Viper Pilot: A Memoir of Air Combat (7 page)

More chortling.

Just then I felt something wedged between my teeth and stopped chewing long enough to pull it out. I burped again and then made the mistake of holding it up against the faint light.

For a long, nasty moment I stared at the thing as my Tinto-soaked brain processed.

“Whatchagot?” someone asked innocently.

It was a foot.

Actually, it was a curved bird’s claw, complete with little talons. So the alley spun and the stars blurred. I felt the awful burning rush of all that Tinto, and the candied hummingbird I’d just eaten, come shooting up through my nose, mouth, and out of my ears. I joined the other lieutenants on the ground and everyone roared with satisfaction.

No one beats the Tubes.

Now, this particular ritual ends in a ceremony simply known as the “Naming.” This is where fighter pilots get awarded those cool-sounding nicknames, or call signs, you hear about in the movies. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be “Maverick” or “Iceman” or “Thor.” Right?

Right.

The reality is a bit different. There are some manly, warlike call signs, of course. I’ve known Slash, Magic, Crusher, Bruiser, and Storm’n. Even Ghost, Spook, and Zing aren’t too bad. Usually call signs are given for something noteworthy, and not necessarily good, that a pilot has done. Or maybe the guy is just an asshole—“JRay,” “Barney,” and “Moses” are prime examples of that.

“Slider” is usually given for landing gear-up; “Scratch,” you guessed it, for scratching the belly of the aircraft on a low level or dinging the speed brakes on the runway; “Boomer” for inadvertently breaking the sound barrier and every window within a five-mile radius. The possibilities are endless.

“Toto”—for accidentally shutting the engine down (throttle on, throttle off—get it?). I even knew a “Bubbles,” who’d ejected over the Atlantic Ocean. Anything, including personal traits or physical appearance, is fair game. So we have “Opies” and “Wookies” and even a “DDong” (short for “Donkey Dong”). I’m sure his mother would be proud.

There are a few rules with this. First, and most important, if you’ve carried a call sign into combat, then you can never be renamed—it’s yours for life. Second, if you’ve managed to keep the same call sign while flying in three different theaters (like Europe, the Far East, etc.) then it’s yours to keep. Third, and most common, if you really hate a call sign then it’s probably also yours for life.

I was named Two Dogs in loose reference to an old joke about how American Indians name their children. (“Why do you ask, Two Dogs Fucking in the Night?”) You see, I suntan to a deep reddish brown and my nose is beaked, so it kind of made sense in the Tinto haze on that sultry Spanish night in the gutter. Hey, there are definitely worse things to be called. Like Homer, Kraken, or Moto (“Master of the Obvious”). Anyway, it stuck. Honestly, at that stage of the night, I wouldn’t have cared if they’d named me Cindy, as long as it got me back to the Officer’s Quarters and my toilet any sooner.

At least once during the trip, there would be a mass exodus to the Spanish Riviera—Costa Brava. Americans with wild, long shorts and Europeans wearing extra-small Speedos would mix on topless beaches, burn in the sun, and watch girls. I’d like to say the beaches were filled with young Penthouse Pet types, but it just wasn’t true. There’s really nothing like a saggy, half-naked, middle-aged German housewife to kill the picture. Still, nothing’s perfect.

We’d also have to spend at least two days up at Bardenas Range in the north of Spain. A qualified fighter pilot had to act as the Range Control Officer (RCO), a duty that inevitably fell to the lieutenants and younger captains. The RCO was there as the approval authority for aircraft to drop bombs and to strafe with their cannons. He was also on hand to deal with aircraft emergencies and to officially score the bombs that each pilot dropped. This was a big deal, since Mission Qualification was the life blood of a fighter squadron. That and Jeremiah Weed whiskey.

The Air Force had a detachment permanently assigned at the range to maintain targets, scoring equipment, and facilities. They all seemed to be Hispanic and loved being up there where they could speak the mother tongue. The senior sergeant was a guy named Vic. I never knew his last name, but we always said “stick with Vic.” Vic would shuttle us around, take us out to dinner and to see the sights. He also helped perform one of the more harebrained stunts in my short career. Running with the bulls in Pamplona.

Five hundred years ago, the merchants of Navarre sold their cattle at a market in Pamplona. They would move the beasts through the narrow streets to holding pens and await the sale. To speed things up, they’d “run” the animals through the streets. Eventually, some young, brainless Alpha-male types, undoubtedly fortified by Tinto, decided to see if they could outrun the bulls. Over time this became a rite of passage and a tradition. So, during the Feast of San Fermin, a weeklong festival emerged and the bulls were run every morning. Any excuse for a party, right?

