Viper Pilot: A Memoir of Air Combat (24 page)

The local maintenance guys had already chocked the wheels and were busying themselves taking oil samples and other post-flight stuff. I found out later they were all F-16 mechanics from al-Jabber Air Base to the south. Apparently, the Vipers there used Ali as a forward refueling and divert base, so they kept some of their crew chiefs here. Bad for those poor bastards but good for us.

Lugging helmet bags, harnesses, and weapons, the ten of us stiffly piled into several pickup trucks and headed straight to dinner. The colonel drove one of the trucks himself and got us into the chow hall.

I stood there in the door, blinking against the light, and inhaled. Rice, chicken, and burned bread—but it smelled heavenly. A chubby little mess sergeant hurried over, smiled broadly at the colonel, and nodded politely to us.

“Everything’s ready, sir. Hot line, cold line, and the snack bar.”

“Help yourselves.” The colonel waved an arm. “Just coffee for me. If you want to drop your stuff here I’ll watch it while you get food.”

I found out later that he kept the chow hall open for us when he heard we were coming in. Meeting us and driving us around was also something most Operations Group Commanders didn’t do. He was quite a guy. I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve forgotten his name, but I never forgot his leadership example.

Later that night, rolled up in a groundsheet in the corner of a tent, I shivered myself to sleep colder than I’d ever been in my life. I was wearing everything I had, including my G-suit, helmet, and harness, to try and stay warm. In the morning, the colonel showed up again, with two big plastic bags. At his own expense, he’d bought razors, soap, and towels for us. The sandstorm had mostly blown itself out, but there were still thunderstorms, and the air was thick with residual, hanging dust.

Nevertheless, the war was still on. The Marines were fighting along the Saddam Canal, trying to get past Nasiriyah and cross the Euphrates River. When they did this, they could push up Highway 8 to al-Kut and pincer Baghdad from the east. The 3rd Infantry Division, which had bypassed Nasiriyah, was stalled out near Samawah, about sixty miles south of Baghdad. Having escaped Baghdad, Saddam Hussein had declared March 25 as a “day of sacrifice,” and Iraqis took this to heart. The fighting was heavy and casualties were mounting. More ominous was the revelation from Coalition Intelligence that large ammunition convoys, accompanied by chemical decontamination vehicles, were moving out of central Baghdad. The Iraqi plan was to take advantage of the bad weather to launch sustained counterattacks. They figured if they could slow up our advance, then the general Iraqi populace would arise to fight off the invaders. It was a good gamble on their part.

Unfortunately, they didn’t account for the tenacity of U.S. ground forces, nor the ferocious attacks from American fighter aircraft—despite the weather. The next day, the fourteen F-16s on the ground at Ali al-Salem were fragged to attack various targets in the Nasiriyah-Najaf-Kut triangle with whatever weapons we had remaining.

The weather was still horrendous. One good friend of mine got caught in a thunderstorm just south of Baghdad. The downdrafts were so powerful that his F-16 fell from 30,000 feet before he was able to regain control and recover 800 feet above the ground.

When we eventually returned to Prince Sultan on the afternoon of March 25, yet another unwelcome surprise was waiting. Unbelievably, I had been grounded.

A
LL THE FIGHTER ASSETS AT
P
EE
S
AB, INCLUDING THE
77
TH
F
IGHTER
S
QUADRON
, were part of the 363rd Expeditionary Operations Group, 363rd Air Expeditionary Wing. In my opinion, shared by many, many others, the senior commanders were not the varsity lineup. One of them would loiter outside the chow halls to prevent folks from dropping orange peels on “his desert.” Another would actually hang around parking areas making sure people used spotters when they backed their cars up. The Operations Group (OG) was commanded by an unpleasant, pedantic colonel who was a holdover from the peacetime, No Fly Zone world between the wars. He had two female, tanker
navigators
for deputies—hardly an ideal command structure for a wing at war.

According to their directives, our big priorities during the war included the correct disposal of piddle packs (there was a PowerPoint slide for that one) and proper wear of the desert “boonie” hat. There was a slide for that, too.

The day after my Nasiriyah mission (to save the Marines) the OG read the Mission Report and it must have busted his undersized genitalia. He was absolutely mortified that one of the “cowboy” Viper pilots—that would be me—had dared go below 10,000 feet during the execution of a combat mission. Since his knowledge of Close Air-Support was confined to a lecture he’d heard once at Air War College, this wasn’t surprising.

