Back in the Day ...

GULF OF ADEN (May 26, 2009) Members of a visit, board, search and seizure (VBSS) team from the guided-missile cruiser USS Gettysburg (CG 64) and U.S. Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment (LEDET) 409 respond to a Yemeni dhow that had been drifting at sea for two days due to engine problems. Gettysburg is part of Combined Task Force (CTF) 151, a multinational task force established to conduct counter-piracy operations under a mission-based mandate throughout the CMF area of responsibility.
(U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Eric L. Beauregard/Released)

Back aboard USS McFaul, Chief Alphonse Rossi turned to Lieutenant Jack Morgan, "What the f**k was that all about, Sir?"

Morgan lit a cigar and looked at his Chief, "What's got your panties in a twist this time, Rossi?"

"WHAT?!?" the Chief sputtered before getting right up in Morgan's face.

"Damn it, Sir, you butt stroked that fisherman over there, probably broke his f**king jaw."

"Look Chief," Morgan bumped Rossi backwards, Rossi was solidly built but Morgan spent a lot of time in the weight room, his sailors liked to joke that he could bench press a helo if he needed to, "I told the little bastard not to move, he moved."

"Maybe your Arabic sucks, LT."

One of the other men, STG3 Imad Aziz, looked up, "Nah, Chief, what he said was what he meant to say."

Rossi turned on the young man, "Nobody f**king asked you, Aziz."

Lieutenant Commander Amanda Nolan came out onto the helo deck, "Stand down, Chief. You guys get your shit squared away. Lieutenant Morgan, come with me. Give your shit to Aziz."

Nolan and Morgan headed up to the wardroom, where the Captain, Commander Alex Choe¹, was waiting for them.

Morgan wondered what this was all about, he'd nearly come to blows with Rossi once before. The guy played everything safe, everything by the book, someday he was going to get someone killed out here. But that wasn't it at all.

"Have a seat, Jack. Thanks Amanda, I'll get with you later." CDR Choe was not looking forward to this talk.

"What's up, Cap'n?" Morgan asked, a little nervous.

"I'll be up front with you Jack, you didn't make rank, again. You've got one more shot, but ..."

Morgan interrupted the captain, "Sir, you know as well as I do that there's no way I'm going to make lieutenant commander. I've stepped on too many toes, bent too many rules to make it any higher than where I'm at right now. I love this shit, Cap'n, but you know as well as I do that there's no way Uncle Sugar lets me stay for twenty as a lieutenant."

"Hhmm, so what do you want to do, Jack? I can get you on a plane inside a month, can't let you go until I get a replacement. I assume you want out?"

"Well, that's just it, I don't want out, I've done six and a half years, most of it at sea. But there's really no point in staying. I'm young enough to find similar work in the civilian world. If I wait too long ... You never know."

CDR Choe shook his head, "I hate losing you, Jack, but you have to do what's right for you. I'll keep you posted."

"Thanks, Cap'n, I appreciate it."

Three weeks later he stepped aboard NAS Norfolk as a Lieutenant, a week later he walked out the gate as a civilian with a job offer. He rented a car and went to Arlington, VA. Where he'd been working out of ever since.

Chapman woke up in a cold sweat, she sat up quickly, shivering, desperately trying to get herself back into the here and now.

She'd had the dream before, the dream about the crash. She was ferrying a group of VIPs back to the carrier when a sudden storm had come up. She had tried to gain altitude to get out of all of the sand boiling up from the desert below, but in vain.

The aircraft was too heavy, she'd let her boss convince her to let another Congresscritter's aide aboard. It shouldn't have mattered, but when the sand started getting in everywhere, she knew they didn't have enough spare power to get above the storm. So she looked to set the bird down as gently as she could.

As her co-pilot testified later as part of the mishap investigation, any other pilot in the fleet would have probably killed everybody on board, but Lieutenant Commander Bethany Anne Chapman had managed to put the ship down more or less in one piece. One Congresswoman had sprained an ankle, a drunken Senator received a nasty gash on the forehead (he hadn't been belted in properly), but that was it.

Well, other than LCDR Chapman's broken back, that was it.

As she'd told her father back home, someone had been on the controls with her when the bird went in. He knew what she meant, he'd experienced it himself as a young man flying F-4 Phantoms out of Danang. Sometimes it was only with God's help and your having paid attention during training which got you home.

Chapman had looked at her Dad and nodded, "It wasn't the training this time, Pops."

She came out of it and looked around, her cat, Buster was watching her with concern. She gave him a scritch on the head and he went back to sleep. She got up and went to the kitchen.

Opening the fridge, she grabbed a bottle of Modelo and opened it. Eschewing a glass, she drank straight from the bottle. She remembered telling someone once, perhaps a roommate at the Academy, that using a glass was a waste, just had to clean it later.

She walked over to her laptop and fired it up. As she did so she sniffed the old HSC-7² t-shirt she normally slept in, "Hhmm, might want to throw this in the wash later."

When the machine booted up, she logged in and checked her email. Junk, junk, spam, spam - ah, she needed to pay her car insurance soon - and there it was.

The email looked innocuous enough, one might almost consider it spam, and if it went to the wrong place someone would probably delete it as spam. But this one was addressed to her and alleged to be from "Buttercup Enterprises, LLC."

She opened it, "Well, there go my plans for Friday."

(Source)

Her callsign at HSC-7 had been Buttercup.

¹ A Korean family name (최) pronounced "chway" by some, "chay" by others.

² Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 7, the Dusty Dogs out of NAS Norfolk.