Chapter 1

In the crazy chaotic compilation of events called Gary Ashton's life, I'd have to say that these events all started around seven years prior. At that time I was active duty Air Force, a pilot by trade and a damned good one if I do say so myself. I flew F-16 Falcons and that job – well, more like love – took me all over the world: Europe, Japan, Korea and several stateside assignments.

I loved my job but hated being gone from home so much. I'd managed to pick up a wife. We eventually had a daughter and I thought life was grand. I was pushing fifteen years in the service when I got tabbed to deploy to Afghanistan for six months. I'd already deployed to Qatar and Iraq in the last couple years, so I was familiar with what I was going to be getting into.

For the most part, things were peachy throughout the deployment. Sure, I worked some seriously long hours flying missions and whatnot, but I was used to it. At the time I was a Lieutenant Colonel and pondering if I wanted to stay in to make O-6, or full-bird Colonel. More responsibility and headaches, but the pay increase was tempting. I figured I'd sit down with the missus and my daughter and decide this as a family, because this decision affected them just as much as it did me. The other option I was seriously considering was going the Air National Guard route.

I was nine days away from redeploying back to the States when the first of several events turned my world upside-down. I was scheduled to fly a CAS (Close-Air Support) mission in southern Afghanistan where the fighting was still quite fierce.

I'd taxied my bird to the end of the runway, did a last-minute check of everything and then radioed the tower for departure clearance. Receiving the clearance, I applied the brakes, ran the engine to full military power for a second and then pushed into afterburner. The Falcon shuddered, wanting and needing release, so I obliged.

Now, takeoffs in a combat zone vary greatly from normal takeoffs. In a normal setting, such as at my home station, it'd almost be a leisurely takeoff and climb to flight level. Not here in Afghanistan, though. Here, many in the local population liked to take pot-shots at planes landing and taking off. Usually they'd be small caliber shots, but once in a while you'd hear about an RPG being used. Because of such, we had to perform "combat departures". Fancy term for balls-to-the-wall, ass-is-on-fire rollercoaster style takeoffs.

Well, this particular day, I'd released the brake and my bird screamed down the runway. At the minimum takeoff speed I nudged my bird up in the air, maybe 20-30 feet and retracted the landing gear. This style of takeoff always tickled me pink. Nothing like scraping your ass across the dirt before launching yourself skyward, you know. I was cleared for a departure southward, so as I cleared the end of the runway I cranked back on the stick and rolled to the right. This put me in a high-G climb-and-turn, me and my bird hanging sideways in the air as I turned.

It was also at this same time that some shitty little turban-wearing bastard lit me up with an old Soviet-era surface-to-air missile, or SAM. The way I was turning and burning, I was a big, fat, pretty target for this guy. He must've been close because I'd no sooner cranked into my climb-out turn when I got a threat warning. I had all of maybe four or five seconds to evasively maneuver my jet and launch flares.

Unfortunately for me, fortunately for him, I didn't have enough time. I'd no sooner launched my first flare when the world exploded around me. I had all manners of warning whistles, buzzers and audible tones telling me I was screwed, no, fucked beyond all reason. Yeah, the ol' FUBAR. I barely had steering capability and zero thrust.

A quick jog of my memory and I recalled that most of the area around the end of the runway were huts from one of the tribal villages. I also recalled that if I continued my turn might clear the village, that is if my bird didn't fall to pieces before I could finish the turn.

At this point I'd been maybe a thousand feet in the air and quickly started losing altitude. A finely-tuned, superbly aerodynamic work of wonder quickly became a plummeting, flaming brick. Unluckily for me, that left me with virtually no time to eject. But I sure as shit wasn't going to ride my bird into the dirt without trying to postpone my meeting with that sorry ol' bastard, Mr. Death.

The last thing I recalled, before waking up on the ground hours later, was punching out. I distinctly recall thinking, as I'm rocket-launched out of my crippled fighter, that the landing was going to hurt. Seriously hurt, and that's assuming I didn't get burned to a crisp by the flames from the crash. Lemme tell you, buddy, that between the quite probably crippling landing and the flames licking my ass as I ejected, I was sure, sure that I wasn't getting out of this pickle alive.

The next twenty-six hours were the worst of my life. Well, what portions I can recall. When I regained consciousness, I was in a hut, presumably in the village at the end of the runway. The first thing I noticed was the excruciating pain I was in. Shattered bones, probably some internal injuries, definitely a concussion. The second thing I noticed was that I had no less than three insurgents with AK47s guarding me.

Shortly after I opened my eyes, one of the guards disappeared momentarily and then reappeared with another insurgent. Apparently he was the leader, because he barked out something. Two of the guards roughly grabbed me, causing me to scream in tortured pain. They dragged me out of the hut and towards a ratty, beat-up pickup. I knew, in the deepest, darkest part of my mind, that if they managed to get me in that truck and disappear in the wilds of Afghanistan, I was a dead man.

I fought them desperately, wildly, like my life depended upon it, because it sure as shit did. Well, as injured as I was, I wasn't able to put up much of a fight before one of the rag-headed bastards bashed me with the butt of his rifle. As my world dimmed, I heard other insurgents hollering and the distant roaring of approaching vehicles. My salvation was only minutes away. Unfortunately, those were more minutes than I had.

I was thrown in the back of the truck and my three guards jumped in after me. The little Toyota lurched and took off. The insurgents managed to avoid the rescue convoy for several hours; but those hours were more than enough for me to be tortured, interrogated, whatever you want to term it. I'll spare you the gruesome details, but I will say this — I almost died a number of times. Not from the crash directly, but from the typical radical Muslim ways, although looking back I probably should have died from the crash. God knows, in those twenty-six hours after the crash, I prayed for death more than once.

Twenty-six hours after the flight lead of Torch 23, my flight designation, was shot down immediately after take-off, my salvation came in the form of a joint-op recovery team consisting of Navy SEALs, a platoon from the 10^th Mountain Division, a handful of Air Force PJ's and over-flights of F-15, F-16, A-10 and a seriously disgruntled AC-130. When the ground-pounders, squids and zoomies reached me after defeating the insurgent group holding me, I was teetering on the brink of consciousness. The medics and PJs that treated me on-scene doped me up on pain medication and the last thing I remember is the look of concern on one of the medic's face.