The “list,” as it was affectionately called, contained all the names of the individuals chosen to participate in this pop-up deployment. It was not surprising that every pilot in our squadron wanted to go. We all had visions of flying at low altitude over the entire European continent without any concerns except where we would be eating that night. I was told very early in the process that I was on the list, and I knew it would be a tough thing to relay to my wife. I imagined what her response would be. I could already hear her saying, “You’re going where? For how long? Why?” I know the list changed several times, but my name remained. I waited until I knew for sure that I was going to Germany before I broke the news to my wife. During that time, things in Kosovo had taken a bad turn. The Serbs were not going to comply with NATO’s demands, and now there would be an armed response.
Obviously, the Spang Hogs were not going to Kuwait with the current situation in eastern Europe, and their immediate priority was to support anything NATO needed. Well, the bombs started dropping on 24 March, and OAF started to take shape. We, the 74th FS, were now told that we would fly four jets over to Spangdahlem to be a “rear echelon” force. Our primary purpose would be to fly with the few pilots of the 81st who were not mission ready (MR) and upgrade them to combat status. This was not the most noble of missions when there was a war to be fought, but that is what we were ordered to do. Certainly they (whoever “they” may have been) would not let a group of fully trained, combat-ready Hog drivers sit around an empty squadron staring at each other across a mission-planning table, wondering what training profile they would fly the next day.
On Sunday, 11 April, the 74th pilots on the list were contacted and told to be ready to deploy to Germany within 48 hours. Our tasking was still a bit nebulous. We were now being told there was a distinct possibility we would be joining the Spang boys in Italy to take part in OAF. It was at this point I felt obligated to let my wife in on the news, and I searched for the right words to tell her.
My wife is always one to worry, so I kept the whole deployment possibility a secret until it became certain I was going. Looking back on it all, I wonder if I should have kept her informed as I received details of the trip to Europe. However, there was no sense getting her upset at the mere chance of going on this thing, and I would do it the same way if I had to do it again.
Of course my wife cried when I told her I was going, but she knew that this was exactly why I was in this business. We had a long night discussing all the potential scenarios, but she kept coming back to a promise she wanted me to make—to assure her I would come back alive without any differences in my personality or demeanor. Basically, she wanted what any normal woman would want from a husband going into combat.
On the morning of 12 April, all the guys who were going to Germany got together in our squadron briefing room and discussed the upcoming events. An air of controlled excitement ran through the entire bunch. No one really knew what was about to take place, but we were certain we were headed for a big adventure. Our group commander eventually came down to the squadron and filled us in on what he thought our role would be in OAF.
The information that our commander gave us could not have been more wrong. He told us that we would be the 74th EFS, flying only with our own squadron mates and in our own jets. He also told us we would be fragged on the ATO as the 74th EFS (not the 81st EFS) and warned us about being pushed around by our new combat leadership once we got in-theater. He was very keen on maintaining our identity as a separate combat unit, complete with our own maintenance and set of taskings. This was indeed a pipe dream, but we didn’t realize it at the time. We all nodded and blindly accepted his briefing as gospel.
On Tuesday, 13 April, the day had come for us to depart. I spent all day packing and avoided direct contact with my wife. I figured if I kept busy, I could keep my mind off the moment when I would have to say good-bye. It was very tense in my house. I had my game face on, my wife was on the verge of tears, and my two young daughters still weren’t sure what was going on. Around 2000 hours, my wife and kids drove me to our squadron, and the good-bye was certainly something I will never forget. The thought of never seeing my family again did cross my mind, but I quickly reassured myself it would never happen to me. I figured being a prisoner of war (POW) was the worst thing that could possibly happen, and that would be a long shot.
I finally made it to Gioia del Colle on 20 April, having stopped at the Azores and Spangdahlem en route. The flight down from Germany to Italy was truly spectacular with beautiful views of the Swiss Alps and the Italian coastline. It was hard to believe that just across the Adriatic a war was being fought and people were being killed. It was even harder to believe that I would be in the thick of it all in less than 48 hours—but that’s another story.
Showing Our Support
Maj Dawn M. Brotherton
I experienced OAF from a different viewpoint than that of the pilots—a support perspective. Support personnel, for example, range from the maintainer who fixes the jet, to the services person who finds places for people to eat and sleep, and to the communications personnel who ensure that pilots can talk to the ground or to a home unit.
When I stepped off the airplane, I was handed three hats. As the chief of personnel for the contingency operations team, it was my job to ensure accountability for all people deployed, to get more bodies when we needed them, and to assist folks with those parts of their professional military lives that extended beyond fighting the war—testing for rank, medals processing, performance reports, and so forth. As the executive officer, my job was to keep things organized and tied together so the group commander could concentrate on the big stuff—bombs on target and winning a war. As the protocol officer, I had to ensure that everything was ready for any high-ranking visitors who would pass through Gioia.
When I arrived at Gioia, about a week after the airplanes landed, I was amazed at the ingenuity of the people already in place. The Italians gave us two floors of an old dorm to use as office space. It was still full of beds, dressers, and nightstands. The members of the 40th EOG had stacked the mattresses in two rooms at the end of the hall, turned the bed frames on their sides, removed the closet doors from their hinges, and laid them across bed frames to form “desks.” In some cases the beds were left in one piece behind the desk to act as “chairs.” Nightstands were stacked two high and in rows to form a counter for the operations desk.
We all quickly adapted to our new office space, and the mission was unaffected. It was actually nice having everyone together in one location. At a home base, the support guys are rarely around when a jet lands, so they feel slightly removed from the mission. Not at Gioia! The pilots had to walk down the “support” hallway to drop off their flying gear, and the transportation, personnel, and civil engineering troops would come out into the hallway to ask how the flight went. Most of the time the pilots were more than willing to take the time to swap stories and play hero with the younger troops. It really built up camaraderie between the officers and enlisted folks.