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J. Alfier Driving Up to Red Flag Younger guys can fly the jets to Nellis, you're a colonel, and need your own car... The wife says a prospect of traffic jams makes you exit west at Casa Grande. But perhaps it's the way deserts dream lightning in the beautiful ache of wilderness, that keeps you from driving on through Phoenix. As this road becomes a dead reckoning, Mark-82 bombs slam south behind you, churning scree on Goldwater Bombing Range and battering the Gila Bend Mountains. The tires carve dust that floats like a ghost so you direct your mind to tasks before you: airspace blocks and radio frequencies, forces' bed-down, and air tasking orders, live-fire day for cluster munitions. The Vegas skyline eclipses these thoughts. You forget a child's foot can arm a mine.

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