Viper Pilot_ A Memoi..

solve whatever problems had come up. For a Weasel, it was no big deal, because
we often didn’t have hard-and-fast missions anyway—besides killing SAMs, that is.
Although the previous day someone had tried to get us to fly escort for an
unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). After I finished laughing, I refused and went on
with more important business. UAVs were becoming fashionable with the
bespectacled computer-screen officers living in fortified operations centers. These
little things, called Predators (which was also funny), were singularly useless in any
kind of environment with SAMs, MiGs, and anti-aircraft artillery. In other words—
a war.
Forty minutes later, my wingman and I slid off the tanker and once again
headed north. Angling east of Milk Lake, we flew directly over Habbaniyah airfield
about thirty miles west of Baghdad. There were still supposed to be five active SA-
3 sites in this area, and we’d been trying to provoke them for several days. I think
they were in heavy self-preservation mode, or just deserted, by this point. Think
about it: if everyone you knew and everyone in your chain of command refused to
communicate and/or disappeared, would you be motivated to fight
Nothing showed itself, and we continued north up the east shore of Tartar Lake.
KARMA passed us off to another controller, and we were given a holding point
and altitude in the stack west of Tikrit. The city itself looked like a disturbed
beehive. Fighters were everywhere, swirling, diving, and attacking. F-16s dropped
like flashing darts and swept over the battered town. Distinctive, cruciform-shaped
A-10s wheeled back and forth with their deadly cannons, spitting out shells as big
as my forearm. Mushroom clouds blossomed every few minutes as a new target
was destroyed.
“MUSKET 65 . . . SAM in the air! SAM in . . . over Tikrit!”
“MUSKET Two defending.”
I woke up and stared out at the city. We were about ten miles due west at
20,000 feet, and fortunately the sun was almost directly overhead.
“STAB 74 . . . second missile airborne and heading west. Heads-up, MUSKET!”
The Hogs were scattering as the missile shot up in the middle of their wheel. A
third smoke trail shot up and headed east, so there were at least two active
launchers down there. I supposed at least one Iraqi SAM crew had had enough of
us. Maybe their women were watching. It was going to cost them their lives.
“KARMA, KARMA . . . AGNEW 21 is tally the SAM site.”
“AGNEW . . . can you attack”
Can I attack What else am I here for I slewed my MARK diamond over the
launch point and took the position.