A-10s over Kosovo

theater of operations. Covering that around-the-clock CSAR alert
during the entire 78-day campaign required A-10 crews to spend
as many hours on ground alert as actually flying.
This book’s objectives are to include firsthand accounts by
those who participated and share the observations and conclusions
seen from their tactical points of view. We humbly acknowledge
that we did not thoroughly research the operational and
strategic levels of the air campaign, nor did we investigate the
many decisions up and down the chain of command that
affected the missions and the rules of engagement (ROE). Also
beyond our scope was a rigorous analysis of the international
political-military discussions and decisions above the level we
could directly observe. For these reasons, we have limited our
focus to the expeditionary squadron and group levels. While the
reader might occasionally sense some frustration in an author’s
personal account, we have collectively attempted to refrain from
drawing conclusions about why we were ordered to conduct our
operations in a particular manner. We do not feel qualified to
comment on the appropriateness of particular courses of action
(COA) and ROEs. However, since our firsthand tactical experience
allowed us to observe the effect that those COAs and ROEs
had on our missions, we are comfortable in sharing those observations
with our readers and pointing out those areas we consider
worthy of further investigation and improvement.
We have presented each contributor’s account, editing only for
clarity, accuracy, and to avoid repeating each other’s stories. We
found that letting each participant speak freely was the most
legitimate way to tell the A-10 story. We have organized these
stories to illustrate each chapter’s theme and have tried to retain
their you-are-there quality.
One of our purposes is to attract readers at all levels in the Air
Force. Thus we discussed an Air Force tenet of airpower that––on
various days––was followed, could have been better employed, or
was ignored. We also hope that our honest attempt to provide an
accurate, albeit tactical, perspective on the effects that higherheadquarters
direction had on our tactical level of combat will be
of interest to that wider audience. We refrained from secondguessing
those whose decision-making processes and environments
we did not observe. Finally, we did attempt to present our
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