So after saving those Marines, rounding up eight stray fighters,
and
getting them safely down in that nightmare sandstorm this guy tries to ground me. I was flabbergasted. Everyone else was shocked and my squadron commander was positively apoplectic. I’ve never seen him that mad, even when we gave him wasabi one night in Vegas and told him it was guacamole. Sorry Storm’n.

Somehow, and I’ve never really known how, Colonel Bill “Kanga” Rew found out about it that very evening. As it happens, Colonel Rew was the 20th Fighter Wing Commander, our parent unit in South Carolina, and was currently serving as the Director of the Combined Air Operations Center there at PSAB. He was (and remains) a first-rate fighter pilot and Patchwearer. Basically, he ran the combat flying operations for the entire Coalition Forces Air Component Commander (CFACC).

Now the Coalition Forces Air Component Commander (CFACC) was a bull of a general named T. Michael Moseley, also a fighter pilot and a Patchwearer. That particular day he happened to be totally pissed off because his Marine counterpart had been publicly chastising the Air Force. The Marine general had a perception that Moseley’s pilots weren’t adequately performing close air-support for his ground troops because the Air Force didn’t want them to fly down into the SAMs and Triple A. So Moseley is steaming about this when along comes Kanga Rew with a story. A story about at least one Air Force pilot who did what it took, in abysmal conditions and at great risk, to
save
Marines. Moseley is apparently thrilled and wants to meet this guy. Well, says Kanga, the pilot’s got plenty of time now that the 363rd EOG has grounded him for saving those Marines.

What?

Actually, the way I heard it was “What the
fuuuck
is going on down there? Get those pinheads over here on the
double
.” Or something like that. In the end, my grounding lasted about ten hours which was okay because I was asleep anyway. By the time I stepped out to fly the next combat mission, the in vogue expression at PeeSab was to “take an OG” instead of taking a shit. Everyone was saying it. Fighter pilots don’t cut much slack when there’s shooting going on.

I didn’t see the OG again. He remained at PeeSab but stayed safe in his office with his computer and coffeemaker. Must be a little embarrassing to get a first-class ass chewing by a four-star general
and
manage to be wrong, too. He also received the following official email that used small enough words so he’d understand, telling him what an important mission ROMAN 75 had flown.

From: MCGEE, MICHAEL B. LCOL

Sent: 5/25/2003 12:32 PM

Subject: Roman 75

Sir,

I wanted to pass some information regarding a Roman 75 flight that did some pretty incredible work for the MEF on 24 MAR. His actions stropped an enemy reinforcement that was about to overrun some Marines separated from their main unit.

On 24 MAR 03 at approximately 1345Z, Warhawk (V Corps ASOC) received a request for emergency CSA from Chieftan (MEF). 3rd BTN/2nd Marines had a unit that was stranded North of An Nasiriyah, and Iraq reinforcements were coming toward their position from the North along Highway 7, ivo 38RPV17525557. A flight of F-15Es was sent to engage the enemy threat. The F-15Es were unable to find or engage the target due to the very poor weather in the target area. The MEF then sent a flight of A-10s that again were unable to find or engage the target due to worsening weather. Ceilings were estimated at 8000' and visibility was down to a couple miles. Since it was an emergency situation as passed by Cyclops (controller), we then sent Roman 75, flight of F-16CJs. The flight of F-16CJs was able to find and destroy the target. Due to the poor weather, Roman 75 had to execute a low altitude strafe against the target, the only way at the time to destroy the target.

Two other flights were unable to find or engage the target after many attempts under these very difficult wartime conditions. The flexibility, tactical expertise, and calm under intense pressure demonstrated by Roman 75’s flight was above and beyond the call. This professional action of the flight lead under very poor weather conditions and in direct contact with the enemy ground forces saved 3rd Battalion from the reinforcing enemy forces.

Lt Col Mike McGee

V Corps EASOC Airboss

Dep Cmdr for Joint Integration

4 EASOG

This guy didn’t even have the balls to come see our squadron depart for home after the war ended. Fortunately, these types of people were rare and a marked contrast to officers like Kanga, Storm’n, and Ops Group Commander at Ali-al Salem. True professionals, they focused on combat missions and using their positions to actually help those doing the fighting. I’d love to see that colonel from Kuwait again, to shake his hand and buy him a drink.

But the war didn’t stop for the weather. This was a reality the Iraqis were slow in grasping, and it cost them dearly. They hoped to use the dust to obscure their movements and move into position for coordinated counterattacks. It’s a good thought, and worked in 1944 for the Germans, but it wasn’t going to stop a military that could see through bad weather and had satellite tracking.

