"The liberation of Kuwait has begun"

[MKopack]

The 19th of January 1991, the third day of the war, was the day that changed everything. The day the war followed our aircraft back to our base, and the day it all became personal. I'll never forget that sick, 'punched-in-the-gut' feeling that I felt that day.

The Storm - Day Three
"Package Q" to Baghdad

January 19th, the third day of Desert Storm, began as a 'normal' day. My alarm went off in the tent at about 5am, then it was over to the shower tent for a cool shower, as our hot water heater had failed almost as soon as it was installed and the water, kept in a large rubber bladder, cooled quite a bit at night. Fortunately I wasn't driven from the shower this morning by another SCUD - it felt odd to carry your chem gear, mask and helmet down to the shower.

Back at the tent I put on the same woodland BDU's that I'd worn the day before. By this time most of us were down to only a few pairs of serviceable uniforms, and the laundry had a couple of days turnaround, so we didn't change too often. Uniforms took a beating on the flightline during the best of conditions, and the desert sand made it even worse. Supply hadn't been able to get us replacements, and although I'd picked up a pair from – believe it or not, an Army Navy Store in Doha – I still had several pair that were just worn out. Once I had the BDU's, on I kitted up with the rest of my daily wear gear, my web belt with canteen, first aid kit, gas mask, my Fairbairn Sykes SAS knife (good for slicing MRE's and whatever else may need 'opening') about 10 each of the Atropine and 2-Pam self-injectors, I took my P-tab (nerve agent pretreatment) put my helmet on, and headed out for the day. First stop was over at the chow hall to pick up a case of MRE's. Most of us would get a case every day or two, because we normally couldn't get back for lunch, and so we would have a good choice of menus and no one would get stuck with the disgusting omelet with ham. Those of us who didn't get MRE's would pick up a case of water for the day.

It wasn't a long walk from Tent City over to the hangar and the flightline, not more than a couple of hundred yards. We'd always stop by and talk to our Qatari friend who manned the flightline checkpoint. Carrying an exotic looking (to those of us that were used to our M-16's) FN rifle, when we asked if he had been given ammo, he tapped his shirt pocket and laughed "Yes, five rounds. I'm not allowed to load them unless someone actually shoots at me."

Over at the hangar we completed our shift change with the night shift decon team. They would always make sure that we were gassed up and ready to go, so I took my M-16 and ammo and walked over to the phase dock to see how everything was going. Rumors were going around that there was a big mission today and as soon as the pilots were stepping from Ops we heard it, the "Target for Today: Baghdad". There was almost a sense of excitement in the air. While Baghdad was a long way away, and amongst the most heavily defended targets anywhere, our guys were going to take the fight right to the heart of the enemy. Once again we stood in front of the hangar as our pilots taxied away, and the ground seemed to shake as each aircraft lifted off.

We were busy back at the Phase dock where we were preparing to open back up for business. The Colonel told us that there were two options for the unit as far as inspections went. We could overfly the phases until the end of the conflict, at which time all of the aircraft would be grounded until inspections were completed, or we could do combat phases as we went along. Several guys asked what a 'combat phase' in fact was, unfortunately no one knew. So a group of us sat down and laid out exactly what we wanted a 'combat phase' to be. "How fast a turnaround do you think we can get on an inspection? We really can't afford to have any jets down." It was difficult to say without actually attempting one, "How long do we have?" "At our current flying rate we'll go through our 150 flying hours roughly every 24 days." Twenty-four days, twenty-four aircraft. We had to find a way to complete a normally 3 ½ - 4 day inspection in a day...

Soon it was time to take a break from the planning and head out to EOR to prepare for our decon inspections on the returning aircraft. We loaded up 'Decon 1' and headed out down the ramp and across the hard-packed sand to the end of the runway. I put my chem suit on, keeping an eye to the sky looking for the jets, listening to the brick to hear if the MOC had an ETA, but the net was quiet, probably more quiet than normal thinking back. Soon the first aircraft appeared, with no overhead break, they were coming straight in. I counted each aircraft as I'd gotten into the habit of always doing and was several into my count when I noticed something odd "What's that under the wings?" it took another couple of aircraft before someone answered, "They've all blown their wingtanks, that's the mounts..."

