"Can't say I've ever been here before, KEGI*."
"You can say that again, JJ, can't say I've ever seen a Hawk battery looking at me quite like this, either. I think maybe they like us!"
KEGI* Cole and I were in a steep 45 degree right turn now, rounding the sharp corner over the Straits of Hormuz behind the big KC-135 tanker.
We were looking at the Persian coastline right down there... where those Iranian surface-to-air missile batteries, supplied by the US way back in the 70s during the Shah's time, were apparently tracking us with their radar as we passed.
Underneath Shag's jet over on the far left wing of the tanker, we could see the brown coastline of Iran near Bandar Abbas.
"This makes me queasy down in the cockles of my heart, KEGI," I joked, referencing a Dennis Leary song we sang in the Rockets.
I was looking at my green screen on the right side of my cockpit, where my threat display was beeping indicators of all the fire control radars the Iranians had down there pointed up at us. Several of them.
"I can feel it maybe even in the sub-cockle area!" KEGI laughed, continuing the song. "Maybe in the Liver..."
It was good to laugh, because where we were was making the guys in the Embassy happy, but it was not making me happy.
I didn't love being here.
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| Delores' photo |
We had already checked out our refueling equipment after joining with the tanker to make sure we'd make it all the way to Afghanistan, and now we were making this ridiculous left-right-jink, turning 120 degrees now over the thin canal around the United Arab Emirates and Oman because of the diplomatic restrictions.
We had bombs on our jets so we were staying just over the water to honor the diplomats, maybe leaning a little right to favor the south & west. I think it made the tanker guys feel a little better. Certainly did me.
I was the Operations Officer of the 336th Fighter Squadron "Rocketeers," Shag was our Weapons Officer and Flight Lead on this mission; Wild and KEGI* were experienced Weapons Systems Officers in the squadron.
With Shag and Wild leading our formation in the other jet, we were lined up on each wing of this big tanker, which was rolled right also in his own steep bank. We were moving further away, thankfully, from our new friends with the Hawk radars on the coast. We headed out towards the Gulf of Oman and onward east out to the Arabian Sea.
Feeling well out to sea and watching the tanker drop the boom down as we continued east, I knew it was time for gas. The sun was setting behind us, but it was still light enough to be day ops. I figured we'd be able to easily see Delores in the boomer's window.
Shag and Wild topped off their jet and moved back to their side on the left wing of the tanker. I unrolled my American flag I carried in my G-Suit pocket on every flight and put it out like I always did on the glareshield for the Boomer.
KEGI and I then dropped down under to get our fuel, and sure enough, I could barely make out Delores smiling on the right side of the Boomer's window as we moved forward into position for our fill up.
I was watching the D-F-U-A director lights in those two long light bars under the KC-135, wiggling my fingers and toes in preparation, and quietly muttering the 'Don't F Up, A' mnemonic to myself to tell myself to follow the indicators. I referenced those two lines of moving "Down Forward Up Aft" lights to drive my jet in close and keep steady position under the tanker.
"GREEN APPLE. There she is- smile JJ!"
KEGI could see Delores taking pictures.
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| Delores' photo |
Delores was our flight doc in the Rocketeers. She deployed with us, took care of us, gave us Motrin when it hurt, gave us go pills for the long 9+ hour missions, and Ambien sleepers when we needed it. And all the other things a Flight Surgeon does.
She hung out with us, and she was one of the coolest people I knew. Brilliant and soft spoken, she fit into our fighter squadron easily with understated confidence and we all trusted her as a doc, which is a tough thing for aviators to do. She had earned it. We had named her "Delores" because her real name had reminded of a Seinfeld episode character with a funny name. "DELORES!"
On this trip, Delores had asked the tanker unit if she could ride along on the mission (she took care of them too), and it was great to see her up there in that window looking out at us.
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| Delores' Photo |
We finished the task up, and feeling good about gas, we stayed with the Tanker for the trip east over the water and up the corridor for one more top off just inside Afghanistan.
It was a long 3-hour drive to get to our tasking on the Pakistan Border of eastern Afghanistan and we moved out wide for an easy ride with the tanker. Three hours there. Three hours on station. Three hours home...a full day's work for a full day's pay.
By the time we finished the long 9-hour mission in the early morning hours, tomorrow would be the 1st day of February 2006.
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| Delores' photo |
"Hang a left at Pasni!"
KEGI kidded, as he was cycling through all the nav steer points loaded in our system to think ahead. We were still a long way from being feet-dry over Pasni, Pakistan, which was our first point northbound.
With the sun setting behind us, we were both in the process of getting our our Night Vision Goggles from our kits, and putting electrical tape over all the warning lights to keep them from inadvertently destroying our night vision with the goggles. It was better to just block them out with tape than have them flash and keep us from seeing.
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I kept station on the right wing of the tanker up the long drive north through Pakistan, and we hit the boom for one last sip of gas before saying farewell to our escort crew and Delores in the back.
