Viper Pilot_ A Memoi..

that he continued pointing at Mosul only six miles away.
“TORCH . . . Magnum . . . Magnum . . .”
I frowned under the mask. What the hell was he doing Neither of us had
weapons remaining and he kept jabbing at the SAM batteries.
“Magnum . . . Magnum SA-3 . . . Mosul.”
But then I learned another combat lesson. The Iraqis didn’t know we were out
of missiles, and we knew they listened to our radio traffic. Maybe his bogus radio
calls would force a SAM down. Orca was covering the last two-ship of strikers as
they re-attacked the airfield. He was making them look and shoot at us instead of
the strikers—he was Weaseling. I floated a bit high and aft so I could keep him in
sight and watch the ground. Five thousand feet below me, I saw the vapor from an
F-16 wingtip as it pulled off-target.
“LASER’s off-target . . . north for the egress.”
“TORCH has you in sight. Come off zero-three-zero.”
As I watched Orca, he pulled the Phantom’s nose up and did a big barrel-roll
over the airfield. Several little orange balls zipped past and exploded just like corn
popping. But after the last ten minutes, it didn’t seem like much to worry about.
As we headed north in a slow climb, I realized that we were probably the last
fighters heading for the border. The Weasels have another motto—First In, Last
Out. And that’s exactly what we were doing. I turned and looked back as the
funnel-shaped clouds spread out over the airfield. Wispy, gray SAM contrails still
hung in the air.
On the common strike frequency, I heard a pair of F-15s up above us, thumping
their chests over splashing some Iraqi fighters, and I wished I’d gotten to shoot a
MiG. We zoomed up above 20,000 feet and headed north toward Turkey. It was an
amazing sight. The mist had burned off, and the dark green peaks along the border
jutted upward against the blue sky. To the west, the light brown of the Syrian plain
stretched as far as I could see. To my right, past the Zagros Range, was the bluegreen
smudge of Iran. Way off toward the north loomed the enormous, whitecrowned
peak of Mount Ararat, beyond which lay the Soviet Union.
I was exhilarated. Dropping my mask, I wiped off my face and wished I’d
remembered to bring a bottle of water. And food. Tomorrow, I told myself, and
jotted that down on my lineup card that had become quickly cluttered with lessons.
NEVER FLY IN A STRAIGHT LINE. CHANGE ALTITUDES RANDOMLY.
ATTACK WITH THE SUN BEHIND YOU IF POSSIBLE.
These things hadn’t changed since World War I. I’d been taught all of them but
nothing sears in life-preserving habit patterns like combat.