Hasara - Tanker pilot: lessons from the cockpit

Thank you for downloading this Simon & Schuster ebook.

Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.

We hope you enjoyed reading this Simon & Schuster ebook.

Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.

Threshold Editions

An Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright 2017 by Mark Hasara

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Threshold Editions Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Threshold Editions hardcover edition November 2017

THRESHOLD EDITIONS and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or .

The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information, or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

Interior design by Renato Stanisic

Jacket design by Janet Perr

Jacket photographs courtesy of the author

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-5011-8166-5

ISBN 978-1-5011-8168-9 (ebook)

To the memory of Captain John Hoss Kindred, husband, father, and fighter pilot in the world-famous Fighting Cocks, killed in a midair collision during a Korean War Day Large Force Exercise on May 6, 1994

I often speak of the people who make America work. These people are largely unknown, anonymous except to their family and friends. And thats fine with them. They do not solicit fame. Theyre not pursuing adulation and adoration. Theyre happy to be noticed and even proud to be, but they dont ask for it. Theyre too busy doing what they do. They are not associated with glamor. Valor is a better word to describe their behavior. They work, and work hard. Committed to the pursuit of excellence, they do their best to live moral lives and raise their children accordingly. They are in fact often mocked and belittled for their valuesnot by name, but rather by our popular culture. Who are they? They come from all walks of life. Theyre all around us, in our towns, cities, and communities. Many of them do jobs most Americans would not do, and they are rarely jobs with public acclaim attached. America would not survive without themin some cases literally.

Its an honor of mine to know that many people like this comprise my radio audience. I know theyre there, and knowing that sustains me each day. I will never come close to meeting them all, but I know theyre there, and I tell them so in many ways every day. My appreciation is not passive; I am cognizant of them each day, and these people are why I remain positive and confident about our countrys future.

Let me tell you about one of them. His name is Mark Hasara, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel whose battlefield or tactical call sign is Sluggo.

In May 2003, a FedEx package arrived at my New York office. The package was forwarded to my home in Florida. One of my security people called me and said, You are not going to believe what you just received. I asked what it was. No, just get home and see for yourself, he said. When I opened it, I was in awe of what it contained. I was speechless, just stunned. The box held an American flag, properly folded, in a Ziploc bag, and five certificates signed by the aircrews who flew that flag in Iraqi Freedoms opening shock and awe campaign over Baghdad. I did not know that this was done; I had never heard of it nor thought about it. But it is a long-standing tradition: military service members carry these correctly folded battle flags into battle. After the battle ends, they mail the flags home to their families and loved ones. There was also a handwritten note on yellow legal paper explaining everything from Mark. Sluggo. The battle flag flew on two fighter jets, a Marine Corps electronic jamming plane, and two air refueling tankers, on five flights all over Iraq.

You cannot imagine what an honor this was for me. I just stood there in my kitchen staring at everything. I was overcome with pride and emotion. I could not grasp that these pilots and crew would be thinking of me in this circumstance. This was day one of the invasion of Iraq in 2003! You talk about being humbled. I still am not able to fully express every thought and emotion racing through me at the time. That battle flag is now framed and hanging in my library, with Marks letter in the center and the certificates around the corner. I treasure this battle flag because it represents American exceptionalism and, more important, the men and women in military service who write a blank check to our country defending the values each of us holds dear.

So, let me tell you a little about Sluggo. We got to know him and his family in the years after all of this. Oh... you want to hear something illuminating? Mark was surprised when I eventually tracked him down. You see, that was not why he and his crew did what they did. They expected nothing in return.

Mark didnt fly glamorous fighter jets, high-flying reconnaissance spy planes, or even the mighty B-52 Stratofortress bomber. Sluggo flew the Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker, an airplane he wanted to pilot ever since he was a kid watching 707 jetliners land at Los Angeles International Airport. Mark was an instructor pilot in a plane carrying gobs of gas, 180,000 pounds of jet fuel he transferred to other aircraft in midair. There isnt an aircraft today going into combat against ISIS, moving humanitarian relief supplies to some disaster location, or performing surveillance and reconnaissance that doesnt take on fuel from Air Force refueling tankers.

Marks book is about this KC-135 and KC-10 air refueling tanker fleet and the men and women who fly and maintain them. Tankers are the only Air Force airplanes involved in every US military activity. The Air Force tanker fleet also enables our allies and Coalition partners military aircraft to carry out their assigned missions across the globe.

Sluggo is one of our nations experts in this area of air operations. He spent half his adult life flying KC-135s, planning refueling missions for multinational exercises, and creating massive air campaign plans for the tanker force supporting fighters, bombers, and reconnaissance aircraft over Afghanistan and Iraq.

While he and his family were having dinner with my wife, Kathryn, and me at the house, Mark told a story of how I helped hunt Osama bin Laden in the Shah-i-Kot Valley of Afghanistan. One of the three pieces of sky used by tankers to refuel other airplanes he named RUSH.