Volant Legacy Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2: IRAQ
(the purpose of this narrative is to show that Liam had extensive combat experience) This is fiction, but authentic.
Liam Connor, a young USAF A-10 pilot is stationed at King Kahlid Air Base, Saudi Arabia. The buildup for Operation Iraqi Freedom has begun. The beginning of the war to liberate Kuwait is near. He has no idea that Col. Green has requested him by name to participate in the upcoming operation. Liam’s father never disclosed the top secret flying that he and Green had done at Tonopah.

“Room, attention!” Announces a voice from behind.
All 35 men present quickly rise, creating a shuffle of moving clothing and scooting chairs.

The Commander: “As you were men, please be seated. Although we have been flying together for three months, I’ll say this for the video recording of this briefing: I am Colonel Jim Green, your Squadron Commander. I will be leading the mission on day one, when the war breaks out. This is an historic occasion. The United States Air Force has not seen combat since the F-111 strike on Libya in 1986. That means that only one of us has seen combat before. I’ve asked Brian here from the 706rd to come down here and answer questions, since he flew in Viet Nam.”

Gregg Wilson stands and faces the group from the front row.

“I’m Gregg Wilson, I flew F-4s as a National Guard pilot in Viet Nam. The equipment and the tactics have changed, but not the feelings that we get when going into combat for the first time. Let me start by saying that up until now, you have been flying where you were authorized. ATC said it was OK to go there and maybe your range officer told you when to shoot. This is different. The owners of the places that we are going have not authorized us to be there. They don’t want us to be there, and they are going to shoot at us because they don’t like us. I’m going to tell you the truth; you’re going to be scared; your heart’s going to be beating hard; your blood pressure is going up. There’s nothing easy about this. You have to overcome that and do what you’re trained to do. I’d be happy to answer any questions.”

“Thanks Growth, I’m Liam Connor. What does it feel like to drop bombs on people?”

“Good question. I’m glad you got right to it. Remember they hate you as much as you hate them. It’s whoever wins the battle wins the war. I have absolutely no guilt over killing enemy combatants. It is what I trained for and what I am paid to do. The first time that they shoot at you, it will probably make you angry. After that, you will be a remorseless killing machine.

Remember that it’s been a long road to get you trained up to fly this mission. You are ready; your equipment is the best; you will do fine. Only God can help those Iraqi bastards.

With that, I will turn it back to you Colonel Green.”

“The war is on and it starts tomorrow at sunrise. The first A-10 missions will take out the enemy early warning radar sites. This is because their low frequency radar beams are deemed threatening to the F-117s. Yes, I know, the F-117s are supposed to be invisible to radar. Well maybe not to all kinds of radar. Those aircraft have a longer flight to our targets, and we don’t want to have them dodging radar to get in. We, however, are about as close to the Kuwait and Iraq borders as you can get.
The most important message I can give you is to come back alive. I have paired each of our new pilots with a more experienced one. That is to keep more people alive. We could blow up more things faster with our most experienced guys together, but that isn’t how we work. My wingman, Eric, was a FAIP (first assignment instructor pilot) before coming to the A-10. He’s great, I’m old. That’s how we work. I know we're full of death and destruction and we're gonna do a phenomenal job, but I want you to keep your wingmen alive and wingmen I want you to keep your flight lead alive. Tomorrow morning at sunrise we start.

Liam glances at his assigned wingman, Capt. Duane Sprick, a longtime Training Command instructor, also with little fighter experience. He is nodding affirmatively.

Since this is the first strike mission against the Iraqi Army, I will go into great detail as to the responsibilities of each of you. Our strike force will consist of four two-ship flights of A-10 aircraft. All aircraft will be similarly armed with six 500-pound iron bombs, two Maverick missiles, and 1175 rounds of 30-millimeter cannon ammunition.”

“Our Kill box will be near the Iraq-Kuwait border, in the northwest part of Kuwait. Thanks to the Brits who established the borders many years ago, there are huge berms marking the border between the two countries. Be sure to conduct all your radio checks here on the ground, because we will go radio silent and lights off when we take off. I will contact our FAC (forward air controller) on KY-28 encripted radio for our targets. You will be able to hear that. That person will be in another A-10 his name is Colonel Bob George, their squadron commander. He is an old friend of mine.
When we have our targets, I’ll roll in first and deploy my weapons. My wingman will roll in second and deploy his weapons. We’ll get the bombs all off airplanes three through eight and then we’ll remain there to strafe and shoot our Maverick Missiles until were out of them. Once you are Winchester (out of ammunition) we will rendevouz KKMC (King Kahlid Military City, our Forward Operating Base, FOB)) as two-ship formations. We will hot refuel, hot rearm, and rejoin there. Once together, we will do again until everything is destroyed.
We’ll shoot at whatever our FAC directs.
You can expect some of these areas to have artillery which will be shooting at our ground forces once the ground war starts. They will be heavily defended with triple A and SAMs. If you’ve never seen flak before, it looks like black popcorn and you can feel the shock wave even it doesn’t hit you. Your RHAW (radar homing and warning) gear and the EC-135 jamming pods on your left-wing tips will let you know when the SAM batteries are locked on to you. Just like we have practiced, deploy your chaff for radar missiles and flares for heat seekers.
Good luck, good hunting, and I’ll see on the flight line at dawn.

