“Sandy, this is Moccasin. Go ahead, sir.”
“OK. Like a two-mile out call.”
“Moccasin copies, two miles out.”
“Two, One. I want you to check in Vega. Make sure he is still there.” Now that we had coordinated with the helos, I realized that we hadn’t heard from Vega in quite a while. I wanted to make sure nothing had happened to him.
“Vega, Sandy Five-Two.”
“Sandy Five-Two, Vega Three-One.”
“OK, got you loud and clear. Stand by for my number.” Everything was going great. Maybe this wouldn’t be that hard after all. Before I could even crack a smile, Moccasin broke in.
“Climb! Climb! Climb!” Moccasin was flying low-level at night across unfamiliar enemy territory. Electrical lines suddenly appeared and one of the helos had directed they climb immediately to avoid them.
Joe Bro broke in, “I’ve got a weird looking smoke trail to the west.” I looked to the west and saw it as well. Having never seen anything like that before, I assumed it was a SAM the Serbs had snuck in to the west of us.
“Copy, we might have to fight our way out.” Even as I was saying these words, the smoke trail continued overhead and into Belgrade. We had seen our first night HARM shot from the F-16CJs. Whew, that made me feel much better.
“OK, Two is spike—Mud SAM 150.” Joe Bro informed me that his RWR showed him being tracked by a SAM.
“One, same, … Five-One defending SAM south.” The SAM was tracking me now. I passed the information to Magic on victor. I hoped he would pass it to the F-16CJs on a separate frequency.
Now we were in the hornets’ nest. We had made it to Vega’s position on the outskirts of Belgrade. The Serbs had been waiting for us to come in with the helos, and now our RWR showed that their SAMs were lighting us up. What was worse, the thunderstorm building over Belgrade was just south of our position. We would not be able to see any SAMs launched from that direction until they broke out of that weather and were right on top of us.
“SAM active BAT 320/32.” Magic informed us that another SAM was active. It was just northeast of our position.
“Sandy Five-One defending SAM east, 280/14 bull.” I was being tracked by the northeast SAM. I put out chaff, checked to see that my pod was working, and turned to put the new threat on my beam.
“SAM BAT 195/25 now reported as active.” The Serbs were turning on their whole SAM belt for us.
“Sandy Five-Two is defending SAM north.”
“Sandy Five-One is Magnum SAM north.” Magnum was the call the F-16CJs used when they fired a HARM. I remembered hearing that, during the first three nights of the war, the Serbs had shut down their SAMs when they heard Magnum. I didn’t have any HARMs on board, but that didn’t prevent me from making the radio call.
“One is naked.” I announced, to which Joe Bro added, “Two is naked.” Naked meant we were no longer being tracked. The SAMs had shut down almost instantaneously. We could then put our focus back on the helos. At least we knew that the Serbs were looking at us and, so far, they had not been able to see or track the helos at low altitude.
“Two, let’s start heading west,” I transmitted to Joe Bro; I wanted to get a little more distance between us and the SAMs.
“Sandy, Moccasin is two miles out.”
“Vega, Sandy Five-Two, three.” Joe Bro called for the signal. We waited in silence for Moccasin to call visual with Vega.
“Moccasin Six-Zero flight is overhead.” Moccasin had made it to Vega’s position but still couldn’t see him.
“Five-One, Four-One, recommend you get Vega up if he sees the Moccasins.” Meegs made a good suggestion: Since Moccasin couldn’t see Vega, maybe Vega could see the helicopters and could help out.
“Vega, Sandy Five-Two. Confirm you see the helos.”
“I believe so,” Vega replied.
“Give them a vector if you can,” Joe Bro added.
“It looks like they need to come a bit right… confirm they have a light on?” Vega questioned and then said to Moccasin, “Need to come south.”
“Copy, call when we’re overhead,” Moccasin answered.
“Five-One, we’ve got to depart. We’re westbound. Be advised CJs working, observed HARM shot.” Meegs and Scrape had finally bingoed. They had stayed much longer than I had expected, so I knew they must have been riding on fumes.
“Sandy, Sandy, Vega Three-One, do they have my strobe?” Vega was rightly concerned that the pickup was taking way too long.
“At this time we’re looking for his strobe, we’ve got two small lights on the ground, but no strobe.”
“Yeah, for Vega Three-One, that was a car; I thought it was you guys.” Vega misidentified the sound of a car nearby for that of the helicopters.
“Moccasin copies. Are you up strobe, sir?”
“That is affirmative,” Vega replied.
“Hold it up in the air. Point it at the helicopter if you can.”
“Roger, I’m not sure where you are now.”
The tension was thick enough to cut with a knife. The helos had been circling around Vega’s position for over five minutes now. Not only was this risky to the helos and Vega, but also we would have to call off the search due to low fuel if we didn’t find him soon.
“Stand by for Vega Three-One, I think my strobe is inop.”
“Copy, have we flown over you yet?” Moccasin asked.
“No, I think you are more north, northwest of me for a mile or two,” Vega replied.
Meegs had continued to monitor the radio during his departure and suggested to me that Vega use his pen- gun flare. It shoots a signal flare up a couple of hundred feet. It was designed to penetrate the jungle canopy of Vietnam. However, it was also an overt signal that the Serbs would be able to see.
“OK, we need you to get out a pen-gun flare.” Joe Bro passed on the suggestion.
“Vega, if we’re this close, make an overt signal and we’ll get you,” Moccasin added in agreement.
“How about a regular flare?” Vega said, when he came across an alternative while searching through his survival kit for his pen gun.
“Moccasin Six-Zero, sounds good… and we’re good vis on Vega Three-One,” Moccasin said seeing the flare as soon as Vega set it off.
“Vega and Moccasin, if you are tally each other, kill the flare.” Joe Bro wanted to make sure that the flare was put out as soon as possible.
“We are bingo, bingo, bingo. Kill the flare,” Moccasin then transmitted. The meaning of that radio call puzzled us until we later found out that in the special operations community “bingo” means that the side gunner’s machine gun has reached the aft stop. In our fixed-wing world, bingo means you are out of gas.
“Overhead, you visual me? For Vega Three-One, you got me?” Vega was concerned about the bingo call as well.
“And Vega give them a vector if you need to,” Joe Bro suggested.
“Yeah, they got me right just about overhead.”
The SAMs had been quiet for the last 10 minutes but suddenly came back up. Joe Bro called being tracked by one to the south. He put out chaff and beamed the threat.
“Sandy Five-One is Magnum that position.” I made the Magnum radio call again, hoping the Serb SAMs were listening and thinking I was shooting a HARM at them.
“Sandy Five-Two is naked,” Joe Bro called. It worked again—the SAMs shut down, expecting a HARM to be heading their way.
“Moccasin, say your status.” While reacting to the SAMs, we had lost track of the pickup.
“We are outbound at this time… about 20 miles from good-guy land.” That was the best radio call I had ever heard in my life. Vega was aboard the helos, and they were headed back to Bosnia.
“Sandy, you are being tracked with eyes by SAM,” Moonbeam transmitted, relaying some intel to us as we
