Free ALL IN: Race for the White House by Greg Sandora Page A

fly away from the homes. Those A-10’s are really loud, not so much when they’re coming at you, but after they go by, and I didn’t want some overly concerned citizen to call the base wondering what was going on. So I flew high, the full forty thousand foot ceiling, as fast as I could go, and then on to Lexington. My plan was to see if I could make it there and back, but once I got close, I dipped down to under one thousand feet. When I flew by the ranch, I brought it down really low—so low I could see my parents sitting on the front porch looking up.  
    The A-10 was designed to come up on tanks from near ground level and eat em up with rapid-fire cannons. The technology was so good a pilot could hug the ground, unseen, come up over a hill and fly right at a tank, do business and then fly straight up a mile high out of harms way in seconds.  
    What I did after seeing my parents watching was purely on impulse and something I’ve never even mentioned to Bill. After a Fly By, I quickly turned it around and landed on the dirt road along the far side of the ranch. I turned toward the house and taxied all the way up to the front yard.  
    My mom nearly fainted and all I could hear my dad saying was, “Do you have a screw loose, Son? Are you crazy? Has the Indiana Guard made a terrible mistake giving you the keys to that thing?”  
    “They don’t have keys, Dad,” I said, jumping down off the wing. Those cockpits are pretty high up—about ten feet in the air.  
    “Dad, Mom, I wanted to see you both, but I do have to get back. Dad, will you grab your stepladder from the garage? It’s too high for me to climb back up.”
    My dad could still move pretty fast in those days, and all he wanted was me to ‘Get that plane back to the barn,’ I think he said.
    I climbed up onto the wing, slid the canopy closed and hit the ignition. I remember Mom and Dad running back to the porch, Dad carrying the ladder. I taxied down to the end of the dirt road - then full-out throttle up, light from half empty tanks, barely made it off before the road was gone - scraping through some trees on the way out.

CHAPTER TEN

    “It’s your brother on the phone,” Sarah said, shaking her head.  
    “What’s he sound like?” I asked. She was holding the receiver against her side so he wouldn’t hear. Sarah usually didn’t put me on the phone when Roger called. She’d listen for a while and tell him I’d call him back. This wasn’t one of those times. Sarah handed me the phone with an I don’t know look.  
    I’m the younger of two sons. I have an older brother named Roger. You know how some things in retrospect seem better than they actually were? The good times look great and the bad times seem to fade off or you forget.  
    We all went to the bus station that day in June. My brother Roger graduated from High School two weeks before he grabbed us for a family hug, “Don’t worry, Momma, I’m going to kick some ass and then I’ll be back to help with the ranch.” Mom told Roger not to talk like that as brushed the front of her dress to fix herself. His toothy smile reminded me of Dad - Roger looked like him. Before the military, my brother enjoyed his life. He loved the ranch, anything to do with that place. He’d bring girls up to the hayloft in the barn. I remember they used to giggle a lot. He loved riding horses and especially motorcycles. He’d leave a cloud of dust, riding his Indian motorcycle, on the dirt road in the back of our house. I was his kid brother. To me, Roger had the world on a string.
    What I most remember about Roger was that he was so kind to me.  
    “Roger,” I said as I put the receiver to my ear.
    “You no good piece of dog shit,” Roger was slurring his words again. “You ain’t a war hero. You’re a pretty boy who lands planes in the backyard to scare his friggin mother half to death!”
    “Roger,” trying to make some sense of his rant, “you’ve gotta get some help.”
    My brother