Morning: Liam is number three in the flight of eight. He is leader of his two-ship element, being the more experienced of the two. After preflighting his A-10, he climbs into the cockpit and begins strapping into the seat-parachute. His assigned crew chief, Sgt. Bob Morrison is somber as he helps Liam arrange the straps and connect oxygen hoses and radio wires.

“Cheer up Bob, this is going to be great.” Liam chirps.

“Great is relative, boss. I’m glad it’s you and not me that’s going to have this “fun.””

“I’ll tell you all about it this evening. You’ll see,” assures Liam.

It takes only a few minutes for Liam to perform his before start checks, and signals Morrison with a circular motion with his index finger. Morrison returns his signal and Liam starts the engines.

“Tiger flight check in,” calls Green.

“Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,” replies each pilot in sequence.

“Tower, Tiger flight taxiing with eight,” says Green.
Soon, after each aircraft is fully armed by the removal of safety pins in the arming area, four pairs of A-10s are aligned in a staggered fashion on the runway.

“Tiger flight, run ‘em up,” says Green. A deafening roar gradually builds as sixteen TF-34 turbofans show their power.

Green looks at his wingman, observes a thumbs up and releases his brakes.

As the lead rolls, Eric punches his clock. As the second-hand approaches ten seconds, he releases the brakes. After that an A-10 rolls every ten seconds. (any bombs aboard requires a trail takeoff rather than formation takeoff).

In radio silence the eight aircraft climb and join in a tactical formation. With after takeoff, climb, and level off checks complete, Liam notices that his wingman is tightly tucked into his right wingtip. Chuckling to himself, he says, “He’s supposed to spread out and relax in tactical. Maybe being close to me makes him feel safer. If he only knew how fast my heart is beating.”
With that thought, Liam yaws his aircraft left and right with the rudder pedals, signaling “loosen it up.”

“Tiger flight, this is lead, I’ve contacted our FAC and have our target. It’s a bivouac area about twenty miles into Kuwait. I have the coordinates and am proceeding to the target. We are cleared to fire on anything in the “kill box.” It will be artillery, tanks, fuel trucks, and anything else that moves.”
Liam notices the “black popcorn” ahead of Green and his wingman. They ignore it. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Two ahead and above, two others ahead and below. Liam’s aircraft buffets slightly.
Green rolls in on the target, with his wingman a few seconds behind. Liam rolls in behind number two. The flak is closer and thicker now. Green, then number two releases two of their bombs and turn sharply left and up. Liam lines up his sight on an artillery piece and pickles off two bombs, followed by a sharp pull out.

A missile with a fire at the end of it leaves a camouflaged area near the artillery. It’s headed for Tiger two.

Green says, “Tiger two, SAM launch, flares, flares.”

“Roger, I see it,” replies two.

The missile explodes harmlessly amid a group of flares emitted from the dispenser on the bottom of two’s wing tip.

“Somebody put that guy out of business,” says Green.

Tigers four through eight do exactly that, and no more SAM calls are heard.

“Let’s go in and clean up the smaller stuff with guns.” Says Green.

Liam can see smoke emitting from the barrels of the cannon in the aircraft ahead. On the ground a tank, then an APC explode.
A fuel truck is moving ahead. Attempting an escape, producing a large cloud of dust as it speeds across the desert. There is no place to hide. Liam roll in and lines up on the truck.
“Braap, braap.” He holds the trigger down for a second, pauses and fires another volley, each sending 75 rounds of depleted uranium earthward. Advancing at five times the speed of his aircraft, the burst arrives before Liam begins his pull up.
A huge fireball engulfs the place that was previously occupied by the truck. It rapidly rises to nearly his altitude in a spectacular combination of yellow and red fire, punctuated with black smoke at its edges. “Whump,” his aircraft jolts as he passes above and to the side of the explosion.

“Don’t take any weapons home,” says Green. “When you’re Winchester (out of ammunition), just RTB (return to bast) in two ships. I’m down to my Mavericks. When I’m Winchester, I’ll hang high until everyone heads back.”

