The Serbs who were occupying and cleansing Kosovo of its ethnic Albanian population were cunning, adaptive, flexible, and intelligent adversaries. We felt no particular animosity for the Serbian people or the unfortunate young soldiers who were perhaps pressed into serving in Kosovo. We did feel a singular animosity towards those we witnessed burning and shelling villages, and for those who tried to shoot us down.
The Serb forces’ actions and reactions to KEZ operations can be likened to a boxer with a rope-a-dope strategy: unable to defeat NATO with brute strength, they used delaying tactics to parry the allied knockout blow on fielded forces while continuing to land punches in their ethnic-cleansing efforts. Another useful analogy is that of a cat-and-mouse game. The AFAC “cats” took off daily trying to anticipate the moves of the Serb “mice.” The Serbs adapted their tactics daily to improve their chances of shooting down an allied aircraft and their own probability of survival, while continuing the ethnic cleansing.
Although it might seem that as AFACs we had all the best cards, we knew the Serbs held a trump card—but a card they could not play unless we first provided the opportunity. If we made a serious tactical error, we could give them a huge strategic or political advantage that might weaken some allies’ resolve. This could happen in several ways. By taking unnecessary risks (even within the ROEs), we could provide the Serbs an A-10 and a POW to parade in front of the media. By failing to find and engage Serb forces, we could prolong the conflict beyond the patience of NATO political authorities. Finally, if we rushed or became frustrated, we could inadvertently kill civilian refugees and destroy the homes and villages of noncombatants. Any or all of these situations could unravel the popular support the campaign enjoyed.
This chapter examines some of the actions Serb forces took to counter allied operations in the KEZ. Those actions included Serb attempts to shoot down NATO aircraft, camouflage and conceal forces, and entice us to make mistakes by misleading our intelligence and interfering with our operations—mistakes that could weaken political and public support for our air campaign.
It took a while for the Serb ground-based air defenses to react to being attacked. They didn’t shoot at us until our second day of KEZ operations. The Serb air-defense weapons employed in Kosovo consisted of the full range of low- to medium-altitude radar- and IR-guided SAMs and 20 mm to 57 mm AAA. Our SEAD aircraft and crews (F-16CJ, EA-6B, and Tornado ECR) earned healthy respect from the Serbs only a couple of weeks into the campaign. Although the Serbs had very lethal mobile SAM systems roaming around Kosovo, we rarely detected a radar lock-on or radar-guided-missile launch. SEAD forces (as well as the air-to-air fighters) orbiting in the KEZ everyday made it possible for us to attack with impunity. Even though they rarely had either the need or opportunity to employ ordnance, they fulfilled their mission, and we never crossed the border without them.
On average, Serb antiaircraft missiles and AAA engaged each 40th EOG pilot about six times—several pilots were shot at much more often. Although some missions were very quiet, on others we spent much of our time reacting to and destroying surface-to-air threats rather than searching for hidden armor. Of course, targets designated with a CAOC-assigned priority were always attacked first. One A-10 AFAC point of pride was that, even though we often took aimed fire in daylight, none of the hundreds of strikers whose attacks we controlled were ever hit, and practically none were shot at. It was our job to ensure that incoming strikers had the safest ingress, attack, and egress routes.
The Serbs quickly learned that opening fire on Hogs with AAA or SAMs made them both obvious and high-priority targets. Serb air defenses attempted to plan their missile and AAA shots to maximize the chances of hitting an A-10 while minimizing their own risks. The “SAM bush” was one such tactic. The Serbs would first fire AAA to make the A-10 jink. When they thought they had the pilot’s attention focused, they launched one or more SAMs in the hopes of scoring a hit. The SAM-bush had zero success, and often the A-10s made the Serbs regret they tried it.
After the first week of KEZ strikes, the Serbs rarely drove military vehicles in the open during the day. They became masters of hiding during the day and making full use of night or bad weather. They also built and deployed ingeniously simple decoys to impersonate mortars, artillery, trucks, APCs, and tanks. After noting that the APCs they parked in revetments would often be blown up when discovered by A-10s, they sometimes put a decoy in the revetment and then camouflaged the real vehicle outside. They also parked vehicles in agricultural fields and painted them the same color as the growing crops. They built tunnels, some real and some not.
Nevertheless, they made mistakes and were sometimes caught with their troops and vehicles in the open—usually when bad weather cleared up rapidly, as documented in a couple of the stories in this book. On one occasion, as 36 hours of heavy rain ended, I spied something very unusual through a small hole in the clouds. I soon understood the scene below me—a series of dark, metallic shapes and several bright-white tents of varying sizes in an area that included an asphalt road 500 meters long, bordered on either side by 10 to 20 meters of clearing and enclosed by woods. Using my binoculars I picked out mortars and artillery pieces in neat rows of revetments. Small, taut white tents covered the three revetments on one side of the road, and the three on the other side were in the open. A couple of APCs were visible, one of which was under a large, white tent. Other such tents were pitched in the trees. Taking extra time to rule out collateral damage, I made sure there were no civilian vehicles and no vehicles painted any other color than camouflage green. Why would a professional army use bright-white tents to cover camouflaged vehicles? The strange scene suddenly made sense. Evidently I had found them just as they were breaking camp after the deluge. This was one of the few times I saw a large group of military vehicles unaccompanied by civilian vehicles. They had apparently used the white tents not only to protect their equipment from the rain but also to pass themselves off as civilians to avoid attacks from anyone who might discover them.
It is easier to visually camouflage a professional army than it is to disguise its disciplined routines and habits. When moving, professional armies tend to drive their convoys at a constant speed with military spacing; when encamping, they tend to pitch their tents in neat, military rows. Today, that latter habit betrayed their attempt at disguise.
The hole in the clouds was closing and I reckoned that my airburst Mk-82s would be the most useful weapons to employ. Luck was with me as I rippled two bombs on an imperfect dive angle, on an axis that overlaid the most targets, hitting an APC in the open and another covered by a tent.
