OEF EXPERIENCE
THE DESERT
I still can't say
where I went, except that we were on the Arabian Peninsula. I will
say that where we were at was the epitome of a boring place. At times it
seemed like we were in a minimum security prison rather than an Air Force
camp. Even though the Air Force tried its best to keep us entertained (we
had a nice gym, movie tent, email, etc., USO visits by Drew Carey, etc.), there
were times the dullness seemed to sap your will to live.
Nonetheless, for the
opportunity to drop bombs and defend my country, I'd do it again a thousand
times. I was taking an Air Force advanced electronic combat course
in San Antonio on Sept. 11, 2001 when it all happened. I was very worried
my squadron would leave without me. As it happened we didn't go to the
desert until Jan 2002, replacing B-1s from Mountain Home AFB/Ellsworth
AFB. We had plenty of time to spin up and when we went to Red Flag in Nov
01, we took the training extra seriously, knowing we would soon be employing
ordnance for real.
We arrived in the desert
just as most of the heavy fighting was winding down. We still flew patrols
for the better part of two months before Operation ANACONDA happened. Our
routine consisted of flying up to Afghanistan, orbiting for a few hours,
refueling in mid-air and coming back. Nothing too exciting. Then
ANACONDA kicked off.
OPERATION ANACONDA
I still remember my first
"combat" sortie vividly. I hesitate to call it
"combat" as we were flying much too high for the Taliban to
effectively shoot back, but then again, I'd rather it not be a fair fight.
I suppose if we would have had to punch out for mechanical difficulties like the
Bone over the Indian Ocean a few months prior (two of those gents ended up in my
instructor upgrade class last month and it was most interesting to talk to them
about it), we would have found ourselves in real combat. At any rate,
ANACONDA kicked off in March. We knew from our intelligence briefings that
it was about to happen. When the first crew came back from dropping
weapons, morale soared and the camp was abuzz.
During my first sortie,
we had been on station for about 2 hours waiting for the fighters to drop their
bombs and go home before we could use ours. It was maddening to listen to
all the action on the radios and having to wait our turn. Finally we were
passed targets and as I was sitting in the OSO seat, I began furiously typing
them in. Each target requires a few dozen keystrokes so I was busy man as
we pressed towards the target area. I could hear gunfire in the
background of a radio transmission from a ground controller that we were working
with, so that was my first indication that this was for real. My
impressions now of that day are two-fold; how nervous I was about screwing
something up and how proud I felt. It emboldened me to hear the other jets
working the area, how professional everyone sounded, how eager everyone was to
help the beleaguered guys on the ground, and the weapons away calls. I
thought, "Man, those Taliban fucked with the wrong people!"
As we pressed inbound, the DSO
and I double and triple-checked the target coordinates. I'd been flying
with the same crew for two months now so I felt very confident in our ability to
execute the bomb run. At last, I called out the release countdown and was
greeted with a loud "THUNK" as the first JDAM fell away.
My thought at that moment was, "That's it. I'm now a combat
veteran. After 8 years in the Air Force, I have finally done my job for
real." This was shortly followed by, "Whoever is down there is
gonna get a nasty surprise..." I also thought about the friends of mine
whose names I had chalked on the bombs before we took off.
"They'll think that is so cool..."
I only had four sorties where
I dropped weapons in Enduring Freedom but I can always say I did my bit for my
nation (plus I can join the VFW now...!). Nonetheless, I hope that will be
the last time I have to do that.
THE REST OF MY TRIP
Even more rewarding was a
mission that came about a month later, long after my squadron has stopped
dropping bombs and had resumed boring patrols. We had reached the end of
our on-station time and were heading to the tanker when headquarters called up
and said they had a tasking for us. They told us an allied patrol was
besieged by an angry mob and wanted us to do a supersonic flyover to scare the
crowd away. We told HQ that we were low on gas but they said, go anyways
and we'll find you a tanker. We then had some clue as to the seriousness
of the situation especially when they said make best possible speed. We
beat feet over to the area and it took us 20 minutes going 600 mph.
It must have been a long twenty minutes for the patrol and much relief was
evident in their voice when we got them on the radio finally. We did a
steep, descending turn from our cruise altitude down to a low altitude and
proceeded to go supersonic over the town. I was sitting in the DSO seat so
I popped out some flares to give them a pyrotechnic show to enhance the
scare.
After the first pass, the patrol seemed much cheered up and
asked for another, which we did; afterwards we had to hike up our skirt and run
for the tanker. The Bone, because of its large size and aerodynamic
configuration, makes an exceptionally loud sonic boom. I can't even fathom
how loud we must have been at that low altitude. Throughout the campaign,
Bones were a favorite of the ground troops for these "shows-of-force".
Upon landing, we found out that the 3 star Air Force general
in charge of the theater personally called our wing commander to tell him what a
great thing we had done. We also found out that the patrol had been
surrounded by an angry mob of about 1-2000 people throwing rocks. Their
situation was getting desperate and we arrived just in time. The crowd
vanished after our first pass and so we were able to help prevent any loss of
life.
After flying a 22 hour nonstop mission, I came home in May. Two months later, it all seems like a distant dream, like I was never even there...
Some Pictures
My crew An Afghan Valley Early Takeoff Home for 4 Months Tent City
The Only Combat Photo Taken By My
Squadron
(The smoke from my JDAM's can barely be seen below the wingtip)