Liam now has only the IR (infrared) Maverick remaining. He has saved that one for his last shot since the sensors in the missile display in his cockpit and provide target information that is not available to the naked eye. Sure enough, a half-buried tank clearly shows in the display. Locking on, he unleashes the big missile and pulls away.
“Three is Winchester, say state, four,” he says.
“Four is Winchester, five thousand pounds.” Comes the reply.
Liam rocks his wings and turn south. As they roll out, a pair of A-10s appear high in the distance. Liam and Sprick remain in trail for the flight back to KKMC.

Taxiing in at KKMC, the activity is methodical, but fast-paced. Liam and Sprick being the third and fourth aircraft to arrive. Seven and eight are at the front of the line; four and five remain somewhere behind, with lead and two trailing them. A soldier in green fatigue pants and white T-shirt marshalls them into their respective re-arm, refuel positions. The engines remain running at idle power.
Another airman gives Liam a two-handed thumbs-in signal, signifying that chocks are in place. Liam places his gloved hands on the canopy rail as more bullets, bombs, fuel, and missiles are loaded.
“I wouldn’t want to bump the trigger while they are uploading explosives,” Liam mutters to himself over the engine noise.

The last four aircraft pass in front of Liam, apparently unscathed.
After an additional forty minutes, Green crackles over the radio. “Tiger flight check in with SITREP. Lead is armed and ready.”
“Two armed and ready.”
“Three armed and ready.” Says LIam
“Four armed and ready.”
“Five armed and ready.”
“Six armed and ready.”
‘Seven armed and ready.”
“Eight armed and ready.”
“Tower, Tiger flight of eight taxi.” Say Green.
“Tiger flight taxi to runway 31, cleared to taxi, cleared for takeoff.” Replies tower.

Thirteen minutes later, Liam notes the passing beneath him a berm that stretches out of sight to the west. They have entered Iraq.
“Entering the kill box, arm hot, we are cleared to fire,” says Green.
Black puffs of popcorn begin to appear ahead and above the two A-10s of Green and his wingman. First Green and then his wingman roll into a sharp dive, spaced a mile apart. The targets are obvious. Dozens of APCs and trucks scurry across the desert in a futile attempt to escape. Bombs detach from the fighters ahead. They tumble into the convoy, the bursts merge into a long swath of death and destruction. Moving his sights to the side of that elongated fireball, Liam aims for the vehicles which managed to escape ahead of the first attack. Neatly joining the edge of the previous fireball, his bombs engulf another swath of vehicles.
Climbing back to 20,000 ft., the attackers are above the few AAA bursts. The hot barrels of the enemy guns becoming an inviting target for the Maverick missiles.
Back at King Fahd, Liam painfully extracts himself from the cockpit.
“I must have been more tensed up than I thought.” He muses to himself.

His first combat mission has resulted in the expenditure of all the weapons that he carried, the probable destruction of his intended targets, and all without a scratch. Not a bullet hole, no, damage, and no injury to himself.
At the debriefing, Green is laudatory.
“Great job guys. The mission went exactly as briefed. The damage reports from the FAC and satellite imagery show that nearly everything in the kill box was destroyed. The few that got away don’t have anywhere to hide. None of our eight aircraft sustained any battle damage whatsoever. The courage, the accuracy, and the teamwork that you demonstrated today are nothing less than what I expected. I knew from flying with you for the past three months that this mission was in the bag. Tomorrow we will face stronger defenses. This has been a good warm-up for a tougher mission. We will brief at 0600 tomorrow.”

After stowing his flight gear, Liam slowly returns to his “hooch.” Deep in thought, someone calls from behind.
“Hey Connor, that wasn’t so bad was it?” Shouts Groth Wilson, to only combat veteran to fly today.
“Well, I dunno. I haven’t digested everything yet.” Replies Liam.
“Were you scared?” Asks Courrier.
“I had some weird thoughts walking out to the plane, but they went away once I got busy.”
“Good for you. I was scared.”
Liam contemplates a moment then replies, “The way I see it, you have to decide if you are going to do it or not. It’s that simple. Once you make that decision, the fear doesn’t help. Well, OK, maybe a little bit gets you better focused, but paralyzing fear, no, that’s no good.”
“I couldn’t have said it better myself. Go into battle totally focused, with enough courage to do the job, but don’t be crazy risky. You have to live to fight another day.” Says Wilson.
“It’s been a learning experience. And I mean that in a good way. I may have improved my marksmanship a little, but I learned a lot about myself.” Replies Liam.