All pilots encountered similar situations when, with a little perseverance, they were able to figure out what was real and what wasn’t in the pictures they could see. Of course, that savvy improved with experience and after destroying a number of decoys. I certainly blew up my share of fake tanks.
The Serb-escorted Kosovar refugee convoys comprised a mix of civilian and military vehicles and were a familiar sight from the very first day the weather allowed us to operate in Kosovo. As time went on, we were convinced that the Serb army and Interior Ministry police moved about in the large, white buses we saw everywhere. What Kosovar Albanian civilian would charter a bus to speed north on the highway towards Serbia? However, we never attacked the white buses because we couldn’t be sure there weren’t civilians in them.
Serb forces used many other unethical tactics to try to fool us and cause us to bomb noncombatant civilians and villages. They parked armored vehicles next to churches and other locations, many of which are too sensitive to mention here. Suffice it to say that the rigorous AFAC discipline in the KEZ precluded the Serbs from gaining much advantage from their efforts to trick us into bombing innocent civilians and other inappropriate targets.
As the 81st FS weapons officer during OAF, I was involved in most operational aspects of our squadron’s activities. We performed the Sandy CSAR role, one of our three OAF missions, which most notably included the rescue of an F-117 pilot near Belgrade on 27 March 1999 and an F-16 pilot on 2 May 1999. I had the exhilarating privilege of being the onscene Sandy flight lead during the pickup of the F-117 pilot. We were also the primary daytime AFACs and strikers over Kosovo, and I flew 25 of those missions from 30 March to 7 June 1999—19 of them as an AFAC mission commander.
The variety of strikers I worked during these missions was truly impressive. I controlled Air Force A-10s, F-15Es, and F-16CGs (block 40s); Navy F-14s and F/A-18s; Marine Harriers and F/A-18s; British GR-7 Harriers; Spanish EF-18s; Canadian CF-18s; Dutch, Belgian, and Turkish F-16s; Italian Tornados and AMXs; and French Super Etendards. These fighters carried a wide variety of weapons, including LGBs and CBUs, as well as Mk-82 (500 lb), Mk-83 (1,000 lb), and Mk-84 (2,000 lb) general-purpose bombs.
Our AFAC mission wasn’t a new one for the Air Force. The first AFACs were the Mosquito FACs of Korea. Using slow, unarmed prop-driven planes, they were extremely successful in flying behind enemy lines, locating lucrative targets, and working strikers on those targets. During Vietnam the fast FAC was born with F-100F Misty FACs driving deep within North Vietnam searching for targets. In the nearly 50 years since the advent of the AFAC, it’s evident that FACing really hasn’t changed all that much. During Vietnam one key to survival was to stay at least 4,500 feet above ground level (AGL) to avoid AAA. Since Vietnam, with the improvement and proliferation of shoulder-fired, heat-seeking missiles, we now fly at over three times that altitude. The radar-guided SA-2s of Vietnam were also replaced by more capable and mobile SAMs in Kosovo. Given the threats and the operational altitudes these missiles dictate, the toughest task for a FAC remains that of finding the enemy. A good FAC can find viable targets—a skill not so much a science as an art. The good FAC always has a plan and, most importantly, is confident that he will always find something.
I relied heavily on the same skills it takes to stalk a trout. A successful fly fisherman understands the trout, is able to read the water, and therefore knows where to look. Kosovo is shaped like a baseball diamond, about 60 miles long and 60 miles wide. Twenty-five missions provided plenty of time to learn the terrain by heart and to develop a sense of where to search. The Serbs stopped using the roads openly and hid most of their equipment after they had been attacked day and night for close to a month. They even ceased to bring their SAMs out in the open during the day.
I have to admit that I was starting to feel invincible. At medium altitude we had begun to feel immune to the AAA and heat-seeking, shoulder-fired, man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS). On 2 May I went to the squadron to prepare for a FAC mission. It had been over a week since I had located a command post in western Kosovo and FAC’d three sets of fighters onto it. Since then, I had completed an uneventful three-night rotation of CSAR ground-alert and was raring to get back into country.
Arriving at the squadron, I was greeted by a rush of activity. Catching bits and pieces, I found out that an F-16 had been shot down two hours before and that Capt Richard A. “Scrape” Johnson and Maj Biggles Thompson had launched as Sandys for the rescue. I asked Lt Col Mark “Coke” Koechle, our topthree supervisor, if we needed to begin preparing a subsequent rescue attempt, but before that could get under way, we heard that the pilot had been successfully picked up.
I continued my preparation for the day’s mission. I would be the mission commander working eastern Kosovo (code-named NBA). I searched through the imagery and found a juicy new picture of artillery revetments in northeastern Kosovo. Other than that, there wasn’t much useful imagery. It appeared I would be on the slow side of Kosovo, with most of the Serbian activity being in the west (NFL). Still, I liked the imagery because it was of an area where we had not spent much time, and a tree line next to the revetments indicated a likely hiding place for self-propelled artillery.
As I “stepped” (departed the squadron at the prebriefed time—a critical milestone in the sequence of getting a flight airborne on schedule), the sun was just coming up on a beautiful Italian morning. I watched Scrape and Biggles return from their successful rescue and raised my arms over my head with clenched fists in a sign of triumph as they taxied by. My call sign that day was Lynx 11, and my wingman, Lynx 12, was Capt Andy “Buffy” Gebara. Andy had been a B-52 aircraft commander and had crossed over to fly A-10s. We took off for the tanker, refueled, and then waited.
