1 00:00:12,000 --> 00:00:16,040 What were you So you were like roving around in a kill box? 2 00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:21,480 Well, it was a target area. We had a, we had a location air 3 00:00:21,480 --> 00:00:32,800 maps had about 8075, a 120 sqrt 247, I don't know, contact 4 00:00:32,800 --> 00:00:35,720 points on our map. We carried them out the side of 5 00:00:35,720 --> 00:00:38,720 the Texas, believe it or not. We had it folded up very well. 6 00:00:38,960 --> 00:00:40,760 And there's a story behind that at some point. 7 00:00:41,240 --> 00:00:46,840 But the maps would, they would say go to contact point this and 8 00:00:47,120 --> 00:00:49,920 look for this intersection or whatever. 9 00:00:50,240 --> 00:00:53,440 And then they'd say near contact point this. 10 00:00:53,440 --> 00:00:56,120 There would be coordinates. You put your coordinates in and 11 00:00:56,120 --> 00:00:59,040 look on the map yourself, the grid coordinates or the lat long 12 00:00:59,360 --> 00:01:01,280 and go, yeah, I see that it's close to a row. 13 00:01:01,280 --> 00:01:03,000 There's a little bit of a hill behind there. 14 00:01:03,360 --> 00:01:05,160 Let's watch for this, this and this whatever. 15 00:01:05,480 --> 00:01:11,400 So yeah, it was, it was the kill box idea was there, but we did 16 00:01:11,400 --> 00:01:13,960 not have, we were not assigning kill boxes yet. 17 00:01:14,400 --> 00:01:16,160 They just told us hit your target. 18 00:01:16,200 --> 00:01:18,480 You can't find a target. If you don't see your target or 19 00:01:18,480 --> 00:01:21,160 it's been destroyed, go to the next available target. 20 00:01:22,960 --> 00:01:24,560 I see a truck on the road, it's moving. 21 00:01:24,680 --> 00:01:26,200 It's a military truck. Guess what? 22 00:01:26,520 --> 00:01:29,360 I'm going to shoot it because that's what that's what you do. 23 00:01:29,360 --> 00:01:31,920 You just go find the next target or I'm going to drop bombs or 24 00:01:31,920 --> 00:01:33,200 whatever. And you just keep going. 25 00:01:33,200 --> 00:01:39,480 And then, you know, we come back and you know nothing. 26 00:01:39,600 --> 00:01:43,400 Luckily nothing was out of the ordinary, No hits as far as 27 00:01:44,280 --> 00:01:48,360 battle damage and like that. So we felt pretty good that the 28 00:01:48,360 --> 00:01:53,040 system we had so far was working and that's probably the the 29 00:01:53,040 --> 00:01:56,840 after the first day, the first two days it probably we had a 30 00:01:56,840 --> 00:01:58,600 good idea what we were up against. 31 00:01:58,640 --> 00:02:02,080 We had a better idea. We hadn't, we hadn't hit all the 32 00:02:02,080 --> 00:02:05,160 hot spots yet. We were getting close so. 33 00:02:05,960 --> 00:02:09,080 Can you describe the, the, the process then for going through 34 00:02:09,160 --> 00:02:13,040 a, a visual ID or positive identification of the target 35 00:02:13,040 --> 00:02:15,920 before you drop on it? I mean, I, I know that there 36 00:02:15,920 --> 00:02:20,480 were unfortunately some blue on Blues that that occurred during 37 00:02:20,480 --> 00:02:23,040 Desert Storm. Could you talk about that too? 38 00:02:24,200 --> 00:02:26,440 You know, what, what, what, how do you, how do you make sure 39 00:02:26,440 --> 00:02:28,640 that as best you can that when you drop? 40 00:02:28,640 --> 00:02:31,320 Because if you're 10,000 feet, I'd imagine it's difficult to ID 41 00:02:32,040 --> 00:02:35,760 1 truck or one APC. Pretty much, but usually your 42 00:02:35,760 --> 00:02:40,640 target is surrounded or as close to things that want to kill you. 43 00:02:42,040 --> 00:02:49,000 AAA sites, ZSU or fixed sites, Sam's both shoulder fired and 44 00:02:49,160 --> 00:02:53,440 mounted. And so that wouldn't again, 45 00:02:53,440 --> 00:02:57,840 there's there's two processes. The first process is the war 46 00:02:57,840 --> 00:03:01,920 itself started. The second, the second process 47 00:03:01,920 --> 00:03:05,800 was when the ground troops were engaged. 48 00:03:06,760 --> 00:03:09,240 See, before this time they said we're going to run six weeks or 49 00:03:09,240 --> 00:03:12,800 or so of air to air, I mean, of air to ground. 