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The C-17 with two DAP Hawks in its belly flew straight through. No Aviano Air Base in Italy. No Ramstein in Germany. Fourteen hours, two flight crew changes, and a midair refueling, straight to the States.
They slept as well as they could on the hard deck. Everyone woke cranky after fighting to ignore the pounding roar of the four jet engines ramming them from Southwest Asia over Scandinavia and Greenland and down to Kentucky. Water bottles and plastic-packaged sandwiches were handed round, all made with white bread that turned to mush and stuck to the roof of your mouth in awkward lumps.
John now had a crick in his neck that he couldn’t crack loose to go along with his sore hand. He and Connie put in a couple of listless hours on the Hawk. They finished what could be done inside the
