The man we are about to talk about, had his name forgotten. But for the sake of continuity, we will refer to him henceforth as “Jeff”. Jeff was born into an affluent family, apparently living the American dream. Big house, big family, and more friends than he would care to count. However from the inside, Jeff might as well have been living in a warzone. Jeff endured a superficial, set-in-there-ways family for 18 long years. He eventually got himself kicked out of his family’s house, and proceeded to enroll in the Air Force Academy for six years, earning the rank of Officer upon completion. This paper shows the battle that ultimately ended his air force career.
700 hrs.

It was a picture perfect morning onboard the USS Gerald R. Ford. They were sent to the Mediterranean Sea to escort U.N. peacekeepers for diplomatic talks. But this was all fuzzy for Jeff right now. Right now, he was going to brush his teeth, get a good breakfast, and walk to the briefing room. All without falling down. On a rocking ship, the difficulty increases exponentially. Now while the falling part may sound trivial to you, the last time he fell during his daily rituals, he nearly died. Long story. So as he stumbled out of his cot, and plowed his way through his morning chores. Then came the dreaded part that his squadron hated more than almost any airmen onboard the carrier. As he was in the unique position of being an Air Force pilot by hire and a Navy pilot by command. And as such he had to wear the correct uniform to comply with both of their respective dress codes (you were required to wear an airman battle uniform). Needless to say, dressing on a mission day was a chore. After about a half hour of stumbling into the mess hall, he got a decent breakfast (you always got a better meal when in mission uniform). He made sure to savor the meal as he didn’t get food this good typically. He took a while.
900 hrs.

Jeff braced himself for what was coming. He never liked meetings, and this one carried more pressure than any other meeting. This mission was critical, they said, that it could potentially alter the next election. All he really got out of the meeting were three words. Finish the mission. With pleasure. The mission in question was simple really. Two squadrons were to escort a UN peacemaking squadron into Libyan airspace. Squad A was to go ahead and check the forefront for any hostiles that may be in the way. Squad B was to stay back for redundancy. Jeff was placed at the head of Squad B. This was just the third mission with Jeff as Squadron Commander. Needless to say, some of his superiors felt that the timing of his promotion was “inopportune”. So as the meeting concluded, his wing commander asked him to stay back after the meeting. General Thomas (Brigadier General, Wing Commander) was a stocky, short man, with unkempt stubble, and a smoking pipe consistently seen nonchalantly dangling from the side of his mouth. Think of a fatter, more irritable Elmer Fudd.

“I hope and pray to God you know what you’re doing. My job is depending on this. I got my boy in college. I can’t afford to be out of a job now.” He said. There was a strained look in his eye.

“I’ll do my best.” Is all Jeff could muster. An awkward silence ensued. Thirty seconds later Jeff was waved out of the room. The door slammed behind him. Jeff sighed. An hour later he was to be on the tarmac. But right now he was going to his berth to ease his head for half an hour.
1030 hrs.
It was a good thing that his bunk mate woke him up. Jeff was very nearly about to nap through potentially the most internationally significant mission of his career. He sprinted to the deck of the carrier where camera crews were waiting. Jeff never liked cameras. He was already dressed in his flight suit, and as such was ambushed by the press. They were ravenous. He was completely surrounded and it took a bark, a yell, and a blank fired from a sidearm (that wasn’t going to look good in the papers) to get him to his plane. Standard protocol called for a half hour of checks. Thanks to his international paparazzi run in he was fifteen minutes late already, and he had to conform to UN regulations for this mission. Needless to say, General Thomas was not pleased. After the use of a few select words over the radio (encrypted of course), he was told to “expedite” the preflight check so as to comply with the schedule that the UN had provided. Essentially what expedite meant, was to check the engines were working, say everything was working, and hope and pray to God that he was right. It was fairly simple to test the engines; turn on the computers, spool up the engines, and based on the sound and the feeling of the vibrations emanating throughout the aircraft, one is able to tell whether or not the engine is function to spec. He was flying an F-22, the most expensive military air superiority jet in the air force. That would probably be in the papers too. He taxied to the steam catapult, and waited for a tense 45 seconds, and in a feat of acceleration, he was in the air.

