Basher Five-Two Read online

  My mind sped ahead. Who was Flashman? Some pilot, I guessed, maybe on temporary duty at Aviano or some other NATO base in Europe. I knew Magic was NATO’s airborne command post. Maybe Magic had heard me. A moment later came a second, equally faint voice.

  “Basher Five-Two, this is Flashman … hear me.”

  I shut my eyes. Flashman was looking for me. Before I could respond, the mysterious pilot spoke again. “Basher Five-Two, this is Flashman on Guard, if you hear me.”

  I gripped the radio so tightly I thought it might shatter. “Flashman, this is Basher Five-Two,” I almost screamed.

  “Basher Five-Two, this is Flashman, if you hear me, on Guard.”

  He couldn’t hear me! Controlling myself, I gave my call sign slowly and clearly. Again, there was no response. I kept waiting.

  “Anybody,” I finally said. “Basher Five-Two.”

  Flashman had gone. I sat back down on the ground. My emotions were mixed. I was badly disappointed that Flashman hadn’t received my transmission, but I was overjoyed that my radio was working and that NATO was looking for me. I was right, I had not been forgotten. Flashman, or somebody else, would be back. With my radio finally in receiving range of their messages, I knew I would be in contact again.

  My mother, after the visit from the chaplain and other air force officers to her Seattle home, immediately called my sister, Stacy. An eighth-grade public school teacher in Chicago, Stacy took the news harder than anybody else. Unlike my mom, who refused to believe I was dead, Stacy assumed the worst. She had never really liked my flying an F-16 because she considered it extremely dangerous. Growing up as the older brother, I had always protected her. Once I became a fighter pilot, she thought that somehow she had to protect me. She had given me the cross with the dove—so that I would always know she was thinking of me, she said—and whenever we got together she wanted to be reassured that I was the most safety-conscious pilot in the world. Now, when she received the bad news at her Chicago school, she felt a grief that not even her friends or my mother could assuage.

  Sharing the same birth date, Stacy and I also shared a special brother-sister intuition, and she knew I would want her to be with my parents during this terrible time. Stacy talked with my mom, and they agreed that it was my dad, living on the other coast in Virginia, who most needed her support. Stacy flew out the next day to be with him. My brother, Paul, joined them a day later, on Sunday. At Dad’s house they constantly watched news channels and tried to rally each others spirits. As long as the Serbs didn’t report finding my body, there was hope. The same afternoon that Paul arrived, the Serbs reported that they had captured me. The news was greeted with shouts of joy and calls to other relatives across the nation. At least if I had been captured, the theory went, I was alive. The Serbs wouldn’t dare hurt a NATO peacekeeper, would they?

  The Serbs had no evidence to show the world that I was their prisoner. All they had was video footage of the twisted wreckage of my F-16. Shown on Western news channels, the pictures looked grim. Everyone in my family wondered how any pilot could have survived a missile strike. When no fresh news followed about me, hope gave way to despair. Experts on television expressed doubts that the Bosnian Serbs were telling the truth about finding me. Colonel Charles Wald, commander of the Thirty-first Fighter Wing at Aviano, called my dad and mom to tell them that NATO was doing everything possible to find me. Still, he didn’t provide them with any specific plan. My dad hoped that, for military security reasons, Colonel Wald simply wouldn’t reveal that some rescue attempt was afoot. By late Sunday night, my family could only sit around and wait and worry—just like me, 12,000 miles away.

  On Monday, another colonel called to tell my family that a mysterious beacon signal had been picked up in the area where I’d been shot down and that the U.S. Air Force also had unconfirmed reports of a parachute sighting. My family’s spirits lifted again, until they were warned that without voice communication to back up the beacon, this could all be a trick of the Bosnian Serbs.

  On Tuesday the Serbs told Western journalists that I had never been captured and admitted they had no idea whether I was alive or dead.

  My dad clung to the hope that if I had parachuted out of my plane, I was still alive. He knew of all the practice jumps I’d taken at Fort Benning, and like everything else I’d pursued in my life, he knew how much effort Fd put into my training. But Stacy was less optimistic. She would stand in Dad’s backyard and stare blankly at the sky. The only hope she felt came from that special bond between us, the one that we kept in our hearts. She thought of the cross necklace she had given to me as a present. As long as I wore that, she told herself, I was going to be okay.

