A-10s over Kosovo (illustrations removed)

Just as I was about to roll in, I heard, “SAM launch, SAM launch” over the UHF radio. Looking east towards Pristina Airfield, I saw a volley of two SAMs followed immediately by two more. I was amazed at the amount of white, billowy smoke they produced and the rapid speed at which they flew in our direction. All four SAMs were guiding towards us. I began evasive maneuvers and called the SAM launch out on the very high frequency (VHF) radio that all four A-10s were using to work the target-area handoff. All four A-10s began a SAM defense ballet, the likes of which I have never seen and hope to never see again. The sky was full of chaff, and the world’s greatest attack pilots were maneuvering their Hogs like their lives depended on it—and they did! A SAM, the second launched, malfunctioned and detonated in spectacular fashion about 2,000 feet above the ground. From my now-inverted cockpit, I could feel the concussion of the warhead detonating in a blaze of orange fire. The other three SAMs continued on course in an attempt to thwart our attack against the troops massed in the forest below us.

All but one of the SAMs failed to guide—and that one chose Scud as its soon-to-be victim. Wouldn’t you know it would pick Scud, who was the least-seasoned pilot in our four-ship—a formation that had over 3,500 hours of combined Hog experience. Meegs did an excellent job of defeating the threat, maintaining situational awareness on his wingman, and calling out the final evasive maneuvers that prevented the SAM from impacting Scud’s jet and ruining our day. All four SAMs were defeated, and the Serb troops in the forest below awaited the wrath of the Panthers. The Serbs failed to take a lesson from Desert Storm. In that campaign, the Iraqis quickly learned that if they shot at an A-10 they had better kill it because if it survives, it is going to shoot back with a vengeance.

Corn and I were out of gas, so we departed the area with our hearts in our throats and left the counterattack to Meegs. He dropped four Mk-82 airburst bombs on the troop concentration in the trees and eliminated those forces from the rest of the campaign. (I can make that statement with a high degree of certainty. One year later I received an Air Medal for my participation in that sortie. Afterwards a member of the audience approached me, introducing himself as the UAV operator with whom we had worked during that mission. He had personally witnessed Meegs’s Mk-82 attack, vouched for the devastation it created, and was pleased to finally meet one of the mission’s pilots.)

After getting fuel from the tanker, Corn and I proceeded back into the KEZ to look for more targets in the northern region of the country. We had received numerous intel reports about troops and targets in this region, but we had not achieved much success in finding them. We flew approximately 15 miles northwest of Pristina Airfield and began searching for targets. I found one area of interest that appeared to have mobile AAA and possibly some other military vehicles in a small valley. I was just starting to talk Corn’s eyes onto the area to get his opinion when I saw two SAM launches from just north of Pristina Airfield. I thought, “Here we go again.” I called out the SAM launch to Corn and directed his break turn to defeat the attack. As I dumped out as much chaff as I could muster and made the appropriate break turn, I looked back to see that Corn had turned in the wrong direction. He was heading straight towards the SAMs, increasing their probability of intercept. Realizing that he did not see the SAMs, I directed him to “take it down! Break right now and roll out west! Chaff! Chaff! Chaff!” As the second SAM guided in Corn’s direction, I continued to monitor his progress and update his maneuvers while attempting to talk his eyes onto the threat. I was certain the SAM was going to hit him, and I was just about to call out a last ditch maneuver when it began to drift aft to pass about 1,000 feet behind him.