Chapter 13

Posted: August 28, 2006 - 12:06:02 am?

Two mornings after my wives told me the Americans were conducting operations near our farm, I was huddled on the floor of the Zil truck as Basheera drove me towards an American checkpoint on the desert road toward Jordan. It was my first trip away from the farm in almost three months, and I was taking it reluctantly. The only thing that drove me was a sense of duty and a desire to get things settled so I could rejoin my family. The last two days had been the most bittersweet of my life. My wives cried and clung to me and I'm afraid I wasn't much stronger. Leaving them like that was the hardest thing I'd ever done.

I was broken out of my reverie when Basheera brought the truck to a shuddering stop.

"There is a checkpoint ahead, Habib," she said.

I clambered off the floorboard and glanced through the windshield. Sure enough, about a mile up I could make out some armored vehicles blocking the road. I sighed in resignation and reached for the door handle.

"Take care of our family until I get back, Sheba. I will return as soon as humanly possible."

She nodded as a tear rolled down her cheek.

"Allah protect you and return you safe to us, Habib. Remember our love and be quick with your business."

It was my turn to nod. I kissed her and she clung to me fiercely. I finally gently pried her away and climbed down from the cab. I stood by the side of the road as she turned around and roared off. I watched her until she was just a dot on the horizon before I turned around and started walking toward the checkpoint. Condemned men have walked more eagerly than me that day. My bum knee started protesting after the first hundred yards, but I gritted my teeth and limped on.

I raised my hands above my head about five hundred yards from the checkpoint. My nerves tingled as I felt the Bushmaster Cannons on the Bradleys zero in on me. A hundred yards from the checkpoint, I halted.

"I am an American pilot," I shouted.

My simple little declaration kicked over the proverbial anthill. Once I proved my bona fides by producing my ID card the soldiers on the checkpoint treated me as if I was the second coming. I was soon ensconced in the air-conditioned Humvee of the platoon leader with a bottle of water and a chocolate bar. He was on the radio relaying the news to his company commander. Five minutes later, I was being whisked back to his battalion's headquarters, the prodigal son returning to the bosom of the big green machine.

The Battalion command post was about ten miles away. On the drive, the platoon leader peppered me with questions about how I had survived so long on my own. I had to smile at that as I launched into my carefully prepared cover story. I didn't mind telling the young lieutenant at all, because telling it was good practice. I had worked out a story that stuck mainly to the truth, just not all of the truth.

"I was knocked unconscious when I ejected. Luckily I was found by a farmer and his family; they hid me from the insurgents until they heard your unit was near here."

His ears perked up at the word insurgents.

"This area is secure, Sir, S2 (Intelligence Section) says there hasn't been any activity anywhere near here since the second month of the war. The only reason we are here is to train before we move west to relieve a unit on the Syrian border."

"Well, Lieutenant, I've got some big news for your Intel Weenies. The ZSU-23s that shot me down came from this area. There are at least the remnants of two Republican Guard Divisions within twenty miles of here laying low and gathering strength."

Of course he didn't believe me and neither did the S2, but I had placed enough doubt in their minds to make them at least take a cursory look at a few of the locations I had fixed on the map. They took me a little more seriously when the drone they sent to one location was immediately shot down. I stayed at the CP for the rest of the morning refusing to be evacuated to the rear until I met with someone from Civil Affairs. No way was I leaving my family out in the middle of a potential combat zone without some sort of protection. I spent an hour with the major from Civil Affairs. I regurgitated my story about the Hassan family saving and sheltering me. The CA guy took notes, whipped out a satellite cell phone and cleared assisting the Hassans all the way up to the Theater Commander. It turns out that the idea of a Sunni desert farmer's family helping me was considered something of a public relations coup.

When a helicopter came to fly me back to Al Jabar, Kuwait, eighty-five days after I took off from there last, I was ready to go. I received a hero's welcome at the huge airbase, after essentially being given up for dead months ago. Despite my protests, I was admitted immediately into the base hospital. I was told it was SOP and that if I checked out okay, I'd only be in there a day or so. I had a nice, long, hot shower, then a barber showed up in my room and made short work of my beard and longish hair. I felt strange looking at myself in the mirror, because the face looking back was no longer me. That thought gave me some restless moments, but I steeled myself and put on the flight suit my old unit had scrounged up for me to wear.