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Camp Tillman, where we were headed, was on the far east side of Afghanistan, just on the Pak border in a mountainous area south of the 'Nixon's Nose' bump on the map, sort of where Nixon's lips might be.
FOB Tillman was a lonely outpost, vulnerable to the Taliban, and our mission was to help them deal with the enemy who had been shooting rockets at them every night into their base.
It was my first time flying to Afghanistan, and I was eager to fly this mission. Camp Tillman had been named for a talented young NFL football player who gave up his career to fight in the war after 911.
Now, a new group of talented young Americans were getting shelled there every night by insurgents who slipped in over the border, shot their rockets, then melted back east through the hills to safety.
The first thing I noticed about Afghanistan after flying up the corridor north through Pakistan was the dark. DARK. We hit the tanker once more and proceeded northeast on our own across Afghanistan, and what I couldn't believe at the time was how completely devoid of all light the country was.
Over water, we had the lights from the stars and sky reflecting.
Over Iraq, even in the dusty west towards Syria - we could see at least some distant roads and lights. Pakistan: not many lights but enough to see civilization here and there.
But over Afghanistan, in the southern portion, all I could see was darkness down there. Maybe just a few tiny spots of orange fire here and there where tribal people were burning evening fires. Otherwise, it was like a broad, dark, pit of nothing. I did not want to have to eject in this area.
What I did see clearly, however, was a perpetual stream of meteors and flashes up high in my Night Vision Goggles. I've always noticed (and enjoyed) how much more you can see in the sky when wearing NVGs at night. Over Afghanistan, flying in the high, thin air- the darkness below made the satellites, and the zillions of stars, and the brilliance of the meteors a continuous, dazzling display above. It was glorious.
I could also see the storms.
We were in the clear, but well ahead of us in the distance as we continued northeast towards Camp Tillman were a series of tall thunderstorms - a line of fierce weather flashing rhythmically over a deck of solid clouds that looked like it might be lower than us. In my giant StrikeEagle HUD, I could make out the details of the boomers in my NAVFLIR infrared system even better than in my NVGs. And as we pressed further east, the storms loomed larger and the flashes looked more intense.
It was going to be a sporty night.
KEGI opined: "You know JJ, only in Afghanistan, in the winter, with the rest of the country completely clear - in the exact spot where we need to work, will you find a thunderstorm, high mountains, and icing. Unbelievable."
KEGI was right. Of all places, right over the base we needed to protect - Winter thunderstorms and all that goes with it, in the dark mountains right over Camp Tillman.
"Well, the good news is that maybe the rocket-shooters will stay home tonight and leave those guys alone," I said, positively.
It wasn't to be. We'd spend the next three hours battling with clouds, ice, storms, and terrain working to make a difference for Camp Tillman.
"Toxic 21, Rumble 61."
Shag checked in on the radio with the JTAC controller assigned to help us with the tasking. We were holding west of the thick high clouds, west of the mountains on the Pak border which seemed to be helping disturb the weather. We could not see the ground, but the clouds decks were brightly illuminated by the stars high above.
Shag was holding us west of the line of storms and above the cloud deck up towards 20,000'. The storms seemed to be dissipating as they moved east into Pakistan, but the remaining thick cloud decks remained an obstacle.
Shag gave Toxic our loadout, our time available on station, and other details in our normal check-in routine. Then, "Rumble, Toxic 21, standby for a sit update."
"Toxic, send it"
"Rumble 21, our FOB has been hit every night for the last 10 days with mortar attacks. The enemy moves over the mountains from across the border and launches mortars in from the hills to our north and east, then moves quickly back across the border."
He gave us many more details...
"We've been tracking their transmissions and movement inbound from the normal routes. We expect to take shots anytime, over."
This wasn't good. He didn't have coordinates to hit and we couldn't see the ground with our sensors to find the bad guys. I looked down at my color moving map and could see Toxic's location in the camp, and we could clearly see the Afgan/Pak border to our east, but it was underneath a giant storm cloud that extended from the mountains up to a much higher altitude than us. We couldn't move east yet.
Shag set us up in a North / South rotating CAP, an oval of 10 miles or so, just as east as we could get. We used the map to align ourselves with the border, and deconflicted our altitudes to maneuver in the same area without fear of hitting one another. We could see each other on the Datalink screen as well.
At this point, it was all about the weather, and whatever Toxic 21 could give us to work with.
We could sense a feeling of fatigue in his voice. This was a person who was tired of the situation he was in, and he seemed to have an impending feeling of inevitability for the attack he expected at any minute.
We were all frustrated by the weather, because it was keeping us from seeing the enemy, but he seemed to be resigned to a feeling of certain attack.
"Rumble, we're seeing the weather down here as well, but it's not seeming to have an impact on the movers. We can still hear them on the radios with occasional chatter. We believe they are in the mountains due east now moving towards our position."
