MiG closing on your rear to the SAM trying to hit you in the face. But there you were better-rested than here, and when you got down from your mission, you were through for the day. You could go to the bar and get mindlessly drunk and fall asleep, until the next morning’s briefing started you on another day of boredom punctuated by an hour or so of sheer-ass terror. In this war, there is little boredom and almost no terror, except maybe the fear of screwing up and getting someone killed.
Meanwhile, it is important for me to sit and listen when the troops talk at me about what they are doing and what is important to them. Moreover, their energy is contagious, their intelligence brilliant. It’s exciting to listen to them when they come up to Crigger or Volmer with suggestions about making this or that mission more effective or making up for the bad weather over target XYZ by going to target ABC. (Colonel Al Volmer was one of the four colonels who ran the war from the TACC.) Crigger or Volmer listen to what they have to say, then tell them how to implement their brainchild without screwing up the bigger picture.
People visiting the TACC stop by, and we chat. Later, the BCE team chief and some of his people gather around the table behind my chair and they talk about the ground war, which is bound to unfold soon. Joe Bob Phillips has come in early, and I give him a task to solve, usually about finding Scuds or avoiding friendly casualties.
It’s hard to describe the tension, boredom, highs and lows that occurred in that room. When CNN went off the air on the first night, we were sky-high. The tension of anticipating everything that could have gone wrong that night was erased. But then there were the moments when someone was shot down, and we watched the futile efforts to pick up the survivor. There were also the long hours of routine, coffee breath, and sand in the eyes. I often pressed a can of cold Diet Coke into my eyes to make the swelling go down. Sometimes the pain and irritation would make me tear up so much that I couldn’t read reports or pay attention to the unfolding battle. There was also the anxious excitement when “Scud ALERT” was screamed out, especially during the first few days of missile attack, before we became overconfident that they wouldn’t hit us. Blind trust. There was the preparation, about 2100 or 2200 each night, when we tried to anticipate what was going to happen that evening — usually Scuds or Al-Khafji type things. There were good times, stopping by the coffeepots to tell war stories about the good old days. There were times when you wanted to cry, as when Lieutenant Colonel Donnie Holland was shot down at Basra and there were no beacons, meaning that in all likelihood he was dead. Holland had been my executive officer when I was the two-star planner at headquarters Tactical Air Command. When he wanted to get into the F-15E, I arranged it; and he was a first-rate weapons system officer. That night he was flying with a flight surgeon who was dual- rated as a pilot, and they flew into the ground. Though we gave the Iraqis credit for shooting them down, Donnie was in the rear cockpit because the doctor’s work in the hospital kept him from getting as much flying time as the other pilots. So Holland, the old head WSO, was crewed with the doctor/pilot who was low on flying time.
There was lots of shared joy and shared pain, often with people who’d been strangers until we came together for the war. There was lots of serious talk and some joking around, especially with the guys who were old Ninth Air Force friends or other longtime acquaintances like John Corder. It really was a living organism; it reacted to stimuli — pain, joy, and loneliness. Too often, we in the military draw our little boxes that explain how we are organized, who commands whom, who stands where on the command food chain. That’s all fine and rational and necessary, but in reality, while we try to create these hierarchies with the power to command others to go out and risk their lives in battle, we are actually a team of fallible humans who do our best to find the best course of action. But then people have to put on G suits and try. If they succeed, we all bask in the glory. If they fail, we try to learn why and perhaps have another collective go at it again. If they are wounded, captured, or killed, then the guy in the G suit suddenly gets the whole enchilada, and those of us who are ancillary to that event are left with feelings of pain and sorrow, and a somewhat guilty sense of relief that it wasn’t us who paid that price. Fortunately, I had been shot at and had taken pretty extreme risks, which gave me a fairly good understanding of the folks who strapped on the jets and headed for danger. In my view, anyone who sends others off, perhaps to die, needs that kind of understanding. As much as this thing we call command and control is about modern computers, communications, planning tools, and satellite photography, it is also about people wandering around in partial ignorance, trying to do good by doing evil, and feeling — sometimes all at once — joy-pain-fear-uncertainty-fatigue- love-and-grief.