In the end, after marching bravely out of their fortified positions with flags waving, the so-called elite Iraqi troops got the hell beaten out of them.

I believe that the sight of the arrogant, goose-stepping Republican Guards limping back into Baghdad convinced other military units, and, above all, the civilians, that Saddam’s grip on Iraq was loosening. Consequently, there would be no mass uprising of the people to throw the hated invaders (that’s us) into the sea. The military, however, did stay, and dug in tightly to fight the coalition forces as we approached the capital.

And approach it we did. The Army’s V Corp moved up from the south, and the Marines, mad as hell about Nasiriyah, were blitzing northwest from al-Kut. The SAMs and Triple-A around Baghdad were warmed up now and waiting for the attack helicopters and close air-support aircraft that would support the attack on their capital.

But they wouldn’t have to wait for long—the Wild Weasels were coming to get them.

9

The Valley of the Shadow

March 26, 2003

T
HE WINGMAN CAME OFF THE TANKER’S BOOM AND SLID BACKWARD
away from the big KC-10. I zippered the mike and pulled up and away, toward the north. I saw the flash of WICKED 24’s wings as he turned with me out of the Twitch air-refueling track. Eyes out now, we transited the other tanker tracks, looking for pods of big jets surrounded by little jets. I lit the burner momentarily and climbed up above 25,000 as we headed north across the Iraqi border.

The tankers usually refueled at 25,000 or below, and the surveillance jets, like AWACS and JSTARS, were normally above 30,000 feet. So 27,000 to 28,000 feet was generally a safe haven as we crossed into Iraq. It always amazed me how, with such a big sky, jets gravitated toward each other. Of course, up here, really only F-16s and F-15s roamed about. The Navy F-18s were much farther to the east, and the A-10s couldn’t get this high. Even so, we kept our eyes out until well north of the border.

Twenty miles farther we FENCEd in. FENCE was originally a mnemonic of things to complete prior to combat: F (flares) E (electronic countermeasures) N (navigation aids—off) C (camera—on) E (emergency beacon—off).

We’d added to it over the years. Seat straps got tightened, exterior lights came off, weapons systems were set up, etc. I also ran my seat up a bit higher to better see any SAMs farther over the canopy rail, and turned the threat-warning volumes up as high as I could stand. I usually also removed my gloves so I could manipulate switches better, and almost always flew with my helmet visor up. Each pilot had his own system and it didn’t matter as long as everything was done prior to getting too deep into Indian Country.

“You’ve gotta be shitting me . . .” I muttered and looked at the mess below me. My flight of two CeeJays was roaming around Killbox 88 Alpha Sierra just south of Baghdad. This is what was left after the Mother of All Sandstorms had passed through. The winds may have died down, but the visibility was still terrible and Iraq was completely covered by a nasty mixture of fuzzy brown dust and low gray clouds.

“WICKED 23, this is RAMROD.” The orbiting AWACS had been unusually quiet today, which was a welcome change. Unfortunately, I wasn’t far enough north to pretend I couldn’t hear him.

“Go ahead.”

“JEREMIAH directs . . . repeat . . . JEREMIAH directs armed reconnaissance of the area around North three, three, oh, three, point five . . . West four, four, one, one, point three . . . how copy?”

Now right there I should’ve experienced inexplicable radio difficulties. JEREMIAH was the daily call sign of the general commanding all coalition air forces. He was sitting 700 miles away in an air-conditioned, carpeted tactical operations center, probably eating a doughnut. This duty rotated among senior officers, who got to sit back and watch the war on the big screens.

Since Operation Desert Storm, our command and control technology had improved—and I use that word sarcastically—to the point where all our aircraft could be tracked electronically. This was then projected on a movie-theater screen in the TOC. There were ascending rows of amphitheater seats, which wrapped around the room. Computer stations were interspersed around, manned by majors and lieutenant colonels whose main function at the moment was to be there and breathe. They had little paper name-cards on their cubicles that said things like
FLTOPSMAIN
,
MPCFIDO,
and
AARDETCO
. Alphabet soup to anyone other than one of them. Anyway, the general got to sit at the very top, in a little glassed-in room, like the bridge of a ship.

However, when JEREMIAH spoke, we had to listen—or fake radio problems. I jotted the coordinates down on my kneeboard and made the mistake of replying.

“Copy that, RAMROD. Say items of interest.” Meaning, what do you want me to look for?

“WICKED—possible armored vehicles and personnel moving south out of the city along Highway One.”