50 00:03:12,800 --> 00:03:16,680 Just get everything softened up. Well, that's like a feeding 51 00:03:16,680 --> 00:03:18,840 frenzy to a bunch of sharks. Guess what? 52 00:03:19,040 --> 00:03:21,800 We're the sharks and so is everybody else. 53 00:03:22,240 --> 00:03:25,400 So it was not a any problem. I was not concerned about any 54 00:03:25,400 --> 00:03:28,000 friendlies whatsoever. If you're up here in you're 55 00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:30,480 north of that black line, guess what, you're not friendly 56 00:03:30,480 --> 00:03:32,560 anymore. I don't care what kind of badge 57 00:03:32,560 --> 00:03:35,960 you're wearing now. When the Army started moving and 58 00:03:35,960 --> 00:03:38,680 they started doing troops and contact and that's that kind of 59 00:03:38,680 --> 00:03:40,600 stuff. Oh, buddy, the rules changed. 60 00:03:40,600 --> 00:03:42,720 Everything changed. Everything changed. 61 00:03:43,200 --> 00:03:49,520 So, yeah, you would roll in and generally your target would be, 62 00:03:49,720 --> 00:03:52,560 you would be able to see it enough that you would know what 63 00:03:52,720 --> 00:03:54,960 you know, what was there and what the threat was. 64 00:03:55,960 --> 00:03:59,200 It wasn't a matter of, to me, it wasn't a matter of, well, that's 65 00:03:59,200 --> 00:04:02,120 the exact right target. Now let's see, only two of those 66 00:04:02,120 --> 00:04:04,200 guns are shooting right now. Maybe I should wait till the 67 00:04:04,200 --> 00:04:05,400 3rd. No, you won't. 68 00:04:05,960 --> 00:04:09,120 You're going to drop a a stick of 6 mark 80 twos across that 69 00:04:09,120 --> 00:04:12,160 puppy with the radar fuses and you're going to watch them blow 70 00:04:12,160 --> 00:04:14,080 up the bits and then you're going to come back around and 71 00:04:14,080 --> 00:04:16,760 straighten what's left. That's just how you did it and 72 00:04:16,760 --> 00:04:20,240 you do you kept doing it until you ran out of bombs, bullets or 73 00:04:20,240 --> 00:04:23,320 gas and that's just what what you had to do. 74 00:04:23,320 --> 00:04:25,760 I mean, that was the beginning. We needed to kill as much of 75 00:04:25,760 --> 00:04:30,440 that AAA and then at armour as we could in the first few weeks 76 00:04:30,440 --> 00:04:36,160 so that when the army did show up that that was, you know, they 77 00:04:36,160 --> 00:04:37,440 would have a little bit better time. 78 00:04:37,760 --> 00:04:41,120 They still had. It's amazing how much Iraqi 79 00:04:41,320 --> 00:04:45,360 forces came out of the woodwork when the army came in. 80 00:04:46,760 --> 00:04:49,200 Those things were not that they were, they had to be driven in 81 00:04:49,200 --> 00:04:52,000 somewhere else. But the ones that we saw, it was 82 00:04:52,000 --> 00:04:55,960 a, a junkyard. It was a Soviet junkyard all 83 00:04:55,960 --> 00:04:59,400 over southern, southeast Iraq and Kuwait itself. 84 00:05:00,120 --> 00:05:04,920 We just, we killed everything and moved everything and didn't 85 00:05:04,920 --> 00:05:07,120 think twice about it. Why wouldn't they're trying to 86 00:05:07,120 --> 00:05:09,760 kill us? And that was a mentality back 87 00:05:09,760 --> 00:05:11,600 then. Papi, can you? 88 00:05:12,000 --> 00:05:13,560 Can you talk a little bit about weaponeering? 89 00:05:14,000 --> 00:05:18,440 Can you talk about weaponeering? You talked about dropping Rock 90 00:05:18,440 --> 00:05:22,880 Eye some Mark 20. What different types of CBU 91 00:05:22,880 --> 00:05:25,520 could you drop? You know, was was rock eye like 92 00:05:25,520 --> 00:05:29,200 a good one for both armour and like light skinned and infantry? 93 00:05:29,480 --> 00:05:31,920 You know what if you wanted to take out some tanks, what would 94 00:05:31,920 --> 00:05:33,360 you prefer to drop? What? 95 00:05:33,360 --> 00:05:38,400 What was the weaponeering piece? Basically your your weapons load 96 00:05:38,400 --> 00:05:42,360 depended on a what was available, you know, and what 97 00:05:42,360 --> 00:05:46,240 was on sale at Walmart. They got all they got a big deal 98 00:05:46,240 --> 00:05:51,960 on some low what low the the mark 80 twos with the the tail 99 00:05:51,960 --> 00:05:54,680 pins. At one time we were dropping 100 00:05:54,680 --> 00:05:59,360 mark 80 twos with the tail pins. The old snake eye from Vietnam 101 00:06:00,400 --> 00:06:04,400 that had a metal band around the wing so they wouldn't come pop 102 00:06:04,400 --> 00:06:08,200 loose when you let drop the jet because we needed the we needed 103 00:06:08,200 --> 00:06:10,440 those bombs and that's all they had. 104 00:06:10,680 --> 00:06:13,080 So again, whatever's on sale at Walmart is what you drop. 105 00:06:13,080 --> 00:06:17,720 However, we carried Rock Eye, we carried our standard low was 6 106 00:06:17,720 --> 00:06:18,960 mark 80 twos. I did. 107 00:06:19,120 --> 00:06:22,600 I have carried 8 or 9 before. In that scenario, if you were 108 00:06:22,600 --> 00:06:25,400 doing something different against troops or whatever, 109 00:06:25,560 --> 00:06:29,520 whatever you're doing Combined effects munition, that was the 110 00:06:29,520 --> 00:06:33,200 newest CBU entity. I dropped a few of those. 