The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent in an endless series of debriefings. Everyone from Public Affairs to Counter-Intelligence paraded through my room. The only break I received was when an orderly brought me supper. He easily became my favorite visitor when he whipped the cover off a tray filled with steak, mashed potatoes and Texas Toast. I watched myself on CNN as the military cranked up the propaganda machine. I cringed at the mention of me being some kind of a hero, because nothing was farther from the truth. I did get a smile though when the talking head gushed on about the noble Bedouin farmer whose family sheltered me. It sucked that Hassan was being portrayed as a hero, but he had to be the focus of attention to keep my wives out of the spotlight. I thought it was a nice touch that I had him killed while trying to smuggle me back to American lines.

My toughest interview by far was with the crash site investigation team. It hurt me to my heart to be reminded of Pete Costas's death. It was from the crash investigators that I learned about the bizarre chain of events that led to me not being rescued. It didn't make me feel very lucky to know that a one in a million series of events had people still looking for me a hundred miles from where I crashed. The crash team left at nine that night. I was tired but too keyed up to sleep, until my pretty blond nurse brought me a seconal. She sat and talked with me a few minutes; I guess she thought I would appreciate the company of a woman after my desert ordeal. She was pleasant enough and looked good in her uniform, but she couldn't hold a candle to any of my wives.

I was up early the next morning, disoriented at first as I swam out of my barbiturate-induced slumber. Nothing felt right to me, not the bed, or the room or especially waking up alone. I got up and used the facilities and even that was strange. I was amazed at how much I missed my family and our farm already and it had only been one day. The hospital staff took my mind off my blues for the rest of the day, as I took the most thorough physical examination I ever had. My ordeal made the rigorous Class I Flight Physical seem like a cursory exam. I was poked, prodded, x-rayed and questioned endlessly by every specialty in the joint. Having been around medicine most of my adult life, I knew the physical hadn't gone particularly well. It was obvious when I had to retake the hearing and field of vision tests.

It was almost 1400hrs by the time I finished the last exam. I went back to the flight surgeon who hemmed and hawed as he read through the results. He excused himself and left me sitting in his office; fifteen minutes later, he returned and told me to follow him. I knew the news wasn't good when he led me to the Hospital Commander's office. He ushered me in and I reported to the attractive woman sitting behind a desk with my records in front of her. Her smile was almost maternal as she pointed to a chair in front of her desk.

"You didn't come out of this little adventure very well, Captain Pappas," she said.

I had to smile at that; she could not have been more mistaken.

"So I gather. What's the verdict?" I asked.

"You hit the trifecta, Captain. Using the results of your last flight physical as a base line, you have a twenty-five percent loss of hearing in your left ear. You need corrective surgery on your left knee to repair some major ligament damage. Even with surgery, you can forget about a career as a marathoner. Also, you have lost most of the peripheral vision in your left eye. The hearing loss could probably be waived, but the other two preclude you from flying."

I had pretty much figured most of that out; of course, it wasn't the sad occasion for me that the colonel thought it was. Still, I nodded solemnly; she definitely didn't need to know that bit of information.

"So what happens now?" I asked.

"You could ask to be reclassified into another career field, however, because you are not active duty, most likely you will go before a medical review board and be medically retired. Your civilian career isn't in aviation is it?"

"No ma'am, in real life I'm a Physician's Assistant. I work mostly trauma cases in the ER."

The Colonel gave a little laugh. "In real life that's about what I do. I had you pegged for some hotshot airline pilot. I'm classifying you unfit for flight status and I'm recommending you for medical discharge. The Public Affairs folks are salivating to put you all over the news; heroes are in short supply right now."

I looked at her in alarm, being made out to be a hero was the last thing I wanted. I asked her for a few minutes alone. She dismissed the flight surgeon; when he was out the door, she looked at me inquisitively.

"Ma'am, I don't want to be involved in any of that, not for a second. We do have heroes; they are manning checkpoints, conducting operations and risking being blown up by IEDs everyday. Crashing a plane and hiding in a basement for three months doesn't put me in that league. It would be disingenuous to even try it. Can you help me out?"

