FIVE

When I showed up to my squadron building in New York in April 2007, I was dressed for the first time in a desert tan flight suit, feeling strange not wearing my normal olive green. We threw our bags onto the six-by-six square baggage pallet waiting to be cargo netted and forklifted into the C-130. All I had with me for the next several months was a duffel I would carry with me through Kyrgyzstan and into Afghanistan.

I was excited to be deploying with my unit, but I was also a little apprehensive about going into combat with people I barely knew. But by the time I threw my bag on the baggage pallet, I was feeling ready. I had just finished cramming ninety days’ worth of local orientation training into about forty-five and rolled right into our deployment spin-up training, which took place on and around our base on Long Island.

The spin-up training had consisted of a refresh of some skills that we would use in Afghanistan but didn’t have much use for in the United States. For example, we practiced what we called “brownout landings.” When a landing is made on unimproved surfaces covered with dust and sand, a cloud develops around the aircraft that will blind the crew just as they near the landing pad. It’s incredibly dangerous; practicing this critical skill was one way we could prepare ourselves for the conditions we were about to face in Afghanistan. I enjoyed the training and got high marks, but in the rushed run-up to deployment, I didn’t have a lot of time to bond with my sisters- and brothers-in-arms before heading off to war.

The first part of our journey to Afghanistan would be a bus from the base to a commercial airport. We would then take a short flight from New York to Baltimore, then hop a plane to Frankfurt, Germany, before ending up in Manas, Kyrgyzstan.

When we shifted from the comfort of commercial aircraft to the loud, cold jostling of the cargo bay of a C-130, the mood seemed to change. We were all a bit lost in our own heads, and there wasn’t much talking going on. I chitchatted with my new squadron a little bit, but for the most part, everyone on board spent the hours hiding behind headphones, sleeping, watching movies on iPads, or writing letters to loved ones. Seasoned deployment veterans bore glassy eyes and seemed like they were already tired, but I could barely contain my excitement. Trying not to display my rookie status by showing everyone how giddy I was to finally be deploying, I channeled my thoughts into scribbling in my journal.

Our time in Manas was typical of most who have experienced the Kyrgyzstan base. It’s a waypoint you have to go through on your trip into the Afghan theater. We were there for a few days, sleeping in a big bay on bunk beds, choking down the food, and trying to relax and pretend we weren’t about to go to war. It was disarming to see the über-tough PJs singing karaoke, but in a way it humanized them. These guys were some of the best of the best, the toughest of the tough, but beyond that, I would soon find out that they were, for the most part, incredible guys as well.

PJs are a unique group of people. I like to think of them as a mix between ***** *****, SEALs, Rangers, Coast Guard Rescue Swimmers, and Combat Medics. They’re the Air Force special operators, and they train to be able to kick ass in any environment (sea, desert, mountains), overpower an enemy who is trying to capture an isolated person (such as a pilot shot down over enemy lines), provide medical assistance to that person, and help get their ass out of the hornet’s nest. PJs parachute out of planes, fast-rope out of helicopters, and do hundreds of other amazing things on a daily basis.

For our medevac mission in Kandahar, we would be flying with regular flight medics, not PJs. But our PJs were going to be assigned next door to us and would be flying with the squadron pulling CSAR alert. We would see them all the time, but we wouldn’t be flying with them. The higher-ups would soon decide that it was too dangerous and decree that we should be flying with a team of PJs instead of flight medics, but for this deployment we would have to settle for seeing them in passing as they came and went from the building next to ours.

The guys next door to us at KAF who would be standing on alert for CSAR would be lucky to have our PJs with them. And while medevac and CSAR may seem similar to the casual observer, the difference between the two missions was monumental.

CSAR is what happens when a good guy is down, hurt and alone. Usually it’s a downed aircraft or an ejected pilot. The person is isolated behind enemy lines with no cover or backup, and the enemy is usually trying to beat us there. We have to go in with guns blazing, find the survivor, protect them, pick them up, and keep them alive on the way to the hospital.

Medevac is when a person is injured and needs to be brought to a hospital, but they are also surrounded by some type of perimeter, like on an actual base or with a convoy providing cover. And while an actual CSAR mission would be more exciting than medevac, I knew we’d be flying more often, so I was happy.

Whether or not we were bringing our PJs was the only X factor. Other than that, the typical crew always has an Aircraft Commander (AC), who is the senior pilot on board, and a Co-Pilot (CP). Both are fully qualified pilots and can interchange duties, but the ultimate decision and responsibility lies with the Aircraft Commander. Normally the AC flies while the CP navigates, but during some of the less exciting times, the AC may let the CP get some flight time. For all three of my deployments, I was a CP. I would upgrade to AC in 2010 but ended up leaving the Air Force before deploying again.

In the back of the aircraft, you would find an Aerial Gunner (AG) and a Flight Engineer (FE). This distinction has since changed, and the career fields have been merged together. In 2007 through 2009, during my deployments, the “backenders,” as we called them, would sit in side-facing seats looking out windows over their aircraft-mounted machine guns. The FE was the systems expert who would assist the pilots with checklists, make decisions on how to handle system malfunctions, and other such tasks. The AG was the gun expert; he would mainly man his gun and assist the FE with his or hers if needed.

This is the standard crew that gets rounded out with a medic or a team of two or three PJs, consisting of a PJ team lead and one or two regular PJs. On any given day, you could fly with any mix of crew. However, we tried to keep crews together as much as possible to develop a rhythm. When you fly with the same people over and over, you run through checklists faster, you anticipate one another, and you form a bond with one another. People who are not used to flying together will still operate well, as we all know our duties, but being “hard crewed” with a group of people is preferable—especially in combat. I was looking forward to figuring out who I’d be crewed with and starting this adventure with some experienced, talented aviators on an aircraft I had completely fallen in love with.

The HH-60G Pave Hawk was truly a thing of beauty. Modified from the UH-60 Blackhawk Army troop carrier, the “60,” had upgraded avionics, which gave us the ability to fly into bad weather and nighttime conditions. After all, those are the perfect conditions under which to execute a rescue. We want to capitalize on our technological superiority over most of our enemies by operating in environments that make it difficult to see. In addition to the avionics, search-and-rescue platforms need the ability to fly long hours in order to loiter over a search area or fly out to the middle of the ocean. The Pave Hawk has auxiliary fuel tanks to increase our flight time to about four hours, plus a refueling probe, which gives us the ability to fly until we have to land for fatigue. It was an amazing piece of equipment, and I could hardly wait to start saving lives with it.

