OUTSIDE WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR BASE — A Conex box is being loaded onto a flatbed and Maj. Nick Lee sticks his hands inside a make-shift air hole drilled into the side and says, “easy girl, it’s going to be okay.”

Lee, 34, had given up all hope of this moment coming to fruition, so when his phone rang at 1 a.m. on a Sunday (9 a.m. Doha local time), he was taken aback.

“It really took a few minutes to understand what was happening,” Lee told Duffel Blog. “It was like someone reading off your winning lottery tickets. I couldn’t believe I was going to finally see 269 again.”

“269” referred to the tail number of the MQ-1 Predator drone Maj. Lee piloted during his “deployment” to Beale Air Force Base in 2013.

“Me and 269 really smoked some motherfuckers that whole 5 months,” said Lee. “This was before they started dropping 400-pound flying knives through windshields.”