Bangana

I commute to war five days a week in a station wagon the color of an egg. I count on ten minutes of traffic by the Dunkin’ Donuts intersection. When I slam the car door, I count on the tree above my parking spot depositing a green scrim of pollen on my flight suit. What I can’t count on is it being the same war. Most days I operate over Afghanistan, but I fly in Iraq too. I say flew, I say I fly, and unless you’re out there winging around in an F-16 I don’t want to hear a fucking thing about it.

I hear a lot about it. Hell, I used to dish a lot about it.

Because I was Air Force. Eight years flying real planes from real cockpits. We gave the drone operators such shit. Called the reach-back crew geeks. Cubicle monkeys. Made fun of their video-game controllers. Their La-Z-Boy command chairs. We tore them apart if they used words like serve, or deployed, or fly.

But then I had Bug.