—

As we crossed the border into Kandahar, our C-130 plane went dark to help protect us from any enemy ground troops in the area. The aircraft entered into a rapid descent to get us on the ground as quickly and safely as possible. We knew this kind of landing was standard and most of us expected it, but it also seemed like it completely unnerved everyone. It felt like it was the first time we were vulnerable to enemy fire, and all of us knew it was just the beginning. Welcome to Afghanistan.

As we stepped off the plane, I took a look around me. Dust covered everything and seemed to permeate every pore within seconds of our arrival. It was clear everyone was exhausted from the trip, but processing onto the base went quickly enough, and soon we had gathered our stuff and were checking out the base. We were surrounded by uniforms from other countries and by unfamiliar languages, but this comforted me and made me feel like we were really part of a coalition. We were all dying to investigate our sleeping quarters, ready to pass out, but there was no time for sleep.

Once we had dumped our stuff in the barracks, we met the guys we would be replacing. This unit had been pulling the medevac alert for the region over the last six months or so, and while the Air Force has shorter deployments than the Army, I could still see that these men and women were fatigued. The nonstop flying and constant state of readiness had taken its toll on them, and there was a tiredness in their eyes that foreshadowed what we were getting ourselves into. Needless to say, the unit was all too eager to get us ready to fly, so they were highly motivated to begin our orientation. The sooner we could take over the mission, the sooner they could head home to see their loved ones and knock back a few cold ones.

We were quickly brought up to speed on the local area through academic briefings and familiarization flights. The way “sitting alert” for medevac works is that every twelve hours, at each shift change, the incoming crew puts their gear on the aircraft and builds sort of a nest around their seat filled with anything they might need to grab, like checklists and equipment. I used to carry the standard equipment of survival gear, signal flare, and first aid kit, but I augmented my vest with things like a rescue knife, which you can use to break glass and cut seat belts, a push knife, a boot knife (I like knives—what can I say?), a handcuff key, extra water and ammo, a flashlight with red and UV interchangeable lenses, and a small metal tube that carried a single cigar.

The cigar was my promise to myself that I would get out of that country alive. I planned to smoke it after my last mission and before the flight home. The last nonstandard item I carried was a folded-up American flag. It made a triangle about eight inches long, and I kept it in a Ziploc bag to keep it relatively free from dust. I planned to carry that flag with me on every single combat mission I ever flew.

During shift change, the Co-Pilot will also power up the aircraft (not rotors turning, but power to the avionics and radios) to align the navigational system, check the radios, and make other such preparations. Then, once the aircraft is prepped, we get off the plane and go into the Tactical Operations Center or “TOC” (pronounced like “clock”). Here we would receive the daily brief, which is when we get all of the up-to-date info on threats and other classified information. We had to do it in this order in case shit hit the fan, more politely known as “a mission dropping” during the brief. No matter what happened while we were in the TOC, if we were on shift, we would have to be ready to go in an instant.

A typical medevac mission from Kandahar goes like this: The crew is relaxing, often in the TOC or somewhere nearby, usually having just come down off a recent mission. We sometimes flew as many as five missions in a single shift, so we were always eager for some downtime. We might be reading, playing Xbox, or heading to chow, but we were always alert and ready to scramble. The intel person is sitting at his or her computer, which is set to sound an audio alarm if the words “9-Line” come across the screen. A 9-Line is the list of information we get when a mission “drops” on us. It generally has information like the location, the nature of the patient’s injuries, and whether there is any enemy activity in the area. There are occasionally false starts, missions that are aborted before we even get off the ground, where we end up standing down. But for the most part, when the alarm goes off, it means we’re about to fly.

Upon hearing the alarm, video games get paused, conversations are hushed, and all heads in the TOC turn toward the intel person, quietly anticipating what comes next. The intel person will look up at the Aircraft Commander or PJ team lead and nod, saying something like “We’re a go.” Then they reach for a handheld radio to declare, “REDCON ONE! REDCON ONE!”

Ready Condition One means approval to launch, which kicks us all into action. If we had heard REDCON 2 instead, that would only give us approval to spin up the aircraft and wait for launch authority. Upon hearing the radio call, the room explodes into motion as everyone heads out to man their position. The aircraft maintainer goes out to address any malfunctions and help the aircraft taxi out, the PJs grab extra gear in response to a unique injury, and the Co-Pilot and backenders hustle out to get the engines started. Meanwhile, the Aircraft Commander is getting as much info as possible from intel about the mission.

By the time the Aircraft Commander and the PJs get out to the aircraft, the rotors should already be turning on the 60, and the rest of the crew is just waiting for them to strap in for the expedited taxi out to the runway. The Aircraft Commander briefs the rest of the crew with as much info as possible about what they’re heading into. Then it’s wheels up.

A second aircraft, known as your “sister ship,” has been going through the exact same motions simultaneously, because in medevac missions we go everywhere “two ship.” This ensures that if one of us is shot down, the other can pick up the crew from the crash site, which is called “Self SAR”—in other words, Self–Search and Rescue. The second aircraft is interchangeable with the first, but the Aircraft Commander in the lead aircraft (called the Flight Lead) is responsible for the entire formation and directs the actions of both birds.

At a designated area “across the fence,” the backenders would test-fire our guns with a short spurt to make sure we’re good to go. You don’t want to find out that your guns are “bent,” that is, not working, when you’re trying to engage a real-world threat. Then the Co-Pilot navigates the Aircraft Commander around any known or perceived threats, avoiding paralleling roads and other such tactical no-nos. We avoid the “lines of communication,” like roads, rivers, and such, to the greatest extent possible, because it minimizes our exposure to enemy forces who would shoot at us or report our position to someone.

Most medevac missions tend to be between thirty and sixty minutes, whereas CSAR or even civilian search-and-rescue operations can last several hours. In combat, though, our flights were short, and with good reason. If it took us too long to get to someone, their chances of survival were slim.