Day 2: Green briefs: “I’m glad to see you have recovered from yesterday. I imagine you slept well. Today we will launch four two-ship formations and proceed into Iraq to dispense death and destruction on the Iraqi Republican Guard. The targets will be like yesterday, but the defenses will be significantly more threatening. I expect lots of AAA, but more importantly we will face SA-13 and SA-6 surface to air missiles. That EC-135 that you have been dragging around on your wingtip will probably come in handy today. The SA-6 is a bad, bad missile. It is a radar homing antiaircraft missile with a proximity fuse, home on jam, and rapid relock capability. If you get a RHAW warning, and the display says SA-6, the EC-135 will already be at work. You should make a hard turn and deploy chaff (reflective strips of radar-reflective foil). Your only visual cue, if you happen to be looking, will be its rocket plume early in its flight. The rocket motor burns out after it gets to speed. If you get locked up by a SA-13, the heat-seeking SAM, you will need to deploy flares to confuse it. Your only visual cue if you happen to be looking would be a donut shaped puff of smoke when it launches. You have the best equipment that money can buy, use it wisely. Once you are cleared hot into the kill box by the ABCCC (airborne communications, command and control), you will be authorized to shoot anything that moves. I’ll rely on your judgment to choose high-value targets, especially with your Mavericks. Flight leaders, you have your TOTs (time over target). Use your discretion on takeoff times. Good hunting and stay safe.”

“Tiger three flight, you are cleared into the box, cleared to arm hot.” The voice from the ABCCC C-130 aircraft crackles through Liam’s headset.
Tiger three flight, arm hot.”
“Click, click.” Sprick acknowledges by clicking his mic button.
Flying at 20,000 ft. the AAA flack appears below them.
“That must be 57 MM, it doesn’t have enough oomph to get up here.” Mutters Liam.
Ahead on the ground a column of tanks, trucks, APCs, and towed cannons appear in the distance.
“There must be a catch to this, it seem too easy,” thinks Liam.
“I’ll nail the front of the column, you get the rear, and we’ll have them boxed in, three.” Says Liam.
“Click, click.”
Neatly laying two MK-82, 500-pound bombs precisely in front of the lead truck, it and several vehicles behind it burst into flames. As he pulls up on a reverse course, he sees Sprick had nailed the last few vehicles. Working their way toward the center of the column, Liam and Sprick expend all their weapons, with miles of targets remaining.
“Bat 21, Tiger three flight.”
“Go head Tiger three flight.”
“Tiger three flight is Winchester, RTB, 20 percent of large column destroyed, recommend additional resources attack.”
“Roger Tiger, wilco.”
After his last pass, Liam climbs toward home base and rocks his wings for Sprick to join closer.
Before Sprick can catch up, the RHAW system blasts in his headset. “Braaaaaa.”
A quick glance at the display informs him that an SA-6 site has locked on his aircraft.
“Braaaaaa.” A missile has been launched at him.
Simultaneously, Sprick comes on the air, “Tiger three, SAM, SAM.”
Liam presses the chaff button on his left throttle and rolls 135 degrees and pulls hard on the stick. The increased “G” on the aircraft causes the wings to produce a burble as they approach a stall. The missile is decoyed by the chaff or ECM from the pod and explodes at the place Liam occupied just seconds previously.
Rolling to a heading back to the South and leveling off to recover airspeed, Liam’s first thought is to say something to Sprick to let him know that he successfully escaped while projecting a calm voice.
“Three is good. Four, are you OK?
“No threat to four. I’m good.”
“Braaaaaa.” Again the RHAW system warns of a missile launch.
Without thinking, Liam again rolls to his right and presses the chaff button. In the turn he is terrified to see that no chaff is being deployed.
His heart pounding, he says to himself, ”I don’t know if the ECM pod can save me, I’ll head straight toward it and make myself the smallest possible target.”
After three or four seconds which seem like an eternity, the missile passes 50 feet to his left and explodes two seconds later. Undamaged, Liam again turns South, out of chaff, energy, and ideas.
“Three, you OK?” Says Sprick.
“Undamaged, not very OK.” Replies Liam.
“I guess the EC-135 pod saved me. Maybe it stole the range gate from the missile and although it knew my azimuth, it couldn’t resolve my range and that caused it to explode late.” Thinks Liam.

“How do you feel now?” Asks Sprick on the ground.
“Y’know, strangely great! This is what it feels like to be shot at and missed. Winston Churchill said it is the greatest feeling in the world. Now I get it.” Chirps Liam.

“Good call, Liam.” Says Col. Green. We redirected the fighters behind you to that convoy. We got ‘em all.”

Laying in his bunk that night, Liam thinks to himself. “I will never forget the experiences that I had today.” Little did he know that neither would his descendants