the damaged Hog as much as I could and finally put the nose down at around 120 knots. Because my speed brakes were inoperative, I relied only on my wheel brakes to slow me down. I waited until 100 knots to touch the brakes and was relieved to come to a full stop with 2,000 feet of runway to spare. Now that I had reached
Several NATO countries used the Skopje airfield. First, a group of Dutch soldiers came up to see how I was doing. Next, a French officer who managed the airfield showed up. They didn’t have any emergency personnel or vehicles, so I ended up having to go back to the jet to “safe up” the remaining munitions and pin the gear. Quarter-sized holes peppered the Hog’s right flaps and the tail fins of one of my AIM-9 air-to-air missiles. I got back in the cockpit and rode the brakes as they towed my jet off the runway.
Thankfully, a group of US soldiers from Task Force Able Sentry soon arrived in a couple of humvees. Up to this point I had not seen any civilians or press. The last thing I wanted was my jet on CNN or on the front page of newspapers. I tried unsuccessfully to have the A-10 put out of view in a nearby hangar. The soldiers provided security for the jet, put a tarp over my right engine, and drove me a couple of miles to their headquarters. I called my squadron at Gioia and gave a mission report, which included an update on the condition of the jet.
My biggest concern at this point was getting back to the squadron. When I asked about the next flight leaving Skopje, I was told there wouldn’t be one for at least a couple of days. The US soldiers treated me great and took me over to the chow hall. I found myself famished as I sat down next to a big-screen TV. After a while, I realized everyone in the chow hall was watching the TV intently with big smiles. I looked to the TV to see three Army POWs—captured the month before while performing a routine border patrol—being released to Rev. Jesse Jackson in Belgrade. I was eating with members of their company.
When I got back to the headquarters, I found out an Army C-12 was being diverted to Ramstein AB, Germany, to take the ex-POWs’ commanders to see their soldiers. They offered me a seat, and I gladly accepted. I thought that it would be a lot easier to get back to Gioia del Colle from Ramstein, where cargo aircraft were constantly departing for Italy. I also didn’t want to spend anymore time in Macedonia than I had to, and, more importantly, Ramstein was only a one-and-one-half-hour drive from my home base at Spangdahlem. The five-hour C-12 flight from Skopje to Ramstein felt even longer than my previous flight over Kosovo as I reflew the mission over and over in my head. When I landed at Ramstein, I rushed to base operations and called the squadron at Gioia. My commander, Lt Col Kimos Haave, informed me that a C-130 departing at 0100 that night would bring me directly to Gioia—I then called my wife Bonnie. It was 8 P.M., and she had just gotten home from church. I told her to put the kids in the van and meet me at the Ramstein Passenger Terminal as soon as she could. At base operations, I was greeted by a group of three Air Force Materiel Command officers who needed to know the extent of the damage to the jet. I briefed them as best I could before heading to the passenger terminal.
When my family arrived at Ramstein, I got to hold my sleeping two-year-old daughter and watch my six- year-old boy play with the toys in the family lounge. I hadn’t seen them for over 80 days. My jaw and teeth still ached from the violent impact of the missile, but I didn’t want to worry them and didn’t know what I could tell them. So I told Bonnie I had had some engine trouble and landed in Skopje, which she accepted as routine. The Lord had heard me over Kosovo, and 14 hours after I had been hit, I had my children in my arms. I held my wife’s hand and talked to her for two hours until the C-130 was ready. She talked excitedly about the rescue of the downed F-16 pilot that day and the release of the POWs, completely unaware of how narrowly I had escaped both fates. Before my C-130 departed, I kissed my wife and sleepy kids and sent them home, not knowing when I’d see them again.
I entered the squadron at Gioia del Colle 24 hours after I had stepped to fly and wanted to get back into the air as soon as possible. The next day, some 48 hours after being hit, I was back in the cockpit. This time I didn’t strafe but dropped CBUs. That, however, is another story.
Last Day to Fly—Last Chance to Die
It was 9 June 1999, a standard (beautiful) day in Italy and forecasted to be gorgeous in Kosovo. Many of us knew the end was near because we were told Milosevic was going to accept NATO’s demands and today would be the last “offensive” day of the air campaign. I was excited because I was flying with Maj James “Jimbo” MacCauley, one of the two pilots from Moody to join us at Gioia del Colle. It was always interesting to fly with folks from another squadron to see if their tactics, or thoughts on the way things should be done, were any different from those of my own squadron mates. He had also flown during Operation Desert Storm and was one of the more experienced pilots with us.
The day, as usual, started off with signing off numerous battle staff directives (BSD) that most pilots dreaded reading because most did not apply to us. It was just one more thing we had to squish in while we were half-asleep before the flight briefing at “o’ dark 30.” Finally we finished our daily planning routine and started our flight briefing.
Jimbo briefed relatively standard tactics, the same ones we studied and practiced every day; it was good to know that Hog guys from different bases practiced the same stuff our squadron did. I noticed he did do a good job emphasizing the basic communications and lookout duties that he expected of a wingman. Such information sometimes gets left out when flying with many of the same guys, and it is important to have it stressed from time to time. I also thought in the back of my mind, as Jimbo probably did, that this was not the day to become complacent—even with all the talk of things winding down.
We eventually stepped, took off, hit the tanker, and entered the AOR uneventfully. We started looking at the areas of interest that intelligence had briefed us about. There was very little activity, and we found nothing where intel told us to look. Capt Christopher “Junior” Short and Col Al Thompson were the prior AFACs on station, and they were looking at an area in southern Kosovo, 10 miles southwest of Prizren. They thought they had found some APCs or tanks but had to hit the tanker, so they gave us a quick talk-on and left the area.
Jimbo made a couple passes with the binoculars but could not quite make out what was there. He also did a Maverick search but could not tell for sure if the potential targets were live vehicles, decoys, or “tactical bushes.” He saw a horseshoe formation around a dirt berm, so he elected to drop his Mk-82s on them to see if we could get some secondaries or movement from them. He rippled his four Mk-82s on the eastern side of the formation. We did not see any secondaries, but the targets did not seem to be decoys because they stayed relatively intact. After climbing back to altitude and joining the briefed formation, he instructed me to drop my Mk-82s on the western side of the formation.
As I rolled in to begin my dive delivery, I saw a flash and smoke trailing a missile quickly climbing towards the spot where I had last seen Jimbo. I immediately broke off my delivery, called out the missile launch, and directed him to expend flares. Shortly after I spit out all the required radio calls, the missile passed behind Jimbo along his flight path. I made sure I knew exactly where the launch came from because I was pissed that they had tried to kill us. There was still a significant amount of smoke in the area from where the missile had launched, and a thick smoke trail lingered in the air—we figured it was not just a MANPADS. We departed the launch-site area and broke line of sight. Meanwhile Jimbo briefed me on a suppressor-bomber attack. I was ready to roll right in and made sure Jimbo knew that. I was excited when I executed the attack, and as soon as I rolled out on “final” I realized that I had not considered the winds. “Final” is the airspace flown through during the few seconds after rolling out of the diving turn and just prior to weapons release. It is where pilots would normally refine their dive angle, airspeed, and ground track so that when they depress the pickle button, they will have the correct sight