Usually our flights were to the “point of injury” or the actual location where the patient was injured. These are our most dangerous missions, because the area is less secure. However, sometimes we fly missions to forward operating bases (FOBs, pronounced like Bob) to do a patient transfer or pick up someone who was injured on base.

Once we arrived at the location of our patient, we assess the landing situation. Then we’d have the ground team “pop smoke,” or ignite a smoke grenade. This authenticates that the people below us are the group we’re speaking to on the radio, so we don’t get duped into landing to an ambush or enemy position. This also enables them to tell us where they want us to land. The drifting smoke gives us a wind indication, which helps us align our approach in the most energy-efficient way, that is, into the wind.

One aircraft then lands while the other provides cover from the air. The PJs jump out and go get the patient while the aircraft takes off again to allow the people on the ground to hear one another talk. When the PJs call “ready” on the radio, we go back in to pick them and the patient up. At that point, it’s time to boogie out of Dodge and head to the hospital, which was called the “Roll Three” at Kandahar. When we arrive at the Roll Three, an ambulance is usually waiting on the landing pad to take the patient to the hospital.

If we don’t get called right back out, we hit the gas station before taxiing back to the ramp. Then we head into the TOC to debrief the mission with intel to discuss what went right or where we can improve. The event then concludes with the unpausing of the interrupted Xbox game.

After arriving in Kandahar, we had a few relatively straightforward missions that let us get our feet wet. Then, a few weeks into the deployment in May 2007, my crew and I were tasked with forward deploying to a little Dutch base connected to the town of Tarin Kowt. Forward deploying is when we spend a few weeks supporting a specific team. This was a rotation that every crew would find themselves on at some point, but not everyone looked forward to it as much as I did. I wanted to get into the action, and Tarin Kowt was definitely in the middle of the hot zone. Special Forces ODA guys were working out of “TK,” as we called it, and the dangerous nature of the area and their mission necessitated having a dedicated medevac team on alert.

The rub was that we could only afford to send one crew, so you were on alert for twenty-four hours instead of the standard twelve-hour shifts in Kandahar and most other places. We did, technically, get our required crew rest, but this meant that the second we got called on a mission, our clock would start. We could fly as much as needed for the next twelve hours, but then we’d go into crew rest and they would have to task an asset from another base if needed. However, if you fly only one mission, your crew rest starts as soon as you land from the original mission. So, when you got a mission at, say, noon, you never knew if you’d be flying until midnight or flying again starting at midnight. Basically we were always on alert. It was exhausting, but this kind of work was the exact reason I had gotten into this business in the first place.

The upside of being at TK was that you flew fewer times a day and the environment was extremely casual. Almost everyone on the tiny “base” was an operator as opposed to the area being riddled with nonoperators or “non-ers” (pronounced like “Connors”), like in Kandahar. Non-ers is a derogatory term for people whose jobs don’t directly impact the mission and who seem to care only about things like whether or not you were wearing your reflective belt, a safety measure often ridiculed by operators due to the fact that it makes you a target for the enemy. This is not to say that operators don’t respect the people who support them. We consider most of them valued members of our team. But we’ll call someone a non-er if they demonstrate a clear lack of understanding for the impact their actions have on those of us on the front lines. I suppose for some people, even in Kandahar, the greatest danger you face is getting hit by a supply truck.

TK contained a hospital and had a small US courtyard attached to it. A six-week rotation at TK had plenty of negatives, but there were some positives, too: namely the food, the sand volleyball court, and the feeling that you were truly on the front lines. The flight there was pretty amazing, too—the terrain between Kandahar and TK included a plateau with a deep, twisting ravine running through it. During this flight, we would dive toward the mouth of the creek that ran through the high ground and sort of ski our way through. We pretended that we were trying to maintain a low profile, but really, it was just a flat-out thrill to carve through the terrain this way. The flight consisted of banking left and right, bouncing the downward rotor wash off the walls like a snowboarder on a half-pipe.

The base at TK was surrounded by high walls topped with razor wire. Throughout the night, you’d wake to the sound of the HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems) firing at militants who were positioned to attack the FOB. In addition to the hospital at the base, we had a US forward surgical team (FST). I ended up spending quite a bit of my downtime hanging out in their hospital. If I was wide-awake with nothing to do (like after landing from a mission), I’d go to the FST to see if they needed any help.

We worked hard and played hard at TK. Between the volleyball tournaments and barbecues, the grills powered by diesel fuel, we would catch some rays, play cards, and work out. When I wasn’t helping out in the hospital, I spent most of my time in the gym, thoroughly enjoying the view as the ODA guys lifted weights all around me, trying my hardest not to trip on the treadmill when one of them took off his shirt.

My first combat crew was a dream team. Curt Green, who was a New York City firefighter with a great reputation and steely nerves, served as our Aircraft Commander. Curt made a perfect mentor for me on my first combat missions. Our Flight Engineer, Matt Infante, was a relatively young but somewhat seasoned guy with a great head on his shoulders. I trusted them both instantly. Thor Rasmussen, a young kid who had come from the fixed-wing world, was a great medic, and he adjusted to the fast pace and danger of the helo world quickly. The four of us hit it off immediately.

Not so much for the last member of my crew, Richard. Richard looked the part of the elderly New York Irish cop he was—pale white skin and a paintbrush mustache, a bright red nose and a spare tire around the middle. The first week in Kandahar, he told me straight to my face that he didn’t want me on the crew.

“Nothing personal. It’s just that women can’t hold their own in an evasion scenario.” I wondered how he’d do, lugging all that extra weight around his belly if we needed to evade capture.

“Okay,” I retorted. “Let’s find out. Come on.” I put down my gear and dropped into “front-leaning rest,” which is the smart-ass military expression for the push-up position. “Right now . . . push-up contest,” I continued from the ground. “Let’s see who wins.”