Most of his squadron followed suit, off the edge of the ship and was heading to the mutually agreed location to meet the UN peacekeeper planes. Squad A was already ahead, leaving a telltale vapor trail directly behind them. It was a fairly unsubstantial weather, with a slight headwind in front of them. Perfect for flying. It was tense communication on the radios, everyone was acutely aware of the weight of the mission. But no one felt more pressure than Jeff. He was taking in everything, looking for the slightest sign of any disturbance. It seemed fairly calm for the moment. If only it had stayed that way. It was calculated that they would rendezvous with the UN peacekeeper in about seven minutes. Those blips on his radar could not have been the pacifistic group of people that he was told to escort. He instinctively started encrypting all of his squadron’s communications.
“Are any of you guys seeing the inbound bogies on your radars?” Jeff asked, hoping and praying that he just ate something bad. A resounding “yes” followed, and the first trickles of adrenaline started coursing through Jeff’s veins. Upon contacting mission command back at ship, his squadron was to break into two. Six of the nine members of the squadron were to remain upon the original mission plan. However, as for Jeff and two of his men, they were to divert and serve as a contact squadron. They took on the title of “C-Squadron”.
1057 hrs.

Jeff had adjusted his course and calculated for the optimal intercept point. He was sure that they would know if the people he was going to intercept were hostile, they were definitely ready for their arrival. Jeff said a quick prayer, and then finalized his calculations. A small crosshair was displayed on his artificial horizon for the correct vector. Jeff sent the completed analysis to the rest of his micro-squad. Jeff grinned. This was his element, and knowing this, engaged his afterburners with no fear. And with that he knew he was in a hostile situation. The four bogies on his radar began to head directly in the direction of Jeff and his squadron. Taking this as an act of hostility, Jeff sent an encrypted message to his men to authorize evasive maneuvers.
They were 10 kilometers out, and still flying in formation, but losing distance fast. They were breaking up from formation at about 5 kilometers out, each of the men selecting one of the bogies, and programming there computers accordingly. At 3 kilometers, Jeff could start seeing the other planes on the horizon. 2 kilometers away from the targets, Jeff along with his men committed to one of the bogies. But there was still the problem of the extra bogie. So as the planes got within one kilometer of each other, the planes broke away from the pack they had been flying in, and started the horrible majesty that is a dogfight. The enemy squadron disbanded and started to begin carrying out dogfight acrobatics. They were Mirage F1’s, a dated plane to say the least, but still definitely capable of taking out a pilot who isn’t completely concentrated.
In a last ditch attempt to get through this situation with the least collateral damage, Jeff ordered an electronic attack on the enemy squadron. They didn’t get any total withdrawals from combat, however they must have affected one of Jeff’s targets, as there was a motion of hesitation on the enemy’s part. Jeff saw the moment and went for the kill. He throttled up pushing his engines to 97% throttle and set his computers to lock. The pilot in the enemy plane was desperately trying to get away from Jeff, and he was closing in fast. And with the alarms going off, Jeff gave him one second to see if he had any flares. He had none. And with that Jeff had removed one of the men from the equation, with a single pull of a trigger. Jeff had no time to think about the effects of his actions as the “extra” bogie was now tailing him with added intensity. Jeff saw that one of his men had taken out his bogie as well and as such turned the tables on the enemy tailing him as well. His man took the tail for him (an extremely brave move) and Jeff broke away. He got around the enemy and in an all too easy manner, the enemy was taken out.

A crackle of happiness erupted over the communications, but Jeff was left with a sense of hollowness. He always felt like this after a kill, like he had just torn down someone gave everything to build. Remorse. He would feel like this for quite some time, but right now he had the job of catching up to the escort group without incident.

“A ‘right boys, let’s get back to B Squadron, and finish up this job before we give the press anything else they can blow up.” After a murmur of agreement, they reformed squadrons, ad adjusted for the proper vector for intercept with squadron B. A quarter hour later and a silent flight to the rest of the group left much to be desired in the excitement department. This was what always happened after a dogfight, but Jeff felt that it helped his guys collect their thoughts after a high stakes situation, get them back to normalcy. Soon thereafter, they returned to the initial formation, and the tangible excitement seemed to slip away from all communication between the pilots, and slowly but surely, an awkward silence ensued. Then he got a notification for a communication on a different frequency. It was on the emergency frequency (247 MHz in this case). It was one of Jeff’s squadron members.

“Uh, guys, my HUD is out. I’m flying blind. I doubt this comm. unit is going to hold up. I’m gonna pull a 180, and get back to the carrier. Be safe.” The communication ended, and just like that they were down a man. Suddenly, men started losing electronics left and right, and soon no one had communication with anyone else. Before the communication dropouts, there was a great deal of confusion of whether or not to turn back, and return to the carrier, but in that time a consensus could not be reached. Thus, about two-thirds of his men went back on a course toward the carrier. Jeff however, stayed en-route as the UN Peacekeepers maintained course. There was an air of emergency in the cockpits of the pilots who didn’t divert. This tense feeling did not phase Jeff, as instead he started to communicate with the remaining pilots via visual cues. They simply agreed that they would go defensive if necessary, and that they would hold formation until any potential contact. With a shudder, the planes continued to fly toward their destination. They were never seen or heard from again.