  SEVEN

  Somewhere between Monday night and Tuesday morning I was awakened from a combat nap by an explosion that shook the ground around me. Confused and frightened, I was in fear for my life and wanted to dig myself deeper into my hole-up site. The strange explosion was followed by a tomblike silence. A mortar, a hand grenade, an artillery shell, maybe even a sonic boom from a jet—it could have been anything. All I knew for sure was that the hole-up site wasn’t as safe as I’d hoped.

  I considered repacking everything in my rucksack and moving instantly, but with the birds already chirping away, I knew it was close to sunrise. I would have to stay low for another eighteen hours, try to get some rest, and under darkness plod on toward the hill I’d chosen for my rescue site.

  After the mysterious boom, though exhausted, I was too on edge to sleep. I turned on my radio and kept monitoring it in vain. I wondered if Leroy and Alfred would return, with Tinker Bell in tow. I worried, too, about a condition called hypothermia, in which your core body temperature drops dangerously below the normal temperature of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. If this happens, your mind becomes confused. I worried that this might influence me to make bad decisions that could lead to my capture. After the last rain, my clothes were still wet, and in addition to the normal damp cold, I was shivering badly. Even though I was wearing my mittens and ski mask to prevent heat loss from my body, I would have given anything to start a roaring bonfire.

  My mind was continually reeling in one direction or another. Besides praying to God and trusting that my family hadn’t given up hope, I thought about all my buddies in the air force. I had made so many friends over the years. The deepest friendships had come during my one-year tour with the Eightieth Fighter Squadron, or the Juvats, at Kunsan Air Base in South Korea. There, married officers weren’t allowed to bring their families. Pilots worked and lived together twenty-four hours a day. When we weren’t flying sorties near the border between South and North Korea, we took our meals together, shared thoughts and emotions, and partied hard in our time off. Like a special club or fraternity, we Juvats had our slogans, hand gestures, songs, and traditions. We were forever making toasts and giving speeches, which I kept brief because I wasn’t much for public speaking. And, of course, a Juvat pilot never could forget the Juvat salute—two fists raised high above the head and facing each other.

  In March 1993, I had been reassigned to a fighter squadron in Germany, and a year after that, to Aviano, but I would never forget Kunsan and my fellow Juvats. That was the year that trust and loyalty acquired an even deeper meaning for me. If you were a fighter pilot, ready to give your life for your country at any moment, you needed strong personal bonds with those around you, a belief that you were never alone. Teamwork meant that if you had to, you would sacrifice yourself for your fellow pilots, and they for you.

  As the morning passed, I monitored my radio without picking up any voices, just more dull static. I told myself that reception would be better at night, and in any case I would be free to talk into the radio. Throughout the day my mood constantly shifted, between hope that I would be rescued at any minute and despair that I would be stranded in Bosnia for weeks or even months. My feelings were not caused by any lack of faith in God or my fellow pilots. I was just afraid of getting my hopes up and then being disappointed. I n
eeded to think carefully—and not just expect to be rescued soon. Self-reliance was something I’d learned at an early age, and my military training had emphasized it, too. I had also learned from my dad that if one solution didn’t work, you had to be creative and try another.

  At the moment, although I was not particularly hungry, my most pressing need was keeping up my strength. If I was going to be running for cover every night, week after week, I had to fill my stomach. Glancing around, I snatched a couple of leaves from a tree, gave them my is-it-safe-to-eat test, and had the same reaction as before. The leaves were incredibly dry and only made me thirsty. I was wondering what else I could gobble up when my gaze was attracted to something moving in front of me.

  Strolling next to my hand was a thin brown ant. I watched him head off to join his fellow ants, which, about three feet beyond, were happily feasting on a dead worm. I watched the scene with interest. I had never eaten ants, despite encouragement from more than one survival instructor. The very idea of eating bugs made me faintly sick. But circumstances change, and I found myself squirming toward the decaying worm. I reached out with my mittened hand and plucked one poor ant out of the group, squishing him between my fist and my rucksack. I dropped him down the hatch, crunched down on him, and pushed him to the back of my mouth. I held him there and waited two minutes for a reaction. When I felt no irritation, I swallowed him whole.

