A-10s over Kosovo (illustrations removed)

I had to think for a while about what I really wanted to say here. Many of my friends will write about what happened in Kosovo in 1999. I flew 36 combat missions over Serbia, so at first glance the task didn’t seem all that tough. I thought about writing about my first-ever combat sortie—we didn’t hit anything because we were recalled by the CAOC in what became an almost daily ritual of higher-headquarters mis-/micromanagement. I thought I would write about the time my flight lead Goldie Haun was hit by a SAM and barely made it back over the border. I briefly thought about my most effective sortie, in which Capt Nathan S. “Foghorn” Brauner and I destroyed 14 APCs and eight artillery pieces. To me it seemed like a routine sortie, but we were fortunate enough to get real results. Finally, I thought about the sortie that Lt Col Coke Koechle, my operations officer, let me lead for the first time. A fighter pilot’s first sortie in the lead is one that he or she will always remember, and in my case that sortie was in combat over the FRY. As I landed, I felt as if I had genuinely accomplished something.

All of these sorties were memorable, but they didn’t really define Kosovo for me. After thinking about it for a while, I finally figured out what I actually took away from Kosovo. Being on the front lines of this war has given me a new perspective and has caused me to view historical accounts through different eyes. From my perspective, Kosovo was weird—just plain weird. Some have written about the delayed stress of combat operations; others have discussed the guilt they feel after taking human life. As for me, I mostly felt, and still feel, that the whole experience was surreal. It didn’t seem possible that I was actually in the middle of this whole thing. All my life I had either watched or read accounts of historical events. In Kosovo the Panthers didn’t watch history in the making—we made it. We were key players in the first conflict in which the war was fought and won almost exclusively in the air. That I contributed to that victory is a great feeling, but every once in a while I think to myself, “What happened over there, anyway?”

If you get them away from the cameras, many pilots will say that, from a public-support point of view, Kosovo was similar to the Vietnam conflict. The older members of my squadron who had fought in Desert Storm told us of how the support from home had helped boost morale during the tougher times of the war. In Kosovo, we really didn’t get much support, and, to tell the truth, we did not even get the animosity I had read about during the Vietnam conflict. It seemed to me that most Americans didn’t know that the war was going on, at least at the level of intensity we faced. It becomes emotional when I am asked to risk my life for a just cause. To take such a risk when the cause is controversial is different. It is simply bizarre to do so for a cause my countrymen seem unaware of or indifferent to. Therefore, I often found myself wondering if this war was at all real.

During the first few weeks of the war, we fought out of Aviano. My squadron was housed in a hotel off base throughout the 1990s—ever since Bosnia-Herzegovina really heated up. When we entered the base from the hotel, there would be literally thousands of people outside the gates. We were sure there were Serbian intelligence gatherers in the crowds, and we were concerned about protests. However, it seemed that most of the crowd were made up of people who were little different from those encountered at an air show—teenagers who wanted to see jets launch in the early morning sunrise. I wanted to scream at them, “Do you realize what’s going on here?” It was really strange.

We were directed to relocate to Gioia del Colle AB, soon after the war started and Aviano began to get crowded. Gioia was in southern Italy, much closer to Kosovo, which meant an increased sortie rate for us. It also meant we were housed like kings—our enlisted troops were in quarters near the beach, and the officers lived in a great hotel. We would get up around 0100, arrive at work about 0145, brief, launch, tank up, and enter Kosovo around 30 to 45 minutes after sunrise to get the best chance of identifying targets. Of course, that also gave the Serbs the best chance of seeing us—a concept I was to fully understand after my third sortie!

After 45 minutes of hunting, we would leave Kosovo and refuel in Macedonia, and then go back in. After this second vul period, we would head for home, making a total sortie duration of around four and one-half hours. We would land, debrief, eat, and get some sleep before the next day’s work. We fought exclusively as two-ships. On most sorties I flew as a wingman but was privileged to lead six.