Throughout my career, this was my go-to rebuttal for blatant jabs at my physical ability. I had done it dozens of times, and I won every single contest I challenged someone to. That’s not to say that I could out-push every guy I flew with. Hardly. But for some reason, it was never the strong, fit guys who were threatened enough by me to infer I was physically inferior. It was always the guys who were at the bottom rung of the physical fitness ladder. It was as if, like any bully, they were so insecure that they had to seek out someone they thought was weaker than they were and kick them around. I had never lost a push-up challenge like this, and I was not about to start now. I would push the ground until my arms fell off if I had to.

“Whatever,” Richard harrumphed, walking away. He acted as if I was not worth the effort, but everyone knew that he was afraid he would lose. It wouldn’t be the last time we would come head-to-head, but one day soon he would try to make me pay for humiliating him.

His instant dismissal of me did remind me of an important lesson, though. I thought back to the worm I’d eaten in pilot training and the instructor’s advice to never write off a member of the team because of their appearance. That’s just Leadership 101. I was an expert marksman who had studied the local area with the tenacity of a medical student studying anatomy. I knew some of the language and how to find water. I was certain I’d be an asset if we found ourselves in a ground fight, but there would be no convincing Richard of that fact. Another thing I’d learned over my years of training—demanding respect did nothing. I would have to earn it.

I did notice that no one came to my defense during our argument, including the Aircraft Commander I had grown to admire. I guessed I really was on my own. Curt was new to the squadron as well, having just transferred in from the unit in California. I assume it wasn’t worth it to Curt to make an enemy of Richard so early on. I wasn’t sure what pissed me off more—Richard’s outward sexism or everyone’s tacit acceptance of it.

My third day at Tarin Kowt, at around ten in the morning, I was stepping out of the shower hut after my workout. Suddenly my radio crackled: “REDCON ONE!” My walk turned to a jog across the gravel in flip-flops.

We’d had plenty of false starts, rushing to sit in the bird, the rotors turning and ready to go, only to stand down. But not this time—an American ***** ****** soldier had caught a bullet in the arm, and it was wheels up. I was thrilled to finally be getting my first real “rescue” of my career, even if it was only an arm injury. I gave a “Woo-hoo!” as I rounded the nose of the aircraft and jumped into my seat. I punched coordinates into the GPS, my hair still wet and dripping down under my helmet onto my heavy body armor, everything already caked with dust. Curt picked up the helo, and we stormed across the fence into enemy territory.

We’d already been airborne for half an hour when the request for blood came in over the radio. We had been slightly zigzagging our path to the landing zone so as to remain unpredictable and keep the enemy from knowing exactly where we were heading. It was the tactical way to fly, but upon hearing the request for blood, we instantly wished we had thrown the rule book out the window and beelined right to the patient. If they needed blood, the patient was in worse shape than we thought. Five more minutes and we’d already be wheels down at the pickup point. To return now for blood would take too long.

The other pilot shot me a grim look as I replied to the call.

“Just pop smoke—we’re five mikes out.” A bright green plume shot up marking the landing zone, and we landed just upwind from it.

Hardly waiting for the rotor’s dust storm to clear, a ***** ***** soldier rushed on board with the patient in a litter. My medic told me later that he saw a look in the escort’s eyes that told him he would be facing a physical confrontation if he tried to tell the patient’s comrade that he couldn’t come along. We weren’t supposed to take anyone but the patient, but no one argued. On the stretcher, a heavily bearded sergeant breathed shallowly, his camouflage uniform half cut away. This was no arm injury.

Yes, technically the bullet had entered near the tan line of his upper arm, but it had tumbled from there and torn through his chest. These guys were the mission, the reason I came to this godforsaken country—they bravely fought the enemy, always with the knowledge that medevac birds like ours were ready to scramble and get them lifesaving care in an instant.

We picked up within minutes, going airborne with bullets popping on the rocks around the landing zone below us. Thor, our medic, immediately got to work, while the other ***** ***** soldier watched, stone-faced.

“This guy’s Code Blue,” I heard on the intercom. Thor was telling our crew that he had lost a pulse and the patient wasn’t going to make it. I punched in the coordinates for TK, and we flew a dead-straight path, pulling every ounce of power we could out of the engines. Against regulations, we told our sister ship that we were going to have to leave them. Each aircraft is a little different. Some have stronger engines, and some are lighter. On this day, our aircraft was more powerful, and they wouldn’t be able to keep up. Despite the fact that we would likely lose this patient and splitting up put both aircraft in a lot of danger, none of us would be able to live with ourselves if we hadn’t done everything possible to try to save his life.

Between checking the route, the instruments, and the systems, I stole another glance back into the cargo area behind me. Thor had straddled the patient to start CPR. The injured soldier was young and couldn’t have even been thirty. There wasn’t a touch of gray in the thick beard that special-ops forces grow to blend in better with the Afghan fighters. The deep tan of his face looked pale.

“We’ve got a pulse back!” I heard over the intercom, but we were still about fifteen minutes from the nearest medical facility, even though we were maxing out the helo’s speed.

Ten minutes out, Thor started CPR again and kept it going until we landed. An ambulance on base rushed the sergeant off to surgery. We found out later that he’d lost so much blood, when they cracked his chest open to start the surgery, he didn’t even bleed.

I desperately wanted this guy to live, and I knew the rest of my crew was having the exact same thought. This guy deserved to return home to the family I was certain was waiting for him.

My first patient was my first casualty. He left a tar of blood and dust an inch deep on the Pave Hawk floor. After shutting down the aircraft and getting it ready for our next mission, I walked the hundred yards across the courtyard, past the barracks, the chow hall, the gym, and the TOC to the hospital to confirm what I already knew in my heart—we had lost him. I would have known it even if I hadn’t seen him lose so much blood. A palpable sense of loss hung heavy in the dust and heat all around me.

The plywood door into the FST had a painted unit badge on the outside. I yanked it open, feeling the counterweight rise on the inside, which enabled the door to swing shut on its own to keep out the flies. Inside, it was clear the staff had done all they could with the resources at their disposal, but let’s just say I was highly motivated to avoid the need for surgery while at TK.

When I swung the door open, the first nurse who saw me immediately looked down at the floor. She knew why I was there, and she didn’t want to have to be the one to tell me.

“How’d the surgery go?” I asked her with a waver in my voice.

“There’s nothing you guys could have done,” she told me with sympathy in her eyes. “He nicked the aorta. He could have been shot on the steps of the FST and we wouldn’t have been able to save him.”