111 00:06:33,200 --> 00:06:36,960 And then CBU in general, just just generalised clamshell CBU 112 00:06:37,160 --> 00:06:40,480 of different sizes and what else. 113 00:06:41,720 --> 00:06:43,760 We didn't have any kind of precision guidance. 114 00:06:44,200 --> 00:06:49,480 It was Kentucky windage and Tennessee elevation that we 115 00:06:49,480 --> 00:06:53,680 would dial in the mails, we'd roll in whatever, go off and go 116 00:06:53,680 --> 00:06:56,400 from there. The first thing I would do is 117 00:06:56,720 --> 00:06:59,280 get to a target area. If I found something that was 118 00:06:59,280 --> 00:07:02,240 worthy, I would drop, you know, drop the bombs. 119 00:07:02,480 --> 00:07:07,520 I want to lose, you know, however many 1000 lbs of bombs 120 00:07:07,520 --> 00:07:12,800 off this jet so I can manoeuvre then now that that buried on the 121 00:07:12,800 --> 00:07:18,240 target area. If you're going to drop, if 122 00:07:18,240 --> 00:07:23,920 you're going to drop against say buildings and you know, things 123 00:07:24,320 --> 00:07:26,640 that could be behind the buildings or inside the 124 00:07:26,640 --> 00:07:29,360 buildings, yeah, that's something you want to keep an 125 00:07:29,360 --> 00:07:31,520 eye on you. That's it's kind of depended on 126 00:07:31,520 --> 00:07:34,720 what you what you're carrying. They they started giving us more 127 00:07:35,440 --> 00:07:40,600 combined effects, munition and CDU as the war went on because 128 00:07:40,600 --> 00:07:43,760 we were starting to run out of fuses for the Mark 80 twos 129 00:07:45,880 --> 00:07:50,360 because of some other issue that can be explained later. 130 00:07:50,360 --> 00:07:55,240 But anyway, they did a good job. The CBU did a great job. 131 00:07:55,440 --> 00:07:58,920 If I'm going up against armour and not thin skiing but just 132 00:07:58,920 --> 00:08:03,080 armour in general, anything I carried would take them out. 133 00:08:03,880 --> 00:08:05,600 But Mr Maverick did the best job. 134 00:08:06,360 --> 00:08:11,280 Always has, always will #2 if Maverick doesn't get them, you 135 00:08:11,280 --> 00:08:15,920 go in high angle stripe Swiss cheese and that's, that's just 136 00:08:15,920 --> 00:08:22,200 more visual if you will. But Maverick can go places that 137 00:08:22,280 --> 00:08:26,920 you can't see sometimes. And that's the kind of the 138 00:08:26,920 --> 00:08:31,360 weaponeering part of it. We had both EO and IR Mavericks 139 00:08:31,560 --> 00:08:35,960 and later on we had D model Mavericks which were infrared 140 00:08:36,520 --> 00:08:40,440 with A, I think we paid extra $2.00 a piece or something to 141 00:08:40,440 --> 00:08:44,600 get that little lock on at a, at a fixed point. 142 00:08:44,920 --> 00:08:46,960 You could put it through a pane of glass almost. 143 00:08:46,960 --> 00:08:49,760 It seemed like you could just want to go on the bottom right 144 00:08:49,760 --> 00:08:55,120 of that window. Look there, there it is. 145 00:08:55,120 --> 00:08:56,840 It's all a big bunch of smoke, I guess. 146 00:08:56,840 --> 00:08:58,040 I hate it. Yeah, that sure did. 147 00:09:00,120 --> 00:09:04,960 But they, I don't ever remember having the wrong load, if you 148 00:09:04,960 --> 00:09:08,760 will, because whatever I had, as long as I, I mean, I've got the 149 00:09:08,760 --> 00:09:12,400 gun, I've always got the gun. As long as if it doesn't work, 150 00:09:12,440 --> 00:09:16,160 I'm probably going back because I'll drop some bombs and maybe a 151 00:09:16,160 --> 00:09:19,680 missile or two. But if the gun doesn't work, you 152 00:09:19,680 --> 00:09:23,000 know, worky, you know, flight, that's, that's going to be what 153 00:09:23,000 --> 00:09:25,640 you're going to do your, do your, your, your job with. 154 00:09:26,280 --> 00:09:27,760 And it doesn't always work out that way. 155 00:09:28,400 --> 00:09:30,280 Get gas being what it is and stuff. 