Chapter 1: FIGMO

“Jeeezus it’s cold!” bitched Airman First Class Gundersen as he climbed into the big blue metro van that pulled up to their airplane. The driver of the truck, Technical Sergeant Michael Donovan, just glared at him. It was two o’clock in the morning and it was five below zero outside. That’s damn near warm for a March night in North Dakota. They were ‘generating the fleet’ a fancy way of saying ‘preparing for war.’ Forty-five hours ago, the order came down from the Wing Command Post to load all the bombers and this was one of the last planes to be loaded. “Can I go home?” whined Airman Gundersen. “I think my balls got frostbite.”

Gundersen’s team chief, Staff Sergeant Richland, climbed into the truck after him. He turned to Sergeant Donovan and said, “Whatever you do to Gundersen, don’t get his blood on my field jacket.” Sergeant Richland slumped down on a bench seat behind Donovan. “I just got a new jacket, and I don’t want it messed up,” and he began to fill out his work orders.

TSgt. Donovan just watched the crew sit down in the van through the mirror over his head. “Gundersen,” he shouted. “You’re fuckin’ Norsk. This is T-shirt weather to you lutefisk eaters.”

“I’m from Bismark,” shouted the airman as he rubbed his hands together. “That’s way down south.”

“Yeah, a hundred n’ twenty miles south,” laughed Sammy Johnson, the number one man on their load team. “Y’all eat grits down there?” Then he turned to the driver. “How did we do my man?” he asked as he patted Sergeant Donovan on the shoulder. They had just loaded two dozen nuclear warheads on a B-52. They hung a rotary launcher of eight Short Range Attack Missiles (SRAM) in the aft bomb bay, a clip-in assembly of four B-83 gravity bombs in the forward bomb bay, and a pylon with six Air-Launched Cruise Missiles (ALCM) on each wing. Normally, that was considered about six hours of work, but with the cold, windy conditions, eight hours wasn’t bad.

Wedge pointed at the plexiglass status board where Richlands team started their load yesterday evening at nineteen fifteen hours. “Seven hours thirty five minutes,” said TSgt. Donovan. There was a metallic bang, and the truck rocked as SSgt. Richland’s three and four men coupled up the toolbox and climbed inside the truck.

Dan Richland stepped forward and handed his completed work order to “Wedge.” Back in basic training, somebody reminded Airman Basic Michael Donovan’s Technical Instructor that John Wayne played Michael Donovan in the Fighting Seabees and was called Wedge. Airman Donovan has been known as Wedge ever since. “What do you have for us next?” asked SSgt Richland.

Wedge looked at the plexiglass status board mounted on top of the engine cover and studied the myriad of numbers. He’s got one plane left to load and two available load crews but ... he started calculating the times that the load crews were called in versus the maximum amount of hours they’re allowed to work in a nuclear environment... “Let me check.” He picked up his radio microphone just as it squawked to life. “Roadrunner Five, Control.”

“Go ahead Control,” answered Wedge.

“The Big Oh needs you in the shop for a moment.”

Trying not to laugh, Wedge answered, “Roger.” He put the truck in gear and headed back to the weapons loading shop.

Meanwhile, in the Munitions Control office, the Noncommissioned Officer in charge of Weapons Loading, Master Sergeant Rodrigo Olivares, glared at the nearby Munitions Controller. “The Big Oh? I’m now The Big Oh?”

“That’s what you get for being too fuckin’ lazy to call him yourself,” answered the controller, a Staff Sergeant named Chad Flood. He received a light tap on the head from the stack of papers that were in Sergeant Olivares’ hands. This exercise has been going on for forty-five hours and everyone was getting punchy. But the taunts and insults were all in fun. Enlisted people rarely get pissed at each other, not when there’s a handy Second Lieutenant nearby to get pissed at.

“Next time!” warned The Big Oh as he pointed at Chad and headed back to his office. As he stepped out into the maintenance bay, Wedge pulled Roadrunner 5 into its parking space and told Staff Sergeant Richland, “Get your tools turned in, get some coffee then come see me in the loading office.”

“Roger dat,” said Dan Richland and he and the other four men on his team uncoupled the huge toolbox from the truck and wheeled it over to Equipment Support, where the tools were secured when not in use.

Wedge huffed and walked into the office with his clipboard and his empty Styrofoam coffee cup. In the office, he grabbed the shift logbook and poured a cup of overripe sludge from the ancient coffee pot and sat down. He began to enter his notes from tonight’s work into the shift logbook as Sergeant Olivares sat down on the other side of the desk. “What’s up?” he said to Rodrigo Olivares without looking up.

