—You already know my name. You’re staring at my file.
—I was told you would cooperate with this process. I would like you to state your name for the record.
—Maybe you could start by telling me what this “process” is about.
—I cannot do that. Now, state your name and rank for the record.
—“I cannot do that…” Do you overarticulate everything all the time?
—I like to enunciate things. I find it allows me to avoid misunderstandings. If there is one thing I loathe, it is to repeat myself…
—Yes. My name. You can say it, if it’s so important to you.
—As you wish. You are Chief Warrant Officer 3 Kara Resnik, and you are a helicopter pilot in the United States Army. Is that correct?
—Was. I’ve been removed from flight status, but you probably know that already.
—I did not. May I ask what happened?
—I have a detached retina. It doesn’t hurt, but my vision is affected. I’m scheduled for surgery tomorrow. When I asked, they said there’s a reasonable chance I might be able to fly again…which sounds suspiciously like “no” to me.
What did you say your name was again?
—I have not.
—Then why don’t you? For the record…
—There are many reasons why, some more relevant than others. From your perspective, it should suffice to know that you would never be allowed to leave this room alive if I did.
—You could have just said no. Do you really think threatening me will get you anywhere?
—I sincerely apologize if you felt threatened in any way, Chief Resnik. It was never my intention to make you uncomfortable. I simply did not want you to think I was being coy.
—So you were concerned for my safety? How chivalrous. Why am I here?
—You are here to talk about what happened in Turkey.
—Nothing happened in Turkey. Nothing interesting, anyway.
—I will be the judge of that. You know that my clearance is several levels above yours, so start at the beginning.
—I’m not even sure what that means.
—How did you end up in Turkey?
—I was called on NATO duty. I arrived early in the morning and got some sleep. Mission briefing was at 16:00. They introduced me to my second, CW Mitchell, and we went over the mission. We would fly out at 02:00 on a modified stealth UH-60 out of Adana. We were to enter Syrian airspace at very low altitude and collect air samples about twelve miles south of the border, near Ar Raqqah.
—You said you had never met your second-in-command. It is my understanding that the Army likes to keep its crews together. It seems odd for them to break up a team just before a dangerous mission and have you fly with someone you barely know. Why not have your usual co-pilot come with you?
—He was reassigned.
—Why is that?
—You’d have to ask him.
—I did. Would it surprise you to know he asked for any post as long as it was with another pilot? I believe the words he used to describe you were: obdurate, volatile, and irascible. He has quite the vocabulary.
—He plays a lot of Scrabble.
—Is that why you did not get along?
—I never had a problem with him.
—That seems somewhat beside the point. You do not often see people willing to jeopardize their military career simply to avoid having to spend time with another person.
—We disagreed over a lot of things, but I never let it get in the way of our flying. I can’t help it if he wasn’t able to do the same.
—So it is not your fault if people have a problem with you. That is just who you are.
—Something like that. Look, you want me to say I’m not the easiest person to get along with? I’ll give you that. But somehow, I don’t think we’re here to discuss my charming personality. You want to know how I crashed a twenty-million-dollar helicopter into the middle of a pistachio farm. Is that it?
—We can start with that. You said you were supposed to collect air samples. Do you know why?
—NATO believes that Syria has been pursuing a nuclear weapons program for years and they want to put a stop to it. Israel bombed a suspected nuclear reactor back in 2007, but NATO doesn’t want to do anything that drastic on a whim.
—They would prefer to have some hard evidence before they take military action.
—They wanna catch them with their pants down. A source in the Syrian Military Intelligence told the US that underground testing