A-10s over Kosovo (illustrations removed)

It took a few seconds to get my bearings below the cloud deck. I found the original position of the radar, worked my eyes from there to where the target should be, and visually acquired the radar site. I stabilized the Maverick on the radar site and tried to lock onto the van. The missile locked onto the cooled van and also on some cold background clutter that would, most likely, have caused a total miss. I attempted once more to lock just the cold van without any luck. I was now getting close enough to start breaking out the hot radar dish and components within the van. I quickly pulled the pinky switch on the left throttle to the aft position to cause the Maverick seeker to look for hot targets. For the third time in a matter of seconds, I couldn’t get the Maverick to lock onto the van. I then made an extremely superfluous comment, but one I felt had to get across the radio: “One’s going to guns.”

I pushed forward on the stick, nosed over slightly, and overlaid the gun symbology on the radar van. Suddenly I wasn’t flying an A-10 anymore. I was in a Jug or Spitfire, strafing steam locomotives in occupied France—that’s exactly what it felt like. I put my index finger on the trigger, and caught my breath slightly. In that one instant in time I thought to myself, “Oh my God, you’re about to long-range STRAFE a real live target!” I lined up my airplane to rip the now large van from one side to the other. All my training and long days of hard work had seemed to build to this one split second. The adrenaline, the ecstasy, the remorse, the fear, and the exaltation of everything in my life seemed encapsulated in the moment I pulled the trigger.

Now I’ve shot close to 100,000 rounds through the GAU-8 gun without any problem—except for this one particular time. The gun spun up, and the familiar rumbling of the aircraft accompanied it—but something was missing. A fraction of a second later I realized that no bullets were coming from the aircraft. This was accompanied shortly by a “gun unsafe” warning light in the cockpit. I pulled off target and, even with my finger off the trigger, the gun continued to rotate. My wingman and I yanked our jets hard to the left. We were low as hell and we both dropped flares like crazy. I then made one of the worst radio calls of my life: “One’s runaway gun.”

At that moment Dice, my then number-three man, descended below the weather. Seeing red streaks around my element’s aircraft, he called out that we were taking AAA. I then began to jink, while trying to “safe” my gun and talk Dice onto the target. Unfortunately, my erroneous “runaway gun” radio call had focused Dice’s concentration more on the nose of my aircraft and getting out of my way than looking for the target. At this point he radioed that it was only our flares and not AAA that he had seen. Needless to say, the attack had turned into a chocolate mess. All four aircraft were within spitting distance of the target, we were looking at each other, and nobody was clearing for any threats. I quickly gathered the four of us together and climbed above the weather.

My wingman was low, real low, on gas, so we climbed to the optimum altitude and slowed to the best airspeed to conserve our fuel and extend our range—we “skyhooked” back to Gioia. I left Dice as the on-scene commander because he had the best situational awareness from going below the weather and seeing where the target should be. Over the next 45 minutes, the remaining three two-ships (seven and eight had returned from the tanker) made three more attacks on the target. Two of them were prosecuted from a low-altitude run-in 100 feet above the water. Unfortunately, due to an inability to acquire the radar, they both were unsuccessful. During the climb out for their skyhook back to Gioia, Joe Bro was able to look through a break in the clouds to see where the van had been parked and noticed the dirt tracks it had left when it drove off.

\Photo: Explosive-ordnance-disposal personnel SSgt Mike Werner and A1C Joe Deslaurieurs preparing to “safe” a GAU-8 that jammed during a combat mission over Kosovo by using a C-4 explosive charge to “render safe” the stuck 30 mm rounds

When we got back, I told everyone about the sortie and the lack of results. “Flat Face mania” seemed to grip the squadron. Completely irrational, I had almost convinced Larry Card to hop in a jet, join on my wing, and go back with me to kill that radar right then and there. Everyone shared our disappointment.