From that moment I had a bad feeling about it and as I continued to count the last aircraft touched down "They're not all here. There are two missing." The bad feeling had gotten worse. I'd hoped that two had needed to stop in Saudi or Bahrain for fuel, but inside somehow I knew that it wasn't the case. As we waited for the aircraft to backtaxi to our position, they cut back across the runway, skipping our inspection, and were headed straight back to the ramp. "Everybody in the truck, let's go. Now."

I had the decon deuce-and-a-half flying on the way back to the ramp and we arrived just as engines were shutting down where we heard the news that the two were down over Iraq. A lot of unrecorded records were set in the next few minutes as the aircraft were ICT (combat turned with simultaneous rearm and refuel)(the QA guys were told to stay in the hangar because they didn't want to see what was going on) just in case our guys could get back up there to help in the search. In the end, because of the distance and the fact that more capable aircraft were already tasked and overhead they didn't go.

Still pretty much in shock, four or five of us walked up to our Wing Commander, Col. 'Jed' Nelson, as he walked out of debrief and although I'm sure that he had a hundred more important things to do, he patiently explained what had happened. Mike 'Mr.' Roberts, whose son would be born in the next few weeks, went down over Baghdad and was feared lost and Jeff 'Tico' Tice was down in the desert between Baghdad and the Saudi border.

Within an hour we'd seen the HUD tapes taken during the mission. Mr. took a SAM amidships, his aircraft, 87-0228, just exploded. It didn't look as though anyone could have survived, but Col. Nelson said that he thought he'd seen the canopy come off as the wreckage descended, the first step of the ejection process, so there was at least a sliver, if only a sliver, of hope. Tico's aircraft, 87-0257, took a proximity hit and was sprayed with shrapnel. He struggled with the dying aircraft as far as it could take him, roughly halfway back to the Saudi border, when he was forced to make a controlled ejection. We felt pretty confident that if he could get hunkered down until dark there was a good chance that we'd get him back. We watched as 'ET' Tullia dodged at least 5 SAM's guiding on his aircraft with no operational chaff/flare, in the best example of defensive flying that I have ever seen.

While growing up, my heroes weren't baseball players or sports stars; they were people with names like Luke, Bader, Malan, Stanford-Tuck, Gabreski, Zemke, Olds and Ritchie. I'd read about losses and sacrifice, but now I felt like I'd been kicked in the gut. It was a long walk back to Tent City that night. I sat in the chow hall, just looking at my dinner, while at the table across from me sat Bill Hinchey, the crew chief who had been awaiting Tico's return, sitting alone. I felt as bad as he looked, and knowing Bill, I know that he felt much worse.

I hardly remember walking back to the tent. When I walked in, there was a loud card game going on at the table, everyone happy and carrying on. I wasn't in the mood, "Hey, have you guys heard that we lost two pilots today?" "Yeah, we heard, what can you do..." I crawled into my sleeping bag, rolled over and shut out the world. It was our roughest day in Qatar.

[MKopack]

The Storm - Day Two

The 18th of January was the second day of Desert Storm. In the morning and then again in the afternoon we'd launched our pilots and jets north, to Kuwait and Iraq and - and as a reporter said during the Falklands - I counted them all out, and I counted them all back. The Allies had lost several more aircraft today, but we were all relieved that the numbers of losses were much lower then the official projections, or those that we had discussed around the picnic table. Although the weather wasn't as good over the theater as we'd hoped, the Iraqis were still being pounded around the clock by US and our Allies airpower and whenever the Iraqi Air Force decided to launch a sortie, it was generally a 'one-way' trip, courtesy of our Saudi based F-15's. We all hoped that our guys would have their opportunity against the MiG's and Mirages as well.

Tent City seemed a little odd though, being apart from the 'action' on the flightline, there didn't seem to be much going on out of the ordinary - as if 'the war' didn't really effect many of those who didn't work on the aircraft and with the pilots. One change that there was in Tent City didn't last long though, the chow hall (I know that it's not the 'politically correct' modern name, but this is my damn story...) announced that the dining hours would be reduced and that there would be no more midnight meal, as they had been tasked with their secondary wartime roles. This didn't go over well with our Wing Commander. Apparently the chow hall and its services personnel double as the morgue during wartime. "My people are hungry, not dead," he said as he assured the SVS commander that there would be four full meals a day and "Any time of the day or night that one of my people is hungry, there WILL be something for them to eat, even if it's just an MRE." Anything for his people, I'd have followed him anywhere.

