Every Man a Tiger: The Gulf War Air Campaign

hide among the boulders.

As far as they could tell, the desert was peaceful. No Iraqi Army patrols were beating the bushes trying to capture them. What’s more, the hill provided a good line of sight to look for rescue aircraft and for radio. Here would be a good place to wait for rescue, they decided.

Most of the rest of the day was divided between attempts at sleep and radio calls for help. Two obsessions dominated their minds: Gee, I hope we get out of here. And I wonder when they are going to come and rescue us?

? Efforts in that direction were under way… but there was no rush.

Though other aircraft in the area had reported the shoot-down and (from “initial voice contact”) likely ejection of Eberly and Griffith, the CSAR cell in the TACC was stymied until they had received confirmation that the two airmen were alive and their exact location was known — the launch criteria the SOF commander had established for his rescue assets.

In point of fact, the SOF criteria were not always enforced. A day earlier, a Rafha-based MH-53 had conducted an unsuccessful search for a downed F-16 pilot in southern Iraq. And two days after the Griffith and Eberly shoot-down, Captain Trask and his MH-53 had joined in the search for Lieutenant Devon Jones without certain knowledge of the F-14 pilot’s location or condition.

So why did the search for the F-15E crew not start immediately? Possibly because their condition and location had not been determined, and possibly because the enemy defenses in this corner of Iraq were considered too severe to risk a rescue attempt. In all fairness, enemy defenses there were heavy. This part of Iraq was known as “Sam’s Town,” after a country-and-western casino in Las Vegas, so named because of the aggressive SAM sites in the area. Yet, when later in the war numerous Special Operations Scud-hunting teams were flown into western Iraq, non-SOF airmen concluded that the rescue assets they relied on were more interested in supporting Special Operations missions than saving their lives.

Whatever the reason, during the following days, three CSAR sorties were flown — to no avail. They went south of Griffith and Eberly. After that, the two men were on their own.

? After they’d settled in on top of the hill, Griffith used a piece of Eberly’s parachute to clean and bandage his pilot’s neck wound. Later, they could hear the seemingly endless thunder of bombs dropped by B-52s on a target far to the south. Eberly urgently tried to reach the big bombers with his radio, but to no avail. After nightfall, they managed to contact an F-15C fighter patrolling overhead, who disappeared to the south without recontacting them. This was standard procedure. Because of the Iraqi direction-finding trucks, lengthy conversations were avoided. Shortly thereafter, the F-15C pilot relayed their general location to AWACS on secure (encrypted) radio.

After that, it was another day of waiting. Yet they knew they couldn’t stay where they were much longer. Though they could survive for a while without food, they were running short of water, and would have to move before they became too dehydrated to travel. They considered several plans — like stealing an Iraqi car, or highjacking one at gunpoint, and driving into Syria — but none seemed really workable.

Later, they listened on their survival radio to the pickup of Devon Jones. This was exciting — and painful — to hear.

They kept asking themselves questions: “Is this place too hot for the rescue birds? Where are we going to find water? How long will it take to walk to Syria?” And the most dreaded of all: “Does anyone know we are here?”

Late in the afternoon of the second day, they ripped up the remainder of Eberly’s parachute and fashioned what might pass from a distance as Bedouin robes and headdresses. After sunset, they started walking toward Syria.

Soon, the lights of two towns appeared in the distance. From where they stood, they guessed that one was in Iraq and the other in Syria.

Meanwhile, though they tried to walk carefully in the inky darkness, they found themselves stumbling inside a circle of tents. They were in the middle of a Bedouin encampment, where maybe a dozen medium-size but very hostile dogs were doing their best to sound the alarm. For some reason, they failed to wake their Arab masters (no one appeared, or even called out), but they succeeded in thoroughly frightening Griffith and Eberly, both of whom grabbed their 9 mm side arms thinking they might somehow shoot one of the beasts quietly and scare off the others. Then it came to them that the dogs seemed all snarl and bark, and the two pilgrims wandered off into the safety of the night.

After walking for several hours, the pair were crossing one of the many dirt roads that paralleled the border, when a truck roared up out of the night. Eberly and Griffith dropped to the ground, but on the flat featureless surface of the desert, they were still exposed. As it neared them, the truck slowed, but the driver either did not see them or was alone and in no mood to be a hero for Saddam. The truck resumed its speed and drove off.

Shortly, Tom raised another F-15 combat air patrol aircraft on his radio. Easily convinced that they were the crew of Buick 04, the fighter, call sign Mobile 41, did not ask them to authenticate. He told them to wait while he flew south, but promised to be back shortly. He never returned. When it hit them that he wasn’t coming back, their frustrations rose to an all-time high and their spirits dropped to an all-time low.

About two in the morning, they made out the dim outline of a building ahead of them. It was not far away, and there were no lights. No one appeared to be around. When Eberly, now desperately in need of water, announced that he was going to see if he could find something to drink, Griffith cautioned against it. He’d remembered a survival training dictum about avoiding buildings. Besides, he explained, they must be close to Syria. In fact, maybe they were in Syria and just needed to go a little farther to be sure.

But Eberly’s thirst proved too desperate for such cautious considerations, and he approached the building.[63] Since Griffith didn’t want to risk separation in the dark, he followed close behind. Suddenly, gunfire erupted from the top of the building. Someone had obviously been on guard — and doing a good job at it. Then maybe ten other troops came rushing out of the building, all firing wildly in the air or else in the general direction of the two airmen. If they were trying to scare the two Americans, they did an excellent job.

Both raised their hands and shouted, “Don’t shoot! We are friends!”

Who knows? they thought. These guys might be Syrian.

That hope was dashed when they were hustled inside the building and into a small room with a prominent picture of Saddam Hussein on the wall. This was a bad moment for the two American airmen.

The room was packed. In addition to the Americans, there was a flock of seventeen-year-old Iraqi privates, commanded by an Iraqi second lieutenant who appeared to be perhaps twenty-one. Though the Iraqi troops were greatly aroused by their find, they made no move to harm their captives, who, by this time, had concluded they’d run into an Iraqi border patrol guard post about a mile short of their destination. (After the war, Tom Griffith learned that it was fortunate they hadn’t reached the border area. It had been mined.)

After a time, the Iraqis handcuffed the Americans, loaded them into a white Toyota pickup, and delivered them to a larger fort nearby, where they were met by a first lieutenant. Like the border troops, he and his soldiers showed no hatred and treated the two Americans in a civilized manner. Though they did their best to ask questions, they had little success, as the Iraqis spoke no English and the F-15 crew spoke no Arabic.

The Iraqis then delivered Griffith and Eberly to a larger office, where they were met by an Iraqi captain. Also present were a group of officers, one of whom spoke broken English. “I am a doctor,” he explained, then examined Eberly’s neck wound.

After conducting an inventory of the Americans’ survival equipment (it had been taken from them when they were captured) and writing down their names, the Iraqis made some halfhearted attempts at interrogation. Questions like “How far and how fast can your aircraft fly?” brought truthful but useless answers, like “Well, it depends.”

By 4:00 A.M., Griffith and Eberly had been fed and given water. Then they were handcuffed again and placed facedown on the back of a flatbed truck, which carried them to the outskirts of a nearby town. There they stopped at a modest house surrounded by a brick wall, the home of a general, their guards explained. An Iraqi captain and two guards led them past the general’s white 1975 Chevy Impala and inside. Soon the three Iraqis showed them into the general’s office, seated them on a sofa, then waited with them for the general. A few