Viper Pilot_ A Memoi..

SA-6s, so we’d give it a wide berth. Shaking my head, I tried to see the railroad
tracks but could not. (I’d actually bombed the Taji railway station in 1991 to keep
the Republican Guards from moving. Small world.)
LUGER wasn’t talking, so I scanned my comm card and found the frequency
for HYPER. Iraq was divided into north, center, and south sections, based on
latitude. HYPER was the AWACS that controlled north of the 35th Parallel, so
maybe I’d have better luck with him.
I didn’t.
“ELI Three . . . LAPEL One.”
“Go.”
“Ah . . . LAPEL One has a stuck refueling door and I need to RTB. I’d like
LAPEL Two to join up with you.”
“Where’s LAPEL Three”
“They came off the tanker ten mikes ago . . . probably inbound and close by.”
“LAPEL Three is Bull’s-eye two-five-zero for eighteen. Just west of the
airport,” he added.
I looked over the wingtip at Iraq. Baqubah was off to my northeast and that
little auxiliary field was just off the nose. This was as good a place as any.
“ELI Three flight and LAPEL come up on Cobalt Eight.” This was LAPEL’s
frequency but if their flight lead was going home he wouldn’t need it. Now we
could all talk and data-link together. “LAPEL Two you are now ELI Five.”
“Five copies. 10.6.”
Good—he had plenty of fuel. ELI Five was a young, cool-headed captain
named Dave Brodeur, otherwise known as Klepto. I slewed the diamond over
Baqubah, took a mark, and data-linked it. Several bends in the Diyala River were
heavily irrigated and looked like big green testicles. It was the perfect rejoin point
for a bunch of guys with more balls than brains.
“LAPEL Three, cleared overhead above fifteen thousand. ELI Five stay
overhead at twelve K and head’s up for Taji.”
They all acknowledged. I had one can of CBU-103 plus a full load of 20-mm for
the cannon. Number Four had a HARM left and the gun, while ELI Five had two
cans of CBU with his gun. Glancing at the lineup card, I saw LAPEL Three had
CBUs and his wingman had HARMs.
I’d sketched out a rough picture of the compound and figured, based on the
northerly winds, we should hit the southern revetments first, so the smoke and dust
wouldn’t obscure the rest of the compound.
“ELI Three this is LUGER.”