Chapter 10: Lieutenant Kenosha’s Air Force

As the weeks slid past, Roxie and Wedge spent all of their free time together getting to know each other. Wednesday Night was movie night on the base cable system, and they would pop some corn and sit in Wedge’s room watching whatever came on. They sat side by side and chatted through Smokie and the Bandit 3 and he found out she was from the Florida side of the tiny town of St. Felix Georgia. The St. Mary’s River goes through the town “Cutting every trailer park in the county in half” as she put it, and everyone on the east side is in Florida, everyone on the west side is in Georgia. “Our only claim to fame was having a bridge across the river. The next nearest bridge was thirty miles away on the north border of Florida.” She was raised a single child by a widowed mother. Her dad was a Marine that didn’t come back from the middle east.

For his part, Wedge’s dad worked at the Adelphia Cable headquarters and his mom worked in the local catholic school cafeteria and because of shift work, they never saw each other while Wedge was awake.

“What do you want to do when you get out?” Roxie asked him.

“I don’t know. I had my plan set, I was going to go squat on some forested mountain and live off the land.”

“Being a mountain man is not so attractive anymore?”

“No...” but Wedge wouldn’t go from there.

“Tell me why!” Roxie demanded, and she started tickling him. “Come on, tell me!”

Wedge squirmed and laughed and came halfway out of his chair and finally said, “OK! Stop! I’ll talk!” After catching his breath, he muttered something.

“I didn’t catch that,” said Roxie.

“I said I don’t like being alone anymore.”

A myriad of emotions crossed Roxie’s face. Then she settled down as the movie they were watching came back on TV. “Me neither,” she said softly.

Wedge smiled faintly; how could two souls connect so perfectly over a shared bathroom? He opened his hand and shortly her hand slipped into his. So warm and perfect and small. He gazed at her chocolate brown skin contrasted against his pale white skin. It just felt right. Roxie rested her head on his shoulder and that felt even better.

Just as they both considered the possibility of a kiss, the sound of a distant “BOOM!” rattled his window. It was followed by a loud “BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!”

“Was that a simulator or Big Coyote?” Roxie asked. A simulator was a large firecracker that the Exercise Evaluation Team used to simulate a bomb; Big Coyote was a hill that had an artillery piece on it covering the base. It was rumored that last year, Big Coyote hit a two-man submarine from North Korea.

“We’ll find out in about fifteen minutes,” said Wedge and he got up and pulled his civilian clothes off.

“Shit,” muttered Roxie, and she got up and headed to her room through the bathroom, pulling her blouse off as she went. Five minutes later, they were dressed in their BDUs, flack vest and helmet, their gas masks strapped to their left leg and a canteen full of water on their right hip. They locked their rooms and headed down the stairs and were in the bike garage and were unlocking their bikes when the sirens started blaring and the lights were turned off all over the base.

They balanced their heavy equipment bags on the seats of their bicycles and fast walked to the gate that would let them on the flight line. “What’s up?” said Wedge as he stepped into the Weapons Flight office.

“Still waiting for orders from the Wing King,” said the second shift supervisor, the wing king being the Wing Commander.

Evening exercises are considered being the most difficult, merely because you’re starting at an odd hour. Trying to figure out when to bring in your primary troops was a pain in the ass. They’ve already put in a full day, and your night troops have already put in half a day. Wedge stayed out of that discussion and let Dan and Josh and the new NCOIC Senior Master Sergeant Sammy Johns deal with the shift management. It’s a headache because weapons loaders are banned from working over 12 hours in a shift so their shifts must be managed carefully.

Soon, the management arrived, and eventually word came down from on high. This was going to be a big one. “Here’s the schedule,” said Master Sergeant Dan Baker, and he handed Wedge a clip board. “Let everybody know. This is Lieutenant Kenosha, he will be our new OIC, he will be riding with you tomorrow.”

Many expediters will catch the crews as they come in, but Wedge likes to tell everyone all at once. “DAYSHIFT! Fall in on your team chief!” After a few minutes, his eight load crews were lined up and he said, “Who’s missing?”

“Roopy,” said half of the flight. Roopy is Rupert Pines, who is constantly late. He’s a young kid, a fair bomb loader, a terrible drinker and he’s auditioning a Juicy Girl to shack up with. He appeared out of a crowd of specialists at the sound of his name and the flight cried out “ROOP!” followed by Wedge saying, “They he is!” which embarrassed the hell out of the young two striper.