Lance Uppercutt Wants To Fight The War

While I was deployed recently I kept a running blog. I figured I could post them up here and feel like even more of a tool. Enjoy the WarBlogs

WarBlog 1
6 November 2006

I once heard that war is an ugly thing. I'm sure that is a fair assessment; however I'm not sure that it can apply to the supposedly defining moments of my young life. In just over a week I will turn 25 and I will already be a grizzled veteran of two wars. Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom are the two wars that will allow me to bore every unfortunate volunteer that wanders into a VFW in 40 years, and they are the reason that I'm deployed now. I'm a C-17 pilot in the US Air Force and I'm not sitting in a 120 degree tent in downtown Baghdad. I'm not even in a crappy trailer in Kuwait or Qatar. I'm lounging in an air conditioned hotel room on an air base outside of Adana, Turkey watching my Browns blow another football game. I can look out my window and see palm trees. The Mediterranean is less than an hour's drive from here, and the thing I'm most excited about in this whole 'hellish' experience is that spellcheck didn't correct my spelling of Mediterranean. It did get catch spellcheck, though. Crap. What is it? Spell-check? Spell check? You'd think by now that could be a real word with neither space nor hyphen. I would've guessed that a pompous company like Microsoft would ensure words like 'spellcheck' found their way into the vernacular by allowing their own products to overlook them. Whatevs, back to the war. Turkey is my home away from home as I spend the next four months prosecuting this war with unsurpassed lethality. Well not actually, but that's what they keep telling me after they remind me that I'm a warrior.

Considering I'm deployed with a flying squadron, one would assume we'd take our own jets over here to the front. Well I guess that some bean-counting, abacus-loving, slide rule-toting desk jockey mathematician decided that it would cost the government less if they shipped us out on a commercial carrier. They obviously didn't factor in the major ass-pain that it would cause (I feel it pertinent to point out at this juncture that of only two military quotes that I actually like, Patton's, "An army without profanity can't fight it's way out of a piss-soaked paper bag" now comes to mind. If you're angry about my potty-mouth you can take it up with Patton. Or his ghost I guess…spooky.)

We showed up at McChord AFB around 7 AM on Wednesday in order to hurry up and wait for our 1030 takeoff, except we took off over an hour late. I'm guessing somebody didn't tell the carrier, NAA (North American Airlines), that we were going to have luggage. We had a lot of luggage, tons of it in fact. We had enough uniforms, clothing, body armor, and chemical gear for four months—go figure. Now you may be surprised that an airline would forget something as basic as luggage, but keep in mind that you've never heard of North American Airlines, and for good reason.

Their solution for the extra luggage was to have us put our carry-ons in our laps and put our excess baggage into the overhead compartment. Great, so we start doing that. At this point it occurs to some of the loadmasters that the plane may now be out of balance. They're yelling; they want to see the Form F to make sure that the aircraft's center of gravity will be within limits. Before we're even done loading the remainder of the baggage the pilot comes over the intercom and informs us that the weight and balance were checked and that everything is fine. Right. Most of the loadmasters are pissed but I could care less; the plane would have to have ten thousand pounds sitting directly on the tail for the center of gravity to be so effed up that it would actually matter.

So we take off bound for JFK. Immediately we all get pissed because the free alcohol we've been promised is not being delivered. This is a major disappointment because half of us are going to a place where alcohol is all but unavailable. The flight attendants inform me that since we are in uniform they cannot serve us. I'm angry. These airlines will do anything to cut costs. Anyways, after watching a positively drool-inducing Kate Beckinsale sexy her way through Click, we land in JFK. I'm worked up because I won't see a civilian girl for four months. Maybe I can pick up a Kate Beckinsale of my own in the airport terminal while the plane is fueling up.

I can't. I'm not sure what terminal we parked at, but there weren't any other people or planes for miles. Wasn't this supposed to be one of the busiest airports in America? Well at least this concourse wasn't totally empty; there was a bar and a duty free shop. Since the Nazi flight crew only gave us 30 minutes, we all fought our way to the bar to get as many beers as we could before we had to board the NAA flight. By this point I've realized that NAA should stand for Non-Alcoholic Airways or Novice Asshole Airways instead of whatever it is.

Forty minutes later we're told that there's bad weather in Shannon, Ireland, so we can't take off until that clears up. This brings up another point of contention: if we were to fly our own jets we could have left Seattle, air refueled before hitting the Atlantic, and landed all the way over here in Turkey in one shot. After that the rest of the squadron, who will be fighting their war from Kyrgyzstan, could have taken one more flight to their destination instead of getting stuck in Azerbaijan between two flights like ended up happening. Good job, Air Force, way to pinch those pennies. At least this bad weather is a blessing in disguise, we get to keep drinking and I get to watch LeBron and the Cavs snuff the Wizards' unrealistic hope for revenge. At some point I have the amazingly brilliant idea to run to the duty free shop and pick up some cheap hard alcohol and some mixers. Everyone follows my example and lauds the fact that the Air Force has finally molded me into a natural born leader. If you missed the joke in that last sentence, you are probably also one of the reasons Arrested Development is no longer on the air. Eff you. So we continued to make the military proud by killing our livers until permitted to board the plane a few hours later.