The rescue delayed the arrival of the SEAD assets, including Navy EA-6Bs. The ROEs would not allow any aircraft into Kosovo without the presence of SEAD. I waited just south of the border for nearly 30 minutes. Finally, Magic (NAEW, NATO’s version of AWACS) called the SEAD on station, and I turned north for the target area. The artillery revetments were 30 miles north of Pristina. As I approached the revetments I took out my binoculars and spotted a 2S1 122 mm self-propelled artillery piece parked at the edge of the tree line. At the same time, Magic reported that the call of “SEAD on station” was only for the western area and that the NBA was closing down. I knew I had just one shot at the 2S1 and quickly rolled in from the east. Locking up the vehicle with my Maverick seeker, I waited for the steady cross to indicate a valid lock before I launched the missile. Unfortunately, the target was hot enough to lock up but not hot enough for a steady cross. Knowing that I probably wouldn’t get to work any more targets that day, I decided to test my luck and launch with the flashing cross. After all, I hadn’t missed on any of my previous Mavericks and knew there was a chance the missile would guide all the way to the target. So I hammered down until I felt the now-familiar sensation of a 500 lb missile accelerating off the rail. I pulled off target, watched the Maverick impact the 2S1, and proceeded as directed to the south. On Magic’s radarscopes it must have looked like I had simply made a U-turn.
The drive south took about 10 minutes. I was concerned about staying well clear of Pristina with its SAMs, particularly since Magic had just announced that I had no SEAD support. Still, my concern did not preclude looking for targets to attack later. As I climbed out to the southeast, I searched the roads and hillside for any signs of military activity.
I was about four miles north of G-Town. To avoid confusion and save time, we called towns with difficult pronunciations by their first letter. Gnjilane became G-Town, Dakovica became D-Town, and Urosevac was U-Town. I noted a narrow, jagged valley with what appeared to be man-made diagonal cuts through the trees alongside the road. I put the binoculars on the cuts and picked out two tanks. I marked my map, and as I continued to the tanker, started to come up with a game plan. While we refueled, I contacted Magic and coordinated SEAD support for a hasty attack. Magic was able to get SEAD but only 20 minutes’ worth. By the time I got off the tanker and headed north, I realized I would have less than 10 minutes on station for the attack.
I decided the best avenue of attack would be from the southeast. Due to the narrowness of the valley and the dirt revetments in which the tanks were hiding, the precision-guided Maverick seemed the best weapon. The attack went as planned, except for a small glitch. I had identified the tanks while looking from north to south. Approaching from the southeast, I misidentified the diagonal cutout and rolled in on an empty revetment. I recognized the mistake early and quickly came off target, climbing to the east to regain energy.
After aborting my first attack, I extended for another roll-in. This time I identified the correct cutout and tried to lock up the tank. Unfortunately, the Maverick locked onto a large dirt pile at the rear of the cutout, which was hotter than the tank. It was apparent the Maverick would not work against this target. The remaining options did not appear to have much chance for success. The narrowness of the valley and the protection of the cutouts meant a direct hit with Mk-82s would be required to kill the tanks—and that would be very difficult to accomplish. I didn’t have any available fighters with LGBs, and the only other option was to strafe the tanks. This was a riskier choice since I would have to dive to a much lower altitude to get in range.
I decided to let Andy drop two of his bombs to get their heads down, and I would follow up with a strafe pass. I was still low on energy and climbing to the north as Andy rolled in out of the northwest with a tailwind. His bombs landed just north of the tanks with no direct hits. From the radio traffic I knew my time was running out and this would be our last attack. I elected to strafe both targets on one pass, trying to get bullets on both tanks.
As I (Lynx 11) rolled in for my strafe pass, I turned on my videotape to record the pass. My primary UHF radio was monitoring the NFL frequency. With lots of fighters working in NFL, the radio chatter was constant. I used my secondary Fox-Mike radio to talk to Andy (Lynx 12).
“Lynx 11’s in from the west, two-target strafe.”
“Magic, Lobo 51 will be Cactus, store in approximately three mike. Lobo 53 will be on station for 20 mike. Do you want to close the NFL or the NBA?” Lobo 51 was the flight lead for a four-ship of F-16CJs providing our SEAD. He was running low on fuel and would be departing Kosovo (code word Cactus) in three minutes. His second element, Lobo 53, had enough fuel to remain on station for an additional 20 minutes. Lobo wanted to know whether to close the western or eastern area.
“Magic, in this case, suggests to close the NBA.” All the other FACs and fighters were working targets in NFL. We were the only set of FACs in NBA.
In the meantime, the strafe pass had gone well, with Andy seeing hits on the target. “Lynx 11 en route to NFL now.” I had come off target and had begun the excruciatingly slow process of climbing back to altitude.
“Lynx, Bobcat 21. Where you coming into?” Bobcat 21 was a two-ship of A-10s led by Maj Lester Less, the FAC responsible for deconflicting NFL. He was also an embedded Sandy pilot whose job it was to handle the rescue of any downed pilots. I had known Lester for over nine years. We had flown A-10s together as lieutenants at RAF Bentwaters, England.
“Bobcat, Lynx 11. I need to coordinate with you, but I’d like to come in from the south.”
“Lynx, Bobcat 21. Yeah, OK, in from the south.”
“Lynx 11 copy that. Then, I’ll work to the south and to the east.” Andy and I began a discussion on our FM frequency.
“Lynx, Two is blind, just west of G-Town.” Andy had just lost sight of me, a very common occurrence. A good wingman covers his flight lead as he comes off target by focusing on the ground where the threats (AAA and MANPADS) are likely to be fired. A wingman that never goes “blind” is simply staring at his flight lead and is of no use.
“Lynx 11, copy. One is just west of G-Town climbing… OK! I just got hit! I’m turning to the south.” I never saw what hit me. As I looked up to find Andy, I felt an incredible jolt to the aircraft on the right side. The nose tried to roll off to the right, and I had to put in full left rudder to keep her from flipping over. I was struggling at this point just to keep the jet flying. Dropping the nose, I started a gradual descent to maintain airspeed. My master-caution panel was lit up like a Christmas tree, and I finally looked over my shoulder to see the engine cowling blown off and the fan blades frozen. Sunlight streamed through the engine inlet. I made sure I was still headed towards the Macedonian border and returned my focus to keeping the jet under control.
