A-10s over Kosovo (illustrations removed)

I gave the lead to Joe Bro since I couldn’t talk on the UHF radio. I slid back to a position about three miles behind his jet and let him work for a while. Magic’s crew members were in over their heads on this one. It seemed that they had no idea how many jets were out here, and they could not provide us any help in locating our tanker. This was going to be sporty since the A-10 has no radar. Fortunately our tanker, Franc 74, was awesome and held in a sucker hole for us. I was running really low on gas. I saw the tanker first and called his position to Joe Bro. The tanker was below me going in the opposite direction, so I executed a descending turn and joined on the boom. Joe Bro finally spotted the tanker and informed me that some jet was already on the tanker. That jet, I told him, was mine. He then joined on the tanker.

I salute the bravery of that night’s tanker crews. Unarmed and unafraid they brought us fuel well within the range of Serb MiGs. We completed the refueling without a hitch. Joe Bro’s refueling door worked fine, and within 20 minutes we were on our way. Unfortunately, things were not going so well for Buster.

Buster had finished his coordination and had everyone ready for the pickup. Meegs had Moccasin in position and everything looked good except for one thing. The survivor, Vega 31, had not checked in on the radio, and it was now nearly 10 minutes after the time we expected him to reestablish contact. Moonbeam then relayed a message from our intelligence folks that the Serbs were claiming to have picked him up—not exactly the news we wanted to hear. It was time to start worrying. This was by far the low point on the emotional roller coaster that I had been riding all night. We sat in silence for what felt like an eternity and listened. Every minute or so Buster called for Vega—no response.

This couldn’t happen. We had worked too hard to lose him now. For over six months, we had trained over Bosnia, developing and refining our skills at CSAR in preparation for this moment. There was no way we are going to leave Vega to the Serbs.

Just when I couldn’t take it anymore, Buster made another call, “Vega Three-One, Sandy Three-Zero.”

In response was the weak but extremely calm reply, “Sandy Three-Zero, this is Vega Three-One.” The roller coaster was on its way back up.

Buster’s next concern was the possibility that Vega 31 had been captured and the Serbs were now luring us into an ambush. Buster asked Vega another question from Vega’s ISOPREP card, and there was a pause.

“If you do not authenticate, we’ll have to wait a little while.” Buster was trying to give Vega 31 the option of calling off the pickup. If Vega came back with the wrong answer, we would know the Serbs had him. Vega, however, quickly answered the question and told us it still looked good for the pickup.

“All players, all players, execute, execute, execute.” This was the call we had been waiting for Buster to make all night. It was time to move the helos forward and get on with the pickup. Buster prepared Vega for exactly what he was to do when the helos approached.

“Sandy, Vega Three-One, you want me to stay up?”

“Affirm, affirm,” Buster replied. Vega was a bit confused about what was going on. He wanted to know if he should continue monitoring his radio or not. I considered this a good sign. If Vega didn’t have an idea of when we were planning the pickup, the Serbs should also have trouble figuring it out.

Buster then called us: “Sandy Five-One and Five-Two, I want you to come in and anchor 10 miles southwest of objective and provide mutual support until Sandy Three-Zero, Three-One bingo.”

“Copy, en route to 10 miles southwest objective now,” I answered. Joe Bro and I were holding on the border, and Buster wanted us to move forward and hold southwest of Vega. Buster and Slobee were running low on gas and would soon have to go searching for another tanker.

“With your eyeball out and your raw up. Confirm your raw is up,” I transmitted to Joe Bro.

He replied, “That is affirmative. Raw is up, chaff flare and pod is on.” Before we entered Serbia we double-checked our jet’s self-protection equipment. The radar warning receiver (RWR, pronounced raw), chaff, flares, and the ECM pod are the systems we would use to defeat any SAMs the Serbs might launch.

“Sandy Three-Zero, SAM reported active BRA, north 10.” Magic was reporting that a nearby SAM was trying to track Buster and Slobee.

“Five-One, Four-One and Four-Two are in trail on you. We’re about 700 pounds above bingo before tanker.” Meegs and Scrape, Sandy 41 flight, had joined in behind Joe Bro and me and were following us into the heart of Serbia. They had enough gas to hang around for another 15 minutes.

“Five-One, Three-Zero; we’re going to have to bug out for gas. The signal is standard; confirm you have the information to give that signal.” Buster was flying on fumes and had to return to the tanker. He was making sure that I had all the info to get Vega to signal the helos at the right time.