Somewhere Over Syria, September, 2013
By Mitch Berg
(SCENE: The cockpit of a US Navy F-18 Super Hornet strike fighter. The plane, loaded with JDAM precision-guided bombs, flies through the clear desert skies as the camera closes in on the PILOT).
PILOT: “Cobra Two Five, On Station”
CONTROLLER (flying in an AWACS plane over the eastern Mediterranean): “Welcome to Syria, Cobra Two Five. We’ve got an air support call from “ABU”. Go ahead, Abu”
ABU: (mildly distorted, on the radio) “This is Abu Fuad Hadji Al-Ramshish. We are trying to advance through Al-Khebab, and there is a group of government tanks blocking the way”.
PILOT: “Copy, I’m five minutes out…hey, wait. Abu Fuad Hadji Al-Ramshish?
ABU: “That is correct”
PILOT: “Didn’t a bunch of Marines call me in on an ground support strike against you near Fallujah back in 2005? Weren’t you an Al Quaeda commander?”
ABU: “Why yes! I thought you sounded familiar, Cobra Two Five! Call sign…er…Mobster?”
PILOT: “Er, yes. Wow. So you’ve switched…”
ABU: “Oh, merciful heavens, no. Your bomb missed me, I left Iraq, I got promoted, did a tour in Afghanistan…”
PILOT: “Hey, me too…”
ABU: “…and now I’m here”.
PILOT: “Well, I’ll be”.
ABU: “Small world, isn’t it?”
PILOT: “And now I’m flying air support for…uh…”
ABU: “For me, an Al Quaeda operative. That is correct.”
PILOT: “Huh. OK. Well, Cobra Two Five, I’m at the IP”
CONTROLLER: “Weapons Free, Cobra Five, clear to go hot”
ABU: “Good shooting, Mobster. And then die, American infidel pig dog”.
August 29th, 2013 at 1:30 pm
Hope they meet at a nice resort hotel someday, like Phred and BD.
August 29th, 2013 at 2:04 pm
“… like Phred and BD.” +1 for obscure Doonesbury ref.
August 29th, 2013 at 2:24 pm
Joe Doakes-
I caught the Phred + BD reference as well. Doonesbury did its best to celebrate the people killing our soldiers back in the 70’s.
The local paper runs Doonesbury on the editorial page. I wonder how many people have noticed the anti-military slant? All the soldiers depicted are either victims of sexual abuse and male oppression, mentally crippled as a result of their service, or gaseous faux heroes.
August 29th, 2013 at 2:42 pm
I caught it too – I grew up reading Doonesbury. Even when I was a liberal I didn’t care for it all that much, although from a literary perspective I do like the fact that you’ve got characters with 40-odd years of history…
…as cartoons. Literally and figuratively.
August 30th, 2013 at 1:14 am
The anti-military thing with liberals. Are servicemen are either victims or villans.