Jonathan shared His Past

When we actually had the time to lax, the first thing I did was to see the dining room and the kitchen thoroughly. The dining room had 4 pairs of tables with 5 pairs of chairs each, and 2 extra 4-seat chairs lined just beside the entrance door.

Ryan dozed off on one of those chairs. Jonathan and I sat on the chairs of the dining table nearest to the kitchen, which was not separated by any walls from the kitchen and was just around 6 steps away.

I looked up to see how far the ceiling was from the floor, and I had a rough estimation of height of around 12-13 foot. The ceiling also had 6 long tube ceiling lamps; approximately 4 were on the dining room section, and 2 were on the kitchen section. Obviously, none of them were working.

The kitchen itself had a metal cabinet, with a refrigerator next to it, and 2 water dispensers. Additionally, I did not see any dirty dishes on the sink, and therefore I assumed that prior to this nightmare, the firemen had already long finished their dinner.

As I finished looking around, I went back to my chair to sit and relax again. It was at that moment, Jonathan started up a conversation with me.

"Found anything interesting?" he asked me.

"Aside from finding out that this building is a rather quite fancy fire department for this town, no." I said.

"Then, here goes your time to rest for a while." he responded as he sighed.

I closed my eyes for about 3 minutes, hoping that it would enable me to doze off quickly like Ryan did, but to no success. In the end, I just stared to the ceiling above me which was engulfed with darkness. Jonathan then continued to talk to me.

"I appreciate for what you did to him and those cadets earlier, Travis." he said.

I responded by lowering my head to look at Jonathan, although it was already quite hard to see anything clearly in the dark.

"We do not normally have such misconducting cadets in the Air Force, but I have to say that if you were not there and stepped in, it could lead to a more serious case." he continued.

"Well, I was there to assist in the new recruits' training, so I guess I was also technically responsible in giving right examples." I replied.

"Yeah… as expected from an Ensign who received a Silver Star Medal award…" he responded with what seemed to be a faint smile from him.

He must have found out about my service background some time before my arrival to the military base, or after he took care of the bullying cadets earlier. I did not know how else to respond, other than just with a smile, let alone if he could look at me clearly.

"You single-handedly took down 5 notorious sea smugglers in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico around 4 months ago, did not you? Even though for a few days, both the Navy and Coast Guard were more or less cornered because the sea smugglers ended up bringing their whole organization there and cutting the communications line." he continued.

"Yeah… 4 days of cornered in the middle of the sea… good thing there were no friendly casualties…" I responded.

"Not that many military personnel had the guts to do what you did, and as such you have my respect…" he said with a more gentle tone.

"Thanks… I appreciate it…" I replied with a smile. "What about you? I noticed that the anti-tank rifle you brought with you earlier was not made in this country, seemed obsolete, and therefore obviously not a standard issue. Is there a story to it?" I asked him.

At first, Jonathan did not say anything. I was starting to think if I just asked a sensitive question, but eventually he started to talk.

"Gdynia, Poland." he said. "2 years ago I was stationed there, along with several other pilot officers. We were among the air force men who were sent there as a result of the US-Poland military relationships development."

He then continued that he was one of the few people who survived the missing air force personnel of Gdynia Air Base incident 3 years ago.

"It was in April. We were conducting the recently arrived attack helicopters some long flight performance and endurance tests from early in the morning to dusk. At first, there were no problems in any of the test. However, when it was almost dusk, two of the helicopters suddenly lost contact with the base.

We kept contacting until the sun set, and there were still no response. It was finally decided that a team of few men were to investigate the last known location of the helicopter, somewhere 20 miles off the northeastern coast from Hel Peninsula." he said.

"And among those few men, were you." I responded.

Jonathan stopped for a little while, and then he proceeded again.

"Since there were some concerns that the other helicopters at the base might be malfunctioning, we decided to go there by using ship. It took us about half an hour to get to their last detected location, and we still did not find any traces of helicopter crashes. But for all of our concerns, that was not the thing that surprised us. It was the sight of a large island which we thought would not be there since the radar at the ship did show up anything else." he continued.

I could somehow sense a little anxiety in him when he told that to me, and if it were me I would be anxious as well. Again, Jonathan stopped for a little while before proceeding on.

"Right after we docked at the shore, we were ambushed by heavily-armed pirates from various directions. Only me, and one other person managed to evade them. Thanks to the dense swamp nearby, both of us were able to completely make them lost our tracks.

When we finally got out from the swamp, we decided that we had to report everything to our base, and we had no other choice other than using their own communication line." he said.

If it was not for Jonathan to say it directly, I would never believe that modern piracy would still exist as far to a part in Western Europe. As he continued with his stories, I was starting to realize that both of us might have a similarity in respect of our bitter experience.

"So, you had to go deeper into the island in order to sneak to their hideout and stole their communication equipment." I responded.

"Yes, but not before finding out that one of the helicopters were in fact, managed to land with no damage not far from the swamps, as well as both pilots were still alive. One of the pilots were threatened to be shot down by a barrage of Redeye missiles, right after the other helicopter was shot down. Luckily, the other pilot managed to get out from the canopy before his helicopter hit the shore ground." he replied.

That was one other thing that I did not expect at all. Among the news regarding plane and helicopter crashes that ever reached me, this was the first that I heard the pilot survived the crash.

"But how did you know that both of them survived, even though you only found one helicopter?" I asked.

"The downed pilot managed to reach where the other helicopter was forced to land on, and once he saw the helicopter, he immediately realized that the other pilot must have been taken as hostage as well. When we met, he had a serious wound on his head, so I had to sneak alone and rescue the taken pilot." he answered.

"I went deeper into the island, and when I finally reached their hideout, the first think that came to my mind was to find a weapon." he continued.

"And that rifle was the weapon that you found." I responded.

"That is right. I was quite surprised that such weapon was still working despite its obsolescence, and with quite abundant ammo. Then again, it seemed that those pirates used it frequently to scare off any nearing aircraft." he added.

The weapon that we have been talking about, was a Polish Wz. 35 anti-tank rifle. Based on Jonathan's story, I assumed that the pirates managed to steal the rifle in a conflicting region somewhere in the past.

"Long story short, I managed to take out the pirates using that rifle, and although I could not contact the base directly from their hideout, I brought back four of us, along with the three KIAs on the ship back to the base with the helicopter. Since then, I will always try to bring that rifle with me especially in emergency situations. That was… until what happened earlier." he finished.

"Wait. Attack helicopters do not have any passenger compartments, do they?" I asked.

"Unless, it is an emergency situation and the helicopter is a Mil Mi-28 Havoc attack helicopter. And yes, I was the one who piloted it back to the base." he answered.

It was at that moment I realized that I indeed have a similarity in terms of our experience.

When he finally finished his story, both of us agreed to rest ourselves before proceeding on to the Catholic Church. I finally put my forearms at the table and let my head rest there as my eyes quickly faded.