A-10s over Kosovo (illustrations removed)

My heart sank on 15 March when all of our planes and combat-ready pilots were directed to deploy immediately to Aviano. I had been out of flying for three months, and when our squadron’s time came, I wasn’t qualified to go. It grated on me like nothing I had ever known. I have been entranced by listening to war stories ever since I was a doolie at the academy. I wondered how I would I react when it was my turn. Would I carry away the same perceptions and learn the same lessons that others had? I had no doubt about my training. And now—when the call came—I had to carry water while the rest of the team took to the field. It wasn’t a good feeling. I was convinced that there must be some way to join the fight, but how to do so eluded me.

As I continued to heal and wait for my opportunity to join the effort, I prepared for my recurrency flights by studying “the threat” in the classified tactics manuals we kept in our squadron vault. I also listened to the first reports that came back from Aviano—invariably through the wives’ network—of Panthers sitting CSAR alert as the first interdiction strikes were launched. On 27 March, I was home eating a late dinner and enjoying my recently installed satellite TV, when CNN broke in with the news of the first allied plane to be shot down. I was riveted by the news accounts of the crash and didn’t sleep more than an hour or two that whole night. The task to rescue the pilot would fall to our 81st pilots. Because of the locations of the targets the F-117s were tasked to attack, I knew the wreckage must be deep inside Serb territory, which would make the rescue difficult. Nevertheless, it was all over six hours later. Once again, the pilots of the A-10s had risen to the occasion and performed their duty in an exceptional manner. Unlike a previous F-16 shoot down several years earlier, there were no press conferences, no smiling for the cameras, and no million-dollar book deals. The pilots involved were serious about this conflict and did not want any attention or publicity to distract them from their primary job—flying combat missions. I felt a surge of pride at being counted as one of them, and that only served to strengthen my resolve to join them as soon as possible.

The two flights I needed to regain all of my currencies happened in rapid succession the following week. My instructor was Lt Col Snoopy Schulze, the Panthers’ previous commander. Snoopy was an old hat at flying in Germany and quickly got me up to speed after months of inactivity. I was now ready and chomping at the bit to go.

Finally my call came—not to join the squadron at Aviano but to be the squadron’s rep at the CAOC in Vicenza, Italy. Going to the CAOC was kind of like paying my dues. It was imperative that we had an A-10 rep there—an experienced flyer who understood our mission and could help with planning the details of the air war. It was a thankless but important job that most units pawned off on their lieutenants. The rep often felt like a small cat that had been dropped into a pen of hungry dogs. We looked at it as a sanity check on the whole process, and most of our captains had already served there for at least a week. It was time for me to pay my dues, and I was ecstatic just to get a chance to play a role—any role. I could contribute to the cause from my new position and, with some luck, join the squadron in about a week.

The CAOC was a loose collection of prefab metal buildings. The arrangement of the successive additions appeared haphazard, and their orientation suggested an accelerated growth to satisfy the CAOC’s expanding missions. New areas had been added in any space available—immediate needs clearly outweighed any desire for aesthetic beauty. I arrived on 10 April—still early in the war. Inside, officers frantically worked to align the scarce in-theater resources to support an increased air presence in the skies over the Balkans. It was obvious that our initial in-theater assets were not sufficient after President Milosevic refused to concede his position following the first few nights of allied raids. One of my first tasks was to help define the new and expanded role A-10s could play in the KEZ. More often than not, I was merely a conduit—passing information and ideas between the squadron leadership at Aviano (and later at Gioia) and the appropriate people at the CAOC. I had become the voice of the squadron.