? 1600 I have appointments with the press — first with a newspaper writer, and then with TV people. The newswoman meets me in a trailer in the parking lot out back; the air conditioner hum keeps out the noise of planes and people. As she takes out her tape recorder, I sneak a peek at her legs. It’s been over six months, and I am no priest. She asks me about how the war is going, what is the matter with BDA, and when the ground war will start. I want to answer “Good,” “Nothing,” and “You have me confused with somebody who gives a shit”; but instead I try to be as open as I can.
My PA, Major Oscar Seara, is with me. At 1645, he steers the lady to the gate and me to the Airlift TACC tent, closer to the building. Here the camera and mikes are set up, and I meet ABC’s Sam Donaldson (or someone of that ilk). This is a love-in. The war is going well, and they need about three minutes with me on camera so they can give their audience an orgasm. The lady reporter had asked some difficult questions because she had done her homework and wanted to write an insightful piece. How can you get real information from two-minute TV slices? On the other hand, the TV reporter is real good at stroking people’s egos, and I like having mine stroked in front of millions of people.
? 1730 I finally get out of there and reenter the RSAF headquarters at the door near the mosque. The turnout is better than it had been this morning. The wail of the prayers and the sun dropping low in the horizon put me in an oriental mood, so I guess it’s time to drop in on Behery. I visit him at his office because this honors him, it’s a nicer place than mine, and his staff will serve
Anytime we are together, I do my best to pick his brain about today’s problems and crises. I want to know his thoughts about how things are going and what we ought to do. But he is operating on a very different plane. He wants to give me instruction about his land, his culture, his religion, and his people. His words are often about the tenth century, and I am thinking in the twentieth. And yet this is not wasted time.
Even though our backgrounds are vastly different, we have a real and very deep friendship. It’s hard to find words to describe it. In many ways, I guess, I look up to him much like an older brother. He is always courteous, always thoughtful, yet sometimes he is wary of Americans, especially of our willingness to move mountains no matter who lives in their shadow. He is thoughtful, where I am anxious to get going. He weighs risks, where I look for opportunities. He thinks about consequences, where I don’t often give a damn.
I can tell you this. With Westerners, I have friends — good friends — people I like to sit and talk with, people I like to fly with and drink with; but they are just that, friends. When an Arab allows you to be his friend, your heart leaps against your breastbone and you feel a rush of joy. This is not corny; it’s true. I guess we in the West give our friendship so freely that it has little value. An Arab gives his friendship so warily that once you are accepted, you realize how deeply you have to appreciate it. I am poor at describing this, but good at feeling it.
? 1800 I’m back in my office, boning up for the coming staff meetings, shift change, and the follies at MODA with Schwarzkopf. After that I read the “Read File” (even though George Gitchell and Tom Olsen have taken care of all the routine stuff that I would normally have to bother with in peacetime). I also read the Army and Navy messages, so I know what they are thinking and are worried about. I can read very quickly; I go through a three-inch-thick folder in twenty minutes.
Then it’s time to write Mary Jo, which I do in about ten minutes. Not much I can tell her, except how much I truly miss her and that I will be a much better husband when I come home (this will last about a month).
By 1855, I’m finished with the paperwork and have had some private time to sit and think. Do not discount the value of calm private reflection as you prepare for a frenzied evening of meetings and Iraqi tricks.
? 1900 I’m back in the TACC and all are assembled for the changeover meeting. We start on time. (It’s important to start meetings promptly. That way, people will make every effort to be on time; and anyhow, it’s the polite thing to do.)
Except that the briefers are different, this changeover is not much different from the one in the morning. This time, the Intel people discuss the Iraqi transportation system and which bridges we should strike. The BCE briefs the Army situation. Not much there except for complaints from a corps commander that we are not hitting his
