I'm sure you've seen those great strike films from Operation Desert Storm, Operation Just Cause, Operation Deliberate Force, Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom and many others. I'm sure you didn't think of how those bombs got to the release point, just that they were safely tucked away in a bomb bay or hanging happily from a bomb rack until the gun camera could record their final seconds of life, the last thousand feet they plunged, and the remains of the target they obliterated.
Good, because I enjoyed working in anonymity. For 20 years of my life, if you give me an airplane and a trailer load of bombs, me and a few other guys would find something to do with them. It amused us, in a safe, secure, and mostly sane manner to do something nobody else on earth would enjoy doing. Putting bombs on airplanes. I worked mostly B-52s where loading four planes in one day was an impossible task. Three was a good number to reach.
Then I got assigned to Kunsan Air Base, South Korea. Torn from the secure home that the Strategic Air Command had become, I was a bomber kind of guy in a crazy fighter world. And I was not prepared for that kind of crazy. The silliest funniest things that ever happened in my life happened at Kunsan and I loved every minute of it - the airman that was terrified of frogs, the pilot who was sure he nuked Korea, the joy of watching an NFL game on TV without the headache of over-paid announcers (It's really a zen moment!) I knew I had to put these events down on paper or I'd forget them.
Introducing Technical Sergeant Michael "Wedge" Donovan who is sometimes called "Guns" Donovan depending on which John Wayne movie you like. (No, other than rank we're nothing alike) He was recently assigned to Kunsan Air Base and suddenly the adventure of his solitary life began. His flight to the Land of the Morning Calm was delayed due to electrical problems and suddenly Wedge was stuck trying to find his way to a base he's never been to in a land where he's functionally mute and illiterate due to the language barrier.
He somehow arrives to his base which is in the middle of an exercise and he quickly realized they play for real. On Kunsan explosions and gun fire are as real as it can possibly get and for someone whose idea of a military exercise was 12 hour shifts and cold chow hall food, this became a real eye opening for Wedge. On his first encounter with the men and women of Kunsan Air Base, he discovered they were all "Dumb Dead."
Enter Technical Sergeant Roxanne Dawson, a beautiful black girl and self-professed lesbian. She shares a bathroom with Wedge and he commits the unforgivable sin his first day there by using her shampoo. It couldn't be that egregious of a sin, he did con her into going to dinner. Friendship bloomed but soon the big Irish loner found himself locked into the Friend Zone by the cute black lesbian. Should he find peace in this relationship? Should he break it off and make a move on the cute Korean waitress at the NCO club? Or can he melt her heart with his Irish charm?
There's a lot of silly things going on around Wedge and Roxie, and a lot of it actually happened to me. If you meet some familiar faces, that's completely intentional. Kunsan is the crossroads of the Air Force and eventually most people pass through there. In my tour I met several guys I hadn't seen since basic training so I tried to instill that feeling in this story. Hopefully Wedge and Roxie can make it through their tour without becoming dumb dead.
Friend Zoned - A Juvat Romance can be found at Bookapy.com for under $3.00.