She did. Thankfully, Colonel Sarah Simon was a Reservist and a Medical Officer, two groups of people who don't mind tweaking the system's tail every once in a while. She picked up her phone and called in her staff psychiatrist. I waited out at the reception area while Colonel Simon and her Harvard trained shrink discussed what the Colonel thought was a moderate case of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). In short order, my physical profile was P-3 (permanent severely limit capacity) in lower extremities, hearing, eyes and T-3 (temporarily severely limited capacity) under psychiatric. With PTSD the Public Affairs flaks considered me a loose cannon, so they dropped me like a bad habit.

That night I looked up some of my friends and colleagues at the Officer's Club. Quite a few of the guys from my old unit were still around. It was not a very good reunion, because everyone had already heard I'd been grounded. Among aviators, being grounded was like being diagnosed with cancer, no one knows how to treat you and everyone feels sorry for you. Jericho Jimenez was the exception to the rule, but Pappy was the exception to most rules. We sat at a table and toasted Pete Costas with a non-alcohol beer. I asked Pappy about Vickie; she was my one personal involvement that I felt needed closure.

"She took it pretty hard at first, partner. After two weeks we had all given you up for dead. She mourned for you and Pete for a month or so. But by the time her unit rotated back to Tinker (Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma) last month, she was starting to date again. I know she cared for you, Nick, but she's young and ambitious, her career comes first right now."

I gave Pappy a smile. He was trying to let me down gently and warn me away from chasing after her, something he didn't need to do.

"I'll call her when I get back to the States, but I'm not going to try to rekindle what we had. I don't think we are right for each other in the long run anyway."

I did call Vickie Salvatore when I returned; I didn't have any reservations or fears about doing so, either. She was genuinely happy to hear from me, especially when I made it clear I was calling as a friend. We put our relationship to rest talking on the phone. I could hear the relief in her voice when I sincerely wished her well with her new love.

The next day I was on a flight to Germany; two days later I was a patient at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington D.C. It wasn't hard leaving Kuwait; hell, I didn't even have to pack, because everything I owned was boxed up as soon as I was declared MIA. Walter Reed was the Mayo Clinic of military hospitals; only the best doctors were good enough to treat the military brass and the politicos. I spent my last three weeks in the Air Force at Walter Reed. I had arthroscopic surgery on my left knee the first week and my Medical Review Board the second. I took physical therapy daily, waiting on the medical board's decision.

Twenty-six days after leaving my wives, I was medically retired, drawing sixty percent disability, about fifteen hundred tax free dollars a month. I also left with a check for a little over thirty thousand dollars, five months pay and allowances. Money paid untaxed because it had been earned in a combat zone.

I spent two more days in DC. I converted my official passport into a regular citizen's model, made the rounds of embassies for Jordanian, Iraqi and Kuwaiti visas, and started a bank account at the Jordan-Kuwait Bank. I had my retirement check direct deposited into the Jordan-Kuwait account.

I went from DC back home to Palmdale to settle my financial affairs. I rented a car at the airport and drove over to meet with Gary Wright, my attorney. Gary was also a friend and was thrilled that I was back safely. Gary had gotten engaged right before I went to the Gulf. He hooked up with this girl named Kayla Thorpe who worked at the 'Wing Thing, ' a Hooter's like bar and restaurant. That surprised me because Gary was a Mormon and was even straighter laced than me. It took Gary ten minutes to stop talking about his new wife and daughter. He showed me the family picture on his desk of Kayla, his adopted daughter, Emma, him and this goofy looking hound dog. When we finally got around to business, he took careful notes.

I was having Gary act in my behalf, selling my townhouse in Palmdale and the investment condo in Daytona. By having Gary acting with my power of attorney, I didn't have to stick around for the closings. Gary said the real estate market was going nuts right then with property appreciating thirty percent in the last six months. He thought the places would go quickly. I entrusted him to find a value for them that would earn me a good return and still move them quickly. My townhouse was in an upscale community with lots of amenities; it was a pretty swank bachelor pad with two bedrooms and two and a half baths. I told Gary that the price should include the house and its contents. He was dubious about me moving out of the country but I knew he would handle everything exactly as I wanted.