This next flight is a blur, but I figure I'll recount it anyway. Some dumb movie is on, but I'm still thinking of Kate Beckinsale. I invite the one girl in the squadron I'd sleep with to sit next to me and watch it. Well, one of three actually, but as an officer I'd get kicked out if I slept with the other two (unless it was the other two at the same time, then I'm sure the court martial committee would just high five me, slap me on the ass, and send me on my way). She obviously accepts the invite to come to my row because I'm utterly charming. That and my row has more alcohol than most clubs in Vegas. I wanted to make a move on her, not because she's attractive, but I was drunk and she was there. I'm not saying she's unattractive, far from it. She actually has the perfect nose. This is not a matter of opinion but a matter of fact. It was ruled on by a judge in 2003, and actually found validation through appeal all the way to an 8-1 Supreme Court victory. I believe Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg wrote the dissenting opinion; jealous bitch. Anyways, I never end up making a move on the girl because I never get the opportunity and she probably hates me anyway. We pass around the bottles for awhile and now she's tired. She heads back to her empty row to sleep. I've now decided to branch out.

I spill my drinks all the way to the front of the cabin to talk to the flight attendant with the almond-shaped eyes. She looks like a mummified cat that the ancient Egyptians would have worshipped. I've been calling her 'Isis the Cat Goddess' to her face and 'The Corpse of a Hot Stewardess' to my friends. Let me take this opportunity to point out that Profiles in Courage this ain't. Well now I'm drunk and she's smiling, so I'm openly hitting on her. I continue until the point that one of my comrades (like how I can call my coworkers comrades? It's a military perk. Jealous?) comes up and catches me in the act. I play off my advances and run to the back of the cabin as quickly as possible.

In the back I run into another friend who is unrelentingly hitting on the Jamaican flight attendant. Despite his long-term girlfriend back home I play his wingman for a bit, after all I'm a pilot, until I decide to steal the flight attendant's skin-tight sweater. This thing is a body suit on her lithe frame, so you can actually see my pulse when I'm wearing it. I run up and down the aisles offering drinks and more profane services to the laughter of my coworkers. Soon enough we descend and the pilot punishes Ireland for letting us land there. I wonder how he felt having such a crappy landing with 60 pilots behind him all inevitably thinking, "I'm better than this clown."

In Ireland we have about an hour to drink. Honestly, we've been doing it for seven hours now and this is Ireland, what else were you expecting us to do? Everyone gets a Guinness except me; I take a Smithwyck's. I love the black stuff, but I'm a pro, not an amateur. My judicious choice of beverage and my undeniably Irish looks attract the attention of a few local girls waiting for their plane. There were only four of them talking to me, but let me be clear: I was talking to a ton of girls. I quickly extricated myself from the situation as our plane was about to leave. We got back to our gate only to find that the aircraft was going to need a crew change since it had been so long, so we're going to be stuck in another airport for a few hours. I headed back to the bar and immediately showed up my counterparts again by ordering a hot whiskey. Everyone was perplexed by this drink; they all had to try it. Within minutes everyone around me is downing whiskey faster than Mel Gibson and Nick Nolte combined. On a side note, if those two hung out, who would be DD? Honestly, it's a fair question. Anyways, long story short we all drank until the plane was ready to go again. Let me reiterate the fact that the majority of us will not be drinking for the next four months.

At this point most of us figured it would be a good time to sleep. Upon request, the Air Force had supplied many of us with the sleep aid Ambien. The doctors know that often we fly across multiple time zones and that when we land we'll need to get a good night's sleep before flying again the next day. The sleeping pills help us combat the jet lag. I have seven pills to last me for the deployment. On a bet I took three and tried to stay awake as long as possible. After about a half hour of me being loopier than a post-knockout boxer, the guy in front of me informs me that my eyes are so dilated there's no color left. This upset me, so I stagger up and down the aisle looking for God-knows-what. The plane is taxiing, and I'm the only one walking around. I'm convinced the plane is empty until I stumble over a friend who wakes up and stares at me like I'm there to swallow his soul. Upset further, I ran to my seat with my head easily a yard in front of my feet the whole way.

I tried to sleep but I woke up periodically to a startling truth: alcohol and pills don't mix. I can't believe they don't put that on the bottle or something. I would have checked, but I'm pretty sure Ambien plus rum equals acid, so I was in no shape for reading. At this point, I'm terrified, not of the impending war, but of the horrible things going on around me. It's like Batman's nemesis Scarecrow hit me with a double dose of his crazy fear powder. The guy in the seat beside me brought a green sleeping bag with him and now pulled it up over his head. Every time I opened my eyes the swamp over there shifted and I could only avert my gaze to the seat in front of me. That was alright until that seat's occupant turned around and beamed at me with glowing red eyes and asked about the drool on my chin. I wiped that away as we landed in Turkey on Thursday at 2300. I turned around and looked down the aisle. It corkscrewed and flickered towards some shadows in the back. I snatched the air sickness bag from the pouch in front of me and put it to my mouth. I asked my buddy across the aisle how many ninjas were back there. We decided there were two.

My war started in a very strange way.