Unfortunately, the enlisted personnel didn’t seem to care. At least half
of the men hadn’t bothered to shave. While some of them might not even need
to shave on a regular basis, three petty officers sported rough-looking
stubble. The five women in the Branch particularly dismayed him. He’d
expected the women to take a little more pride in their appearance. Two of
them had long hair straggling out from underneath their cranials, and one wore
the grimiest looking coveralls he’d ever seen.
Bird Dog returned the Chief’s salute, trying to conceal his dismay. They
must be testing him, he thought. Trying to see how far they could go with
him. Well, he wouldn’t stand for it!
“Personnel inspection, Chief,” he snapped.
The Chief looked startled. “Sir, we’re setting flight quarters in thirty
minutes. The FOD walk-down-”
“How long can it take with fifteen people?” Without bothering to see if
the chief followed him, Bird Dog began pacing down the row of assembled
sailors.
“Haircut,” he said shortly, as he looked the first sailor over carefully.
“That goes for just about all of them, Chief.”
“Yes, sir,” the Chief said. He walked slowly down the first line, then
the second. Halfway through the third rank, he came to the young female
sailor in grimy coveralls. The top of her head barely came up to his wings,
and her short blond hair was in disarray.
“Why isn’t this sailor wearing a cranial, Chief?”
“Uh, sir-Shaughnessy?”
“Forgot it, Chief,” she said. Her voice was so low Bird Dog had to
strain to catch it. “It’s in the line shack.” A Southern drawl drew the five
words out into a paragraph.
“Your bird a go this morning?” the Chief asked, ignoring Bird Dog
impatiently shifting his weight from foot to foot beside him. The huge Chief,
darkly bronzed by the sun and immaculately attired in sharply pressed khakis,
towered over the small blond woman. For some reason, the odd contrast between
the Chief and the airman annoyed Bird Dog even more than Chief Franklin’s
attitude. Wasn’t anything the way it was supposed to be in the Navy?
“Yes, Chief.” The corners of the young airman’s mouth twitched upward.
“Found the problem about ten minutes ago. A circuit breaker–can you believe
it?”
“No shit? Good work! Which one was-?”
“Ahem. The personnel inspection, Chief,” Bird Dog said.
The Chief glanced down at him as though seeing him for the first time.
“Sorry, sir,” he said after a moment. “You know how it is, trying to get all
the aircraft FMC just before flight quarters. We’ve been having problems with
that bird for two days now. Shaughnessy thought it might be a bad circuit
breaker, not resetting correctly. Sounds like she was right.”
“Fine, but there’s no excuse for ignoring safety regulations, Chief.
She’s on the flight deck, she wears a cranial from now on.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Chief Franklin said. “Want her to go get it now?”
Bird Dog hesitated. Something in the chief’s voice made the rough tarmac
under his feet feel like a slippery slope. “Up to you, Chief,” he said,
trying to inject a decisive note into his voice. “As long as we’re clear that
my first priority for AE Branch is safety.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” the Chief said again.
Bird Dog paced down to the end of the row, and then returned to the front
of the ranks. The Chief followed him.
“AE Branch–parade rest!” Bird Dog snapped. The sailors hesitated for a
split second, glanced at each other, and then fell into the more relaxed
stance. “I will now read the Plan of the Day.”
Suddenly, a voice boomed over the flight deck. “Would you people like an
engraved invitation? The rest of the airwing would be pleased to have you
join us for a FOD walk-down–that is, of course, assuming it’s convenient?”
Bird Dog looked up, bewildered.
“Air Boss, sir,” the Chief said. “If I could make a suggestion–this
might be a real good time to dismiss the troops and buster down to the ass end
of this bird farm. Air Boss likes to sit up in Pri-Fly and watch FOD
walk-down. He’s a little touchy in the mornings.”
“Very well,” Bird Dog replied, trying very hard to convince himself that