A-10s over Kosovo (illustrations removed)

My heart was pounding a mile a minute as I took off from Aviano AB. This base in northern Italy, located at the foot of the Dolomite Mountains, provided a spectacular view at night, particularly when I put on my NVGs. The weather was clear, with a big full moon overhead. Unfortunately, the weather did not remain clear for long. Twenty miles south of the field I entered very thick clouds as I continued my climb to altitude. Looking at my wing, I could see that I was picking up some light rime ice. Though not dangerous to flight, the ice was degrading my weapons as it covered the seekers on my Mavericks and AIM-9 air-to-air missiles. I continued my climb to flight level (FL) 290 to get above the clouds and start subliming the ice off my missiles.

Magic, the call sign used by the crew of the NAEW, gave me a vector to the air-refueling track. I sent Joe Bro over to a separate frequency to contact Moonbeam for an update. Moonbeam was the ABCCC EC-130 aircraft that also served as the airborne mission coordinator during CSARs. It had responsibility for coordinating with the CAOC and Magic to ensure the timely flow of all the resources the CSAR operation needed.

Except for the icing and the survivor being in the suburbs of Belgrade, things were going pretty well. However, I was in for a shock when I keyed the mike to transmit on my UHF (uniform) radio—it was dead. I desperately tried to reset it by switching it off and on. Nothing. This was not good since the UHF was my primary radio and the survivor had only a UHF radio. In frustration I beat on the radio trying to pound it into life. Nothing.

I was over Bosnia—cruising at 300 knots in silence. I turned my radio off, raised my eyes up to the stars above, and prayed, “Lord, I’ve never prayed to you like this before, but I need your help like I’ve never needed it before. There is a man on the ground out there who needs me, and I can’t help him if this radio won’t work. Lord, I need you to fix this radio, because I can’t do it by myself.” I gently turned the radio back on and heard the angelic voice of Magic, wanting to know why I hadn’t responded to his radio calls.

Under my breath I said, “Thank you, Lord,” and keyed the mike to respond. Once again the UHF radio went dead. The A-10 carried three radios: UHF, VHF-AM, and FM. The UHF and VHF radios have good range, but the FM was good for only a few miles and useful only between jets in the same flight. I called Joe Bro on our interflight Fox Mike: “Two, my UHF is dead. I need you to talk to Magic.” I left my UHF off for a couple of minutes and then turned it back on. I could hear Joe Bro talking to Magic. At least I could monitor UHF. This was going to be painful but workable. I could hear what was being said on the radio, but I had to call Joe Bro on Fox Mike and have him relay my calls on UHF. This just proved what the Rolling Stones said: “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you’ll get what you need.”

We continued to the tanker track located over the center of Bosnia. The A-10 was not designed for high-altitude flight. Loaded with munitions, we could not refuel above 20,000 feet. Fortunately the KC-135, Franc 74, was at FL 200. Descending out of FL 290, I picked up Franc going in and out of a broken cloud deck. We pulled in behind him just as he reentered the clouds. My refueling went without a hitch, but Joe Bro had trouble opening his air-refueling door. He had some icing around it and couldn’t get the handle to move. I still don’t know how he did it. We were flying at night, in the weather, and he was on the wing of that KC-135. While still flying the aircraft, Joe Bro unstrapped from his ejection seat to get better leverage on the handle and somehow forced the air-refueling door open.