156 00:09:30,280 --> 00:09:34,640 It's it's kind of tough, but. I was strife below if if you 157 00:09:34,640 --> 00:09:37,040 couldn't go below 10,000 feet, how easy or difficult was 158 00:09:37,040 --> 00:09:39,520 strife? It was called, it's, it was 159 00:09:39,520 --> 00:09:45,160 something we practised in the, in the past, probably 20% of our 160 00:09:45,160 --> 00:09:48,280 training at, at England Air Force Base and in the hall in 161 00:09:48,280 --> 00:09:51,720 general, 25, maybe in maybe 30 in places. 162 00:09:52,400 --> 00:09:56,440 We'd go through stages of low threat tactics and we'd 163 00:09:56,440 --> 00:10:00,000 practise, we'd employ high and high angle strife was, was very 164 00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:03,480 accurate as long as you didn't get too high. 165 00:10:03,800 --> 00:10:08,160 But 10,000 feet, that's pretty high and that made it tougher. 166 00:10:08,240 --> 00:10:14,240 So you couldn't really go in at 10,000 feet and stray without 167 00:10:14,240 --> 00:10:17,840 going below 10,000. So you had to go up even higher 168 00:10:17,840 --> 00:10:24,320 Nosebleed and come in. I did that once, but it was, it 169 00:10:24,320 --> 00:10:30,600 was a mover on the road heading north out of a border crossing 170 00:10:30,880 --> 00:10:34,480 with Kuwait and Saudi. And it was a military vehicle. 171 00:10:34,880 --> 00:10:38,440 And I noticed me and Mad Dog were flying together. 172 00:10:38,440 --> 00:10:41,200 I was a wingman at the time. I was on his wing at the time. 173 00:10:42,080 --> 00:10:45,920 And I go, hey, I got a mover on the road down here. 174 00:10:46,080 --> 00:10:48,080 He goes, yeah, I see it. You want to get him? 175 00:10:48,080 --> 00:10:51,640 I go, sure. So he stays high with cover. 176 00:10:51,840 --> 00:10:55,960 I roll in. As I roll in my, you know, scope 177 00:10:55,960 --> 00:11:02,120 there gives me the my HUD gives me the wind direction, OK. 178 00:11:02,560 --> 00:11:04,840 And it moves based off a lot of wind. 179 00:11:04,840 --> 00:11:11,040 Well, my TVV, my total velocity vector vector thing was off to 180 00:11:11,040 --> 00:11:14,000 the side. It was outside of the vertical 181 00:11:14,000 --> 00:11:18,360 limits of the HUD, which meant that it was greater than 60 side 182 00:11:18,360 --> 00:11:21,320 about 70 knots of wind. And that's the only way I could 183 00:11:21,320 --> 00:11:24,040 come in was given the the weather we were having at the 184 00:11:24,040 --> 00:11:25,560 time and where I was shooting from. 185 00:11:26,360 --> 00:11:33,920 And so I just roll in, put my old, you know, Kentucky wind 186 00:11:33,920 --> 00:11:36,800 engine, Tennessee elevation, which is how like you are to 187 00:11:36,800 --> 00:11:41,200 shoot when you're in Kentucky. And I just give him about a two 188 00:11:41,200 --> 00:11:46,200 second burst, pull off hard left, hard right, you know, jink 189 00:11:46,640 --> 00:11:48,560 and then get back up and get him visual. 190 00:11:50,520 --> 00:11:54,120 I look back and I see, I look back just enough to see the 191 00:11:54,120 --> 00:11:57,360 bullets hitting right smack in front of the truck. 192 00:11:57,360 --> 00:12:01,280 I mean, it was like you probably got a few in the hood, but it 193 00:12:01,280 --> 00:12:03,880 was that I missed the cab. I was waiting for the cab, of 194 00:12:03,880 --> 00:12:07,840 course, but the truck goes into the ditch. 195 00:12:08,240 --> 00:12:12,080 It stops and I'm like, well, they slowed it down anyway. 196 00:12:12,480 --> 00:12:15,200 Maybe I blew a tyre. We're back at the chow hall 197 00:12:15,200 --> 00:12:17,720 after the sorting, after the day's over. 198 00:12:18,280 --> 00:12:21,440 Mad Dogs was there eating there, you know, mystery of meat and 199 00:12:21,440 --> 00:12:24,400 rice. We got black powder on her face 200 00:12:24,400 --> 00:12:27,880 and from wearing the Kim suits and whatnot and we're all kind 201 00:12:27,880 --> 00:12:30,160 of grungy looking and kind of down, you know, but kind of 202 00:12:30,320 --> 00:12:32,120 yeah. He goes. 203 00:12:32,680 --> 00:12:35,520 I bet that guy bought some new seat covers. 204 00:12:35,760 --> 00:12:38,760 What are you talking about, man, though a guy you straight. 205 00:12:38,760 --> 00:12:40,880 He said I bet he had to buy a new seat covers after that. 206 00:12:42,000 --> 00:12:43,800 I'm like, I hope he didn't buy anything. 