“Two copies. Two’s blind, egressing south.”
“OK, two, I need you to come towards south.”
“Lynx 12 is heading south.”
“OK, two, where’s your posit?”
“OK, two is southwest of G-Town at one six zero.”
“OK, copy that. I’m at one four zero descending…. I am trailing you. I need you to 90 right.” I asked Andy where he was and he informed me he was southwest of Gnjilane at 16,000 feet, while I was at 14,000 feet. I could see Andy about two miles in front of me, and I told him to turn 90 degrees right to get me visual. I felt better having the jet under control and my wingman in sight. However, the severity of the situation had not yet sunk in. I was flying a battle-damaged jet in the heart of the AAA and MANPADS envelope and descending over a heavily defended section of Kosovo. If anything, I was mad—really mad that someone had had the audacity to shoot me. I was also determined that there was no way I was going to eject over Kosovo. I didn’t think I’d be able to land the jet, especially since it was difficult maintaining level flight and impossible to make right-hand turns, but I was not going to be on Serbian TV that night and neither were the remains of my A-10. I would nurse the jet into Macedonia before I ejected.
“Bobcat, Lynx 11. Break, break.” Still, it was better to be safe than sorry. I wanted Lester (Bobcat 21) to head towards me in case I did have to punch out in bad-guy land, so he could orchestrate the rescue. Thankfully, the jet was hanging in there. The right-engine gauges were showing a severe engine overtemp without producing any thrust. I shut down the engine, and it cooled quickly once the fuel flow was shut off. Gauges for the left engine looked good. Days later, I would find out that the left engine had been severely damaged from ingesting pieces of the right engine and the missile. I had to fly in a one-degree descent to maintain airspeed. Very slow and with no energy available to react to another missile launch, I was a wounded bird.
“Bobcat 21, Go ahead.”
“Lynx 11. OK, Bobcat. I’ve been hit. My right engine has been taken out. I’m single engine. I’m currently south of G-Town, and I’m headed towards Skopje. I’ve got the right engine… looks like the whole engine cowling got hit… and I’ve got no right hydraulics. I’ve got a wingman with me, and I’m headed towards Skopje. Currently I’m about five miles from the border.” I was not afraid, but the adrenalin rush had me excited. Time was distorted, and my world had slowed to a snail’s pace. Between keeping the jet aloft and talking on the radios, I clearly pictured myself hugging my kids. I just knew I was going to make it out of Kosovo.
“Lynx, Bobcat 21. Are you still up?”
“Lynx 11, that’s affirmative. I’m staying up this freq currently. I am losing altitude, but I think that now I might be able to make it across the border.” As I spoke on the radio I had the sensation that this was not really happening to me. I must have been watching some other poor fighter pilot struggling to stay airborne. I had to help him as best I could to get out of these dire circumstances.
“Bobcat 21, understand you are single engine and you’ve got a hydraulic system out?”
“Lynx 11, that’s affirmative. I’ve got the right hydraulic system out.… OK, I feel fairly confident that I’ll make it across the border, not sure if I can land. I’m going to set up for Skopje though.” By then I could see the border just a couple of miles in front of me. I figured even if the left engine quit, I could still glide to Macedonia. My mind now started to think about what I would do with the jet once I got past the border. The situation was looking better—the left engine was working well and I was getting used to handling the jet. As I descended to lower altitude, she started to perform better, and I began to think I might be able to land her.
“Lynx 12, are you visual? Come right… Look at your right three o’clock.”
“Two’s visual, falling into wedge.”
“Lynx 11, OK. I want you to stay high wedge.”
“Two’s high wedge. Your six is clear.” I finally got Andy’s eyes onto me just about the time we crossed the border. My mind now turned to how to make a controlled descent for a safe landing at Skopje, some 9,000 feet below. I had Andy come in to give me a battle-damage check. He saw nothing wrong with the jet, except the damage to the right engine.
I proceeded with a controllability check to determine whether I could land the jet and found that I had three problems. First, I could not make right turns into the bad engine. Second, I lowered the gear and received stall indications just below maximum landing speed. This meant I was going to have to land fast. Third, the Skopje airfield was oriented north-south and I was five miles north of the field and much too high to land. I was not sure whether the left engine had enough thrust to go around if I screwed up the approach. I wanted to take my time and do it right the first time. I elected to set myself up for a left-teardrop approach to land from the south. This option gave me the advantage of staying in lefthand turns for the approach and allowed me to gradually lose altitude. Finally, since the wind was coming from the north, I could land with a headwind, which would help decrease my ground speed and landing distance.
The tower at Skopje was very helpful, diverting two heavy aircraft on approach as I started my teardrop turn to final. The jet was flying well in the left turn, and my next concern was what would happen when I rolled level on final approach. I adjusted the pattern to roll out just over the approach-end lights (a normal circling approach would have had me roll out one mile before touchdown). On final I felt the nose start to yaw to the right, and I countered by pulling the power on my left engine to idle. The reduction in thrust on the left side reduced the right yaw, and I began to glide to the runway. I did not flare the jet but “planted” the landing, touching down firmly just below maximum landing speed.
Skopje was a good, long runway, but I was going pretty fast and wanted to get the jet stopped. I aerobraked the damaged Hog as much as I could and finally put the nose down at around 120 knots. Because my speed brakes were inoperative, I relied only on my wheel brakes to slow me down. I waited until 100 knots to touch the brakes and was relieved to come to a full stop with 2,000 feet of runway to spare. Now that I had reached terra firma, I wanted out of the jet as soon as possible. I automatically ran through the bold-face procedure—the ones pilots commit to memory—for “emergency ground egress” to shut down the remaining engine and exit the aircraft. I ran to the side of the runway, turned, and looked at my battered jet.
