Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
-The Second Coming, W.B. Yeats
Years ago, over thirty now as I think of it, I was Number Three of a four ship of F-15s on a Combat Archer mission over the Gulf of Mexico. Combat Archer (or WSEP, for the "Weapons System Evaluation Program") entailed a two week deployment to Tyndall AFB near Panama City for the opportunity to fire a live missile. The taxpaying public will be happy to know that live fire exercises were extremely rare--our heat-seeking missile, the AIM-9 Sidewinder, cost at the time over $110,000.00 a pop; the radar-guided AIM-7 Sparrow closer to a quarter million. I only fired two missiles in my six years of flying the Eagle, and this deployment was my second to WSEP.
On this particular afternoon our four-ship would be firing the AIM-9M, at the time the latest and most sophisticated Sidewinder in the inventory. We would each take a beam-aspect shot, off the wingline, of a QF-100 drone like this one.
The F-100 Super Sabre, or "lead sled" as it was known for its limited maneuverability, had been a star in the early days of the Vietnam War, but by 1989 we were using them as unmanned drones. It was a strange feeling taking a shot at a machine that had no doubt been some young fighter pilot's, and crew chief's, pride and joy in another era. Still, if it were a choice between Combat Archer and the boneyard in Arizona, at least this allowed the proud old bird to serve until the very end.
And the very end arrived that day. I can't tell you what happened with the first two shots for reasons of national security (plus I don't much remember), but the drone was still flying around over the Gulf when the time came for the third of us to shoot. After the standard radio warnings that we were about to commence live fire, the four Eagles ran an intercept from 25 miles in front of the Super Sabre, culminating in an arcing turn to the right at the drone's high two o'clock.
My wingman hit the pickle button, and with a flash the missile left the rail and left a thread of white smoke as it arced toward the hottest thing in its view, the QF's exhaust. "Fox." "Fox." "Fox." Everyone called out the universal warning that a live missile was in the air.
This time the Sidewinder found its mark, slicing through the drone's engine compartment just below the vertical stabilizer.
And this is the point of the foregoing ramble: nothing much happened, at least not at first. The missiles we used in Combat Archer had telemetry packs where the warhead would ordinarily be, so there was no "boom!", no flash, no fireball like you see in the movies. Sometimes a big explosion happens in combat, but often what you see (or so I'm told) is several seconds of a mortally wounded bird flying along in a straight line, as this QF was doing right in front of us.
Then a chunk of fuselage flew off. Then another unnamed part. Fuel and hydraulic fluid gushed out of its open wound. Then the jet, smoking now, started a gentle roll to starboard and over onto its back, nose slicing toward the Gulf below.
"Clear the drone! Clear the drone!" The QF's pilot, sitting in a room back at Tyndall, had lost control of the slowly disintegrating jet. He pressed a button, and the Super Sabre blew into a ball of smoke and burning jet fuel, pieces floating down into the water. And that was that.
I thought of that afternoon yesterday when a friend of mine, working in an industry largely dependent on state government contracts, lamented the financial situation of his company. There were layoffs, cancelled expansion plans, changes of strategy to cope with the economic consequences of the pandemic. These conversations are becoming a regular occurrence as we round the bend from autumn into the bleak winter. Since March, we've considered ourselves fortunate for our vocations that seemed impervious to the global shutdown. My law practice shifted to a remote mode of operation, and receipts remained steady. As long as people need surgeries, Peg will be there to put them to sleep and wake them up. We felt for our friends in hospitality, the airline industry, and others who were and are especially vulnerable right now, but their pain was not our pain, their trials were an abstraction. Things were fine at our place. Who knew our society was so resilient?
That may be about to change, based on the anecdotal information I have encountered lately. The patchwork of band-aids that shielded many of our neighbors from financial disaster are falling away as we approach year's end, and with the country in complete political gridlock there is little prospect of any new life support (and for many it is, in fact, "life support" in a literal sense) forthcoming in the next few months. Evictions and foreclosures will resume. Income replacement checks, for the few still getting them, will run out. Businesses are shuttering, and will continue to shutter.
We are already witnessing the signs of the unravelling. Behold this line of cars in Dallas a few days ago, families without the means of fixing a Thanksgiving dinner, waiting for hours for a bag of food from a local food bank to maintain the illusion of plenty for a little while longer.
So famine appears hot on the heels of pestilence. Queue the third horse, Mr. President:
Maybe we can head off that fourth and final horse, maybe a vaccine will arrive in time to save the planet from economic ruin (assuming our largely science-averse, conspiracy-addled population will actually take it). Then again, maybe not. Maybe this would be a good time to find that grandparent or great-grandparent who can still remember the Great Depression, and ask them how they survived. I could barter drafting a will for eggs or gasoline.
It all seems so unlikely, and yet who could've foreseen the events of this year, and the consequences of our bungled response to an epidemiological challenge that has been a part of the human experience for all of history? For most of this year we've been riding in that lead sled after the missile struck, watching pieces fall away but consoling ourselves that we weren't hit that badly and the plane seems to be flying just fine. But now the ties that hold it all together seem on the brink of giving way, and this delusion we at the top of the socioeconomic food chain have lived since March may finally be overcome by the dreadful reality our less affluent and vocationally facile neighbors have been living for a long time now. When they can't pay their rent or buy groceries, much less invest in a new boat or eat in a restaurant, business loans won't be repaid, tax revenues will slide, and pretty soon even those insulated from the initial suffering will start to feel it. Turns out I am my brother's keeper after all, and taking care of our neighbors is just a form of enlightened self-interest. Imagine that.
A snowy morning here in the Southern Tier. It's gorgeous out my window, although I'm grateful not to be out in it. One must appreciate what hasn't been lost in all this.
Comments