  I knew ants are high in fat and have more protein than even beef. They are also full of vitamins and minerals. In some places in Africa, ants can be as sweet as honey and are a popular treat. My meal of one ant was as sour as a lemon drop. Still, he didn’t leave my mouth dry. I reached over and grabbed another ant. The group, sensing something was amiss, began scattering in all directions, but none was as quick or as determined as I. Within thirty minutes, I had made a meal of fifteen of them.

  That afternoon, I heard another jet to the south but heard nothing on my radio. Besides my normal frustration, I began to worry again about wearing down my batteries. Unless something drastic and unexpected happened, I decided I would save my radio for later. Everything had to be in order, ready for my push toward that hill. Even though my ski mask covered most of my head, on my face and neck I put some green and brown camouflage paste, just to be extra careful. I put my survival gear back into the rucksack and into my vest, checking everything twice. Just when I was feeling mentally comfortable and was trying to rest before nightfall, I heard a familiar sound.

  The heavy, dull clomping of hooves was slowly coming my way, along with that irritating clanging bell. I dropped flat on my tarp, thinking, Here come Alfred and Leroy to their favorite dining spot. Just as before, they began grazing within feet of me. Then up the path strolled Tinker Bell. From the loudness of his or her bell I knew Tinker Bell was closer than yesterday. I never did catch a glimpse of the cow herder, but what I feared most was that he or she might spot me. As long as that bell kept ringing, I knew Tinker Bell wasn’t running off to tell his or her family or the local authorities.

  After half an hour, the two cows and their handler disappeared. I had been saying prayers the whole time. Now I had the luxury of taking a deep breath and wondering what lay ahead.

  It was close to midnight before I began my journey. Moving out of the thistle patch, loaded down with gear, I stumbled often, clumsily breaking twigs right and left. I worried about losing my balance and coordination. This could have been the result of hypothermia or another condition called dehydration, which is caused by the body’s not receiving enough fluid. I finally found my way east, onto small flat fields bordered by bushy trees. I tried monitoring my radio as I moved, hoping to hear from Flashman, but it took my attention away from my path. The terrain was tricky, with swells and dips, and low rock walls that I had to climb over. After scaling one, I landed in a deep, muddy puddle. Surprised, and angry with myself for getting my boots and socks wet, I muttered in disgust and tramped on.

  Not stopping at that moment was one of the things I most regretted during my entire ordeal. I could easily have filled a water bag to the brim, popped in an iodine tablet to purify the water, and satisfied my body’s all-important need for liquid. Fd already gone through most of the water Fd saved from the thundershower. By the time I realized my error, I was advancing into another field. I didn’t want to retrace my steps because I was having enough difficulty going forward. Even though I had my compass out and generally knew where I was heading, the gray, clustered shapes of nearby hills were confusing. Which was the specific hilltop Fd picked out on my EVC? I couldn’t find it.

  I was tempted to pull out my GPS, but even if I learned my coordinates, Fd have to verify them on the map. That meant using my penlight to see, and I knew I shouldn’t take that risk. Once more the urge to rush everything and make contact with NATO tonight was at war with the voice that warned me to go slow and not hurry into a mistake. As I zigzagged through fields and climbed over walls, my sense of caution won out. An hour before sunrise I began searching for a hole-up site. I chose a cluster of trees and bushes near a three-foot rock wall. The site looked promising. An open pasture lay on the other side. I couldn’t imagine any reason cows would have to leave their favorite pasture and jump over a wall to visit me.

  The first light of Wednesday was less than an hour away. By the time I settled in, satisfied but exhausted, I was ready for a quick nap. But not before I made up for last night’s blunder. I couldn’t quite forgive myself for leaving that puddle of muddy water without even taking a sip. Removing my shoes, I yanked off my wet socks and wrung them out, one by one, over an open Ziploc bag, catching every dirty drop that I could. The amount I collected wasn’t much, and the water tasted bitter, but I wasn’t complaining.

  I fell asleep and had my first real dream since being shot out of the sky. I dreamed that I didn’t have to hide anymore because NATO had arranged to pick me up and the locals were helping by giving me food, a shower, and a bed.

