Imminent Threat Read online

  I climbed into the van behind Tennessee Jim, grabbing one of the wheel wells to rest my backside against. Our crew had one change too, but it wasn’t Mike coming back as we had expected. Popcorn was replaced by Bad Boy. I could already see the impact this would have on our crew. Where Popcorn had been quiet and reserved, Bad Boy was anything but quiet and reserved. You wondered what color the sky was in his world. I was sure it wasn’t blue. All in all, though, Bad Boy would fit in just fine with our motley crew.

  A ten-hour mission meant we had eight hours of hugging the fringe of Iraqi territory to look forward to. Tennessee Jim had already told me that he wanted me in the window today spotting. I had eight hours of staring down into a potentially deadly storm of AAA to look forward to.

  A ten-hour mission also meant we would be on orbit as night came. Darkness made everything seem that much grimmer.

  Heading to the back of the plane, I passed position Six in the quasi-darkness of the Gray Lady’s interior. First thing I did was to fit my chute, then I double-checked the pair of NVG I had and set them on the rear bunk.

  As both paratroop doors were open, I stared out across the white of the hardstand to the black of the flight line. Everything looked deceivingly tranquil, but I knew that a short while after we departed, the flight line would be inundated by a host of aircraft readying for takeoff. Falcons, Eagles, Weasels, Ravens and many others would depart, afterburners screaming, in wave after wave.

  I ambled back to Six, pre-flighted my helmet and headset, and then fitted a bandanna round my head. Bad Boy obliged with the radio checks.

  The waiting began. I hated the waiting more than anything else. I listened to the radios and the bit of chatter coming from the members of the crew, yearning to hear Captain Sammy say, “Crew, we’re rolling!”

  Happy had Martha screaming way before we leveled off. Right afterward, he slapped in The Kinks. “You really got me,” played in the background as I switched out to the window. Sammy seemed to like the tune, as he wiggled the wings to the beat of the music.

  It didn’t take Bad Boy long to adjust. He was out of his seat and grooving to the music with the others almost immediately. Hell, I even joined in for a while. Stress does crazy things to people who let it build up inside and eat at them. It’s best just to let it all out sometimes. Somehow I imagined that that was Happy’s gift in life. He had a way of making people do zany things. The funny thing was that if you joined in, you came out the better.

  “Destroyer” was winding down and things were getting a little out of hand. Tennessee Jim didn’t say a word; rather, he just looked on as he always did. He wouldn’t say anything until we neared the sensitive area if he said anything at all.

  Crow was bustling, trying to bring the system up, but that didn’t stop him from joining in briefly as he passed through. Happy and the others had their arms spread out like birds, running up and down the aisle between the positions. The Kinks were singing, “I Wish I Could Fly Like Superman.”

  I stared out at the white-capped peaks ahead in the distance. There was a light cloud deck around us but not enough to hamper the view. Outside the window it was a bright and sunny day, but all I could think about was the encroaching evening.

  The air around me was growing colder by the minute. The window was chilly to the touch as I pressed close. “Pilot, Spotter,” I called out. “Traffic high moving from one o’clock to three o’clock.” It looked like Gas Station moving in.

  The jagged peaks were below us; soon we’d be on orbit. The Nav gave his ten-minute warning. The crew dogs in the mission compartment became all business.

  I heard Chris on radios to Shadow-2. He was coordinating the orbit box, which we would share with Shadow-2. Both planes on orbit at the same time meant a shorter orbit and that both would be jamming. This would require close coordination to avoid duplication of effort.

  A shorter orbit also meant a lot more turns. I hugged the paratroop door as the AC brought us up on orbit. For an instant, the wing looked ominously perpendicular to the jagged and rock-strewn land below us. As we went into the steepest part of the turn, I was left staring nearly straight down at the ground below. It looked so close, too close.

  “Stations,” Jim called out.

  I gave a forlorn backward glance into the darkness, wishing I was on position instead of in the window, and then concentrated on my search. “Pilot, Spotter, traffic low, moving nine to three. Inbound.”

  “Roger that, Spotter,” tweaked Captain Sammy’s voice into my headset.

  Even in the bright daylight with shadows reflected across the land, I could see the outline of the group of fighters low to the horizon. They swept inward in two three-ship formations. It was the beginning of the first wave. I didn’t watch them long. It was more important that I watch for things coming out and not going in.

  The Lady swung hard as we came around again. I had to switch windows. As I swung back around to head toward the other paratroop door, I stumbled, temporarily blinded by the darkness of the cabin’s interior. The outside was so bright and the inside so dark that it was as if I were momentarily snow blinded.

  I rubbed my eyes and stared back across the rough landscape. In the daytime AAA was difficult to spot; but if we were close enough, it would look like a thick black rain pouring up into the heavens.

  “Pilot, Spotter, two groups of traffic, low. Inbound and moving toward three o’clock.”

  “Roger that, Spotter.”

  We swung around sharp. My heart jumped into my throat as I stared down.

  Before changing windows I called out, “Pilot, Spotter, traffic parallel, moving six to twelve. Two-ship.” Must be part of our CAP.

  Soon the unnerving shadows of dusk were at hand. The NVG didn’t work at dusk and as I couldn’t see much in the shadowed land, I keyed in to Gypsy’s advisories closer than ever. The first package was already out. We had come to the inevitable lull between packages. To make matters worse, we didn’t leave orbit or even back away.

  I counted time to the beat of combat turns, marking time as my face was pressed against cold plexiglass. I waited for nightfall so I could break out the NVG and for the second package to begin its ingress.

  As darkness finally shrouded the land, the portentous lines of AAA formed in the view port of the NVG. “Pilot, Spotter, AAA to our two, five and seven,” I called out sweeping my view left to right. The AAA had probably been there all day but it only became crystal clear in the NVG. “No danger to our present position.”

  They were firing blindly due to our jamming. It was ominous the way the AAA gunners responded to our jam, turning on and off as we did. Yet I imagined they were pretty ruffled after the first package had swept through. With our help the second package would get in and out without a hitch. Hopefully they would even take out most of the enemy sites I was now watching.

  The NVG filled with a sudden green glow: afterburners. They showed as fiery green globes and I saw the vague outline of inbound fighters amidst the glow. It was surely the first wave of the second package group.

  The fighters swept in easily, avoiding the barrages of anti-aircraft artillery fired blindly by gunner crews. They started to pour into Iraq, in wave after endless wave. I called out inbound traffic nonstop for a couple of minutes—this was one colossal strike force going in.

  Gypsy was giving an air advisory; and as usual, I keyed in. What the hell? That didn’t sound right. Only when I heard Tennessee Jim repeat to the crew and the AC what I just heard, did I believe it. “Gypsy’s bent. They’re trying to get back up, but aren’t having any luck. They advise we pull off orbit.” Pull off orbit? What was Jim saying? The second package was just going in. He needed to be standing here watching these fighters go in.

  “MCC, Nav, isn’t the second package just inbound?”

  “That’s an affirmative. Let’s hope Gypsy doesn’t bug out. We can’t just leave.”

  Jesus, without Gypsy, we had no air picture, no warnings or advisories. We might as well have a b
ull’s eye painted on our underside.

  “Gypsy, Shadow-1,” Chris called out. “Your status, please?”

  I gripped the NVG tight and waited for the reply while diligently staring out into the night sky. “MCC, Spotter, we have another pair of NVG back here,” I relayed anxiously.

  “Three, MCC, get to the rear and grab that other pair of NVG,” Jim ordered.

  “Gypsy, Shadow-1, your status?” Chris repeated. Shadow-2 was also trying to raise them.

  “Shadow-1, Shadow-2, this is Gypsy, the system isn’t coming back up,” came the reply into my headset. “We’re going to have to head home.”

  Happy tapped me on the shoulder. I pointed to the other pair of goggles. In the interim I missed the pilot’s response, but I heard Gypsy clear. “CAP and Sweep will stick with you. Advise you to drop to back of orbit until prior to egress. Good luck.”

  Good luck? What the hell did that mean?

  I watched as the lines of ground fire became slightly more distant. Red-orange explosions pockmarked the horizon. I saw these without the aid of the NVG. As I looked on, a sudden ball of hellish fire erupted into the night sky. A missile must have struck a POL storage tank; there was no other explanation for the intensity of the red-orange ball of fire I saw.

  More explosions followed only seconds later. The secondary explosions were even more terrifying and magnificent than the original red-orange ball. As I reported the explosion, my face pressed against cold plexiglass, Captain Sammy brought the Lady into a sharply-executed combat turn. Shortly afterward, Happy began whooping and hollering into his microphone.

  Turned away from the environment, things seemed mundane. I could only listen to my headset as Happy had done and watch vigilantly. I wondered if I were the only one to realize what the lack of an air picture meant; but then as I listened up on radios, I heard the evident strain in the voices of the crew. Tension surrounded not only me but also everyone on the ship.

  I glanced over my shoulder at Happy. He was glued to the window and his NVG as if they were his lifelines and he was sinking into the sea of darkness below. Crow was drumming his fingers nervously at his position; and while I couldn’t hear the tapping of his fingers, I could see it. He was impatiently waiting and maintaining a hawkish watch on the system stats that I’d never before seen. In the reddish haze of the cabin’s interior I couldn’t see much farther, but I did see Tennessee Jim. He was sitting with his back arched over the keyboard, his jaw tight. His left hand was propped up on his position and his left thumb was nervously caressing his microphone on/off button.

  Quickly, I turned back to the window, waiting to see the green glow of afterburners from more inbound fighters. I didn’t realize it right then, but I was nervously tapping at my microphone button too. Then just as suddenly as I had turned back to the window and the darkness, Captain Sammy brought the Lady around, which left me staring at the still-burning fires of an entire row of destroyed POL tanks.

  I noticed that without Gypsy’s squawk the radios seemed eerily calm. Shadow-2 was quiet. Paladin’s group was busy scouring the skies. Gas Station had dropped back to a protective orbit. Phantom had bugged out south. It seemed that we were alone, hanging in the air on a fragile thread. Our only lifeline was our ability to detect the presence of the enemy through communications or visual observation.

  Gravity thrust me into the port window as the Lady turned sharply then leveled out. I saw a barely visible object in the distance that should have been Gas Station, but I called out the location of the traffic just the same. I would make no assumptions. My life and that of my crew depended on it.

  Hugging the paratroop door close, I gradually combed the skies for any signs of activity. Finally, oblivious to the icy cold of the door’s metal, I searched through a turn. The bridge of my nose stung where the frame of my glasses dug in with a vengeance as I pressed the night-vision goggles closer and closer to my face. I caught what appeared to be movement low and distant. “Traffic low and distant at two thirty. Looks like a multiple ship formation.”

  The Nav and the MCC conferred on package egress times—still five minutes to go. “Maintain a close vigil on that movement, Spotter,” tweaked Sammy, “Nav, try to raise Paladin, see if they have those bogies on radios.”

  “Spotter, Pilot, current position on those bogies?”

  I squinted my eyes to the distance to ensure that what I was looking at still seemed to be moving. “Pilot, Spotter, low to the deck at two o’clock moving to twelve. Looks like a three-ship.”

  Suddenly, split-second decisions were being made. Paladin Leader was getting no response from his inquiries. Tennessee Jim’s first reaction was to throw the system into jam; if the approaching group were enemy aircraft, we’d be knocking out their communications. If they were friendly we’d be ensuring their safe egress.

  After quick consultation with Shadow-2, Captain Willie’s crew opted to bug out.

  “Roger, Shadow-2,” Chris replied, “there is no reason we should give them two easy targets. Have a safe trip home.”

  “We wish you luck, Shadow-1. Shadow-2, out.”

  It came our time to make the decision to stay or go. A two-ship of Eagles moved into a guarded stance. A second two-ship continued MiG Sweep, preparing to engage the approaching bogies if necessary. Still, without Gypsy, no one would have blamed us for bugging out or backing off orbit to a safe distance. If we backed off with package egress so close, it would be the same thing as bugging out.

  We knew Gypsy was gone and Shadow-2 was heading home. We couldn’t forget that the package was still in-country. We couldn’t leave them.

  “Crew, MCC, I want to see thumbs. Stay on orbit or go, now which is it?”

  As a crew, we’d either opt to stay on orbit or return to base. Happy and I voiced, “We’ll stay!” not moving from our positions.

  I could only guess that the rest of the crew gave unanimous thumbs up because Tennessee Jim was on radios to the pilot telling him words that made me proud to be combat crew. “Pilot, MCC, the mission crew is willing to stay. We’re jamming. The decision is ultimately yours.”

  Captain Sammy’s response was to take the Lady into another sharp combat turn. After we had leveled out, the copilot quickly reviewed emergency procedures with us. I heard Paladin’s group trying to raise the incoming group on radios. Still there was no response.

  Seconds crawled painstakingly by with the mounting uncertainty. I nervously fidgeted back and forth in front of the window. If I survived this tour without getting ulcers, it’d be a miracle.

  With our renewed jamming, the enemy AAA sites sliced up the heavens in ever-thickening torrents. I was sure they also heard the distant hum of jet engines. Firing blindly as they were, they’d try to knock anything out of the sky that sought to overfly them, friend or foe.

  Friend or foe, I thought to myself. Suddenly I had an idea. “Pilot, Spotter, anyone tied to hail on emergency? Maybe they’re keyed wrong?”

  “That’s a good call, Spotter. I’ll check it out.”

  I watched as the green glow of afterburner trails formed behind the approaching fighters. They were getting closer. It was, indeed, a three-ship formation. MiG Sweep was prepared to move in. Somewhere above us, a two-ship CAP anxiously waited.

  Out in the distance beyond one of the AAA sites, I saw what appeared to be movement again. As I re-centered on them, closer movement caught my eye. “Pilot, Spotter, traffic low four o’clock distant. And three o’clock approaching.” It had to be the package egressing, or so I hoped.

  I heard Paladin Leader’s voice tweaking in my ears, “Shadow, Paladin, good call. Comms channels are correct now. Package egress confirmed. All sightings confirmed as friendlies. Repeat, incoming are friendlies.”

  I sighed, relaxed slightly. I watched as the second package came out in wave after wave, safely detouring around the pockets of enemy AAA. What remained of my anxiety trickled away with the remaining minutes on orbit.

  As we made the homeward trek, it was clear
Tennessee Jim and Captain Sammy were proud of their crew. We had stuck together admirably in the face of uncertainty and adversity. We also had a newfound respect for the guidance from Gypsy that we had started to take for granted.

  In the coming days lurked a mission when we would lose Gypsy’s support again. This time we would be over the heart of Iraq and it would cost much more than anxiety.

  Wednesday, 30 January 1991

  We had an early morning alert, which came with distressing news. During the night Iraq had begun their first major ground offensive.

  Yet this news was also strangely releasing. We had all been waiting for Iraq to make some sort of move, a show of force, anything at all. The first attack came an hour before midnight. Iraqis entered positions held by the Marines forty miles inland from the banks of the Persian Gulf. Countering, the Marine regiment pounded the incoming Iraqi mechanized column.

  Shortly after this attack, a larger force consisting of an infantry battalion mounted in armored personnel carriers along with a company of tanks and a platoon of armored cars rolled toward the small border town of Khafji. The advanced guard of this force took the mostly deserted town several hours later.

  Before daylight came to the Saudi desert, another attack was mounted against the Marine positions by a battalion of Iraqi tanks and infantry. Through what remained of the hours of darkness, the Marines fought gallantly aided by AH-1 Cobra Gunships and Harrier jets. As daylight finally came to the desert, A-10 tank killers joined the fray.

  Seated in the crew lounge at base ops, my eyes were glued to the television and CNN just like everyone else as we waited to fly. We had heard the news first from our preflight intel briefing, but now the news was catching up. We all had friends in Saudi and we anxiously listened to the news and the reports.

  Although his spit cup was in hand and his typical partial grin was spread out on his lips, Tennessee Jim didn’t seem himself today. None of us did, for it seemed that the long wait for the ground war to begin was perhaps over. I already knew what the mood during today’s flight would be, it would be somber—and that’s exactly how it was.