Jan thought nothing of this as she gave his hand an extra squeeze. That she would get what she wanted was all that mattered for the moment. Letting go, she watched as the governor headed over to where a military sedan was waiting. She continued to watch as the sedan pulled away. For the first time that morning a genuine smile came to her face as she saw the silhouette of GO Thomas seated in back bring a cell phone up to his ear. “Yes!” she softly muttered. “Yes!”

If her anxious crew had heard her private elation, they showed no sign of it when she turned toward them. Taking a minute to compose herself, Jan looked them over. “Well, boys and girls,” Jan stated in a cheery voice that surprised her jaded associates. “We have a job to do and a story to cover. Now,” she stated firmly, “let’s get to it.”

Jan’s demeanor would not have been quite as cheery if she had been privy to the phone message GO actually passed on to the Adjutant General’s chief of staff. Though the chief of staff didn’t have any idea at that moment what units of the 17th Airborne were out there, he did understand an order when he heard one. As soon as he hung up he called the public affairs officer. “Under no circumstances,” he told the frazzled lieutenant who was still desperately trying to hold down the fort, “are you to release the designation of the Airborne unit until I tell you to do so. Is that clear?”

With half a dozen other phones ringing madly on vacant desks in the Idaho National Guard public affairs office, the lieutenant gave his superior a crisp “Yes, sir,” and hung up as soon as he could without giving that order a second thought.

The lead F-16 Falcon made one more slow orbit of the base, piloted by Brigadier General Lee Deacon. He found he could not resist the temptation of saying farewell to the air base he had commanded for almost two years before he pointed his aircraft toward the setting sun. As he watched the other F-16s form up on him, he could not escape the feeling that this would be his last mission. Even if he were successful in completing the task he had been given, the Air Force general knew that he would never again be able to face fellow Americans without having them look at him and think. “Here is a man who bombed his own countrymen.”