Tilting at Windmills and Crumpets

A young vet, tempted into yet another fight scrapes by and is rewarded with wild sex. Being a gentleman, it is not crudely described.

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After I got out of the service, I drifted, both mentally and physically, from one thing to another. I went back to college to become a teacher. I taught in a one room country school for one year- loved teaching but didn't like dealing with the parents.

I decided to make a change. I still had a little money put away as well as some G.I. bill left so I went down to St. Louis and took further lessons from a flying service to upgrade the licenses I had gotten as a teenager. I got my instructors ticket and was asked to stay on as an instructor.

That was good as they had an aircraft mechanics school there, also. When not working, I sat in on the classes and learned a lot. I also taught ground school to neophyte pilots for their written tests by the (then) CAA, Civil Air Administration

By this time, I was in my early 20s, but not dating much. Blonde, 5 feet 10 inches, 125 pounds lean and average looking. Just another young vet having the time of his life; just one of many. About this time, temptation reared it's head. Not a live woman, but that almost irresistible siren call of adventure, excitement and fortune rose up and all but shouted in my ears.

I thought that some of my previous adventures into political arenas had cured me, but temptation pulled strongly when several of us were approached to assist in the birth of a country.

A little background for you younger readers is in order. After WWII, Jews were emigrating to Palestine and overwhelming the country with their numbers. There were already a number of them in residence there but they had been no problem until the huge influx in about 1946. The Palestinians didn't like that at all. Neither did the British, as they had control over Palestine at that time. It was officially a British mandate. They finally declared that no more Jews could enter the country. Shiploads of Jews continued to be smuggled in from all over Europe. As you might expect, fighting broke out. For example, when a group of soldiers discovered a boatload of Jews coming ashore, they might fire at them if they continued to offload. Usually, fighting would take place then and there, often with return fire from groups of Jewish "freedom fighters" on the shore, trying to protect the boat and it's cargo of desperate humans.

This soon became an all out war. What the Jews lacked in equipment and influence was more than made up for by their determination and a large flow of money from Jewish supporters in the US. These refugees were what was left after the German elimination attempts and the Russian purge. They needed help badly and their backers had the money to pay for it.

The sent recruiters around to all the large city airports and were looking for pilots and mechanics. Not for fighter or bomber planes. They had none. Oddly enough, the British didn't employ any war planes either, just scouts. No, there was no air-to-air combat. The soon to be Israelis, wanted personnel that could fly and service small aircraft. They had, or could buy, two, three, four and six seater planes. A lot of countries sided with Great Briton and wouldn't sell arms or munitions to the Jews, so imagination had to come to bear.

Some vivid imagination came into play- and battle. Sticks of dynamite were bundled, capped and fused. The planes would fly over a site at about 5,000 feet, out of range of small arms gunfire, and drop lighted bundles of dynamite on the opposing troops. Very effective bombs. Two men and a small plane, who knew?

The recruiters were offering obscene amounts for pilots and mechanics. Oh god, was it tempting. As a young vet with the skills and wanting a nest egg for the future I looked deeper into it.

Then a caveat popped up. As a US citizen, I could go over and work for the Jews, even fighting, but as soon as they formed their new country, Israel, I had to stop immediately and leave or face the loss of my US citizenship for fighting for a foreign country without US permission. The US government was torn at the time as it was friendly with Great Briton, but was heavily influenced by the wealthy Jewish population in the US. The latter controlled banks and many large industries all over the country. An influence that couldn't be ignored.

There was always the possibility that a person could be killed, wounded or imprisoned. That was understood. Citizenship was another super strong threat, too strong to just pass off. Then it was lectured to me that all I had to do is quit as soon as the country became official, take my money and leave.

There was nothing holding me in St. Louis so I took some clothes, my passport and some money with me and checked in with the recruiter. Things went fast then. I was put on an American Airlines flight to New York. I was met there by a lady who put me on a plane to Cairo, Egypt. Again, I was met by someone with my name on a card as I got off that flight. They took me to a hotel and said I would be there for two days to rest up from the flights, then transferred on. They arranged for my meals in the hotel, then left. The next day, someone different checked on me at the hotel and told me to be packed and ready at 10 AM local time, tomorrow. Okay. I'll have to come back some time and do some sightseeing, tourist style. Just not this time.