I zippered the mike, looked outside, and sighed. It was a normal request under ordinary circumstances. However, I wasn’t wild about flying down through all that shit, not to mention the still-undefeated Baghdad SAMs and Triple-A, just to locate a stray Iraqi patrol. Especially since our own ground units were still fighting their way north and were currently about fifty miles to the south of the capital. So again, despite space intelligence, satellites, and aerial platforms like JSTARS, it came down to human eyes on a target. My eyes, in fact.

Still, if the Iraqis were going to move, it would be now—precisely because the weather was atrocious. Their own air force didn’t fly in bad weather, and they never seemed to grasp that we could and did.

I knew without looking that my wingman would be floating around behind me about a mile away, so I flipped on the autopilot, pulled the throttle back to hold 300 knots, and unfolded my map. In the twenty-first-century Air Force, it was old-fashioned to carry a map, but I always did, precisely for times like these.

The coordinates AWACS had plotted were out along Highway 8, barely ten miles south of Baghdad, just north of the small town of Iskandiriyah. Tactical maps have lots of good information on them, and I tapped my finger over a huge lake southwest of Baghdad. Milk Lake, we called it. Besides the purpose of this reconnaissance, my other concerns included not knowing what was actually beneath me and not being able to see whatever was there. If I came in from the west over the lake, then those two problems would be temporarily solved. At least, long enough for me to get in and get out.

That is, until I popped back out over the land on the eastern shore of the lake. But the ability of an unsuspecting Iraqi patrol to acquire, track, and shoot at a target rocketing along at 550 miles per hour was a chance I’d take. I stuck the map under the kneeboard as my hands and eyes moved smoothly around the cockpit. Chaff and flares were armed, seat was up, threat-warning volume was up. The jet was ready for combat.

“WICKED T
WO
. . . O
NE ON
V
ICTOR
.”

“Go ahead.”

My wingman today was a lieutenant named Ian Toogood. Really. We called him “Notso.” Get it? Notso Toogood. Actually he
was
good. A typical brainless lieutenant (just like I’d been) but utterly fearless.

He’d heard the whole exchange, but I explained what I was going to do and that included leaving him up in the clear air. He wasn’t happy about being left behind, but there was no reason to risk his life, too. Also, a combat flight lead is just that—a flight leader—so wingmen do what they’re told. Especially if the flight lead is also a Weapons Officer. So I zippered the mike and sliced away below him, heading west. Pulling my power back, I glided down toward the thick brown fuzz and squinted at the ground.

Nothing—no holes or breaks in the clouds.

Leveling off at about 15,000 feet, I left 5,000 feet between me and the clouds in case of a SAM. Eyeballing the HUD, I continued west until I was thirty miles—less than four minutes—from the point on the highway.

Taking a deep breath, I pushed the power back up, raised my visor, and began another slice back to the east. Dropping the nose, I centered the steering and gradually slipped down into the dust. As the horizon disappeared, I rechecked the radar altimeter and kept descending. According to the map, I would be over the western edge of the lake and there shouldn’t be anything hostile below me except water.

Passing through 10,000 feet, I flipped the master-arm switch to
ARM
. I had the standard air-to-air missile load of two AMRAAMs and a pair of Sidewinders. We always had a full load of 20-mm cannon shells, and I also was carrying a couple of CBU-103 cluster bombs.

By 5,000 feet, I was twenty miles from the road. The sky around me had turned chocolate-brown. Tilting my head back, I caught the weird sheen of weak sunlight filtering through the dust—like lying on the bottom of a muddy pool and looking up. At 1,000 feet, the jet began to buck and suddenly pitched sideways. I swore and tightened my grip on the stick. Dropping out of the clouds at about 800 feet, I stared down at the angry waters of the lake. Whitecaps flecked the gunmetal-gray surface, and that surprised me. It meant strong winds and unsettled weather.

I felt a twinge of uneasiness. There had been no way to predict what was under the clouds, but I didn’t expect violent weather. It was also dark and, even as I watched, lightning suddenly ripped a gash through the blackness up ahead and to my right. Then again, to the left. Apparently, there was still a very nasty storm hidden here beneath the dust. Swallowing hard, I angled away from the thunderstorm and pushed the throttle to full mil power. The ragged cloud layer pressed down from above and I had no choice but to continue descending. Or abort. I really had no choice.

Eight miles from the highway, I crossed the Euphrates River heading northeast at 510 knots and 200 feet. Maybe it was a premonition, or just faith in my own instincts, but as the water changed to hard, brown earth, I released one of my Little Buddies.

