going over the Libyan gun emplacements. Gibson also complained that his mouth was dry and drank several glasses of water.
'Shit, Indiana, you know what's bothering me? Those flyboys will be in the battle and we'll be stuck here with no role unless the crazy A-rabs decide to attack. How can we get into the fight? Wait. I just had a thought.' Lieutenant Hilliard was still talking nonstop. It was after three o'clock and they had already gone over everything associated with the attack at least twice. Winters was feeling lifeless and enervated from lack of sleep but the astonishing Hilliard continued to exude exuberance.
'What a great idea,' Randy continued. talking to himself. 'But we can do it. You briefed the pilots tonight, didn't you, so you know who's going after what targets?' Vernon nodded his head. 'Then that's it. We'll tape a personal ‘screw you' to the side of the missile that's going to get Gaddafi. That way part of us will go into battle.'
Vernon did not have the energy to dissuade Randy from his crazy plan. As the time for the attack drew closer, Lieutenants Winters and Hilliard went into the hangar on the Nimitz and found the airplane assigned to Lieutenant Gibson (Winters never knew why, but he immediately assumed it would be Gibson who would score a missile on the Gaddafi enclave). Laughingly, Randy explained to the fresh ensign on watch what he and Vernon were going to try to do. It took them almost half an hour to locate the right plane and then identify the missile that would be the first to be launched against the Gaddafi household.
The two lieutenants argued for almost ten minutes about the message they were going to write on the paper that would be taped on the missile. Winters wanted something deep, almost philosophical, like 'Such is the just end to the tyranny of terrorism. 'Hilliard argued persuasively that Winters' concept was too obscure. At length a tired Lieutenant Winters assented to the visceral communication written by his friend. 'DIE, MOTHERFUCKER,' was the message the two lieutenants inscribed on the side of the missile.
Winters returned to his bunk exhausted. Tired and still a little unsettled by the magnitude of the coming day's events, he pulled out his personal Bible to read a few verses. There was no comfort in the good book for the Presbyterian from Indiana. He tried praying, generic prayers at first and then more specific, as had been his custom during critical moments in his life. He asked for the Lord to guard his wife and son and to be with him in this moment of travail. And then, quickly and without thinking, Lieutenant Vernon Winters asked God to rain down terror in the form of the missile with the taped message on Colonel Gaddafi and all his family.
Eight years later, sitting in his office at the U.S. Naval Air Station in Key West, Commander Winters would remember that prayer and cringe inside. Even then, in 1986, just after he finished the prayer, he had felt weird and disoriented, almost as if he had somehow committed a blasphemy and displeased the Lord. A brief hour of sleep that followed was torturous, full of dreams of hideous gargoyles and vampires. He watched the planes leave the carrier the next morning at dawn in a dreamlike trance. His mouth had a bitter metal taste when he mechanically shook Gibson's hand and wished him luck.
For all those years Winters had wished that he could have rescinded that prayer. He was convinced that God had permitted that particular missile carried by Gibson to take the life of Gaddafi's infant daughter just to teach Winters a personal lesson. On that day, he thought as he sat in his office on a Thursday in March 1994, I committed sacrilege and violated Your trust. I overstepped my bound and lost my privileged position in Your sanctuary. I have asked for forgiveness many times since then but it has not been forthcoming. How much longer must I wait?
THURSDAY Chapter 6
VERNON Allen Winters was born on June 25, 1950, the day that the North Koreans invaded South Korea. He was reminded of the significance of his birthdate throughout his life by his father, Martin Winters, a man who was a hardworking, deeply religious corn farmer in Indiana at the time Vernon was born. When Vernon was three years old and his sister Linda was six, the family moved off the farm and into the town of