207 00:12:43,800 --> 00:12:46,160 I hope he's dead. But that's, you know, that's 208 00:12:46,160 --> 00:12:49,560 just part of it. It did work, but he wasn't a 209 00:12:49,560 --> 00:12:54,720 useful tool when going back to what you go through. 210 00:12:56,080 --> 00:13:00,640 When the army got involved, the rules changed drastically and we 211 00:13:00,640 --> 00:13:04,920 had to adapt quickly. And sadly that didn't always 212 00:13:04,920 --> 00:13:08,960 happen. You know, you're aware of the, 213 00:13:09,440 --> 00:13:14,800 the British forces that were hit by, by an ATM with probably a 214 00:13:14,800 --> 00:13:17,920 maverick. You know, I didn't hear about 215 00:13:17,920 --> 00:13:23,280 that from our flying world. I did not hear about that until, 216 00:13:24,720 --> 00:13:28,800 oh, probably a day after it actually occurred. 217 00:13:29,760 --> 00:13:32,880 And we just got a general briefing. 218 00:13:32,880 --> 00:13:38,080 Hey, make sure that you know where your FAQ is, you know 219 00:13:38,080 --> 00:13:40,800 where the good troops are, you know where the bad guys are, 220 00:13:41,080 --> 00:13:44,000 because this is not if this is not acceptable. 221 00:13:44,760 --> 00:13:48,960 I never knew, never knew what squadron, what group, but it was 222 00:13:48,960 --> 00:13:51,720 an A10, sadly, that fired that missile. 223 00:13:51,920 --> 00:13:58,560 You know, it's it's terrible. I did find out through mystery. 224 00:13:59,360 --> 00:14:05,240 A year later. I'm at T38 pilot instructor 225 00:14:05,240 --> 00:14:08,240 training at Randolph Air Force Base. 226 00:14:09,640 --> 00:14:12,560 I've flown once or twice and I come in, there's a note on the 227 00:14:12,560 --> 00:14:14,280 board. Captain Brogl. 228 00:14:14,360 --> 00:14:23,440 Oh, great call Colonel so and so at legal and I'm like legal, 229 00:14:23,760 --> 00:14:25,520 what have I done now? Nothing. 230 00:14:26,200 --> 00:14:28,160 So I go, OK, sure, I'll get that. 231 00:14:28,560 --> 00:14:31,800 I'll get the debrief, get the debrief first because I'm, I'm 232 00:14:31,800 --> 00:14:33,040 learning. So I'm going to get the debrief. 233 00:14:34,840 --> 00:14:37,640 I call back over and well, Colonel's not available. 234 00:14:37,640 --> 00:14:41,360 So his associate, another Colonel, I think said I'll take 235 00:14:41,360 --> 00:14:44,480 care of that for you. We just found out he goes, we 236 00:14:44,480 --> 00:14:48,800 just found out that your jet tail number had been replaced on 237 00:14:48,800 --> 00:14:52,280 this certain, certain day at the towards the end of February. 238 00:14:53,160 --> 00:14:57,920 And that your jet, you were the first jet we think that 239 00:14:57,920 --> 00:15:01,440 contacted the fact that was involved in the shoot. 240 00:15:02,360 --> 00:15:08,000 And it was a, a a British fact that it was was doing the the 241 00:15:08,000 --> 00:15:13,040 call in. And so I'm like, OK, yeah, I 242 00:15:13,040 --> 00:15:16,000 remember that swordy. Well, he said, why do you 243 00:15:16,000 --> 00:15:19,640 remember? He said, well, I said because I 244 00:15:19,640 --> 00:15:24,320 was leading to ship, we were armed to the teeth with bombs 245 00:15:24,320 --> 00:15:26,600 and everything else like we always were, but kind of a 246 00:15:26,600 --> 00:15:32,280 little bit extra today. And all the fact wanted to do 247 00:15:32,280 --> 00:15:34,760 was see if I could see the orange panels. 248 00:15:35,840 --> 00:15:39,640 And that's all he asked for. And I, you know, I didn't, 249 00:15:40,000 --> 00:15:41,680 didn't know there'd been an accident. 250 00:15:41,680 --> 00:15:44,440 I didn't know anything. I just let and I didn't give him 251 00:15:44,440 --> 00:15:46,280 any grief. I mean, he, we checked in, did 252 00:15:46,280 --> 00:15:49,080 the nine line, exchanged information, blah, blah, blah. 253 00:15:51,200 --> 00:15:53,400 But he said, yeah, can you see it? 254 00:15:53,400 --> 00:15:54,880 You're at 10,000 feet at the time. 255 00:15:54,880 --> 00:15:57,160 Well, that restriction had zipped at that point. 256 00:15:57,600 --> 00:16:00,600 But we were, we were coming in. I think we're about 7500 or so 257 00:16:00,600 --> 00:16:03,720 just so we can get a roll into a base if we needed to pop in. 258 00:16:04,520 --> 00:16:12,920 And he said, he said we're looking, can you identify this 259 00:16:12,920 --> 00:16:15,040 orange tag? First of all, do you see the 260 00:16:15,040 --> 00:16:16,840 armour moving? Do you see the vehicle moving? 