The first call came three days after the landing.
I was in the hangar, half inside an open avionics bay, double–checking a wiring harness because something in the preflight had itched at me. The Hawk sat quiet and hulking, its skin still dusted with the pollen and cut grass we’d picked up from my parents’ yard and the capitol lawn.
My phone buzzed on the tool cart. I glanced at the screen.
DAD.
For a second, I just stared at the name. It might as well have said UNKNOWN CALLER.
I wiped my hands on a rag and answered.
“Hey.”
He cleared his throat on the other end. Background noise—ESPN, the clink of a coffee mug.
“Am I catching you in the middle of war?”
Old him would’ve said it with a smirk. This time it came out sideways, like he was testing how it sounded.
“Just maintenance,” I said. “She flies better if we treat her right.”
“That thing has a her?”
“They all do.”
He made a low sound that could have been a laugh or disbelief.
“I saw the interview,” he said. “Your mother recorded it on the DVR. I didn’t—” He stopped. “I didn’t know about that nursing home mission.”
“You wouldn’t have believed me if I’d told you,” I said before I could stop myself. My voice wasn’t sharp, just matter–of–fact.
Silence. A long one. I leaned my shoulder against the fuselage, feeling the cool metal through my t–shirt.
“You’re probably right,” he said quietly. “I told myself if it wasn’t sand in your teeth and bullets over your head it didn’t count.”
“Floodwater and rotor wash do a number on you too,” I said.
He inhaled. Exhaled.
“Look, Aves…” That was new. He hadn’t called me that since high school. “I was wrong to throw those ‘bus’ jokes around the way I did. I thought I was being…funny.”
“You were being safe,” I said. “It’s safer to make a joke than to admit you don’t understand something.”
He let that sit.
“You mad at me?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. Then, because adulthood is nothing if not holding two things at once, I added, “And I’m glad you came to the base.”
“That landing…” He blew out a breath. “You know how many times I stood in the yard when you were a kid and pictured choppers coming in? Doesn’t matter why, wild imagination, old war movies. Never once did it occur to me you’d be in one. Much less flying it.”
“I’m not the only pilot,” I said, out of habit.
“Yeah, but you were the one who waved at me.”
The line went quiet. In my periphery, I saw our crew chief roll a toolbox past, give me a pointed look—ops brief in ten. I held up a finger.
Dad cleared his throat.
“So, uh…Do they let old men on orientation flights?”
I blinked.
“What, like a fam ride?”
“You know. Just around the pattern. Nothing fancy. See what your ‘bus’ handles like.”
I was supposed to say no. We didn’t just hand out joyrides, and I could already hear the safety officer’s aneurysm forming. But Guard units do community relations flights all the time. There’s a process.
“If we get it approved,” I said carefully, “you’d have to listen. No jokes. No commentary about my parking.”
“I can shut up for twenty minutes,” he said. “Been practicing lately.”
That got me. A laugh slipped out before I could block it.
“Let me talk to the CO,” I said. “No promises.”
“Avery?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m proud of you,” he said.
The words didn’t land like in the movies. They didn’t solve anything. They just sat there on the line, unexpected and a little awkward, like a brand–new piece of gear you’re not sure how to wear yet.
“Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”
We hung up.
The crew chief appeared at my elbow.
“You okay, LT?”
“Yeah.” I pushed off the fuselage, slid my phone into my pocket. “Just recalibrating a system.”
“Avionics?”
“Something like that.”
Before I ever touched a rotor blade
The first time I told anyone I wanted to fly, I was eight years old and standing in the backyard, watching jets carve scratches across the high summer sky.
My father was grilling. The Charlestons from next door were over, their little boy chasing lightning bugs in the tall grass while my mother pretended not to notice grass stains accumulating on his khakis.
“Daddy,” I said, tugging on his t–shirt. “I wanna be a pilot.”
He squinted up at the contrails, flipped a burger.
“Pilot’s a good job,” he said. “Airlines make good money.”
“I don’t want to fly people to Orlando,” I said. “I want to fly those.”
I pointed toward the sky where a pair of Blackhawks were thumping their way inland, probably heading to a training area.
He didn’t look where I was pointing.
“Those are for boys who like getting shot at,” he said. “You can do better than that.”
He meant it as a compliment. I heard it as a line being drawn.
At school, they told us we could be anything. Astronaut, president, firefighter. The posters never mentioned logistics officers or medevac pilots, but the seed was there. Every time a helicopter passed low enough to make the windows buzz, I’d stop whatever I was doing and count the beats between the thumps.
In high school, when other kids decorated their binders with band logos and boyfriends’ names, mine was covered in printed diagrams of rotor systems and a photocopy of the Army’s aviation MOS chart. I joined JROTC, not because I thought it would make me look tough, but because the idea of standing in a room full of other people who also got goosebumps at the sound of a cadence call made my lungs feel bigger.
Dad came to the JROTC awards night once. I was getting a ribbon for leadership—small, cloth proof that I was good at convincing other kids to march in straight lines and show up on time.
On the way home, I sat in the passenger seat, fingers still worrying the edge of the new ribbon on my chest.
“So,” he said, eyes on the road. “You really thinking about going into the Army?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Or the Guard. I could do school and drill. Fly eventually.”
“You could also go to college, get a real degree, get a real job,” he said.
“Flying isn’t real?”
“You know what I mean. Something with a future. Architecture, accounting. Hell, nursing. Women do well there.”
I stared out the window, the dark shapes of pines flicking by in the headlights.
“Women do well in aviation, too,” I said.
He snorted softly.
“Sure, a few. But I don’t want to see you beat yourself up for twenty years and come out with busted knees and nothing in the bank.”
He was worried. I see it now. At the time, all I heard was: I don’t believe you can pull this off.
Mom was a different story. She’d grown up on bases as an Air Force brat, packing up boxes every three years, watching her father’s uniforms change rank stripes and name tags while the rules stayed the same.
“If you’re going to do it,” she said, sitting on the edge of my bed one night while I filled out Guard enlistment paperwork, “you do it with your eyes open.”
“That’s the only way they’ll let me fly,” I said.
She smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“It isn’t like the movies,” she said. “There’s boredom, and stupid rules, and people who think their stripes make them gods. But there’s also—” She paused, looked at the framed photo of her father in dress blues on my dresser. “There’s a kind of family that shows up when the regular one can’t. Don’t forget that.”
Dad walked past the door, glanced in, saw the papers on my desk.
“You really signing that?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “I ship to basic in June.”
He leaned on the doorframe, arms crossed.
“Well,” he said, “at least you’ll get in shape.”
Learning to hover
See more on the next page
Advertisement
See more on the next page
Advertisement