To this day I don’t know if she was just trying to make me feel better or if it was true. Either way, I couldn’t stop going over the situation again and again in my head, agonizing over where I could’ve shaved a few seconds off our rescue attempt, wondering if an extra precious minute or two might have saved his life.

As I walked back to the barracks, I saw one of the ODA guys kneeling in front of their memorial wall where they meticulously painted the names of those they lost. He was dry-eyed but stone-faced, quietly painting the name of my patient onto the wall while another was lowering the flag to half-mast.

Later that night, as I headed back to my room after spending twenty minutes pushing food around on my plate at dinner, I stopped and saluted in front of the memorial wall as an ODA soldier played Taps on his bagpipes. The lyrics, which always brought back a welling of tears at the thought of my dad, now held an even deeper meaning for me. Day is done, gone the sun, from the lakes, from the hills, from the sky. All is well, safely rest. God is nigh. I was living these lyrics.

The sun was setting, and for the first time, I questioned whether or not I could really do this job. Somewhere in the US, an eight-year-old little girl had just lost her twenty-eight-year-old hero of a father. Her life would never be the same, and she didn’t even know it yet.

I grew up as a pilot that day. I would never wish for a mission again.

—

The rotation at TK was rough. Even when we thought we had done some good, things could go bad very quickly. One night we were called out on a mission and assigned a two-Apache escort. That was never a good sign—it meant that we were going into a particularly dangerous area. On that night, we were headed into the heart of bad-guy territory to pick up a wounded three-year-old out of an unfriendly village. Intel reported that the three-year-old was in need of medevac due to chemical burns he had sustained inhaling fumes from his father’s homemade fertilizer bomb.

As we landed, I surveyed the town in my night-vision goggles. About fifty yards away from us, people began to emerge and cluster together, pointing and gesturing at us. The small crowd began walking our way and suddenly grew to a group of about thirty people jogging toward us. This didn’t look good. I called it in to the Apaches overhead and started checking to see if anyone in the group was armed. How close could we let them get before we would have to take off?

When they were about twenty-five yards away, Curt slightly lifted the collective, ready to pull pitch and get us out of there. Just then the beautiful attack helicopters that were with us flew a low pass about fifteen feet off of the ground right off our nose. The message to the growing crowd was clear . . . That’s close enough. The townspeople screeched to a halt, continuing to stand there and wave a fist now and then, but we were able to load our patient and get out safely. Didn’t they know we were trying to save one of their kids?

The boy’s father boarded the aircraft alongside his son but wouldn’t speak to us. He just glared at us with his sun-darkened, wrinkled eyes. It was as if he expected us to try to kill them both at any minute. The little boy, on the other hand, quickly stole our hearts. We could see that he was in pain and utterly terrified. The sound of the helicopter was probably the loudest, most frightening thing he had ever experienced, and Thor, who was checking his vitals, was clearly scaring him. It was at that time my medic won my loyalty forever.

I had never really noticed, but apparently, Thor carried a Beanie Baby–sized teddy bear on his vest for times just like this. When he pulled it from its pouch and then lifted the boy’s hand to place the bear on his chest, the little boy’s fear disappeared. The smile that briefly crossed his face before he snuggled into the teddy bear was the type of moment that reminded us why we were over there.

After we got him back to the base and into the hospital, I couldn’t seem to get him out of my mind. I kept going back to visit this little angel, as I often did my other patients, to see how he was doing. Each day he looked a little better. On the third day, I came in to see him, but he wasn’t there. I was disappointed not to see him but was so happy that he had recovered enough to go home. One of the nurses who knew me walked over to me as I smiled down at his empty bed.

“I’m so sorry. I guess it was just too much for his little lungs.”

He hadn’t gotten better—he had contracted pneumonia and died the previous night. I walked out trying to convince myself that it was okay, that he had died peacefully, but no matter how I painted it in my mind, to this day I cry for that sweet casualty of this terrible war.

—

Soon enough we were replaced by another crew for their six-week rotation, and we returned to Kandahar. While we hated being back under the microscope of the brass and other “non-ers,” being at Kandahar Airfield (KAF) did have its benefits. Since we would once again be working only twelve-hour shifts with a twelve-hour break, we could count on a good night’s sleep (if one of our eight roommates didn’t leave their damn alarm on). We also were happy about getting a decent cup of coffee at the Canadian Tim Hortons.

The lodging at KAF was sort of like long double-wides. The cement-floored rooms contained four bunk beds, eight particle-board wardrobes with a couple of drawers in them, and no windows. But with a little ingenuity, you could make the barebones lodging quite comfortable.

I bought a great Afghan rug for a hundred dollars to cover up the cement, hung up a sheet for some privacy, then strung a few Christmas lights overhead to get some light without bothering those nearby who were on opposite shifts. I ordered groceries online from a website that would mail me nonperishables like powdered milk, which I would mix up to pour over the cereal I always grabbed from the chow hall. The chow hall was all juice, soda, and water. Milk was, oddly enough, one of the things I missed most from home.

KAF was also fun because of all the different people we could interact with there. I was particularly close to our Army comrades. We often flew escort for the unarmed Dustoff guys. These are the crews whose primary mission is medevac. The Red Cross on the tail of their aircraft demanded that they be unarmed, but this didn’t matter to our enemies. They would kill someone trying to save a life (often an Afghan life) just as quickly as they would someone shooting at them. Between missions, I really enjoyed getting to know the Dustoff crews. Their tactics differed from ours tremendously, and I felt like it made me a better wingman to understand how they flew so that I could predict their actions better during a mission.

While on shift at the TOC, there was a litany of things to do with ourselves to pass time between missions. While I certainly played my share of Xbox, one of the things I enjoyed most was double-checking my gear and cleaning my rifle. It was a ritual at the start of each shift to go to my locker and ensure that everything was right where it should be. But on one particular shift, I was in for a surprise. Ammo was tightly controlled, and for good reason. You had to answer to your chain of command anytime you fired your weapon, and every round was carefully tracked and counted. That day I stared dumbfounded into my locker until it finally soaked in. I was clearly missing a magazine of 9mm ammo for my handgun. But that was impossible. No one was more careful about their gear than I was—no one.

