was still some light on the ground there.
We checked out an area about eight miles west of Vranje where I had found some targets several weeks before. Finding nothing there, we moved in closer to the city and spotted movement northwest of the city. I decided to investigate and could not believe what I saw once I arrived overhead. It was the largest gathering of nonrefugees I had seen during the war. On the darkening landscape I counted well over a dozen military vehicles, at least five of which were APCs, and 75 to 100 troops in three clusters. They were only about a mile out of town in a large field that had been chewed up by the vehicles. My first inclination while I circled overhead was to start bombing immediately. Then I saw some green vehicles parked in the area of the APCs that I could not positively identify as military. I did not want to make a mistake with a group this large. I needed help.
I knew there were some Navy F-14 AFACs working just west of us in Kosovo. Ten years ago, I would have laughed at the thought of the Navy using F-14 Tomcats as AFACs, but then—10 years ago—the A-10 was also headed for the boneyard. The Navy upgraded the F-14 when it was assigned the AFAC mission. The fighter had acquired a low-light-capable reconnaissance pod whose capability I now needed. I switched to the eastern-Kosovo working frequency, called the call sign fragged for that time slot, and got a quick response. They agreed to help when I asked if they had time to look at a target and learned that they were not having any luck finding targets where they were. I passed the target coordinates in a format they could use, and they were on the way.
None of our pilots had worked with the Navy F-14 AFACs before the war and were a bit leery of them the first few times they appeared in Kosovo. We soon discovered that while they did not have much experience with the AFAC mission, they weren’t bad. A few had yet to master the requisite skills, but most were doing fine—and some were quite good. I recognized the voice of one of their better AFACs in the jets headed our way. I deconflicted our flight paths, briefed him on the target below, and told him what I needed. The shadows now covered most of the valley floor. With this lighting I would normally head home—but this target was too good to pass up. From our orbit overhead, I was able to talk the Tomcat crew’s eyes onto the targets below. He confirmed that it looked like lots of troops and APCs but was also unsure of the few green vehicles. He decided to make a diving pass near the target to give their pod a closer look. I maneuvered my flight into a position to cover the F-14s as they made their run.
The Tomcats completed the pass and rather excitedly stated they had good pictures of the APCs and confirmed that the few green vehicles were also military. They said there appeared to be more troops in the gathering than first thought. We were running out of both daylight and fuel as I coordinated with the F-14 lead. My wingman and I would make three passes each and then leave the rest to them. He agreed, and they set up an orbit north of us. We made all of our attacks from the south because of some clouds that had entered the area. With the F-14 flight covering us, I reduced the usual attack spacing between my wingman and me. We coordinated our targets and each made two quick Maverick attacks on the APCs. On our third and final pass we each dropped our four 500 lb bombs, offsetting the impact points of our four-bomb sticks so we could cover as much of the area as possible. Anyone dumb enough not to have fled after our four Maverick attacks would not be pleased with the 500 pounders. They were set to explode 15 feet above the ground, and their blast and fragmentation kill mechanisms made them deadly weapons against troops and soft-skinned vehicles.
After our last pass we departed the area for home. The F-14 lead told us that, although our attacks had been right on target, there were still plenty left for his flight to attack. As we departed he was calling over the F/A-18 strikers he was supposed to work with so they could deliver even more ordnance to the area. It was too dark when we left for me to make a valid damage assessment, but I would come back in the next day or so. When I did I was amazed at what I saw. The Navy must have really worked that area over that night—it was a mess— pieces of military vehicles everywhere. I visited the area in the weeks that followed and could see where the Serbs had attempted to clean up the damage, but the ground still bore witness to the beating it had taken. I was puzzled: why, during combat, would anyone without air superiority gather so many troops together in daylight. In war, stupidity rarely fails to get its reward.
The Truck I Couldn’t Forget
I have several memories of my time in Kosovo. Most are good; some I would rather forget, but all of them are slowly losing their details with the passage of time. Still, one of my most vivid memories involves nothing more than a simple truck.
Maj John “Scratch” Regan, our 74th EFS commander, was on my wing. We had flown some rather effective sorties together during the preceding couple of days. On this particular occasion we had both dropped our bombs on some meager targets earlier in the mission. I say meager because we had direct hits with two tons of Mk-82s with limited secondaries. We were patrolling the western side of the province, just west of Dakovica (D-Town) when Scratch called over the FM radio that he saw a mover. Even during the waning period of OAF, we occasionally saw movers on the roads.
An interesting thing happened during the opening days of the conflict that had a direct impact on our ability to interdict movers. ABCCC had heard someone’s description of a convoy of assumed military vehicles that included a white car. ABCCC then said—in the clear over a nonsecure radio—that, in effect, we couldn’t hit any white vehicle. As a consequence, during the next few days it appeared that every can of white paint in Kosovo was used on any vehicle that could move.
It didn’t take Scratch long to talk my eyes onto the mover. It was immediately apparent that this target was different—big, green, and fast moving. More specifically, it was heading deeper into bad-guy land. I made one low pass behind the mover, and even before I grabbed my 15-power binos, I could tell it was a big truck. With the optics I could clearly see it was a green deuce-and-a-half truck with an open back end covered by a solid-brown object. I couldn’t quite make out what was in the back, but I figured it was just a dirty-brown tarp. I immediately brought the nose of my airplane back up to stay behind the truck and to gain back some altitude.
My next move is one that I will regret for quite a while—I called ABCCC for clearance to strike this target. There were rules about what we could and couldn’t attack, and, unfortunately, trucks weren’t approved. ABCCC’s initial reply was to “stand by.” So there I was, carving a lazy figure eight at about 14,000 feet behind this truck with Scratch slightly high and behind me. I was all set to roll in from behind, lock a Maverick onto this truck, and blow it to smithereens. A Maverick costs several times more than a truck, and it was certainly not the most cost-effective weapon choice in this situation. However, it would be most spectacular and have the highest kill probability—and the guy driving this truck deserved it.
I was appalled that someone would have the audacity to drive his truck at 80 miles per hour down an open highway in the middle of the day. At the time I was merely shocked; in retrospect I am almost disgusted. I now think about all of the FACs from an earlier time—the Mistys, the Nails, the Coveys. Those guys flying the Ho Chi Minh Trail in their F-100s, O-2s, and OV-10s just hoping to catch a glimpse of a truck through triple-canopy jungle. There I was watching—just watching—this Serb drive down the road like some teenager trying to see how fast his dad’s pickup will go.
While I waited several long minutes for approval, the truck made it into D-Town and began winding through some of the lesser streets (the ones without the rubble of destroyed homes). Simultaneously, a voice came over the strike frequency and asked if I could positively identify my target as “armor.” Laughingly, I again explained that it was a truck, a military truck, a deuce-and-a-half truck! Immediately, I was informed, “Do not, I repeat, do not strike that target.” This was followed 25 seconds later by another voice telling me not to engage the target. Reluctantly, I broke off the attack.
That was my last sortie of Allied Force. Scratch and I went on to find some other targets. I wound up earning a rather important medal for this particular excursion into combat and someday hope to show it to my grandson. I will, however, remember that truck more than anything else we did that day. Even now I often wonder what that driver is doing. Perhaps he told his buddies—at some cheap Belgrade bar—about the day he gave the finger to two A-10s in broad daylight, or how he thinks we were too scared to attack him. Perhaps he never even knew we were there. I knew that with one push of my right thumb, several hundred pounds of missile would have slammed into the top of that truck and cartwheeled it into a fiery heap. It’s that image—seen only in my imagination—that I will remember the best.