261 00:16:17,400 --> 00:16:22,160 I go and he gives me a location based off of his IP, the initial 262 00:16:22,160 --> 00:16:23,840 point. And I go, yeah, I got it, got a 263 00:16:23,840 --> 00:16:27,800 visual, two out of visual. He said you're cleared to roll 264 00:16:27,800 --> 00:16:31,320 in, do not drop. You're not cleared to drop. 265 00:16:31,520 --> 00:16:35,120 I go, fine, that's great, roll in, see if you see it. 266 00:16:35,120 --> 00:16:37,480 I rolled in at that altitude, couldn't see it. 267 00:16:38,160 --> 00:16:40,800 Pull it off 2. See if you see it on on on Fox 268 00:16:40,800 --> 00:16:42,600 mic. See if you see it on two. 269 00:16:42,880 --> 00:16:44,520 OK, he rolls in, I'm covering him. 270 00:16:45,200 --> 00:16:48,280 Boom. No, OK, we'll drop it down. 271 00:16:48,360 --> 00:16:51,440 We'll drop it down to 5000. I dropped it down lower and we 272 00:16:51,440 --> 00:16:54,400 kept going. Finally, about 40, about 4000 273 00:16:54,400 --> 00:16:57,880 feet, you could break out some kind of arrange something on top 274 00:16:57,880 --> 00:17:01,200 of the vehicle, but it because it wasn't on the very top 275 00:17:01,480 --> 00:17:04,000 covering stuff and stretched out, it was kind of very 276 00:17:04,000 --> 00:17:06,800 difficult to see. And if you're 4 miles away, 277 00:17:06,800 --> 00:17:08,960 which you're probably going to be with an, a Maverick, an 278 00:17:08,960 --> 00:17:11,800 average Maverick shoot 3 1/2, four miles away, you're not 279 00:17:11,800 --> 00:17:12,960 going to be able to see anything. 280 00:17:13,560 --> 00:17:17,720 So that was, and I didn't find that out until a year later they 281 00:17:17,720 --> 00:17:21,160 said, OK, so you, you didn't drop or shoot. 282 00:17:21,160 --> 00:17:24,760 We, I said we did not fire the first bullet the entire story. 283 00:17:24,760 --> 00:17:27,920 We did not drop a single bomb. We did not fire any missiles. 284 00:17:27,920 --> 00:17:32,880 Nothing came off our jets. We had to fly back to KKMC, get 285 00:17:32,920 --> 00:17:35,200 get gas and go, do, go do something else. 286 00:17:35,200 --> 00:17:39,600 And we did like we went to Scud Hunt and then one of the eastern 287 00:17:39,600 --> 00:17:42,280 Iraq areas. So lots of fun. 288 00:17:42,880 --> 00:17:46,120 But I didn't know that they didn't. 289 00:17:46,120 --> 00:17:47,880 Nobody, you know, pulls you aside. 290 00:17:47,880 --> 00:17:50,760 Hey, did you know what happened to that today or this sorting or 291 00:17:50,760 --> 00:17:52,560 that sorting? No, I didn't back then. 292 00:17:52,560 --> 00:17:54,680 I didn't know. They didn't tell us that stuff. 293 00:17:54,680 --> 00:17:57,440 You just go out and pull your sorting and, you know, get 294 00:17:57,440 --> 00:17:58,520 another one. Keep going. 295 00:17:59,520 --> 00:18:03,280 That's what we were doing. But that was, yeah, my heart 296 00:18:03,280 --> 00:18:05,720 goes out anytime there's a friendly fire, but especially 297 00:18:05,720 --> 00:18:07,800 that one. That was just not. 298 00:18:08,320 --> 00:18:11,920 I don't know what was going on. I can say to this day, I do not 299 00:18:11,920 --> 00:18:16,560 know what group the pilot that was that fired that vessels 300 00:18:16,560 --> 00:18:18,560 from. We were never told. 301 00:18:19,480 --> 00:18:23,160 Nobody ever said, hey, don't bother this guy or that guy or 302 00:18:23,160 --> 00:18:27,080 don't talk about this or that. It was just silence. 303 00:18:28,240 --> 00:18:33,400 And that's the, I guess that's part of the the conflict, but 304 00:18:34,280 --> 00:18:36,760 it's, it's sad, it's not a good thing. 305 00:18:38,120 --> 00:18:41,440 Papi, you, you've mentioned a couple of different mission 306 00:18:41,440 --> 00:18:42,960 types then. So you've, you've got this 307 00:18:42,960 --> 00:18:46,800 interdiction role you then you're then supporting the 308 00:18:46,800 --> 00:18:50,400 ground forces as they push the Iraqis back up north. 309 00:18:50,920 --> 00:18:53,120 You mentioned scud hunting. It sounds like you're doing 310 00:18:53,120 --> 00:18:55,600 destruction of enemy air defences that the striking. 311 00:18:55,600 --> 00:18:56,880 Oh yeah. Anything. 312 00:18:57,040 --> 00:18:59,880 Yes. It's, it's, it's a very wide 313 00:18:59,880 --> 00:19:03,160 range of things to be doing. Then were were you, you talked 314 00:19:03,160 --> 00:19:07,920 about training all the time when you were back in Louisiana. 