“Maybe that’ll teach you to bring your parka next time,” Fran Meranno replied.

“I didn’t know we’d be out here all friggin’ night,” West snapped.

“And all the next day,” David Tillman chimed in. “Sergeant Lightfoot warned us that this was our new home till all this blows over.”

“That’ll teach you to keep yapping when the colonel’s briefing us,” Meranno concluded before she rolled over and pulled the blanket she was wrapped in over her head.

“Man,” West called out to no one in particular as he looked up and scanned the pale, early morning sky. “This bites. This really, really bites.”

Off to the west the glint of the still unseen sun caught the silver skin of an incoming aircraft. Finding his fellow Guardsmen had little sympathy for his plight, Chester West turned his attention to the lone aircraft slowly approaching Boise. “Man, I don’t know where you’re going,” he whispered to the plane as his teeth chattered, “but I’d give anything to be on board you right now, enjoying warm coffee and …”

From his corner David Tillman threw a clot of dirt that smacked West in the leg. “Shut up, man,” Tillman pleaded. “We’re trying to get some sleep here.”

Knowing that it would be his turn soon to be relieved and not wanting either of them seeking revenge by keeping him awake, West grudgingly complied. With nothing to do, he turned his attention back to the aircraft that continued to bore in at a leisurely pace.

At the control center of the Boise Municipal Airport a controller was also watching the aircraft on his radar screen. Designated Global Express 901, the cargo aircraft began to concern the controller when, at the last minute, the tiny green triangle that represented it veered sharply to the left and off the required glide path. Putting his coffee down, the controller keyed his mike and spoke with the same even tone he used regardless of what the situation was. “Global 901, this is Boise control. You are wide of the glide path. Immediately come to a heading of one oh five and decrease air speed by fifty knots.”

Letting up off his push-to-talk button the controller watched for the aircraft to comply. After waiting five long seconds for a response, and seeing no change in the aircraft’s erroneous course, the controller again keyed his mike. “Global 901, this is Boise control. You are wide of the glide path. Immediately come to a heading of one oh oh and decrease your speed. Acknowledge, over.”