Several NATO countries used the Skopje airfield. First, a group of Dutch soldiers came up to see how I was doing. Next, a French officer who managed the airfield showed up. They didn’t have any emergency personnel or vehicles, so I ended up having to go back to the jet to “safe up” the remaining munitions and pin the gear. Quarter-sized holes peppered the Hog’s right flaps and the tail fins of one of my AIM-9 air-to-air missiles. I got back in the cockpit and rode the brakes as they towed my jet off the runway.
Thankfully, a group of US soldiers from Task Force Able Sentry soon arrived in a couple of humvees. Up to this point I had not seen any civilians or press. The last thing I wanted was my jet on CNN or on the front page of newspapers. I tried unsuccessfully to have the A-10 put out of view in a nearby hangar. The soldiers provided security for the jet, put a tarp over my right engine, and drove me a couple of miles to their headquarters. I called my squadron at Gioia and gave a mission report, which included an update on the condition of the jet.
My biggest concern at this point was getting back to the squadron. When I asked about the next flight leaving Skopje, I was told there wouldn’t be one for at least a couple of days. The US soldiers treated me great and took me over to the chow hall. I found myself famished as I sat down next to a big-screen TV. After a while, I realized everyone in the chow hall was watching the TV intently with big smiles. I looked to the TV to see three Army POWs—captured the month before while performing a routine border patrol—being released to Rev. Jesse Jackson in Belgrade. I was eating with members of their company.
When I got back to the headquarters, I found out an Army C-12 was being diverted to Ramstein AB, Germany, to take the ex-POWs’ commanders to see their soldiers. They offered me a seat, and I gladly accepted. I thought that it would be a lot easier to get back to Gioia del Colle from Ramstein, where cargo aircraft were constantly departing for Italy. I also didn’t want to spend anymore time in Macedonia than I had to, and, more importantly, Ramstein was only a one-and-one-half-hour drive from my home base at Spangdahlem. The five-hour C-12 flight from Skopje to Ramstein felt even longer than my previous flight over Kosovo as I reflew the mission over and over in my head. When I landed at Ramstein, I rushed to base operations and called the squadron at Gioia. My commander, Lt Col Kimos Haave, informed me that a C-130 departing at 0100 that night would bring me directly to Gioia—I then called my wife Bonnie. It was 8 P.M., and she had just gotten home from church. I told her to put the kids in the van and meet me at the Ramstein Passenger Terminal as soon as she could. At base operations, I was greeted by a group of three Air Force Materiel Command officers who needed to know the extent of the damage to the jet. I briefed them as best I could before heading to the passenger terminal.
When my family arrived at Ramstein, I got to hold my sleeping two-year-old daughter and watch my six-year-old boy play with the toys in the family lounge. I hadn’t seen them for over 80 days. My jaw and teeth still ached from the violent impact of the missile, but I didn’t want to worry them and didn’t know what I could tell them. So I told Bonnie I had had some engine trouble and landed in Skopje, which she accepted as routine. The Lord had heard me over Kosovo, and 14 hours after I had been hit, I had my children in my arms. I held my wife’s hand and talked to her for two hours until the C-130 was ready. She talked excitedly about the rescue of the downed F-16 pilot that day and the release of the POWs, completely unaware of how narrowly I had escaped both fates. Before my C-130 departed, I kissed my wife and sleepy kids and sent them home, not knowing when I’d see them again.
I entered the squadron at Gioia del Colle 24 hours after I had stepped to fly and wanted to get back into the air as soon as possible. The next day, some 48 hours after being hit, I was back in the cockpit. This time I didn’t strafe but dropped CBUs. That, however, is another story.
It was 9 June 1999, a standard (beautiful) day in Italy and forecasted to be gorgeous in Kosovo. Many of us knew the end was near because we were told Milosevic was going to accept NATO’s demands and today would be the last “offensive” day of the air campaign. I was excited because I was flying with Maj James “Jimbo” MacCauley, one of the two pilots from Moody to join us at Gioia del Colle. It was always interesting to fly with folks from another squadron to see if their tactics, or thoughts on the way things should be done, were any different from those of my own squadron mates. He had also flown during Operation Desert Storm and was one of the more experienced pilots with us.
The day, as usual, started off with signing off numerous battle staff directives (BSD) that most pilots dreaded reading because most did not apply to us. It was just one more thing we had to squish in while we were half-asleep before the flight briefing at “o’ dark 30.” Finally we finished our daily planning routine and started our flight briefing.
Jimbo briefed relatively standard tactics, the same ones we studied and practiced every day; it was good to know that Hog guys from different bases practiced the same stuff our squadron did. I noticed he did do a good job emphasizing the basic communications and lookout duties that he expected of a wingman. Such information sometimes gets left out when flying with many of the same guys, and it is important to have it stressed from time to time. I also thought in the back of my mind, as Jimbo probably did, that this was not the day to become complacent—even with all the talk of things winding down.
We eventually stepped, took off, hit the tanker, and entered the AOR uneventfully. We started looking at the areas of interest that intelligence had briefed us about. There was very little activity, and we found nothing where intel told us to look. Capt Christopher “Junior” Short and Col Al Thompson were the prior AFACs on station, and they were looking at an area in southern Kosovo, 10 miles southwest of Prizren. They thought they had found some APCs or tanks but had to hit the tanker, so they gave us a quick talk-on and left the area.
Jimbo made a couple passes with the binoculars but could not quite make out what was there. He also did a Maverick search but could not tell for sure if the potential targets were live vehicles, decoys, or “tactical bushes.” He saw a horseshoe formation around a dirt berm, so he elected to drop his Mk-82s on them to see if we could get some secondaries or movement from them. He rippled his four Mk-82s on the eastern side of the formation. We did not see any secondaries, but the targets did not seem to be decoys because they stayed relatively intact. After climbing back to altitude and joining the briefed formation, he instructed me to drop my Mk-82s on the western side of the formation.