315 00:19:07,920 --> 00:19:12,320 I mean, were you, were you training against all those types 316 00:19:12,320 --> 00:19:13,880 of missions? Were the things you were being 317 00:19:13,880 --> 00:19:15,400 asked to do in the desert then different? 318 00:19:15,400 --> 00:19:18,200 Was scud hunting somehow different from doing anything 319 00:19:18,200 --> 00:19:19,080 else? What? 320 00:19:21,280 --> 00:19:26,160 No, we never even thought of scud hunting. 321 00:19:26,520 --> 00:19:32,160 We never even thought of of even dreamt in our wildest dreams of 322 00:19:32,640 --> 00:19:37,680 attacking an SA-6 or an SA2 or a fixed or a mobile launcher. 323 00:19:38,000 --> 00:19:41,360 You know, other than whatever pops up in, in the battle area, 324 00:19:41,840 --> 00:19:44,840 we didn't do any of those missions, didn't train for any 325 00:19:44,840 --> 00:19:47,640 of them. As far as direct now indirectly, 326 00:19:47,640 --> 00:19:50,720 yes. You know, we, we took an 8 ship 327 00:19:50,720 --> 00:19:55,280 once against 24 ships against the Republican Guards. 328 00:19:55,520 --> 00:19:58,400 We wanted to smack them. We didn't want to. 329 00:19:58,400 --> 00:20:00,080 We were told we wanted to. So we did. 330 00:20:02,840 --> 00:20:09,440 We go in, I think we went in for no kidding, for we were in the 331 00:20:10,120 --> 00:20:16,280 line basically a breast, not a breast. 4 hogs spread out. 332 00:20:16,680 --> 00:20:19,520 They go in, everybody locks up, fires, everybody peels back. 333 00:20:19,520 --> 00:20:24,800 Second round comes back, do do it again first, first round guys 334 00:20:24,800 --> 00:20:26,120 come back in with a second missile. 335 00:20:26,680 --> 00:20:30,040 We we plugged them pretty good and it was not our we would 336 00:20:30,040 --> 00:20:33,080 never have done that, not never. But it was been rare to have 337 00:20:33,080 --> 00:20:37,240 done that because in in Eastern or in Western Europe, no, you're 338 00:20:37,720 --> 00:20:39,000 not going to do that. You're going to live. 339 00:20:40,320 --> 00:20:41,760 So yeah, we didn't do any of that. 340 00:20:41,760 --> 00:20:47,040 That's what was weird, a high threat war, radar guided threats 341 00:20:47,400 --> 00:20:50,320 in a low threat. I mean a low threat war in a 342 00:20:50,320 --> 00:20:53,360 high threat environment. That's not the place you want to 343 00:20:53,360 --> 00:20:57,440 be. And I think that when Bush too 344 00:20:57,440 --> 00:21:02,800 decided to go back in and know three, I guess it was to finish 345 00:21:02,800 --> 00:21:05,760 the job, so to speak. That didn't last long. 346 00:21:05,920 --> 00:21:10,040 But they probably faced a little bit different. 347 00:21:10,040 --> 00:21:13,760 You know, we, we tried to blow up as much as we could, but he 348 00:21:13,760 --> 00:21:18,520 was able to, to restore a lot of his weapons and whatnot. 349 00:21:18,720 --> 00:21:21,280 So it made it tougher. But yeah, as far as us being 350 00:21:21,280 --> 00:21:22,520 ready for that, Oh, goodness, no. 351 00:21:24,120 --> 00:21:25,640 Are you crazy? You're going to go out and kill 352 00:21:25,640 --> 00:21:27,560 an SA-10. You got a death wish. 353 00:21:29,600 --> 00:21:33,240 Now, having said that, again, like I said earlier, if 354 00:21:33,240 --> 00:21:39,200 something popped up, you know, an SA9SA8, whatever SA 13 pops 355 00:21:39,200 --> 00:21:43,200 up and and we know it's something's around we entail, 356 00:21:43,560 --> 00:21:44,840 we're going to shoot it and kill it. 357 00:21:44,920 --> 00:21:48,160 Sure, but planning on doing that as a primary mission. 358 00:21:48,200 --> 00:21:51,920 Oh goodness, no, that's all we had to go in and kind of brief 359 00:21:51,920 --> 00:21:54,880 that up tactically. We did talk about tactics a lot 360 00:21:54,920 --> 00:21:58,480 before the war, just what we would thought we would do and 361 00:21:58,480 --> 00:22:00,960 not everything we thought we would do ended up happening. 362 00:22:01,280 --> 00:22:04,360 So we had to adapt and that was part of the mission. 