Chapter Five - part three

   Susan Holt shook her head and stood up. Then she handed each of them a folder and told them to see her exec on the way out. She smiled as she dismissed them and returned their salutes. Once they were out the door she took her seat again. She sat and pondered the man who had just left her office. Colonel James Andrew Cooper, the Ironman. He really was everything she had heard he was. She had seen the first glimmers of something special in him back at the Academy. Even when he was a lowly Doolie there had been a presence about him. It was nothing she had been able to define then, but she recognized it now. He was a leader! He was a hero. He was a man who automatically commanded respect and recognition. There was a quality of greatness in him that was amplified by his humble attitude and open honesty. She doubted that he was even aware of that. She had dealt with many leaders and even a few who were recognized as great men, but almost all of them recognized themselves to be those things. James Andrew Cooper didn't. In his eyes he was no different and no better than any other man. In his eyes he was just a man. In fact she suspected that he would say that most others were better than him. She smiled as she shook her head again. In her opinion James was the better man; far better than most men she had known. Jeremy had confirmed that for her. The look in his eyes and the complete trust she had heard in his voice when he spoke to James were proof of that. Even great men didn't often get that level of trust from other men who had similar qualities. Jeremy was a leader too. He was also a humble man who had done heroic things without thinking they were anything more than his duty. There were a lot of people connected to James who had those same attributes of being both humble and heroic. Shaking her head she wondered if James would ever realize how much of his character rubbed off on those who were around him for any length of time.

   James and Jeremy were escorted to their new offices and found a pile of paperwork waiting on them. They also found a list of things they had to get done. After a few hours of looking over most of that paperwork they knew that Holt had been right. They had all they could handle and more. The only thing that was staying the same in the 21st squadron was the ground crews and some of the fighter jets. The previous pilots were all gone. James had a list of pilots that he could pick from who were familiar with flying the F-35's that were normally all the 21st used. He also had a list of new pilots and ground crews who could handle the newly added F/A-48's. There was also a lot of information on the people currently in the 61st Squadron. He also found a very rough plan for the 'joint training missions between the 21st and 61st squadrons. The biggest problem with the entire plan was that they expected James to use a rotating group of pilots to fly F/A-48's as the opponents for the ROCAF pilots. He would barely have time to get to know them before they would rotate out and worst of all they would have to start flying against the ROCAF pilots almost as soon as they arrived.

   James and Jeremy spent the next few weeks reviewing personnel records and interviewing pilots. Most of the pilots they were talking with were actually older than they were. Once the F/A-48 had proven itself to be so far ahead of any other fighter jet it had become the main focus of the Air Force. The United States still had squadrons of older jets in service, but almost all of those were now in squadrons that stayed primarily inside the United States. None of them had seen any actual combat duty in several years. The F/A-48 was the front line fighter for the United States. Some of the younger pilots did train in the older jets, but they usually were moved up to an F/A-48 if they showed extra talent for flying. James needed thirteen of the best pilots he could find, pilots who still knew how to fly an F-35 or even one of the still older jets. Lucky thirteen, Jeremy and James had laughed about that a lot. They were rebuilding squadron 21, also called the gamblers, and they were to do it with thirteen pilots pulled together from all over the Air Force. James went down the entire list and he was still short six pilots who fit the mold for what he wanted. It took some real convincing to get permission to look at pilots who hadn't made the list he had been given. It was even harder to sell the pilots he and Jeremy had finally picked out after they got permission to go hunting. There were four pilots out of the six on the list they came up with that Brigadier General Holt didn't like at all.

   Each of those four pilots had shown great talent and an extreme desire to fly, but they all had discipline issues too. Most were still in the Air Force only because of their sheer talent for flying. Some of the thirteen James settled on were very young and some were seasoned pilots, but they all loved to fly on the very edge. It took hours of convincing to get those last four approved. James had finally pointed out the fact that command had asked him to do this job. Now he was asking command to give him the tools he needed to get the job done. The final selling point had been the need for pilots who would push the very limits. Push it so hard that it would scare the ROCAF pilots who had to fly with them. That had been enough to sway Holt. James later learned that she had put her head on the chopping block right along with him to get the final approval from command.