As I rolled in to begin my dive delivery, I saw a flash and smoke trailing a missile quickly climbing towards the spot where I had last seen Jimbo. I immediately broke off my delivery, called out the missile launch, and directed him to expend flares. Shortly after I spit out all the required radio calls, the missile passed behind Jimbo along his flight path. I made sure I knew exactly where the launch came from because I was pissed that they had tried to kill us. There was still a significant amount of smoke in the area from where the missile had launched, and a thick smoke trail lingered in the air—we figured it was not just a MANPADS. We departed the launch-site area and broke line of sight. Meanwhile Jimbo briefed me on a suppressor-bomber attack. I was ready to roll right in and made sure Jimbo knew that. I was excited when I executed the attack, and as soon as I rolled out on “final” I realized that I had not considered the winds. “Final” is the airspace flown through during the few seconds after rolling out of the diving turn and just prior to weapons release. It is where pilots would normally refine their dive angle, airspeed, and ground track so that when they depress the pickle button, they will have the correct sight picture, airspeed, altitude, and dive angle so the bomb will hit the target. As I rolled out, I realized I needed to come off dry—without dropping any bombs—because the wind had blown me too far, and I would not be able to attain the necessary delivery parameters to make a good pass and kill the target. Fortunately, I decided to come off early and had enough energy to expedite the next attack.
Jimbo had suppressed the threat area with the gun before I rolled down the chute. He put a bunch of bullets in the vicinity of the launch site, and I dropped my bombs on a nearby tree line, close to a road intersection where military vehicles appeared to be located. As I recovered from my pass, Jimbo noticed a green, fluorescent flash that indicated I had hit something with rocket fuel or ammunition in it. After this attack we left the target area for the tanker and then headed home.
We debriefed with our intel NCO, SSgt Amos Elliot, on what we saw and what had happened. Amos was very excited about getting all the specifics. BDA is usually very difficult to get, especially on fielded forces, but it is a very important aspect of the entire war effort. After our in-depth discussion, we were pretty sure we had hit a mobile SAM system. While we made sure to report it as “probable,” not “confirmed,” we also knew there was little chance of its ever being confirmed. The Serbians’ standard practice was to haul away the wreckage of targets we had hit to make BDA more difficult. It was another piece of Milosevic’s propaganda puzzle that still plagues NATO today.
I “grew up” as a first-assignment FAC at Osan AB in the Republic of South Korea, the “Land of the Morning Calm” or the “Land of the Not-Quite-Right,” depending on how I viewed my own situation. That assignment was the best thing that ever happened to me as a FAC. I learned by leaps and bounds from the best fighter pilots and AFACs in the world—the AFACs who carried the revered Misty call sign. While at Osan I listened to the older Hog drivers who had been in Desert Storm, learning from their combat experiences and hoping to have the chance to put my training into the “Big Game.”
From Korea I went to the 81st Fighter Squadron at Spangdahlem for my second operational tour. With the Panthers, I gained valuable experience in the A/OA-10’s missions and learned how NATO integrated them into an air campaign.
My only sortie as a Panther wingman was the closest I came to meeting a Serb soldier face-to-face. Being in the CSAR rotation as a Sandy 1 and a FAC, I was surprised to see I was on the schedule to fly on the wing of Kimos Haave, the squadron commander. This was a role I had explained to my wingman many times before, and now it was time to walk the walk. Being a good wingman takes discipline, especially since I was used to being a flight lead. It was not my formation to run and I was not responsible for the navigation. My job called for providing support to my flight lead, keeping him in sight, and watching for any threats to the formation or our supporting fighters. With this in mind, I had put away my maps and had zero intention of pulling them back out unless it was necessary or requested by the flight lead.
Kimos, as the mission commander, gave the briefing and went over our targeting information for the day. There had been some heavy activity along the borders, due in no small part to the ROEs that were in effect. I was glad to be flying in the afternoon since the morning fog had delayed or cancelled most of the early packages that week. The afternoon-go also had the benefit of intelligence updates and hot target areas from the morning’s sorties.
We stepped to the jets and launched on time across the Adriatic with Kimos as Pepper 01 and me as Pepper 02. Because of some problems with the tanker, the entire package was delayed. We pressed across the “fence” 45 minutes late and began our target search with the imagery we had received. The active ABCCC aircraft was a Navy E-2C Hawkeye, call sign Cyclops, responsible for coordination among all elements to include the CAOC in northern Italy. Shortly after we arrived on station, Cyclops informed us of an active Serb command post west of Urosevac and requested that we locate the target. Kimos found the area and then began a search from medium altitude. He quickly located the command post and several nearby armored vehicles. In accordance with the ROEs, we still had to coordinate for attack permission because of the proximity to the Macedonia border, even though we had been directed to, had found, and had positively identified this target.
After we received authority to strike, we armed up our 500 lb Mk-82s, and Kimos called, “One’s in.” His bombs hit a tank and a command-post building. He then cleared me in on two APCs slightly to the south.
I returned his call with, “Two’s in.” With my flight lead in a cover position, I rolled down the chute. The bombs hit on target, but I did not see any secondary explosions because I was maneuvering and ejecting flares as I pulled off target. The E-2C relayed that a set of F/A-18s was en route to the target area. When the Hornets arrived, Kimos gave a quick FAC brief and rolled in to mark with Willy Pete rockets.
“One’s off dry, hung rockets,” called Kimos. His selected rocket pod had malfunctioned, so he selected his jet’s other pod and rolled in again. After his second passed he radioed, “One’s off dry, both pods of rockets are hung. Two, you have the lead. Go ahead and mark for the Hornets.”
I assumed the lead, maneuvered my jet to a different attack axis, and rolled in. The second smoke was on target and the lead Hornet began to employ his ordnance. The second jet lost sight of the target area and asked for another mark. “Watch the number of passes in a target area” was the lesson firmly planted in everyone’s mind after Maj Goldie Haun had been hit by a MANPADS and limped to Skopje only two days prior.
“Two’s in.”