My next stop was at the shop where I had my Lexus stored. The owner of the shop, Paul Pulaski, had been maintaining my cars since I'd moved back there from Orlando, five years ago. Paul was another good man, probably the best I'd ever met except for Jim Gleason. Paul's son was in basic training and his daughter was a cadet at the Air Force Academy. I knew the son slightly from treating him in the emergency room when he had been attacked by a couple of pit bulls. I'd never met the daughter, but from her picture I sure would have liked too. Paul said he would sell my car for me. The Lexus was five years old, but still in great shape.

Bright and early the next morning, I showed up at the human resources office of my civilian employer, Palmdale General Hospital. Althea Watley, the head of HR, personally helped me fill out the paperwork to terminate my employment and cash out my 401k. Althea and I were good friends, she considered herself my big sister and felt it her duty to fix me up with every female in the hospital that was single. I had even heard through the grapevine that new employee orientation for single women included a glowing recommendation of me as prime marrying material.

"There are going to be some nurses with long faces when news of this gets out, Nick. Everyone was worried about you when you went missing and now you are planning on disappearing again."

"They'll get over it, Thea. They all knew I was hopelessly in love with you anyway."

She broke out in her infectious laugh and slapped me on the arm. "I keep trying to get Eldon to let me keep you on the side but he won't go for it."

Althea was about five feet tall and heavy set, her husband, Eldon, was at least six-six and as skinny as a bean pole. They were the most unlikely couple I'd ever seen; yet they were madly in love. I had always envied that love until I found my own. Althea smoozed the people at Prudential and faxed them the forms to convert my 401k to a money market account. After taxes and penalties I would have a little over two hundred thousand dollars. They promised to overnight me checks for the account the next day. I gave Thea a kiss and a hug good-bye, then headed to the bank.

I had to wait fifteen minutes at my local branch office of Palmdale Savings Bank before I could talk to Gina, the branch manager. Gina was another old friend; she had been the head teller here when I opened my account. Gina and I had even dated a few times before she found Mr. Right. Gina helped me cash in some certificates of deposit and close out my savings account. The CDs were mostly my inheritance from the Gleasons. I had four of them, each worth between fifty and sixty thousand dollars. My IRAs were also in Gina's bank. I had religiously deposited my National Guard checks from my monthly drills in a Roth IRA. When I was eighteen I had set a goal of having a million dollars in the bank by the time I was forty. I think I'd have made it, too, because at thirty-four I had half of it working to help me earn the other half.

I split the money from all my closed accounts and my last paychecks into three piles. I left a hundred-fifty K in a money market account at Palmdale Savings, bought a cashier check for a hundred and fifty k, and bought twenty-eight thousand dollars worth of traveler's checks. Gina helped me link my checking account to my new account at the Jordan-Kuwait bank.

I hung around Palmdale for two more days, most of the time was spent packing up my personal gear, canceling my utilities and saying goodbye to friends and acquaintances. I traded in my rental car for a long bed pickup truck, loaded it up and hit the road on Sunday afternoon. I had been gone thirty-three days so far.

I drove from Palmdale to Atlanta. I went to Atlanta because it was the closest city with major distributors of medical equipment and supplies. It took me two days to track down everything I needed to set up a small medical clinic. I bought three heavy-duty roll around containers, each four feet long by two feet wide by three feet high and packed the equipment in them.

I left Atlanta early in the morning on day thirty-six headed back to DC. I was nearing the finish line now, with only a few more things to do. I arrived in DC early enough to visit the Jordan-Kuwait Bank branch located near the Kuwait embassy. Depositing a hundred and fifty thousand dollar there made me some instant new friends. I sat down with one of the assistant managers and explained my travel plans. He agreed to air freight my three containers in my name to the branch office in Amman, Jordan. I overnighted at the Days Inn, near Reagan international airport.

The next morning, I used twelve hundred dollars worth of traveler's checks to buy a one-way ticket to Amman via Madrid leaving at ten PM the next night. From the airport, I went to a high-end electronics store and bought three satellite cell phones complete with accessory kits and one-year, twenty-seven hundred minute service plans. The phones were guaranteed to work in Iraq. I also bought three laptop computers with international power adapters. I grunted when the bill came to over nine grand but sucked it up and wrote the check. I hustled my loot over to the bank and packed the phones and computers in my three containers. As soon as I was finished, the banker I had been dealing with put seals and locks on the containers and handed me one of the keys. He said he would ship them that night and they'd be in Amman when I got there three days from now.