  I woke with a start. It was a sweet dream, but it hurt me to think it wasn’t true. I so badly wanted out of Bosnia. I checked my tarp, my netting, and the branches that covered me. I pored over my EVC. I was within one night’s journey of the hill where I wanted to be. All I had to do was scout for a decent landing spot for a helicopter. And pray to God that someone would hear me on my radio.

  In the middle of the night I heard distant rifle fire. I tried to ignore my jitters as I gathered my radio and set out to explore. Before leaving my hole-up site, I turned up a corner of my tarp—to the silver side—so that the moon could reflect off it and show me the way back. Walking along the edge of the woods, I moved uphill, gathering and eating grass along the way to keep up my strength.

  After about fifty yards, I found a small clearing that seemed perfect for sending a radio beacon. The site wasn’t big enough for a helicopter to land, but maybe they could hover above and drop me a safety line and pull me up. I didn’t see the need to go any farther and risk getting into trouble. With almost a full moon to guide me, I set up my GPS receiver and was lucky to quickly ring up not three but four satellites to fix my coordinates. Then I plugged in my earpiece and monitored my radio.

  Official SAR (search-and-rescue) procedure was that NATO was supposed to contact me, not the other way around. But I’d already sent out more than one beacon, and after my frustrating attempt to reach Flashman, the airwaves had been strangely silent. I couldn’t keep only monitoring. I had to talk to someone. Otherwise they might never find me, no matter how hard they were trying. Turning to the Guard channel, I flipped on the high-pitched beacon and kept it on for what seemed like minutes but was really only seconds. If the enemy was going to pick up my signal, so be it. This felt like my only chance of getting rescued. I began monitoring for a response, first on Guard, then on Alpha. The waiting was nerve-racking. Eating more grass was my way of staying calm.

  Please, Lord, I prayed, let them find me tonight. At least let them know I’m alive.

  For an hour I sat on a rock in the clearing, s
hivering, trying to stay warm by rubbing my hands together, and going back and forth to my radio. Turning it on and off, I waited for the miracle of a human voice. Then, on Alpha channel, it came. Not a voice, not yet. But three very clear, sharp clicks. No matter how much my mind was drifting, I was sure of that noise. It was the sound a microphone or a radio makes. Someone was on the other end. Someone was trying to call me.

  EIGHT

  Within an hour after I had been shot down on Friday, a badly shaken Bob ‘Wilbur” Wright, my flight leader, had returned to Aviano with grim news for everyone in the Triple Nickel. After watching my plane get blown apart by a missile, he had neither seen a parachute in the sky nor heard any radio message from the ground. He had made several caps, combat air patrols, above the immediate area, following our SAR plan, before reluctantly assuming the worst. At Aviano, pilots and wives listened to the grim news but somehow hoped that I had pulled off the impossible and survived.

  On Sunday, when the Bosnian Serbs claimed that they had captured me, among all the pilots at Aviano no one wanted to believe that message more than Wilbur. And after Wilbur came Captain Tom “T.O.” Hanford, the weapons and tactics officer of the Triple Nickel. Hanford had been flying F-16s for seven years and had lost a number of pilot friends in air accidents. To make the record worse for him, I would have been the first lost in a combat situation. When the Bosnian Serbs later admitted that they had not captured me, Hanford feared that I had died as a prisoner of war and the Serbs were simply afraid to tell the world the truth. There was only the slimmest chance, Hanford now believed, that I was alive and on the run. The only way to know for sure was to keep looking for me.

  Search-and-rescue planes went out in pairs every day from Aviano, as did the usual sorties of F-16s as part of Operation Deny Flight. Everyone was fearful of the SAM batteries that had shot down my plane. If the Serbs could get me, the SAMs could get them, too. Pilots were ordered to fly their missions “feet wet,” along the coastline, which was out of the missiles’ range. Better there than in the no-fly zone, where I’d been hit. But from Aviano and other NATO bases in Italy, secret “packages” were, in fact, flying “feet dry” over Bosnia, searching for me. “Packages” meant a fleet of maybe six planes at one time, which had plenty of firepower to knock out any SAMs, if necessary. “Feet dry” meant flying over land, as opposed to “feet wet,” flying over water.