Once again we were in and out of our chem gear and masks quite often during the day and night. Several SCUD's had hit Israel for the first time, and we were concerned about them retaliating, quite possibly with nuclear weapons as a response to a major chemical attack. An Israeli response, especially one possibly involving nuclear weapons, had the potential to break up the Allied coalition and put us in a sticky situation with our host nations. I had dinner with a couple of the pilots one night as we discussed it and the fact the prevailing winds pretty much headed our way. "If they did something like that to us and we had to evacuate back to Spain, I know where we could jettison a lot of bombs on the way home..." Fortunately cooler heads prevailed and the Israelis stayed out.

The jets were flying well, so my main job was decon. We prepositioned ourselves over at the Qatari parachute shop, which gave us a good place to wait prior to our runs out to EOR. We usually went out an hour before the acft were due back, giving us time to get suited up and to have our equipment ready. Now that I knew what to expect when I checked the swab, the inspections went quickly. Spirits were high and things were going well. After just two days, the war had settled into a routine. President Bush asked the American public to not get too confident, that there was a long way to go, but perhaps this whole thing was going to turn our easier than we'd expected. Time would tell.

It seemed from our perspective that the only Iraqi target that hadn't been hit in the first 48 hours was CNN's Peter Arnett.

[Ryan K]

Fortunately I never had to "do" the gas chamber (it was down for maintenance on our scheduled time in Basic, and most AF bases don't have them...)

You zommies have everything easy. The gas chamber is great way to clean out the old snot locker. Use to go every other month. Some guys would change cammies afterwards, I found it was fun not to and catch your buddies off guard with a whiff or too. 

[MKopack]

Very interesting.

MOPP Level 4 in the desert is always fun. 

It's just below doing PT in the Gas Chamber. 

Fortunately I never had to "do" the gas chamber (it was down for maintenance on our scheduled time in Basic, and most AF bases don't have them...) and also fortunately, by Jan / Feb in Qatar the weather was actually beautiful with highs in the 70's and relatively low humidity. We'd have all melted in the summer, especially as Decon team members, not only were we in our masks and exposure suits, but we then wore duct tape sealed rain gear over the top.

Mike

[Ryan K]

Very interesting.

MOPP Level 4 in the desert is always fun. 

It's just below doing PT in the Gas Chamber. 

[MKopack]

Nineteen years ago tonight, President Bush told us "The liberation of Kuwait has begun" as I listened in my tent in Qatar. Within hours I'd be in my gas mask during our first SCUD alert and soon we'd be launching our aircraft heading north. Damn, nineteen years...

From "The Call", my Gulf War story (as far as I've written it...)
If you'd like to read more, I invite you to visit: http://www.lucky-devils.net/thecall.html

Mike Kopack

The Storm

Sirens blaring. It's dark in the tent. Almost automatically my hand reaches down under the right side of my cot and pulls out my gas mask. It's open, and over my head. Without even thinking, I cover the exhausts and blow hard to clear the mask. My palm is over the intake and inhale, there's no air as I can feel the mask collapse and seal around my face with the vacuum. By this time, someone has turned the lights on and as I am suiting up in my chemical gear I can see all of my tentmates doing the same – with one exception. Our 'Ninja' has lost it; he's running up and down the aisle in the center of the tent yelling:

"I don't know how to put my mask on!" "We're all going to die."

He's ignored for the moment as I finish suiting up. It's amazing how short a time it takes from a deep sleep, and over the next few weeks we'll all get even faster. Suited up now, several of us grab our panicked compatriot, hold him down and get him into his mask and as much of his suit as we can. I grab my helmet and radio and head for the door. Through the first tent flap and a quick left turn after the second, up the steps and jump into our sandbag shelter – where I immediately, and rather forcefully encounter whoever it was that had jumped in just before. I slid over into a corner, all the time hearing the sirens and the recorded message, which went something like this:

"Air raid, air raid. MOPP 4, MOPP 4. All personnel don protective equipment."

The commotion of suiting up in the tent gives way to silence in the bunker. The sirens have gone quiet and we're just left with our thoughts. 'What is going on? Did the Iraqi's slip a bomber through the air defenses?' I can't remember if the QEAF's Mirages scrambled that night, but even if they did it could be a difficult intercept. I pulled out my shortwave radio and slipped the ear-piece beneath the seal of my mask. Turning the unit on quickly brought news from the BBC in London that word had been received that a SCUD had been fired from Iraq that was headed towards the Saudi capital of Riyadh. It was a relief to know that even though Iraq was firing ballistic missiles, they weren't directly at us.

