OK. I admit it, but can you really blame me? I mean, wouldn't you?
It was a cheap shot but, all the same, a cheap shot that worked. Struggling to scale the meritous heights required to register on most people's radar screens I decided to fly low, dangerously low, and skip in beneath their field of view. My payload on this mission was pure evil in the guise of humour. Enter stage left one sugar coated, but poison tipped, Heart Seeking missile.
He's a great man, that much is obvious. And believe me when I say that this fact alone made it the hardest covert operation for me since back in Daran, Spring of '91. But orders must be obeyed, the voices barking in my head were relentless, I had to go on.
As we passed through the final waypoint position before beginning the descent to barely 150ft, I said my goodbyes to my loyal wingman and fell into radio silence. The silence said it all.
The African dawn began to paint its approach onto the darkened sky and I knew that the time was drawing near. "Sixty seconds to target" chirped my flight computer. Over and over in my head I plotted back the events that had led me to this point, the reasons, the rights and wrongs, the many hundreds of people who would be affected. "Thirty seconds to target". Below me, through a break in the mist I could see a farmer standing perfectly still, watching me as I passed him in a moment of silence. He knew, you could see it in his eyes. The crashing thunder which followed my arrival shattered the moment and it was gone. "Five seconds to target". I flipped open the switch cover and as if switching on a light, my mission was over. We had won. We succeeded in attracting his attention for just long enough to feature on not one but two successive posts. My world was a better place.
It was a cheap shot but, all the same, a cheap shot that worked. Struggling to scale the meritous heights required to register on most people's radar screens I decided to fly low, dangerously low, and skip in beneath their field of view. My payload on this mission was pure evil in the guise of humour. Enter stage left one sugar coated, but poison tipped, Heart Seeking missile.
He's a great man, that much is obvious. And believe me when I say that this fact alone made it the hardest covert operation for me since back in Daran, Spring of '91. But orders must be obeyed, the voices barking in my head were relentless, I had to go on.
As we passed through the final waypoint position before beginning the descent to barely 150ft, I said my goodbyes to my loyal wingman and fell into radio silence. The silence said it all.
The African dawn began to paint its approach onto the darkened sky and I knew that the time was drawing near. "Sixty seconds to target" chirped my flight computer. Over and over in my head I plotted back the events that had led me to this point, the reasons, the rights and wrongs, the many hundreds of people who would be affected. "Thirty seconds to target". Below me, through a break in the mist I could see a farmer standing perfectly still, watching me as I passed him in a moment of silence. He knew, you could see it in his eyes. The crashing thunder which followed my arrival shattered the moment and it was gone. "Five seconds to target". I flipped open the switch cover and as if switching on a light, my mission was over. We had won. We succeeded in attracting his attention for just long enough to feature on not one but two successive posts. My world was a better place.