I called Gary Wright from the motel at three in the afternoon; he had good news for me. He said that he had already received two offers on the beachfront condo and one on my townhouse. I was agog at the numbers he was throwing around. He put the condo on the market at three quarters of a million and the townhouse at two hundred seventy-five thousand. None of the potential buyers even flinched at the prices. I owed about a hundred and fifty thousand on both combined so I looked to net a cool nine hundred thousand on the sale. I was going to have a good-sized nest egg even after I paid my wives' dowries.

"Sell 'em," I said.

The next twenty-eight hours were some of the longest of my life as I fidgeted around waiting for my flight. I decided to go to the airport early because of the stories I'd heard about long lines and delays at security for international flights. It is a good thing I did because my swarthy skin, dark curly hair and fledgling beard set off every terrorist profile alarm in the airport. I noticed right away people giving me fisheyes as I stood in the check-in line. Before long, two DC Metro policemen pulled me out of line and took my baggage and me to a room off to the side of the ticket counters. They questioned me for fifteen minutes, photographed me, scanned my fingerprints, and then ran the photo and prints through the terrorist database. While I was thusly engaged, they had a dog sniff my luggage.

After slogging through the line at baggage check-in, I made my way towards the international flight concourse. At the security screening station, a Transportation Security Administration guard pulled me out of line and took me to another windowless room. I was questioned, strip-searched and my carry on bag was minutely examined. My retired military ID did me not the least bit of good as I was once again run through the TSA's own database. By the time they were done with me, I didn't know whether to be insulted or to feel safer.

The flight to Spain was uneventful, but at Madrid's airport I went through the same ordeal with security. The only difference was that the Policía Nacional agents were much more polite and even more thorough. When they were satisfied I wasn't a bad guy, they escorted me to the gate, where my flight to Amman was departing. Then one of them kept me company for the two hours I had to wait. Thankfully, the plane to Amman took off only fifteen minutes late. I was as antsy as a two year old during the five hour flight.

It was mid-afternoon when we touched down in Jordan. I was tired and needed a shower badly. I took a shuttle bus to the Radisson and booked a room for two days. I took a shower and fell into bed, I slept soundly with the knowledge that I was less than two hundred miles away from my wives.

I woke up early in the morning even more excited about heading home soon. I was determined to get as much done today as possible. I dressed carefully in a dark gray suit, white shirt and dark blue and black striped tie. I was dressed for success that day because I knew that it would make an impression on everyone I had to deal with. My first stop was the bank of Jordan-Kuwait. I identified myself at the customer service desk and once again I was entrusted to an assistant manager. The man was clearly impressed that I spoke Arabic as well as I did. He took me to a locked security room and showed me that my containers had made it as promised. I expressed my amazement that the seals put on in DC were still intact.

"Our bank's reputation is such that our vouch-safe of the contents is all the customs people require," he said proudly.

I inquired about finding and buying a van that had at least ten seats. He made a couple of phone calls and located a truck dealer who had a few on his lot. The dealer agreed to send a driver over to pick me up and the banker wrote me a letter assuring the car dealer that my check was good. I ended up buying a spiffy, almost new twelve-passenger Volkswagen van for about twenty thousand dollars. At the dealership I was able to rent a truck and hire two drivers for the trip to Iraq. It cost me some big bucks though. I wrote the dealer a check and told him I'd see him in a day or so.

The dealer personally gave me a ride back to the bank. I saw why, when my banker had to countersign my check after examining the paperwork for the van. It was good to know that the Bank of Jordan-Kuwait was serious about service. I asked the banker's recommendation for a jeweler next. He didn't hesitate in sending me to his cousin's place of business, the Amman Diamond Exchange. I made another friend for life when I dropped almost ten thousand dinars on seven, one-carat engagement rings with matching wedding bands. I was satisfied that I had done all I needed to do when I went back to the hotel. I didn't see any reason why I couldn't leave for Iraq the next day.
Joe J & Wet Dream-Girl
Chapter 14