I started tearing apart my locker, looking for it, refusing to accept the fact that it was missing. I turned out every pocket, emptied every bag, and desperately ran my fingers along the edges of the locker. I must have searched for twenty minutes. Then I heard a chuckle behind me that raised the hairs on the back of my neck.

“Lose something?”

It was the guy who told me he didn’t want to fly with me because I was a woman: Richard. He was leaning against the lockers across from mine, eating a Ding Dong. He shook his head and gave a short chuckle as he walked away. I felt in my gut in that instant that he had taken it and there would be no finding it now. Furious, I made sure my radio was turned on, the volume high enough to hear a REDCON call, and I stormed out of the TOC. I found myself walking down the taxiway, my heart pounding, my stomach in knots. Being around the aircraft usually reminded me why I was here and kept me from going crazy, but this time, nothing helped. I was still livid. Then I looked up and saw the lights on in the Army TOC, so I decided to pay them a visit. I could use some friendly faces, and unfortunately, I already knew from experience that none of the guys in my squadron would take my side against Richard.

Luckily for me, a few of the pilots I had gotten to know were hanging out and greeted me with cheery salutations. In that low moment, it felt really good to be treated like I belonged. I’d been hanging out with them for about an hour and was starting to feel a little less angry when one of them pulled me aside and asked me what was wrong. He could tell I wasn’t myself. I couldn’t help it—I relayed to him the whole story, half expecting him to report me for the missing ammo.

“Who cares what one old fart thinks?” he asked.

“No, it’s more than that. I’m going to get my ass handed to me over the missing ammo,” I replied. “I guess I better just go report it missing and get it over with.”

“Oh, is that what’s bothering you? Here, I have an extra mag,” he said, and handed one over without hesitation.

I stood there staring at my salvation resting in my palm. I sputtered a “thank you” and stared up at him.

“Don’t worry.” He laughed, noting the disbelieving look on my face. “I can get more.”

I couldn’t believe it. Clearly things were different in the Army, and it made me realize how ridiculous some of our Air Force rules were. I felt a knot loosen in my chest. I threw my arms around him in an uncharacteristic hug, and he just laughed and patted my shoulder. My relief was almost overwhelming. From that moment on, I never let my ammunition out of my sight again—I took it with me everywhere I went.

I walked back to my TOC and slipped the spare mag into my vest in my locker. Just then I started to worry. I couldn’t pretend I had never lost the magazine; above all, I prided myself on my integrity. But mere minutes later, I happened to overhear Richard tattling on me for the missing ammo. Before I could even turn around, my commander stalked into the room with Richard on his heels.

“Jennings,” he barked. “Can you account for your ammo?”

I looked Richard square in the eye. “Yes, sir, I can,” I told him.

“Bullshit,” Richard said.

“Show me,” my commander instructed, a tired edge to his voice. I think he had seen this particular prank before, and he had better things to do with his time.

“Here you go.” I waved my arm like Vanna White at my vest hanging in my locker. He counted and turned to Richard.

“She’s good to go. Anything else?”

Richard just stormed off without answering. My commander shook his head and started to walk back to the desk he occupied.

“Um, sir?” I said to his back.

He turned around. “That’s all I needed, MJ.”

“Right, but I have to tell you—” I started to say, but he just raised a hand and cut me off. I could see in his face that he knew exactly what had happened.

“No, you really don’t. You’re good to go, and that’s all I need to know. Hang in there, MJ. You’re doing a great job.”

Over the weeks that followed, rumors circulated about the incident that were even more painful than the moment itself. A friend reported to me that Richard started telling people about my “lost” magazine and that he happened to have it on good authority that I had lost it “out by the fence.”

When this rumor was relayed to me by a fellow pilot, I was confused. Did he mean I’d lost my ammo while I was jogging the perimeter? The pilot shook his head uncomfortably and explained to me that Richard was insinuating I’d been on my knees, servicing a fellow airman, and must have dropped it in the heat of the moment.

My stomach roiled, and I felt like throwing up. I had been so careful since arriving in Kandahar to stay above this sort of thing. I hadn’t so much as flirted with any aircrew members precisely to avoid being made into such a joke. My behavior thus far was above reproach, and now this guy was spreading rumors all over the squadron about me just because I had foiled his plot and made him look like an ass instead of the other way around? I couldn’t believe it.

Back at the barracks, I was telling a friend about it in the bathroom we all shared. One of the other girls overheard us and chimed in.

“But I don’t see what the big deal is. It isn’t true, so why do you care?” I just shook my head. This particular girl had a different standard of behavior than I did and epitomized everything I was trying to avoid. Of course she wouldn’t understand.

I tried to explain to her that it wasn’t the fact that he had lied about the sexual act that was bothering me. It was the fact that Richard and the others didn’t see me as a strong, competent, well-trained pilot who deserved his respect. Just because my anatomy was different from his, he had to objectify and sexualize me. He had to paint me in a role subservient to him and his fellow men, and what was worse, they had gone along with it. I could no longer pretend he was the only one who felt that way just because he was the only one who was dumb enough to actually say it out loud. Enough of them had been entertained by his gossip that the rumor had made it all the way back to me.

I was furious and decided I wouldn’t stand for this treatment. I wasn’t trying to demand their respect. I had earned their respect, dammit. It was obvious that I was never going to fit in with this unit. About half of the guys were really awesome, and I would love to fly with them again someday. But that other half, the ones who defined their masculinity by the job they did, were obviously threatened by the fact that I was just as good at my job as they were. After all, if this job made them a man and a woman did it just as well or better than them, what did that mean for them?

—

Over the next few weeks I found myself spending more and more time alone. It was an entirely self-imposed isolation. I withdrew from the people around me, no longer knowing who my real friends were. I would have taken a bullet for any one of those guys, but many of them apparently didn’t feel the same way. They just wanted me to disappear.

