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Alarm Red sounded.
        In a war zone, things happen fast and always have a way of balancing out. The first suspected terrorist attacks on Turkey began as I feared. An explosion damaged a car outside the U.S. consulate in Adana. A second explosion blew out the doors of the Turkish-American Association also in Adana. Adana was the city right outside the gates of the air base.
        We were alerted at 11:00 and entering ops not long afterward. Two hours later Cowboy was calling out in his Texas drawl, “Time to saddle up!” On his heels was the duty driver, Chubby, whom I hadn’t seen in a long while. Earlier I’d been busy in the back of the van fussing with my bags. I hadn’t paid much attention to who the driver was then.
        Chubby was a good guy. I thought he was supposed to be on the recently formed crew four. At least that’s what had been on the big board. “Hey, Chubby, aren’t you supposed to be on crew four?”
        “They’re flying with an empty seat now. Three crewers are due in on the next C-5. I can’t wait to fly.”
        I smiled a crooked smile and climbed into the back of the van.
        As things were finally worked into a quasi-routine, today there were only eleven of us heading out to the flight line. The AMT and the Eng went out to the plane an hour early, as they normally did. Crow and Patrick were supposed to be ensuring that the systems were ready to go, but I had my doubts.
        Seated so I had a good view out the rear window, I got a good look at the surroundings that it seemed I had only noticed yesterday. About a block away from base ops was the rear command center. It was housed in a tin-roofed building with several makeshift buildings around it. The complex was surrounded by rows of barbed wire and barriers. There was a gas station past it to my right. The same fortifications surrounded it. After the gas station, there was a transportation depot. Further along, the area became somewhat barren.
        Right then, I wanted to see the Lady more than anything else. When I climbed up the steps and went through the crew entrance door behind Cowboy, the interior lights were still off and we stumbled around in the half-dark trying to get to our positions. External power was hooked up, so I was able to switch on the little spotlight over my position, turning it from combat red to white so I could read by it. I slapped down my flight crew checklist on the tabletop beside position Six—the checklist I’d looked at a thousand times and had virtually memorized but was supposed to have open to follow procedure.
        I opened it about midway to a page titled Normal Procedures and followed the list. After flicking on the O2, I attached my helmet to the appropriate hose and began sucking oxygen through my helmet mask to check it out.
        Next, I began radio checks. One was already on headset, so I conducted radio checks with her. Setting the helmet down, I grabbed my headset and tweaked the mike, doing a similar radio check with it. Then I quick-fitted my parachute using the numbers that were penned onto the straps to adjust them.
        “MCS, One and Six, stations and radio checks complete.”
        Chris gave a thumbs up, then replied, “Six, MCS, you got me on radios.” I went through the headset checks again with Chris, noticing he didn’t test out his helmet today as he had the previous days. He looked tired and worn. We all were.
        A few minutes later, Chris called out, “MCC, MCS, all checks complete. We’re ready for Before Starting Engines Checklist.”
        Tennessee Jim relayed the message to the AC.
        The chocks were pulled and then I heard the engines begin to whine as the front-end went over the starting engines checklist.
        Soon we were taxiing to the runway for takeoff. I turned to the dark blue inserts that were not normally a part of my checklist and to a page titled: Before Takeoff Combat Entry Checklist. By