Technically called the AN/ALE-50, the Little Buddy was a towed decoy that was intended to attract hostile tracking radars and missiles to it, not the aircraft. Since it streamed out behind the jet, anything that locked onto its signal would be guided to the decoy and not the fighter.

Hopefully.

Shredded, tattered clouds hung down on all sides and I could see nothing but the ground below. It was the middle of the afternoon, yet the sky was a menacing mix of greens and blacks against a dirty-brown background. Very weird. Even at over 500 knots, the jet was bouncing and pitching in the unsettled, turbulent air.

Still, it was just a flying situation. I mean, low altitude in shitty weather less than twenty miles from Baghdad wasn’t exactly a walk in the park. But neither was it MiGs and SAMs and Triple-A. So I wriggled backward against the seat and concentrated on holding the fighter steady.

The highway!

Appearing beneath the ragged cloud curtains, a dark gray slash of paved surface ran away to the north and south. The earth was greener here, and hundreds of shabby little huts and brown boxlike houses dotted the landscape. Leaning forward, I squinted through the canopy but couldn’t make out any vehicles or anything that looked like a convoy.

The jet was skidding sideways from the wind, and I booted the rudder to hold it steady. I felt the tremendous power of the engine through my fingertips as it fought against the weather. My right hand was slick from sweat, and I wished I’d put my gloves back on. Highway 8 was about a mile off the nose, and I rolled up on one wing and looked north. There was nothing moving on the road. This was a waste of time, I thought. Well—

Suddenly the sky changed color. The clouds turned coal-black and colors exploded everywhere. Crimson reds and oranges and yellows. Tracers everywhere, reaching out for me and zipping past the cockpit.

This is it, my shocked mind clicked.
I’m dead!

Flying by sheer instinct and ingrained habit patterns, I jinked. I pulled Gs violently left and right. I pulled up and shoved down. I pumped out chaff and flares. I didn’t dare use the afterburner, because the few Iraqis that hadn’t seen and heard me would see me then.

The fighter rocked sideways and my head hit the canopy. Huge red-orange mushrooms tore aside the gray sheets of rain and lit up the darkness beneath the clouds. It was like being inside a bag of fireworks that had suddenly erupted. Who knows what hell looks like, but I think this was close.

“BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP . . .” The threat-warning receiver went ape-shit.

Blinking rapidly, I caught a glimpse of 6s and 8s and Triple-A on the little saturated screen. Flashes from thousands of guns lit up the ground like sparklers. Light gray fingers of smoke shot upward from all directions.

Mother of God!

Reacting instantly, I shoved the nose down, slammed the throttle forward, and slapped out more chaff bundles. The adrenaline shooting through me went straight up from my gut, through my heart, and out the top of my head. Shoulder-launched SAMs or big stuff, I couldn’t tell and it didn’t matter.

The ground was rushing up, so I reversed and began to pull as the jet bottomed out at a hundred feet over the highway. Looking back to the right as the fighter slowed, I instinctively shoved the throttle into full afterburner. Everyone would surely see me now. It didn’t matter—everyone already saw me. There is actually a difference in the way men shoot at you. It feels different if they’re merely reacting or frightened or defensive. Or angry.

This was
very
angry ground fire. These men were unbelievably frustrated that they’d been held back for five days and not allowed to fight. Now they had a target—me.

The Iraqis below were on the move with the intention of catching our ground forces with a surprise counterattack. They were thoroughly pissed off to have been spotted by this lone American fighter pilot. And they wanted me dead. It was like being rolled in honey and tossed into a hornet’s nest.

Green tracers shot past the cockpit; all around me the clouds changed color, from red to orange to pink, as lightning mixed with explosions. Then time compressed and I saw the vehicles. Patrol . . .
my ass
. There were hundreds of grayish-tan vehicles all up and down the road. A brigade or more, at least. I hadn’t seen them, because they were exactly the same color as the highway and they weren’t moving. In a moment of stark, unreal clarity, a few tank barrels swung around and I actually saw men in the armored carriers firing machine guns my way.

Dirty-white smoke trails lifted off from the throng of soldiers and snaked up at me. Shoulder-launched SAMs! Lethal little fuckers, with infrared seeker heads and very, very fast. With less than two seconds to react, I rolled back nearly inverted and pulled at the ground.

“Sonofabitch!”

I stabbed the countermeasure-dispense switch with my left thumb as fast as I could move it. This put out a sequence of chaff and flares that was designed to defeat infrared and radar-guided missiles. But it did nothing about Triple-A. Or about the fifteen thousand Abduls and Mohammads hosing their AK-47s at the sky.