Outside the TOC, there were a few cargo bins, like the ones you’d see stacked up at shipping docks, where we kept various pieces of equipment and supplies. Someone had built a gazebo on top of one along with a rickety staircase that led up to it. Not a lot of people hung out up there, partly due to the smell of the nearby “shit pond.” The base’s sewage was sent there, and we joked daily about the lovely smell of Kandahar. In a stroke of brilliant engineering, the flightline area was positioned directly downwind of the shit pond. But to be honest, I preferred it to the stench of male chauvinism given off by some of my fellow airmen.

The Christmas lights on the gazebo emitted a colorful, soft glow, and I would usually just enjoy the solitude watching the sun set while smoking a good cigar. Occasionally someone would come up to join me and chitchat, but I wasn’t much for conversation those days.

About halfway through the deployment, at one of my lowest moments, I was leaning on the railing, looking out over the flightline at night, when I heard heavy boots stomping up the unsteady stairs. I didn’t know who it was, and I didn’t care.

“What the fuck is this?” I heard an unfamiliar voice declare, and I turned to see a new face.

“Hi,” I said, not offering my name or my hand. I had grown untrusting over the last few months.

He didn’t seem to notice. “Hi. I’m Steve.”

I shook his outstretched hand and said, “MJ.”

“Good to meet you,” he said. “Now what the fuck is this?” he asked, looking around at the view.

I couldn’t help but chuckle. Over the next twenty minutes or so, I ruminated with him about the glory of the gazebo and the lovely stench coming from the shit pond. Then I gave him the lay of the land at KAF and he told me a little bit about himself.

He was part of a unit from California that had just arrived to do their rotation in the TOC next to ours. We would continue doing medevac while they pulled the CSAR alert. I didn’t know it then, but Steve Burt, a Flight Engineer from Oregon who served the 129th Rescue Squadron in the California Air National Guard, would eventually become one of my closest friends.

Steve was soon joined by other members of his unit, and within minutes I felt my mood lift. These guys instantly welcomed me, happy for the intel I was giving them about where to get the best coffee and how to order cigars. It wasn’t long before we were laughing and kicking back.

Then my radio crackled, and I grabbed it off of my belt as I dashed for the stairs, handing Steve my cigar as I ran past him.

“REDCON ONE,” I heard blaring from all the radios scattered around the area as I jogged off.

“Have fun!” Steve called after me, raising my cigar in salute. My mind was on the mission at hand, but there was certainly a little more pep in my step as I headed out to the aircraft and spun her up, ready for the next trip across the fence. I knew in my heart that I had found my people, and I couldn’t wait to hang out with them again.

A couple of weeks later, my first impression of these guys was cemented. It was July Fourth, and apparently, they felt like celebrating. A bunch of their guys transformed themselves into walking wounded by covering themselves with gauze and Ace bandages. They marched down the flightline beating a makeshift drum, then entered the British hangar to the astonishment of our allies inside.

The California commander approached the British commander, lightly slapped her across the face with a glove, and challenged her and her unit to a water gun battle for colonial independence. Preparations were made, and a giant water gun and balloon war ensued. I watched from the sidelines as others from my unit grumbled their disapproval, but I looked on, glassy-eyed—wishing I were part of their team.

Over the next couple of months, I spent a lot of time next door to my own TOC in the CSAR building, hanging out with the guys from California. We would hit chow together, play basketball or work out together, and kick one another’s butts at Halo. This fantastic group of men and women were laid-back in attitude but tight when it came to the things that mattered, somehow easygoing while simultaneously maintaining very high standards. They were quick to laugh and treated each other like family. I knew my unit resented my hanging out with them, but I honestly couldn’t have cared less.

—

Within a few weeks, when it came time for my unit to go home, we all had thoughts of family, cheeseburgers, beer, and clean air at the forefront of our minds, but to be honest, I was in no rush to go back stateside with my unit. While I considered a few of them to be friends, I’d had just about enough of the rest of them and their shitty attitudes.

As it happened, I had heard that one of the pilots from the unit coming in to replace us had a wife who was about to have a baby. I had been looking for an opportunity to keep racking up my combat hours, and since I was more than happy to stick around with my new buds from the California unit, I decided to volunteer to augment the incoming unit. I would pull my second tour in Afghanistan without ever going back home.

My unit thought I was crazy, but I waved good-bye to them happily as they boarded their plane. I would never have chosen to stick around with those guys, but I was really looking forward to staying to get to know my new, temporary unit. Whoever they were, I doubted they’d be as cool as the folks from California. But I also knew they couldn’t be as bad as some of the people I’d flown with from New York.

Lucky for me, my new unit, the 33rd Rescue Squadron from Kadena, Japan, was another awesome group of folks. I was truly excited to be flying with them. Some of them had been to Kandahar before, since the active-duty folks deployed a lot more frequently than us Guard people.

Right off the bat, they crewed me with a seasoned Flight Engineer and Gunner but an inexperienced Aircraft Commander. The AC was a young guy named Mike who was being groomed for Weapons School. Weapons School was like our version of Top Gun, where the best of the best would go to train. I was excited to see what I could learn from him.

As it turned out, though, flying with this guy would be no learning experience. Mike would yank and bank the aircraft into aggressive attitudes (the position of the aircraft relative to the ground), frequently putting his crew in danger.

More than once I expressed the opinion to him that, should we take a round of fire to anything critical on the aircraft, many of the situations he was putting us into would be unrecoverable. I was sure he was just excited to finally be flying in combat, but I had quite a few combat hours under my belt already, and I had learned the hard way that this wasn’t something to be excited about. He needed to learn to respect the environment and the fact that the enemy was hiding behind every rock.

On a hot afternoon in August of 2007, I was flying with Mike, and we were shooting an approach into Bagram Airfield. I was on the controls but was unable to slow the aircraft down enough to avoid passing our lead aircraft. So I decided that the safest thing would be to execute a “go-around.” In our line of work, it’s common to say that “go-arounds are free.” This means that anyone should at any time feel free to call a go-around if you feel the aircraft is unsafe. In Mike’s defense, it sucks to do a go-around on an airfield. You have the chance of messing up the flow of air traffic, and it makes you look bad to the tower. But sending your aircraft and crew into a crater on the ground looks far worse.

