Cowboy Casanova

4

I am a great naval aviator. I had a purpose and I loved it. But after I graduated from flight school, they sent some of us to Afghanistan and some of us to Iraq. I was deployed to Iraq. My dad had won an Afghanistan campaign medal with 2 service stars for his time there. And when he found out that I would be in Iraq, he made sure he was there too. From 2008-2010, the number of confirmed aviators we lost was low, only 33. But it only took 1 to rattle me.

She was my wingman.

It was supposed to be a simple check to see if we had been spotted by the enemy. Long story short... we had been. Most of the American aircrafts had been the target of the attacks with aerial improvised explosive devices. We didn't find out until later, after it was too late, that the Iraqi insurgent groups had developed a strategy for attacking our aircrafts. 

Still, it was too late. Too many deaths too late.

Kelly Collins was dead.

And I had to be the one to deliver the news to her family. And to her new fiancé.

𐑺

I felt like a god, floating over and under the clouds. Nothing beats flying a jet. Nothing. I will never get used to the sound of a jet gearing up to take off. There's a special rumble that flows down to the tips of my fingers and the pace of my heart quickens. And then everything in my head is absolutely silent. I could see Kelly and her bright pink helmet, which read "Barbie", her callsign. That's what she gets for being blonde haired and blue eyed. Right now, I couldn't hear anything but radio static, no one talking. Neither of us had seen anything yet, and as we flew around, it felt like we were just wasting gas. It had been a hard couple of weeks, so I wanted to have some fun with it. I disappear above the clouds, hearing Barbie call out for me on the radio. "Banshee, come in. Where the hell did you go?" She asks. I can see her jet from up here, so I swoop down, flying inverted right above her.

"Look up." She strains her eyes, looking straight up and seeing me. Canopy to canopy. Dad taught me this move. They almost grounded him for it. "From here you really do look like a Malibu Barbie doll. You think they ever made a Barbie as a naval aviator?" She rolls her eyes, flipping me the bird. I move closer, the canopies nearly touching. "Yeah, fuck you too." Barbie pushes negative G, hard down and away. I laugh and I flip the jet back up right and we continue our search.

"Hey, I forgot to tell you something, Banshee." I hear her from the other end.

"See something?" I ask, her voice sounded a little serious.

"No, not yet at least." I sigh in relief. "We're doing a courthouse wedding as soon as we get back. I want you to be there." I smiled wide but I never got to respond. The next thing I saw was a missile heading straight for her jet. I called out to warn her, but it was too late. There wasn't anything left of her jet. I saw it go up in flames. I saw pieces of it fly everywhere. I saw her lifeless body hit the water. I remember calling it out on the radio. I remember going towards the missile and shooting them down. I killed them all. I made sure of it.

When I got back to the ship, they wouldn't let me see her at first. I punched the man who told me that in the face. And then I stormed past him to find her. They had zipped her up in that stupid bag. And all I saw was her face before they took her away.

𐑺

I didn't get to go to the funeral. After they sent me to tell her family the news, they made me go back to Iraq. A few months later, late in 2011, President Obama sent all of the US military home, ending the war. The last US troops withdrew from Iraq on 18 December 2011, although the US embassy and consulates continue to maintain a staff of more than 20,000 including US Marine Embassy Guards and between 4,000 and 5,000 private military contractors. The next day, Iraqi officials issued an arrest warrant for the Sunni Vice-President Tariq al-Hashimi. He has been accused of involvement in assassinations and fled to the Kurdish part of Iraq.