I hammered down on the pickle button at 17,000 feet above mean sea level (MSL) and was rewarded with a quick, “tally the target,” from the second Hornet. When the Hornets departed for the carrier after their attack, we egressed the target area and began a new search.
“Pepper 01, this is Cyclops. We have a two-ship of A-10s with CBU that needs a target.” Kimos called them up and decided to have them unload their CBUs on the command-post area.
At this point I was fairly comfortable with the target area. The Serbs had not shot back on their “normal” timing, and I was now lighter and had good energy, having already dropped my bombs. With Kimos in a cover position and the fighters in trail to watch the mark, I began a roll-in to the right on a previously unused attack axis.
“Two, break left!” was the call I heard. I immediately began to dispense flares, turned in the cockpit, and saw two trails of smoke following behind what appeared to be red flares arcing towards my jet. Since I had been in the process of rolling in, I had already committed myself to a right turn—versus the break left—and began to lower the nose while pulling hard on the stick to turn quickly and put the missile at three o’clock. I can still see the red glow of the rocket motors and the way the missiles kept turning with me. I remember thinking that the missiles were rejecting the flares, and my next thought was, “What is three to five seconds?” (Our training tells us that three to five seconds before we think the missile will impact, we should perform a special maneuver to make the missile miss.) I was still breaking into the missiles and ejecting flares when the first missile lost track. I saw it would miss well behind the jet, but the second was rapidly getting closer.
“Two, get rid of your stuff.” One of the other A-10s advised me to “combat jettison” all of my ordnance to improve my turn and energy state. It seemed like I had time to think it over and decide that I was okay with just my Mavericks. There was no way I was going to take my hands off the stick or the throttle and the flare button located on it!
As I began a last-ditch defensive maneuver, the second missile began to fall behind the aircraft. I can still see the missile trying to turn and “hack” the corner as it began to lag. With all this defensive maneuvering, I had turned approximately 270 degrees, and I was now looking exactly at where the two smoke trails had started their journey. Time to turn the tables. The GAU-8 30 mm Avenger cannon is the most flexible and formidable weapon on the A-10. Since it was built to destroy Soviet tanks in Germany’s Fulda Gap, one can imagine its effectiveness on softer types of vehicles—especially a lightly armored SAM system.
I distinctly remember switching from rockets to the gun in the weapons-delivery mode of my head-up display and then placing the pipper short of the two vehicles where the smoke trail began. I dropped the hammer and began to retaliate in anger. An A-10 driver will normally shoot about 100–200 rounds in a combat burst, attempting to concentrate directly on the target. Passing 300 rounds on target, I kept the hammer down and began to move the pipper around the target area until I saw an explosion—500 rounds later.
“Two is egressing south.” With the tables turned and the Serbs diving for cover, I called my flight lead and told him the heading on which I was departing the target area. Looking over my left side, I saw that Kimos was in a solid cover position as we concluded our first vul period, crossed into Macedonia, and began the air-refueling process in preparation for the sortie’s second scheduled vul period.
I had to think for a while about what I really wanted to say here. Many of my friends will write about what happened in Kosovo in 1999. I flew 36 combat missions over Serbia, so at first glance the task didn’t seem all that tough. I thought about writing about my first-ever combat sortie—we didn’t hit anything because we were recalled by the CAOC in what became an almost daily ritual of higher-headquarters mis-/micromanagement. I thought I would write about the time my flight lead Goldie Haun was hit by a SAM and barely made it back over the border. I briefly thought about my most effective sortie, in which Capt Nathan S. “Foghorn” Brauner and I destroyed 14 APCs and eight artillery pieces. To me it seemed like a routine sortie, but we were fortunate enough to get real results. Finally, I thought about the sortie that Lt Col Coke Koechle, my operations officer, let me lead for the first time. A fighter pilot’s first sortie in the lead is one that he or she will always remember, and in my case that sortie was in combat over the FRY. As I landed, I felt as if I had genuinely accomplished something.
All of these sorties were memorable, but they didn’t really define Kosovo for me. After thinking about it for a while, I finally figured out what I actually took away from Kosovo. Being on the front lines of this war has given me a new perspective and has caused me to view historical accounts through different eyes. From my perspective, Kosovo was weird—just plain weird. Some have written about the delayed stress of combat operations; others have discussed the guilt they feel after taking human life. As for me, I mostly felt, and still feel, that the whole experience was surreal. It didn’t seem possible that I was actually in the middle of this whole thing. All my life I had either watched or read accounts of historical events. In Kosovo the Panthers didn’t watch history in the making—we made it. We were key players in the first conflict in which the war was fought and won almost exclusively in the air. That I contributed to that victory is a great feeling, but every once in a while I think to myself, “What happened over there, anyway?”
If you get them away from the cameras, many pilots will say that, from a public-support point of view, Kosovo was similar to the Vietnam conflict. The older members of my squadron who had fought in Desert Storm told us of how the support from home had helped boost morale during the tougher times of the war. In Kosovo, we really didn’t get much support, and, to tell the truth, we did not even get the animosity I had read about during the Vietnam conflict. It seemed to me that most Americans didn’t know that the war was going on, at least at the level of intensity we faced. It becomes emotional when I am asked to risk my life for a just cause. To take such a risk when the cause is controversial is different. It is simply bizarre to do so for a cause my countrymen seem unaware of or indifferent to. Therefore, I often found myself wondering if this war was at all real.
During the first few weeks of the war, we fought out of Aviano. My squadron was housed in a hotel off base throughout the 1990s—ever since Bosnia-Herzegovina really heated up. When we entered the base from the hotel, there would be literally thousands of people outside the gates. We were sure there were Serbian intelligence gatherers in the crowds, and we were concerned about protests. However, it seemed that most of the crowd were made up of people who were little different from those encountered at an air show—teenagers who wanted to see jets launch in the early morning sunrise. I wanted to scream at them, “Do you realize what’s going on here?” It was really strange.