363 00:22:04,360 --> 00:22:10,160 I mean you took off no thought what you're going to do before 364 00:22:10,160 --> 00:22:17,000 the war started in January, early January, I took off with a 365 00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:20,840 2 ship and we're going to go out and just round about, you know, 366 00:22:21,840 --> 00:22:27,480 screw around basically Saudi Arabia, try to find some targets 367 00:22:27,480 --> 00:22:29,640 and do some stuff and do some maverick work. 368 00:22:29,640 --> 00:22:36,320 That kind of stuff I get, I call ready and get to check in and 369 00:22:36,320 --> 00:22:39,360 get OPS on the back radio. But hey, give me a call. 370 00:22:40,480 --> 00:22:44,760 Yeah, boss, what you want? Hey, you got a new target ready 371 00:22:44,760 --> 00:22:47,880 to copy, Roger. Yep. 372 00:22:47,960 --> 00:22:48,760 Copy it down. Yep. 373 00:22:48,760 --> 00:22:50,240 Yep. West of a hardball. 374 00:22:50,240 --> 00:22:52,000 Yes, yes. Of the hospital to the east. 375 00:22:52,000 --> 00:22:54,640 Yes, yes. Whatever the case may be, find 376 00:22:54,640 --> 00:22:57,400 this this point and contact this fact while you're there. 377 00:22:57,400 --> 00:22:59,480 This isn't peacetime. This is before the war started. 378 00:22:59,480 --> 00:23:04,240 A couple weeks before the war started, roughly an F16 to crash 379 00:23:04,240 --> 00:23:07,000 the night before, and they were trying to find the crash site. 380 00:23:07,920 --> 00:23:12,200 So they were going to use us as their eyeballs because they 381 00:23:12,200 --> 00:23:14,640 didn't have the bill to get a helicopter or whatever. 382 00:23:15,760 --> 00:23:17,280 We go up there and get a hold of the fact. 383 00:23:17,320 --> 00:23:19,200 Yeah, he said. You see the there's an army 384 00:23:19,200 --> 00:23:22,440 hospital and tents just on the one side of the hardball. 385 00:23:22,680 --> 00:23:25,760 On the other side of the hardball there was a disturbed 386 00:23:25,760 --> 00:23:28,920 piece of sand that had a greenish colour to it. 387 00:23:30,200 --> 00:23:33,720 It looked just like someone had lost a missile and he had gone 388 00:23:33,720 --> 00:23:35,680 straight into the ground and then exploded. 389 00:23:35,680 --> 00:23:38,880 And then he just left with a little dimple there and, and the 390 00:23:38,880 --> 00:23:41,360 dirt and it was multi coloured or one colour. 391 00:23:41,360 --> 00:23:44,160 It was like a Chrome coloured green. 392 00:23:45,440 --> 00:23:50,280 And I go, hey, till you see that he goes, yeah, unless I'm going 393 00:23:50,280 --> 00:23:52,040 to roll in dry, just see what we got. 394 00:23:52,240 --> 00:23:54,440 And I roll in and yeah, I tell the fact. 395 00:23:54,440 --> 00:23:58,880 I said till you're cleared. I come back around back, Yeah, 396 00:23:58,880 --> 00:24:00,520 here's your here's your right across the road. 397 00:24:00,520 --> 00:24:02,000 There's your crash site right there. 398 00:24:02,720 --> 00:24:04,320 He said yeah. Do you see any kind of a 399 00:24:04,640 --> 00:24:09,920 direction I go maybe a little bit from one this one angle, but 400 00:24:09,920 --> 00:24:12,720 not much. It was a fairly high angle 401 00:24:12,720 --> 00:24:16,880 impact right in the ground. Apparently the the poor guy had 402 00:24:16,880 --> 00:24:20,440 gotten, but he just got there in country the month or two prior 403 00:24:21,120 --> 00:24:25,000 and he'd gotten a fauna night sortie like a low level and he 404 00:24:25,000 --> 00:24:27,960 got this disoriented off the lights off the canopy or 405 00:24:27,960 --> 00:24:30,600 something, which happens in the hog too. 406 00:24:30,600 --> 00:24:34,240 And it's not you know what I mean, But it was sad that that 407 00:24:34,280 --> 00:24:36,560 that was your job to go out and find the crash site. 408 00:24:36,560 --> 00:24:39,640 That too late. That's really interesting. 409 00:24:39,720 --> 00:24:42,400 I think that's, I think it was General Wolf. 410 00:24:42,440 --> 00:24:44,240 He was the Air Force chief of staff. 411 00:24:44,240 --> 00:24:48,040 He I saw a presentation he gave to the Academy when he became 412 00:24:48,040 --> 00:24:49,880 chief of staff and he talks about that. 413 00:24:49,880 --> 00:24:53,280 He said it was his friend and he said he he died relaxed because 414 00:24:53,280 --> 00:24:56,200 he thought he was flying an after banner up to the stars. 415 00:24:56,880 --> 00:24:59,800 Actually he was flying an after banner and he just spits right 416 00:24:59,800 --> 00:25:02,840 in and never. It shows you the, it shows you 417 00:25:02,960 --> 00:25:08,120 the, the it's a different world at night with with that 418 00:25:08,120 --> 00:25:09,720 environment. That's what makes it different.