I was put on a plane to Amman, Jordan, along with my escort, to act as an interpreter. Again, the flight was direct and rather quick. Amman was friendly with the US at that time, so my passport was accepted without a question. I had been given a paper that had a town name on it as my address while I was visiting the country. That was accepted and I was on my way with my guide/interpreter. I was taken to a house in the city and joined 5 other men there, who would also be traveling with me; all Americans. Later, that evening, we were loaded on a truck and driven north to Irbid, Jordan, then across the Jordan river into Palestine. We had arrived.

The next day, we met a man in charge and he explained things to us. We were given quarters and some maps to study. He explained that we would be teamed up with an Israeli for language reasons, both in the air and on the ground. That sure seemed thoughtful. My assigned partner was Slomo, an English speaking refugee from central Europe. He had a heavy accent but was understandable. He could speak 5 or 6 languages fluently. Damn, I could barely speak passable American, let alone English. He sure had my attention and respect. We got along well.

The next few days were spent in orientation classes, then to some planes parked under some camouflaged shelters, made to look like Bedouin tents. There were even some goats scattered around to further the image. I was assigned to a four place, American, Stinson plane. Great, I had quite a few hours in one of these. The ground was hard packed and if you looked closely, you could make out a path in the scrub brush that was clear enough to allow a small plane to take off and land. Hell, that was better than the field I learned on, as a kid. I noticed some brooms to one side and asked what they were for. The reply was that they were used to sweep the wheel prints of the ground when we flew so that any British observer plane couldn't guess that these tents were hangars.

Now we were in business. Slomo and I were sent to a certain sector to check for recent British or Arab activity, looking for wheel marks in the desert and the possibility of some men posted there as guards. The days went by for us like that, sometimes seeing activity and other times not. We didn't use the radio much as the system was very basic and the Brits had some fair equipment to listen in. VHF and UHF didn't exist then except as experiments; we only had low frequency radio- below 550 on the radio dial. Sometimes more static than not.

Fighting was spotty all over Palestine, but mostly along the coast where most of the refugees were coming in. A few times, we were given a small wooden crate of dynamite bundles, five sticks to the bundle, fused for the time it took to drop from 5,000 feet, and told to go help a group.

Now, the area, even the country I'm talking about is very small. At 5,000 feet, one can about see across it from east to west, in some places. We never had far to go as the crow flies. Okay, the vulture if you will. We would fly over and drop some discouraging suggestions around the troops and they would leave. I really don't think we ever hurt anyone, but we sure chased some off and that was all that was needed.

One day, we were sent to get some people out of a dangerous situation in the desert. Not much was know about it, just that a couple of Israelis had radioed that they were about to be trapped by a patrol and we had to help however we could. We took a couple of bombs along, just in case, and took off.

The flight was short and uneventful. I had circled around, in the distance so that I wouldn't give my "airport" away and located the patrol We decided to try to discourage them by dropping one of our homemade bombs on them. With no aiming device and Kentucky windage still back in Kentucky, we said a Hail Mary and dropped the first one. Oops, wrong religion, we missed. Scared them, I'm sure but no damage. Well, we had one left. Traditionally, the leader would be in the lead vehicle and if we could stop it, the patrol might quit. This time, we tried a "shalom" and dropped our last deterrent. No more heavenly help on this one, either.

I got out of there, leaving several really pissed off soldiers and went to find our people. From my height, I could see a fair piece, as they say, and soon found them by a disabled vehicle. Not seeing any wheel tracks, I was sure the ground was hard enough to land. I didn't bother to check for wind direction; I just headed in and landed close by them as they ran to meet me. Oh boy. Who the Hell couldn't count? There were three figures headed for us. We were already two in a four place airplane. It was a warm day. Well, for a desert. Hot anywhere else, which means reduced lift.

As they got close, I could tell that two were women and one male, probably their driver. We had already lightened our load by throwing out our baggage, the dynamite, over the patrol and I was sure they wanted us for more than littering. Well, the back seat was a bench type and if the three squeezed in tight, they could get in. Now I did pay attention to the wind direction, turned into it, stepped on the brakes and revved the engine up to the redline. The vibration was fierce but when I let go of the brakes, the ship went down the hard pan, the tail lifting finally and she staggered into the air. Thank you, baby! Turning slowly, I headed back to a safe area and got away from the patrol that was now a couple of miles away.