“FIGMO,” said the newly christened Big Oh. FIGMO stands for Fuck It, Got My Orders.

“Cool, where are you going?” asked Wedge.

“Not me,” said Master Sergeant Olivares as he dropped a thick manilla envelope on the logbook that Wedge was trying to update. “You.”

Wedge opened up the envelope and pulled out a thick stack of papers and studied the top copy. It was a set of orders assigning him to the eighth fighter wing, eightieth fighter squadron, Kunsan Air Base, Republic of Korea. “I ain’t never been to Asia,” said Wedge.

“It’s just like Europe,” said Sergeant Olivares.

Wedge finally looked up at his boss. “How could it possibly be just like Europe?”

“Everyone talks funny, and the food is weird.”

Technical Sergeant Michael “Wedge” Donovan wasn’t overjoyed with the orders he got, but he wasn’t unhappy–Kunsan Air Base. Eighth fighter wing, eightieth fighter squadron, weapons loading flight. Wedge wanted Europe, but he’ll take Kunsan. It’s a perfect location for a lone wolf like him, no families, no useless First Lieutenant trying to turn a fighting unit into a social club. He loved the Strategic Air Command, and he loved the hunting and fishing that the northwest offered, but Minot, North Dakota, was a bit too cold.

Michael Aloysius Donovan was a large fellow from Coudersport, Pennsylvania, who enlisted in the USAF to avoid the economic malaise that greeted him when he graduated from high school. So far, the Air Force has been kind to him, and he’s been to several state side bases interspersed with overseas bases in his career, but he still hasn’t received orders to his top choice, England. He wanted England so he could take some time off and visit the Mother Country, Ireland. He was sure that he got orders to England this time, but when he opened the envelope that Master Sergeant Olivares handed to him, he found he would be on the opposite side of the world from England.

Four hours later, he was back in his trailer in Ruthville, a tiny village close to the base’s south gate. It was a small two-bedroom trailer and fairly ancient, but the landlord was easy on the military, and a copy of your orders made it easy to break the lease. He turned up the heat, took off his field jacket, and sat down at the kitchen table. He had months to prepare, but he took a tablet out and began writing out a checklist of things to do. First sell his guns.

Months turned into days and soon it was time to leave the fertile soil of North Dakota and head out to Korea. After a nice going away party, he got a ride from his neighbor in Ruthville, Major Ayato Tanaka. Ayato was a fourth generation Japanese American and spoke with a Chicago accent. “You’re going to love Kunsan, it’s the last refuge of the real air force.”

“Which means what?” asked Wedge.

“You will find out really fast,” said Ayato with a huge grin. They shook hands as Major Tanaka dropped him off at the airport.

“Thanks man, I’m probably going to miss you most of all,” said Wedge.

“Then you need to cultivate better friends. Sayōnara!” which was all the Japanese the major knew how to use properly. Most of his Japanese came from watching anime.

All Wedge was carrying in his duffel bag were his uniforms and some civilian clothes and a couple Tom Clancy novels. Wedge was sure that they were going to supply him with what he needed when he got there. He got on the plane that was going to take him to Minneapolis, and he would fly from Minneapolis to St. Louis, then from there he would fly non-stop to Seoul.

He landed in Minneapolis with plenty of time to make his St. Louis flight, and he toured around the huge Lindberg airport before reporting to his departure gate. After waiting patiently, Wedge boarded the plane, buckled in and opened a copy of Field and Stream. The first hint that this trip was going to be a pain in the ass was when an airline maintenance fellow lay down on the floor in the aisle next to him.

The airline technician opened a panel and was digging around inside that panel. He had a flashlight and a mirror, and he finally located what he wanted. He then reached inside the open panel with ‘canon plug pliers.’ Those are a tool used to disconnect wire bundles from things like airplanes. Then he opened his tool bag and pulled out a soldering iron. Wedge has worked on airplanes for over a decade and while he was a weapons specialist, he knew enough to know that heating up a soldering iron for a plane that was supposed to be taking off soon was never a good sign.

As all this was going on, the captain kept coming on the intercom and he continued to assure passengers they were merely waiting for a push back from the terminal. Once they were pushed back, they would be on their way.

Wedge got out his cell phone and called the base transportation office and said, “This is Technical Sergeant Donovan, my port call flight is supposed to leave St. Louis in two hours.”