Just as I began my go-around, Mike yanked the controls away from me. He banked hard left, and we swooped behind our lead aircraft, barely missing their tail rotor with our refueling probe. Seeing this, I instantly braced myself for a crash. His crazy zigzag maneuver had slowed us down enough to avoid executing a go-around, but that hardly seemed worth it as the entire crew gasped, all of us probably expecting to die.

Only when it appeared that we’d be able to land safely did I start breathing again. There was an uncharacteristic silence on the radio. No one said a word. As the Co-Pilot, I was responsible for shutting the aircraft engines and systems down. But instead of taking care of the checklist items, I just unstrapped and got out of the aircraft as fast as I could. Mike took the hint and completed the checklist as I walked away with my helmet in my hand.

Luckily for me, there was another crew on the deck waiting for the aircraft, and they had seen the whole thing. Thank goodness, because no one would have to take my word for what had just happened—it would have sounded completely insane.

“What the hell was that? Are you guys okay?” demanded the commander and the squadron safety officer who stopped me on the deck.

All of the color had drained out of my face, and I just shook my head and kept walking. My commander followed me, so I had to do my best to piece together what had happened. I told him that I would never get into another aircraft with that cowboy again, because I didn’t want to die.

My commander totally understood, apologizing to me for the whole experience, and immediately assigned me to a new crew. It seemed to me he felt some sort of responsibility for trying and failing to control Mike, who seemed to be some sort of golden boy who was being protected by someone high up in the chain of command. This lack of impartiality, I had discovered, was insidious in the military. Ultramasculine guys who fly the same way they live their lives—too hard, too fast, too careless—are often depicted as the perfect combat warriors. Instead, they usually end up undermining the mission, as their teams cannot depend on them to make the best decisions under pressure.

Years later, I was heartbroken to hear that Mike had been piloting an aircraft in Afghanistan that took enemy fire and crashed. He and most of his crew died in the crash, and the two who survived were severely disabled.

—

Nearing the end of my deployment in 2007, I was walking from the aircraft to the TOC, carrying my gear in at the end of my shift, when I heard a familiar voice. No fucking way. I stopped dead in my tracks and looked around until I saw him.

“ZERK?” I almost didn’t believe it, and by the look on his face, neither did he. The Air Force is a small world, and Rescue is even smaller, so it wasn’t uncommon to bump into your buddies. But here in the middle of the hot Afghan desert? It just seemed like fate kept bringing us back together. I was so happy to see him.

“Holy shit! What up, MJ?”

I dropped my gear and gave Keenan a quick hug. I knew I wouldn’t get to see him much, as we were flying different missions and I’d be at TK a lot, but it was really great to see him again. I held to a steadfast rule of not dating the guys I flew with, and although I sometimes regretted it (especially around Zerk), it had served me well. I wouldn’t break my rule for him, though it was tempting. I would see him now and then in passing, but we were always running to answer the radios or sit in on a briefing.

I was also busy getting to know the new crew I’d been assigned to. I was relieved—already it seemed like it was going to be a much better fit. I was excited to learn that my new Aircraft Commander was one of our most senior pilots. He was serving as the second-in-command, and I felt much safer flying with him. Despite my combat hours, I was still a relatively new pilot, so I was eager to learn from him. He would soon teach me one of the best lessons of my career. Unfortunately for him, it would be at his own expense.

One day, a few months into my second deployment, we were launching on a mission just like any other, with our usual high sense of urgency but also with a strict adherence to protocol. My AC was on the controls, taxiing us out, when the TOC relayed updated coordinates for our pickup. I had noticed that there was a fire truck parked on the taxiway, but that was hardly rare, so I called it out to him and he acknowledged it as I went “heads in” and looked down at the navigation system to update our coordinates. As a partnership, the two pilots take turns flying and operating the systems. When one pilot has their hands on the controls, they are “heads out” and looking outside the aircraft. The other can go “heads in” at times to navigate, adjust radios or check systems.

The next thing I knew, I heard a loud thumping and felt the aircraft lurch to the right. We had hit the fire truck with our rotors. Technically this would go down as “his fault,” given the fact that he was the Aircraft Commander and the one driving the bird, but I would forever remember this as my greatest failure as a pilot. I should never have assumed he was so senior that he didn’t need me backing him up. I had failed him by trusting that he didn’t need my help. I should have waited until we were clear of the truck before punching in the coordinates, and I learned a huge lesson that day about human fallibility. No one is above making mistakes. While I thought I was showing him respect by trusting him to clear the vehicle, the reality is that it was my failure, too.

To this day I regret this incident, but I have to wonder what bigger catastrophes I was able to avoid due to the fact that I learned that important lesson when I did. We were close to the end of the deployment already, and that mission would complete my tour that year. The required investigation that would clear me to fly again after the incident would take longer than we had left in our deployment. So within days of the accident, I said farewell to KAF and headed home.

—

I had a few weeks of leave coming to me, so I decided to spend some time in Austin, as I had no desire to go see my “friends” in New York. The people who had brought me to the New York unit had either retired or passed away, and I was a little unsure of who was left. I knew that the majority of them had no problem with my being a woman, but they also hadn’t stood up for me; nor had they stopped the discrimination I was suffering at the hands of the few in Kandahar who did. Most of them had played a role, some large, some small, in one of the lowest moments in my career thus far. Yes, they had sent me to pilot training, so I felt I owed them a debt, but I was in no rush to go back and pay it off.

A few days into my leave in Austin, my phone rang. It was from a California area code, so I jumped to answer it, hoping it would be my new friends from Kandahar. Sure enough, it was the unit from California. Better yet, they had great news for me.

Knowing how unhappy I was with my unit, they had found me a job working for the California Counterdrug Task Force, part of the Air National Guard unit. I would be a member of the 129th Rescue Squadron while also flying marijuana eradication missions.

I was beyond thrilled, but I hesitated, because part of me still felt I owed New York, despite everything some of them had put me through. Then the commander explained to me that earlier that year they had sent Curt, the Aircraft Commander I’d flown with during my deployment to New York, so getting a Co-Pilot in return was a fair swap. I couldn’t believe my luck.

My head instantly filled with visions of wine tasting, surfing, and all-around great California dreams. Within a few weeks of the phone call, I had packed up my car with all of my belongings and gotten on the road. This time around at the crossroads, I would head west.