33
Staff Sergeant Bob Wang.
He stared at his own signature but didn’t recognize it.
Over the years he had signed Form 1352, “Aircraft Inventory, Status and Flying Time”, before thousands of flights. Like his trainer before him and those he now trained himself, he’d tried to instill that it was more than a scrawl at the end of a standard report.
No, this form, one that they completed many times every day, was their promise to the flight crew that a particular aircraft was mission-ready to the very best of the ground crew’s abilities.
His initials in Column E, FMC (Fully Mission Capable) was a point of honor—his guarantee that this aircraft was functioning at a hundred percent.
Except this time it was a lie.
A promise broken.
In exchange for a promise kept.
Damn the old man to hell!
