremendous and occasionally a shout of excitement could be heard from the passengers, then with a jerk the plane lurched forward and began its takeoff roll.

Every bump and expansion joint on the ancient runway could be felt and heard as the DC-10 rumbled along going faster and faster, gaining speed and momentum. The pilots and Electronic Warfare Officers that sat around Lanh knew this runway intimately, so they knew every bump and thump of their progress, and each one of them knew in their soul that they weren't carrying enough speed to get airborne. But 4,350 feet later the big old bird clawed its way into the air and struggled upward finally holding a steady altitude of 300 feet. There, with the landing gear retracted and a little bit of downward angle it gained speed. Engines continuing to shriek, the big jet began a wide sweeping turn toward the north, howling as it now began to show her speed and muscled her way into the sky. It proudly gained altitude moving faster and faster it began to lift her nose and leave New Mexico in her wake.

When finally at long last, the seatbelt light went off Lanh's angel popped her head over the seat and said, "You have to go potty."

"Ok," Lanh said aloud and unbuckled, her seatbelt.

"Pardon?" asked Colonel Gilliam thinking she was talking to him.

"I have to use the bathroom," she said and stood up. The colonel let her out and she walked forward to the toilet. In there she simply reveled in her privacy, completely alone for five minutes, then she was surprised to find out she really did have to go. She's been so sick with worry over Don she began to ignore her bodily clues. She washed her hands, splashed some water on her face, and walked out to bump into Jenny Dolan.

Jenny is a bouncy, cheerful southern belle, a supply specialist senior airman, she is married to a Staff Sergeant in the squadron orderly room. Jenny indirectly works with Don, he's constantly running to her supply section picking up the bits and pieces they need to work on the aircraft, and she's also a member of the Enlisted Wives Club, and she was shocked to see Lanh step out of the bathroom. "Miss Lanh? You can't be on this airplane! Somebody might see you!" She honestly thought that Lanh was a stowaway.

"Oh Jenny," Lanh cried and wrapped her arms around the startled airman.

At the same time, Lieutenant Colonel Dawson got on the intercom. "Men and women of the four twenty nineth, this is Colonel Dawson. Several hours ago, some men and women were seriously injured in a jet blast incident at King Abdul Aziz airbase. Most were enlisted maintenance folks; others were contractors. Many of the details are still coming in, there's a lot we don't know, but what we do know is that the aircraft was not from our unit, but three of the injured are from the 429th Electronic Combat Squadron."

He paused for angered murmuring, but the airplane went silent, three of their own were down. Jet blast incidents, also known to the ground troops as "getting rolled" and "Rag Doll" are generally single item or single person incidents almost always caused by a maintenance person's inattention to the effects of jet exhaust, a piece of equipment left in the wrong place, a person standing in the wrong area. The fact that there were multiple people from multiple organizations told the stunned airmen that this was bad, people don't just line up behind an airplane, this had to be the fault of an inattentive pilot. At King Abdul Aziz there were units from numerous USAF squadrons flying out of there, as were British, French, German, and Saudi Arabian units. There were occasionally "Black" planes which were not actually black, but they carried no markings which distinctly smelled like CIA.

Now Lanh started crying on Jenny's shoulder as Lieutenant Colonel Dawson continued. "What we do know is that the incident was not due to the actions or inactions of any of the injured personnel and that the injured are now being medevacked to Wiesbaden Medical Center in Ramstein Germany."

Now the men and women of the 429th knew their first suspicions were right, some airplane driver fucked up bad.

"Aww, honey," gasped Jenny, "it was Don, wasn't it?" All Lanh could do was nod as she tried to choke back her tears. "Come on, we'll sit down right here," then Jenny glared at a lieutenant that was sitting where she wanted Lanh to sit. "Outta the way, dumbass." The lieutenant scrambled to get out of the way, if you want a plane to fly, you don't mess with supply. Jenny and Lanh took two seats next to a window and another captain, call sign Zoomer had watched where Lanh's carryon was placed. He opened the overhead bin and pulled out a hand stitched quilt that Lanh had carried onboard with her. It was a quilt that Don's mother made for him before she succumbed to cancer. She brought it to comfort Don, and if needed, to be buried with him.

As Jenny covered herself and Lanh with the quilt, Lieutenant Colonel Dawson continued. "We will not be stopping at Shannon Ireland our traditional fueling stop. Before takeoff we took on extra fuel so we could fly to Ramstein, I will be getting off there as will the family of the injured. Our wing commander, Colonel Gilliam is with us and will be flying to Saudi Arabia to lead the investigation." Lieutenant Colonel Dawson handed the microphone to Colonel Gilliam.

As the colonel was about to speak someone from that back of the plane shouted, "Who was it?" another shouted, "Who got hurt?" then someone who saw Lanh board the plane shouted, "It was Sergeant Campbell, wasn't it?"