As we orbited for 40 minutes or so, staying offset to the west, we could see the larger cell moving off to the east. What was left was a series of lower broken cloud layers under us from roughly 16 thousand on down. As the larger system moved steadily east, we were finally able to shift our orbit east with it, now seeing the ground very occasionally.
Shag took us down below the highest deck, and we were able to see the ground more often - catching the high peaks with our NVG as they appeared for a second or two in the cloud breaks. At the same time, we were hearing increased concern from Toxic.
We continued supporting with the orbit, and we Yo-Yo'd one at a time over to a KC-10 tanker holding northwest for us. One jet refueling, the other staying on station overhead with Toxic. Tag-team refueling. This is the way we maintained our constant presence for three hours with Toxic, talking intermittently with updates.
While Shag and Wild were off station over at the tanker, KEGI and I saw the opportunity to get lower as the higher deck opened up a bit. There was going to be no way we could get down really low and see anything to target - the clouds were too thick, and the mountains extended well up into the lowest weather deck, but we could get a bit lower.
We felt a continual tease - an intermittent glimpse of the mountains out my canopy in the NVGs or in the NAVFLIR picture on my HUD. KEGI was working his targeting pod as hard as he could, but there was no way to really see anything other than a fleeting look at FOB Tillman, or those random peaks and valleys to the east. It was maddening. It felt like any minute we'd be able to see...
We had worked our way down over time, just above those peaks' highest altitude, staying above 10,000', in a thin layer of icy clouds, and our jet's 'Inlet-Ice' light started coming on because of the conditions. I flicked the Anti-Ice switch to deal with it, and we stayed right where we were in the ice because I thought we could finally help Toxic if we needed to if the weather opened up - even a little. The Eagle didn't have de-icing equipment, but we were able to direct hot bleed air from the engine into the inlet to keep the ice off the face of the compressor blades to help prevent a flame out. Nobody likes the Inlet-ice light but I figured we'd just deal with it. I watched the windscreen and wings with my NVGs for ice.
Minutes later, as Shag and Wild returned, Toxic became a whole lot more engaged. Based on increased radio chatter, his ground commander was expecting an imminent mortar attack. Again.
Shag coordinated with Toxic to do the only thing we could really do:
Make. Noise.
We began taking turns over Camp Tillman, alternately moving one engine up to mid or full afterburner with the speedbrake fully out, then slowing, then the other engine. As each of us orbited in our left hand 10 mile oval next to the Pakistan border, we broadcast the Sound of Freedom continually across the hills loud and clear for a good 10 minutes. I delayed my tanker trip to use the gas for this instead- hoping to make it good with a bit extra fuel off the boom later.
It had to be loud as heck reverberating down there. We were shaking the mountains.
In the cold dark air of the hills just a few thousand feet underneath where the enemy was, they definitely knew we were there. And they didn't know what we might be able to do.
I think most of western Pakistan knew we were there.
They quit.
Toxic came back to us fairly quickly with with some joyful winning comm:
His ground commander was happy and we could hear him talking in the background on the radio; They had just heard the insurgents cancelling and moving back east. No mortar shells tonight!
We could hear the relief in Toxic's voice.
As it happened, we were towards the end of our 3-hour window, and I was low on gas from the burner time we had given. Shag and Wild checked us out and thanked Toxic 21 for the work. We hit the tanker just west for a quick top-off, and climbed up high heading southwest past Kandahar, feeling pretty solid together about what had just happened at Camp Tillman.
It was a good day.
Cruising down southward as a two-ship through the Pakistan corridor, we joined up with another KC-135 tanker holding for us south of Pasni in the Arabian Sea.
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Then, flying as group of three heading west, and at about the seven-hour point in the mission with nearly two more to go, KEGI and I finally relaxed a bit on the left wing of the tanker. I reached down with my left hand to push the G-Suit button and inflate my suit bladders to get my heart activated and wake myself up for the drive. I popped open a can of fizzy Diet Coke for the caffeine.
And further west, with a little more time to look around, we were both stunned to look away from the tanker left and catch sight out the window of something neither of us had ever seen before:
The Southern Cross:
We both saw those stars at the same time, and we both had the same exact reaction.
It was just like the Crosby/Stills/Nash song.
That beautiful constellation was just hanging there for us out the left side of the jet like it was showing off, right above the horizon. It was dominant, it was bright, and it was unmistakable. It wasn't like other star groups where I can't really tell what they are. This one was clear, and there was not a doubt, it was The Southern Cross.
"Wish I had that song on my I-Pod JJ! How cool is That."
It was the first and last time I ever saw the Southern Cross and it was just as remarkable and memorable even now as I thought it would be if I ever saw it. KEGI* and I will always have that memory.
I spent a whole lot of time in that country later in this deployment and in the years that followed over two other deployments.
But this was my first trip to Afghanistan, and it meant a whole lot to me for us to make a difference in the mountains for Toxic that night.