Once airborne and at a decent height, I deliberately meandered around to mislead any observers. Yeah, I'm from the Midwest and meander is a precise description there. Besides, I was too worried to pay attention to proper speech at the time. We did get to a safe area and landed. I just sat there for a few moments, taking some deep breaths, then I slowly climbed out. Slomo had gotten out first and our passengers deplaned out his door. Suddenly, I was grabbed and almost picked up. Both of the women were hugging me at the same time. In all my life to that date, I had never had two women do that to me. Hell, it had seldom happened with one woman, and here were two. Stunned, astounded and stupefied- well, the latter seemed to come naturally, but just speechless sure didn't cover it. I think I heard at least three languages spoken, all so jumbled that I didn't understand. It did seem, though, that they were happy. With two verys. Well Hell, with that much femininity plastered against me, so was I.

Then they started talking. They had been so frozen with fear that they hadn't uttered a word in flight. Now they were down, they couldn't stop. I looked around and saw Slomo walking off with their driver in the direction of the tent hangar. The girls said they were Rachel and Sarah, old biblical names. They were sabra, or born there Israelis, not immigrants and were truly afraid of the Arab patrol headed their way, fearing torture and/or death.

We slowly walked over to the main office and checked in. The sweepers were out, brushing away any wheel prints I may have left in the dust as we entered the building. Slomo and I gave a brief account of what happened and then the girls reported. Since they spoke in Yiddish, I had no idea what was said, just that the bossman had a smile on his face. He told me to take a couple of days off and go into a nearby town, nameless for a reason, for some rest. Hey, that works for me.

When it came time to go into town, the girls climbed into the vehicle with me. Better and better. They had taken showers and rested too, while waiting for our border runner to leave. When we got into town, they checked into the same hotel that I was registered in. Even better, I thought, as we went for dinner. Now was the chance to get my questions answered.

It turned out that they were born 23 years ago, and raised on a kibbutz, or community farm to two different families but because of their closeness in growing up, they considered themselves sisters. They had been schooled in South Africa as geologists, coming home after graduation, to put their training to use. They had been scouting an area for minerals, water, and soil content for future use. When they got their new state, Israel, the information would be very helpful.

When breakfast was over, they told me to come with them. Hmm. Not asked, but told. What's up? Oh well, it's got to be good, I thought. I obediently followed them up to their room where "good" changed to "better" almost immediately. While Rachel closed the door, Sarah grabbed me and kissed me. "Better" dissolved into "wow"! Damn, I hadn't been kissed like that since I was a kid, when I fell down and caught my face in the vacuum cleaner hose. This young lady was doing an inventory of my body parts and was checking for tonsils first. I had never encountered so much violence before in my short life. Don't get me wrong, I planned to be last in the complaint line if it ever came to that. I was overawed, overwhelmed and in over my head right then. Finally, she came up for air.

Rachel took that as a signal for her to take over. She did. Kissing her was not like fireworks; it was closer akin to a whole damn case of our homemade dynamite bombs. God have mercy on my soul because these gals are going to have my hide. Quite willingly, I might add. Voluntarily.

I could give you all sorts of lurid details about the next two days, but the real truth is that to this poor young man, it was all a blur. A blur shot through with lightening flashes, thunder, softness, stress, strain, tenderness, noise and quiet. As I look back from my current ancient viewpoint, I have never, ever had an experience such as that again. I must admit, it was close, on my honeymoon a couple years later, but my bride was only one woman. These two girls taking turns, did everything but turn me loose. When it came time for me to go back, I could hardly get my hand up, let alone anything else. They had carried gratefulness to new extremes.

I stayed on for a few more months but never encountered anything like that again. Not even close, just a whole lot of routine scouting in my sector. Boredom set in. Not sheer boredom, that implies something thin enough to see through. No, this boredom was thick, as opaque as a haboob, or sandstorm. Then talks started. Israel was made a Jewish state by the UN in November of 1947. Fighting went on with the Arabs but I had to quit and was sent back to the states a little richer and a lot more worldly in the way of women. It was less than a year of my life, but what a time. I made a vow, right then, that I would settle down and try to live a normal life from then on. I kinda, sorta succeeded. Maybe.