Twenty minutes later we were given the "All Clear" signal and we were able to remove our gear. It was then, sometime after four in the morning of the seventeenth of January 1991 (since there was no use in trying to go back to sleep) that through radio and television I learned that the war had in fact started and the aircraft from the first airstrikes were returning to their bases, all while I was asleep. The news was good, although there was no official confirmation, CNN reported that most, if not all of our aircraft were accounted for.

When we walked into the hangar that morning, it was a different place. The people, the aircraft and the tools were the same; but there was an entirely different 'feeling', a different attitude from the day before. It's difficult to describe the change, there was a feeling of 'seriousness', yet also excitement. We'd been in the desert for almost five months and were finally to start what we came here for. The previous night President Bush had said:

"The liberation of Kuwait has begun. In conjunction with the forces of our coalition partners, the United States has moved under the code name Operation Desert Storm."

All of our aircraft were to be flying missions, so we wouldn't be getting another inspection soon. My main 'mission' was now decontamination and crash recovery. I picked up the 'brick' (radio) and out behind the hangar checked out the Decon truck and our equipment, hoping that none of it would be used. We had quick meeting with our team, making sure that we all knew where to find each other if we were called. I then headed back to the hangar.

When our pilots started stepping to the jets, everyone came out to the flightline - and I mean everybody, Americans, Canadians, French and Qataris up and down the ramp in the hundreds, if not thousands. I didn't want to watch from the hangar, so I went out and was a fireguard for one of the launching acft (probably the only time I volunteered to fireguard...) Pride. Determination. It was kind of a weird moment, I guess we were watching history happening.

We'd already been in the desert for over five months, preparing and waiting (and waiting, and waiting...) and it was an incredible sight to be standing on the flightline watching each aircraft, loaded down with bombs to be dropped for a real purpose, thunder one-by-one down Doha's runway, climbing to the north.

Our F-16's had launched out several hours before, and were due back within the hour. We were suiting up in our chem gear, ready to inspect the acft on their return, hoping that we wouldn't find signs of chemical weapons residue. Everyone was quiet as we waited, wondering how the mission was going as we sat in the back of our truck 'Decon 1', listening to reports on the war from the BBC on my little shortwave radio...

The first day of the war had gone well by all accounts, the Allies had lost six aircraft, which considering the resistance and the heavy anti-aircraft defenses was less than most expected. The Iraqi's were taking a beating from all sides, both in Kuwait and in Iraq itself. Thousands of sorties had delivered thousands of tons of weapons on a wide range of targets. Things were looking good, although we all knew that we were only at the beginning of what had the potential to be a long hard fight.

For us in Doha with the Lucky Devils, our pilots and aircraft came back without a scratch from their first missions. I did have a nervous moment at Decon when our first aircraft came back - one of the guys 'swabbed' the wing and carried the 'stick' up to me. There was a blue-gray haze where it had been wiped across the wing, which was, theoretically at least, a possible positive indication. Could it be chemicals? Damn, it couldn't be. I'd just talked to the Ops guys and nothing at all had been reported anywhere in the theater. I swabbed the acft myself in all of the places where residue could/should hide. Everyone on the team looked at me - it was my call. After a moment I said, "No, it's clean. Send them home." I've second-guessed that decision a million times since then - although I swabbed an acft that didn't even fly that day and got the same result after we got back to the hangar. But what if I'd gotten it wrong...

It had been a long day, in and out of chem gear who knows how many times, for decon inspections and for the intermittent SCUD launches. In theory the SCUD's couldn't reach us in Qatar (according to Intel) but later we'd find that to be not quite true. Between the war at work, and watching the war on TV, I was tired, and tomorrow would come soon enough so I called it a day. Our first day at war. But before I crawled into my sleeping bag I placed my old steel helmet and gas mask just under the side of my cot where I could reach it the instant the sirens went off again. And again.

Over the next few weeks we'd have plenty of chances to practice suiting up in the middle of the night. Before I fell asleep I said a little prayer for the guys that we'd lost that day, and hoped that tomorrow would go as well.