We were directed to relocate to Gioia del Colle AB, soon after the war started and Aviano began to get crowded. Gioia was in southern Italy, much closer to Kosovo, which meant an increased sortie rate for us. It also meant we were housed like kings—our enlisted troops were in quarters near the beach, and the officers lived in a great hotel. We would get up around 0100, arrive at work about 0145, brief, launch, tank up, and enter Kosovo around 30 to 45 minutes after sunrise to get the best chance of identifying targets. Of course, that also gave the Serbs the best chance of seeing us—a concept I was to fully understand after my third sortie!
After 45 minutes of hunting, we would leave Kosovo and refuel in Macedonia, and then go back in. After this second vul period, we would head for home, making a total sortie duration of around four and one-half hours. We would land, debrief, eat, and get some sleep before the next day’s work. We fought exclusively as two-ships. On most sorties I flew as a wingman but was privileged to lead six.
I was getting shot at daily, but to watch CNN Headline News, Kosovo was a cakewalk, interrupted only by incompetent NATO pilots bombing civilians. Of course, nothing could have been further from the truth. I saw my close friends going to great lengths to avoid harming innocents, often putting themselves at considerable risk in the process. Guys like Capt Francis M. “JD” McDonough have earned my everlasting respect for their actions to keep civilians safe in Kosovo. This is a facet of the war that has been almost entirely overlooked.
We worked under ROEs that severely hampered our ability to attack targets. We were strictly forbidden to engage if there were any chance of collateral damage, no matter how small. That’s an important goal, but when taken to extremes, it proved very frustrating. As an example, on one sortie, I saw a red vehicle traveling at high speed towards a village. I paid attention to it because, by this time in the war, we had pretty much destroyed the petroleum reserves in the country. A civilian vehicle racing down the highway was very unusual—especially when the Kosovar-Albanians had been forcibly evacuated and the Serb civilians were given a very low gasoline priority. Anyway, this vehicle stopped in a small village. A few minutes later, the village burst into flames. The vehicle then left the village as quickly as it had come. It seemed obvious that Serbs had torched the village. The Serbs, who, not long into the war, had wisely abandoned their tanks, had taken to driving around in stolen Kosovar-Albanian civilian vehicles. Even though this vehicle obviously was involved with hostile action, we were prohibited from attacking it because it was painted red—not the green of Serb military vehicles!
Now, compare my story to one by Gen H. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of Central Command. In 1991 he showed the world “the luckiest man in Iraq,” using the nowfamous video of a bridge being destroyed mere seconds after that Iraqi civilian reached the other side. This video was humorous in 1991, a story told lightheartedly by both the military and the media. In 1999, that same situation would have caused us to abort the attack; or if the attack had continued, it would have generated a huge media uproar. Weird? To me—yes. Nevertheless, it is probably something pilots will have to deal with in America’s next war.
After a while, the war’s routine and ROEs began to affect us all—but in different ways. Some guys got stressed out while others grew complacent. One of the chaplains on base was quoted in a major newspaper as saying that Kosovo wasn’t a real war because of the great conditions in which we lived. That was nonsense to most of the pilots. By this time, two NATO planes had been shot down, several unmanned drones had been blasted from the sky, and two Hogs from my own unit had been damaged. The pilot of one of them, Maj Goldie Haun, was my flight lead the day he was hit. I will never forget conducting a battle-damage check of his jet on the way back over the border and seeing a huge hole where his engine used to be. I could actually see his helmet through the cowling where his engine should have been. Goldie was lucky to make it back to friendly territory before his jet stopped flying altogether. His safe recovery is due to his outstanding flying skill and God’s grace.
In some ways though, the chaplain’s comments were understandable. Americans see images of World War II and Vietnam, and somehow feel that unless there’s mud involved, there is no war. Airpower has changed the reality of warfare—if not the public’s perception. World War II bomber pilots fought over Berlin and returned to party in London that night. USAF crews fought in Vietnam from such hardship locations as Guam. So, although the chaplain was dead wrong, I had to admit that the “Cappuccino War,” as we came to call it, wasn’t what I initially expected it would be. There’s something strange about watching my flight lead get smashed by a SAM—then coming back to base and ordering the greatest salmon tortellini I’ve ever had.
To all of us who fought, Kosovo was an important time—to some, a life-defining event. For example, any hesitation I had about dropping a bomb on another human being evaporated as I flew over Kosovo. Serb atrocities were clearly seen—even from three and one-half miles in the air. The country’s highways looked like parking lots as Kosovar-Albanians were forced to abandon their vehicles and walk into Albania. Entire villages were gutted and burned. I quickly learned that no matter what had happened between these ethnic groups in the past, the Serbs were clearly the oppressors now. So the first time I was called on to attack a convoy of Serb military vehicles, just outside a barracks in central Kosovo, I had no moral problems at all. I rolled in, put my pipper on the target, pickled off my bombs, pulled up, spit out some flares, and climbed back into the sun to protect myself from heat-seeking missiles. Just like that.
Due to my younger son’s health, I was allowed to return home on the first available transport after the fighting ended. It was a great flight—not in the normal sense, of course, since C-130s are notoriously uncomfortable. No, it was a great flight because I had made it! I had survived the confusing politics, five months of deployment, and almost three months of sustained combat. Not only had I survived, but I had proven to myself that I could perform in combat. That might not seem like much—after all, we fighter pilots like to act like nothing can stop us. But there’s always that nagging question, “Do I have what it takes?” I knew the answer, and it felt good!
I returned to Spangdahlem late at night. Our parent wing, the 52d AEW, had been launching, flying, and recovering F-16CJ and F-117 Nighthawk combat sorties during virtually the entire conflict. I figured that this base would know just how big a deal the fighting had really been. As I drove in the gate, I saw the “Welcome to Spangdahlem” sign. Below it was a message that, for me, truly typified the public’s awareness of the combat we had experienced in Kosovo: