"Come on girls. We need to get going," she told her four-year old twins.
As they walked outside, she saw her neighbor and said good morning.
"Oh, hi, Dawn!" a woman a few years older than her said in return. "Look at those pretty girls!"
"Say thank you," Dawn told her daughters.
"Thank you!" they called out in unison.
"You're so welcome. Have a nice day!"
"You too, Claire," Dawn told her.
"Oh, I definitely will. Ezra is coming home today!" Claire told her.
"Today? Seriously? Oh, my goodness! I thought it would be another month or so."
"His back is improving faster than they thought, and the burned area is also healing nicely. So they released him this morning, and I'll be picking him up at the airport around 7pm tonight."
"I'm so happy for you, Claire! I can't wait to meet him. The way you talk him has made me want to do so for as long as I've known you."
"Well, he is an amazing young man. Then again, I'm obviously biased. Anyway, I don't mean to keep you. It looks like you're in a hurry. I just wanted to share my good news!"
"No, I'm glad you did. That's fantastic. We're just running a little behind, and I don't want to be late for work."
"Well, have a wonderful day, Dawn. And you too, girls!"
"And you, as well, Claire. Tell Ezra 'hello' from the neighbors he hasn't met yet, and that we're glad he's home and we think he's a hero, okay?"
"Will do! Bye now!"
Claire Hancock was almost beside herself. She'd been in that state several times recently and not in a good way after she received a call from Washington DC informing her that her son, Marine Captain Ezra Hancock, had been shot down in a helicopter crash Afghanistan. She remembered very little from call except that Ezra was seriously hurt but alive and expected to make a full recovery.
Ezra Hancock was a direct relative of the signer of the Declaration of Independence, the man who had the most flamboyant and recognizable signature of all the signers and whose name had since become synonymous for any signature.
Like his father, Malachi Hancock, and his father, Nehemiah Hancock, Ezra had been named for a book of the Bible. Unlike his patriarchal predecessors, Ezra wasn't much of a religious man. Nominally Episcopalian, his faith was a minor part of his life. He was however, patriotic, and had joined Navy ROTC as a freshman in college and stuck with it until graduating four years later then accepting a commission in the U.S. Marine Corps.
Ezra became a pilot who flew the the Bell AH-1 Whiskey Super Cobra helicopter. The Cobra couldn't carry troops or cargo and had only one real purpose in life—to deliver devastating, lethal firepower on the enemy. Cobras are two-seat helicopters which carry only a pilot, who is responsible for maneuvering the aircraft, and a co-pilot, who is in charge of the weapons systems. Ezra Hancock was still a first lieutenant, and just a few days from pinning on captain, when he was shot down in Afghanistan.
He was in the aircraft's 'gunner' seat upfront when they were launched in support of a nearby infantry unit's call for immediate close air support or CAS. There were no fast-movers (jets) in the area, and the two Cobras that responded were the closest, and also the only, aircraft anywhere near the Marines in need of help.
They flew a CIFS or Close-in Fire Suppression mission for the infantry company in direct contact with a battalion-sized group of jihadists armed with AK-47s, RPGs, and mortars. Neither Ezra nor anyone else cared whether they were Taliban, Al Qaeda, or even ISIS. All that mattered was that they were trying to kill Marines, and doing so carried with it a death sentence—a sentence carried out from above.
Braving withering small arms fire from the 'shit heads', both aircraft made pass after pass firing both 2.75" high-explosive rockets and 20mm-machine gun rounds, mowing down and often quite literally blowing the shit out of the enemy as the company continued to return fire with everything it had.
On the final pass, Travis saw one of them stand up, aim a shoulder-mounted weapon at them and fire. He called it out to the pilot yelling, "Break right! Break right! RPG-7!"
The pilot immediately banked the aircraft to the right slightly beyond the its maximum G-limit, but not still fast enough to avoid having the tail rotor hit just enough to make sustained flight impossible. They were only about 50 feet off the ground and with very little stabilization, the aircraft didn't augur in, but it landed so hard it sheared off the tail section upon impact and burst into flames. The canopy flew open and Ezra was somehow ejected in spite of being cinched in tight. His body was twisted so hard that the combined impact and torque of the lateral ejection broke his back. Spilled fuel caught fire, and his left leg was also severely burned before his fellow Marines could arrive and drag him to safety.
Unknown to anyone at the time, the pilot, who was one of Ezra's closest friends, was killed during the crash, and didn't suffer when the front section caught fire and burned viciously. The heat was so intense, the 'grunts' sent to rescue the downed pilots had to stand back and watch, helpless to do anything for their brother Marine. Only later would they would later learn he died on impact, but it was nevertheless a gruesome thing to have to endure, as the firefight continued to rage around them for another five to ten minutes. When it ended, there several dozen dead and another 35 wounded 'freedom fighters'.
Ezra was unconscious for several minutes then awoke to the sound of voices speaking English and in more pain than he'd ever experienced in his life.
Unbelievably, he'd survived. Even more unbelievably but in no way surprising to him, Marines from the infantry company had immediately put together a squad of Marines, who moved under enemy fire, to protect him until they'd routed the enemy. His back broken and his left leg badly burned, Ezra was awake for less than a minute before shock set in causing him to pass out.
The unit corpsman assessed him, provided first aid, and at the same time, a medevac was requested for him and two seriously-wounded Marines who'd been hit during the 30-minute firefight. The pilot who died would be taken with them only if there was enough room on the medevac bird, as he was no longer a 'priority' evacuee. If not, the Marines would place his charred body on a litter, cover it with the US flag then transport him back to their firebase until it could be taken away and sent to Dover Air Force Base to be prepared for burial back home. It would be a closed-casket memorial, but a perfectly assembled, full dress-blue uniform complete with all ribbons and medals he'd earned would be draped over what was left of the young officer's body whether anyone ever saw it or not.
Ezra woke up in the hospital at Bagram Air Force Base, heavily medicated, and unaware of what had happened beyond the chopper going down. Only then did he learn that his friend had been killed in the crash. His next thought was for his window, Sandy, a woman he loved like the sister he'd never had. Unable to focus due to the morphine, he drifted off to sleep for several more hours.
His mother learned all of that when Ezra finally called her about 48 hours later from his hospital bed. The good news was he was alive and would walk again. The bad news was he'd need at least one, if not two, surgeries on his back. The leg would also recover but would require a lot of painful therapy to remove scar tissue so that the knee could bend and function properly.
