Viper Pilot_ A Memoi..

“WICKED 23, this is RAMROD.” The orbiting AWACS had been unusually
quiet today, which was a welcome change. Unfortunately, I wasn’t far enough
north to pretend I couldn’t hear him.
“Go ahead.”
“JEREMIAH directs . . . repeat . . . JEREMIAH directs armed reconnaissance
of the area around North three, three, oh, three, point five . . . West four, four, one,
one, point three . . . how copy”
Now right there I should’ve experienced inexplicable radio difficulties.
JEREMIAH was the daily call sign of the general commanding all coalition air
forces. He was sitting 700 miles away in an air-conditioned, carpeted tactical
operations center, probably eating a doughnut. This duty rotated among senior
officers, who got to sit back and watch the war on the big screens.
Since Operation Desert Storm, our command and control technology had
improved—and I use that word sarcastically—to the point where all our aircraft
could be tracked electronically. This was then projected on a movie-theater screen
in the TOC. There were ascending rows of amphitheater seats, which wrapped
around the room. Computer stations were interspersed around, manned by majors
and lieutenant colonels whose main function at the moment was to be there and
breathe. They had little paper name-cards on their cubicles that said things like
FLTOPSMAIN, MPCFIDO, and AARDETCO. Alphabet soup to anyone other than one of
them. Anyway, the general got to sit at the very top, in a little glassed-in room, like
the bridge of a ship.
However, when JEREMIAH spoke, we had to listen—or fake radio problems. I
jotted the coordinates down on my kneeboard and made the mistake of replying.
“Copy that, RAMROD. Say items of interest.” Meaning, what do you want me
to look for
“WICKED—possible armored vehicles and personnel moving south out of the
city along Highway One.”
I zippered the mike, looked outside, and sighed. It was a normal request under
ordinary circumstances. However, I wasn’t wild about flying down through all that
shit, not to mention the still-undefeated Baghdad SAMs and Triple-A, just to locate
a stray Iraqi patrol. Especially since our own ground units were still fighting their
way north and were currently about fifty miles to the south of the capital. So again,
despite space intelligence, satellites, and aerial platforms like JSTARS, it came
down to human eyes on a target. My eyes, in fact.
Still, if the Iraqis were going to move, it would be now—precisely because the
weather was atrocious. Their own air force didn’t fly in bad weather, and they