A-10s over Kosovo (illustrations removed)

I will not soon forget my first opportunity to fly after the squadron moved to Gioia. It was 14 April 1999 and only my second sortie of the conflict. I was the flight lead, Lt Col Surgeon Dahl was my wingman, and our call sign was Cub 31. The first half of our AFAC sortie in the eastern half of the KEZ was uneventful. We were flying above a broken deck, which made our search difficult because it was hard to see targets around and through the clouds. After completing our first vul period, we went to the tanker; by the time we returned the weather had cleared significantly. I checked in with Maj Joe “Dice” Kopacz, the other AFAC on station, and learned he was busy dodging AAA. When he finally got a chance to talk, a couple of expletives were quickly followed by a recommendation not to come over to his area. He had found some targets along the Kumanovo Valley road and had, in his words, “stirred up a bees’ nest.” He suggested I give it a little time to cool down in case I wanted to come over and take a look. I took his recommendation to heart and continued to search for targets south of Urosevac.

Shortly after Dice departed, Moonbeam (ABCCC) transmitted that Bear 21, an F-16 AFAC in the western half of Kosovo, had found and was preparing to engage a large convoy of more than 100 vehicles. Bear 21 had requested that Moonbeam send any available fighters, and I was not about to miss an opportunity to engage some targets. I called Bear 21 and told him that my flight was holding in the eastern half of Kosovo and that we were available as strikers. Since I was fourth in his stack of fighters, I continued to look for targets on my side of the KEZ.

While waiting, I spotted a large truck on the road below me but couldn’t immediately confirm whether it was civilian or military. I used my binoculars to investigate, but I still couldn’t get a good look because he was moving down the road. I decided to try to stop the truck by firing a couple of rockets. I had previously observed rockets being fired on a range and knew they made a lot of noise but created a very small amount of frag or blast. I estimated the distance in front of the moving truck where I needed to aim so that the impact would occur far enough in front of him to get his attention but avoid hitting him with frags. I set up, flew the pass, and launched two rockets that bracketed his position. The truck immediately came to a stop, and I tried to get a closer look. It appeared to be a deuce-and-a-half military truck—but I wasn’t sure.

While I was trying to confirm the truck’s identity, I got another call from Moonbeam. Apparently someone at the CAOC had questioned the composition of the 100-vehicle convoy target being attacked in the western half of the KEZ. Moonbeam wanted an aircraft equipped with binoculars to check out the convoy to make sure it was a valid military target. I contacted Bear 21 to get the location of the convoy. I was not sure that I had sufficient fuel to fly all the way to his target, observe the convoy, and still make it to a tanker with the required reserves. I was required to have enough gas when I reached the tanker to be able to recover home in case the refueling was not uccessful.

\Photo: Fuel trucks destroyed by Capt Marty McDonough on 8 April 1999

I communicated my concern to Bear 21 on the common strike frequency. He pushed me to a different radio frequency, checked us in, and said he was sure that he was striking a good target and that he really just needed me to come on over and check it out. I figured it would take me at least 45 minutes to get to the tanker and back, during which time the attacks on this lucrative target would be halted. I had refueled many times before without any problems. I considered the consequences of having a malfunction today and decided that even if we had difficulties, we would still be able to land at a friendly airfield—just not at our home base. We would get refueled on the ground, and with a fast turnaround we could quickly be on our way home. We had Moonbeam confirm that tankers would be available and proceeded to Bear 21’s target.

The convoy, which had been heading to the southeast, was stopped near the town of Dakovica, on the main road to Prizren. At 20,000 feet and with my naked eyes, I could tell the target was not military—at least most of it wasn’t. It consisted of lots of colorful vehicles. I could see blues, reds, and a lot of bright silver from bumpers reflecting the sun. I let Arden know that I was going heads-down to use the binos. I could then see that a number of civilian cars and tractors had pulled over to the side of the road. I also noticed a couple of larger vehicles leaving the area to the west. One of them was a large charter bus with some colorful paint marks down both sides. There were one or two other west-moving vehicles whose identity I could not confirm before they entered the town of Dakovica and disappeared.