Technically, we were prohibited from doing this, because several hundred people were hurt each year and a few were even killed. But there’s no quicker way to provoke a fighter pilot than to tell him something is prohibited. I remember the fireworks and the thousands of red bandannas and flags flying everywhere. Some of the locals were barefoot and wore baggy peasant outfits, all white, no doubt to see the blood better. I also recall sprinting with the crowd (all men and all young enough to be that stupid) through the narrow, uneven streets. This wasn’t so bad, I thought, then something bobbed past my head at eye level and I realized it was a horn. So I zigged over to the nearest wall and managed to scramble up most of the way. A few hands appeared to help me into the beautiful, and extremely thorny, rosebushes on the other side.

So why risk your eyes and balls, not to mention your career and life, to dash around in front of enraged bulls? Because it was there, of course. Besides, in college I’d read
The Sun Also Rises,
and if Ernest Hemingway had done it then I had to do it as well. So much for the positive effects of literature in higher education.

All in all, it was a terrific time. Fast jets, European travel, and the constant challenge of staying alive. Other life-altering events, like marriage, children, and war, were still in the future. I had my hands full but I also had the advantages of first-rate instructors and a young squadron commander who took an interest in my career. I upgraded to four-ship flight lead as a lieutenant and was approved to begin instructor-pilot training in the fall of 1990.

That all changed rather quickly in August, when a dictator I’d never heard of, named Saddam Hussein, invaded Kuwait. As I tried to locate Iraq on a map, vacations were canceled and all upgrades were halted. A few of us who spoke French were sent to France to talk with pilots who’d actually trained the Iraqis. We came back smelling like cheese but feeling relieved. I mean, Arabs taught by Frenchmen? Come on. Tactical analyses appeared from Nellis AFB, CIA country studies showed up from someplace in the Virginia countryside, and we all got busy as the future rapidly became the present.

The Wild Weasels were going back to war.

3

The Elephant

January 19, 1991

Mosul, Northern Iraq

“TORCH . . . FENCE
IN.
”

My hands darted around the cockpit, performing the FENCE, or pre-combat check of my weapons and equipment. I eyeballed the chaff and flare settings, turned up the volume on the radar-warning receiver, tightened my seat straps, and ran through all my loaded weapons. Staring at the big master-arm switch for a long second, I put my thumb on it. Glancing around to make sure it all was where it should be, I gently moved it to the
ARM
position—my various weapons switches were now “hot.” Mortally afraid of screwing up, I carefully avoided the pickle button that would release my bombs and kept my finger off the trigger.

Sighing a little, I stared out at the big F-4G a mile and a half to my left. Beyond him by another mile was another Phantom/F-16 pair. We were spread out in what was called a fluid-four formation. An ideal combat formation, this kept lots of space between aircraft for maneuvering and was extremely difficult for an enemy to see all of us. It was a beautiful, absolutely clear morning covered by a powder-blue sky with hundreds of miles of visibility. Behind us, the big KC-135 tankers were wheeling back in dignified left-hand turns over the snow-covered mountains of eastern Turkey. We were on our own.

Ahead lay the jagged peaks of the Zagros mountain range and, just beyond, through the Zahko Pass, was Indian Country—Iraq. A nation most of us hadn’t cared about or devoted the least thought to until the previous August. Saddam Hussein, in a monumental error in judgment, had invaded Kuwait and threatened the Ghawar oil fields in Saudi Arabia. I really couldn’t have cared less. I was going to war and, with the ignorance of the inexperienced, all I could see was a grand adventure.

And it
was
exciting. After four years of college and nearly three more of advanced flying training, I was finally on the cutting edge. Here, on the front end of the first combat strike package into Iraq from the northern front, exactly in the right place, at the right time, and with the right jet. Despite my cockiness, my breathing matched my heart rate as the mountains slid away under my wings and the great plain of northern Iraq opened up before me. Contrails appeared overhead as the escort F-15s zoomed up above 30,000 feet and headed south to deal with any MiGs.

“CHAINSAW, this is RAZOR One. Pushing . . . picture.”

RAZOR One was the Mission Commander. He was asking the orbiting AWACS what the situation, or picture, was south of us in Iraq. I’d heard communications like this all the time in training. It was familiar and comforting. What happened next was not.

“RAZOR . . . picture . . . three groups, Bull’s-eye One-Five-Zero for forty-five, angels medium . . . northbound. Bandits.”

Every tactical area had a common reference point on the ground called a Bull’s-eye. It could be geographically significant, like a mountaintop, or tactically significant, like an airfield. In any event, the idea was that all aircraft could give their compass bearing and distance
from
the point and everyone listening would have a decent idea of their position. Today the Bull’s-eye was the city of Mosul.

Obviously, the bad guys didn’t know this. We also generally used special radios, called HAVE QUICK radios, that the enemy couldn’t listen to. The HAVE QUICK frequencies changed every day and, once loaded properly, would jump around in an unbreakable coded sequence. Anyone listening would hear only broken bits of words, if anything. I froze for an instant as my brain processed that there were three distinct groups of unknown enemy fighters, called Bandits, southeast of Mosul and heading north.

Toward us.

The Mission Commander, an F-16 squadron commander from Torrejon Air Base, calmly replied. I heard the F-15 Eagle flight lead acknowledge and the contrails got longer as they lit their afterburners and raced south to fight the MiGs.

“Lucky bastards . . .” I muttered. But we were certain we’d have enough fighting of our own in a few minutes, when we got within range of the surface-to-air missiles around Mosul.

Everything got quiet for roughly thirty seconds. The Eagles were working out among themselves who would kill which group of Iraqis, and everyone else was listening. Then it all came apart as the strikers broke through the SAM engagement zones.

“CONAN One . . . spiked south.” The F-15 flight lead radioed that an enemy fighter had locked onto him.

“RAZOR Three . . . Mud . . . SA-2 . . . southwest!” One of the F-16s up front was locked by an SA-2 somewhere south of him.

“TRON . . . Music on!” Somewhere an EF-111 had activated his jamming systems.

“CONAN Four! Missile in the air . . . Mosul.”

I didn’t know if he meant a SAM or had picked up the inbound contrail of an enemy air-to-air missile.

“SAM off the ground . . . missile in the air from . . . Mosul . . . I . . .” Whoever it was had picked up a missile from the SA-2 batteries around Mosul.

“TORCH One . . . Magnum SA-2!”

That was us! Snapping my head left, I saw fire shoot out from beneath my flight lead’s wing. The big HARM missile nosed over for a second then leveled off and accelerated. I watched, fascinated, as it abruptly zoomed up, trailing thick, white smoke. I’d never witnessed one actually launched. Managing to look out ahead of me, I was amazed to see three or four long, gray trails reaching up from the ground like disembodied fingers.

SAMs!

Four of them that I could count. Even as I watched, they began to arc around in our direction. I glanced at my warning display and saw several big “3” symbols overlapping each other in the middle of the scope. A sharp, cold spear shot up from my belly, through my chest, and I tried to swallow but couldn’t. I had just caught my first glimpse of the Elephant.

Seeing the Elephant, a symbol of combat since Hannibal crossed the Alps, is looking Death in the face. Your first real glimpse of your own mortality.

It hadn’t really sunk in until that moment that all of this was very real. The distant black smears against the pale sky had been aircraft with men inside, a few moments ago. Those smoke trails coming up at me were live SAMs. High-explosive warheads traveling at three times the speed of sound and coming directly at my butt . . .

My skin felt prickly and, as time slowed down, my awareness increased. I noticed that the cockpit smelled like a wet dog—we had sheepskin covers over the ejection seats, and this one had gotten wet and mildewed. The big engine vibrated through the floor and I felt it throbbing against my heels. There was a fly crawling across the HUD. I had just seen the Elephant. No amount of training can prepare a man for that first realization that other men are actively trying to kill him. Hopefully, you don’t freeze; ideally, you just react.

I did.

“TORCH Two . . . SA-3 . . . south . . .”

Clouds of white-feathered brown dust rolled across the ground as the missiles lifted off.

My flight lead was a big, gruff pilot called Orca. He calmly zippered the mike and pulled sideways to put the missiles off his left wing. This should’ve given the missile’s tracking radars trouble but they kept coming. Chaff blossomed behind the F-4, and I groped for my own dispense switch. The big Phantom flipped over, pulled down toward Iraq, and I followed. Being shot at while inverted at 20,000 feet over enemy territory was definitely a new experience. As the earth spun around beneath me, the Phantom lumbered upright, and I snap-rolled the F-16 to follow.

Looking south, I could only see one contrail left. My RWR was still cluttered with “3” symbols, and the audio warning was screeching in my helmet. But Orca pulled straight up in a classic last-ditch maneuver. White vapor trails streamed off his wingtips as we came up through the horizon and pointed at the sun. Almost simultaneously, we both rolled in the direction the missiles had to be coming from. More chaff spit out behind him as we zoomed up and continued to roll until we were upside-down again.

He came through the horizon inverted, then sluggishly leveled off. I found myself between the Phantom and the SAMs, so I instantly barrel-rolled over his tail to about a mile behind him. My face was sweaty and I was breathing hard, but it occurred to me that the maneuvers and chaff had worked. At least three SAMs had been shot at us, and we’d survived. And those were three SAMs that hadn’t been shot at the strikers.

“Two Dogs . . . Slapshot SA-2 bearing two-zero-five . . .”

My personal call sign penetrated the noise, confusion, and fog of combat, and that was precisely why we used them. A “Slapshot” was a quick-reaction HARM fired along the given bearing. It was supposed to force the SAM radar off the air or, if he stayed up, it would theoretically go right down its throat.

Almost of their own accord, my hands moved, and I pulled the F-16 to a heading of 205 degrees and stared at the HUD. The big pointing cross symbolizing the HARM’s nose hovered over my heading display. My eyes flickered to the bottom of the HUD and I confirmed, again, that my weapons were armed. Swallowing once, hard, I mashed down on the red pickle button and held it. For a long half-second, nothing happened. But as I looked out at my left wing, the jet shook violently and the HARM snaked off the rail.

“Sonofabitch . . .”
It actually worked.

“TORCH Two, Magnum SA-2!”

I immediately pulled up and away from the launch. We did this at low altitude, because the HARM left quite a trail and the enemy was quite capable of doing to us what we did to him. That is, following the smoke back to the aircraft and shooting it out of the sky.

Then the radios went batshit. The F-15s were talking about splashing MiGs, more SAMs were off the ground, and several strikers in front of us jettisoned their bombs as they reacted to an air threat behind them.

Behind them?!

My head swiveled like it was on rollers. I tried to calmly scan the sky in sections, as I’d been taught, but my eyeballs just bounced around. If there were MiGs behind the lead group of our jets, then they’d be . . . here.

Suddenly, I knew what had happened. Some Eagle driver had seen our HARM launches and thought they were air-to-air missiles! I chuckled, but it was understandable. We’d never fired those things off in peacetime, and it must’ve looked suspicious.

I quit looking at my air-to-air radar.

“RAZOR One . . . rolling in from the north . . . RAZOR Three, arc southeast for the roll-in.”

The Mission Commander’s calm voice came over very clear—a true professional. His flight acknowledged, and I glanced forward long enough to see a whole flock of F-16s flip over on their backs and dive toward the ground.

A surface attack like they were doing was fairly straightforward. There would be a route and separate altitudes, usually in 4,000-foot blocks, into the target area. These would keep you clear of other flights attacking the same target. Theoretically. The Initial Point (IP) was like the doorway. Systems would be checked one more time, air-to-air radars would sweep for enemy fighters, and countermeasures activated. Past the IP, a pilot would fly a specified heading and distance to his “action,” or “roll-in” point. Here, he’d put the jet into whatever weapons delivery parameters were needed to release, fuse, and detonate his ordnance. It was all planned in advance and relatively predictable.

Wild Weasel attacks weren’t like that for the very good reason that air defense sites were unpredictable, and mobile SAMs were just that—mobile. You can’t plan specific attacks without fixed targets. So we needed something that could work “on the fly” against most any threat.

“TORCH Three . . . defending SA-3 from the south!”

That was the other F-4G in our four-ship. I couldn’t see him but I did see two more SAMs lift off. I was much closer now and could plainly see Mosul. The Euphrates River was almost turquoise in the early-morning light, and I could see there were cars moving across the four bridges. The city center was green with a big park of some kind. Gray suburbs stretched out in all directions except to the southwest. In that direction, on the west bank of the river, was the airfield. A tan bar of concrete paralleling the Euphrates, it was a huge military complex protected by MiGs, Triple-A, and SAMs. It was our target, and if we destroyed the hangars and runway today, then there’d be no air threat from Mosul as we fought south, toward Baghdad. The Weasel’s mission was to suppress or kill the SAM sites so the strikers could drop their bombs on the airfield.

Orca didn’t answer, but I saw his F-4 crank up and over to point at the airfield and the SAMs. This time, his HARM came off and dove straight at the winding trails of smoke.

He’d turned into my flight path to shoot, so I yanked the nose up and barrel-rolled over him to the other side. There were jets everywhere. Far below me, like swirling gray gnats, the striker F-16s were coming off the target, twin vapor trails streaming from their wingtips. Snapping the jet upright, I leaned forward and stared down at the base. Huge cones of dust and smoke sprouted as dozens of 2,000-pound Mark 84 bombs exploded, completely obscuring the airfield.

Suddenly, flashes caught my eye and I flinched. Ahead were countless gray and black puffy spots blossoming against the pale blue sky.
Anti-aircraft fire
. Triple-A. I groped for the mike switch.

“Triple-A, ten o’clock . . . a little high.” I managed to get it in and, fortunately, my flight lead recognized my voice. That type of call did no one much good, since I’d forgotten to give a position or my own call sign.

The F-4 ramped over and I followed. By simply changing altitude, we’d confuse the gunners. At least for the next salvo.

“LASER Three is re-attacking . . . thirty seconds,” I heard as I finally remembered to check my fuel. One of the strikers hadn’t dropped and was going in again.

“TORCH copies,” Orca immediately responded. “We’ll cover from the east.”

I glanced up and was amazed at the number of contrails crisscrossing the sky. Thin pairs that had to come from fighters, and the much thicker ones that could only be missiles.

“LASER Three is in!”