Bombing Run
A Balkan SketchLakeshadw
Major Ted Wellington was lucky today. Since there was no antiaircraft fire, he could approach the bridge low and slow, the way he liked it. After a quick glance down at his instruments, he steadied his fighter bomber and focused on his target.
As he parallelled the River Danube on his right, he thought back to the tanks he'd hit on the desert north of Kuwait City during "Desert Storm". And since there was no one else in his single seater, he talked with himself.
"Asses in their tin coffin tanks. Some of 'em actually had the stones to fire their piss assed little machine guns at me. So they got blasted to pieces instead of bein' fried to cinders with their buddies inside the tanks. Roasted ragheads. That's good, Teddy. Roasted ragheads."
Then he remembered the rocket launching truck he'd clobbered just south of Baghdad, and the panicked soldier who'd disappeared in a red bloom as the 20 mm. shells from the jet's cannon had shredded his body.
"Well, he could'a got me just as easily. Bastard jerk standing out in the open. Daring me to blast him."
Major Ted Wellington made a couple of small adjustments to altitude and speed, then reached down to arm his bombs as he bored in toward the bridge.
Then he saw the chain of civilians standing on his target.
"Dammit. Just like they told us. Probably wearing those stupid signs saying ‘I'm Serbian, shoot me!'. Well, a target's a target. And they were warned we'd be coming."
Wellington made a last check of his instruments, and brought his fighter bomber onto a direct fly-in.
"But these are civilians. Not like the jerks in the tanks. Some of 'em may be kids. Friggin' high school kids. The same as . . ."
The image of his sixteen-year old daughter Jennifer came to him as he strained to see details of the civilians.
"Grow up, Teddy. Jen's thousands of miles away. Safe with Janet in Des Moines. Probably watchin' C.N.N. right now. Suckin' on a diet coke and eatin' chips. Wonderin' if her hair's done right and if Donny's gonna asked her to the spring dance. She's sure as hell not standin' on a damned bridge just outside Belgrade."
But the image wouldn't fade. She was standing on that damned bridge, her long blond hair blowing in the wind as she smiled up at him.
"Christ, stop it Ted. Now! They knew we were coming. What the hell's wrong with her friggin' parents? So if they wanna stand there like assholes, that's their lookout. Not mine. Screw 'em."
Major Ted Wellington glanced at his auto-targeting screen, pushed himself back in his seat and blinked twice.
"OK, Teddy boy. Steady down now. Final approach."
That was what he'd always called it; those last seconds before he pushed ‘release'. . . those last seconds before the plane shuddered as it freed its deadly payload . . . those last limbo seconds before his target shattered under the impact of a gift wrapped 1000 pound packageof hi-ex.
The bridge's outline was pasted squarely in the center of his of his targeting computer screen.
"Loosen up, Teddy. It's just a friggin' bridge. Same as the one you smacked yesterday. Needed for supplies and stuff. ‘Of strategic military significance', just like the colonel said.
He shook his head, trying to clear away the images and to think ‘military' thoughts. "Dammit! It's not the same! And you know it."
Then he saw her again, standing brazenly on the bridge and daring him to bomb her. And this time it was worse. She was holding the outstretched hand of a tiny boy just like Teddy junior.
Major Ted Wellington hesitated for just a second past his ideal release time, then remembered the pictures he'd seen on C.N.N. of the refugees streaming across the Macedonian border. Refugees who had recounted tales of horrors beyond words - tales of mass executions and of wholesale rape.
" . . . raping little girls for Christ's sake. Little girls who looked about twelve in the smuggled out films."
Major Ted Wellington adjusted his targeting sight picture, gritted his teeth so hard he felt one break, then hit the release button to slam a one thousand pond bomb into the center of the bridge.
When he glanced down, he saw the blond girl looking up at him, her lips parted in a scream as she pulled the tiny boy into her arms.
© M. Brooks - April 3, 1999
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