The 18th of January was the second day of Desert Storm. In the morning and then again in the afternoon we'd launched our pilots and jets north, to Kuwait and Iraq and - and as a reporter said during the Falklands - I counted them all out, and I counted them all back. The Allies had lost several more aircraft today, but we were all relieved that the numbers of losses were much lower then the official projections, or those that we had discussed around the picnic table. Although the weather wasn't as good over the theater as we'd hoped, the Iraqis were still being pounded around the clock by US and our Allies airpower and whenever the Iraqi Air Force decided to launch a sortie, it was generally a 'one-way' trip, courtesy of our Saudi based F-15's. We all hoped that our guys would have their opportunity against the MiG's and Mirages as well.
Tent City seemed a little odd though, being apart from the 'action' on the flightline, there didn't seem to be much going on out of the ordinary - as if 'the war' didn't really effect many of those who didn't work on the aircraft and with the pilots. One change that there was in Tent City didn't last long though, the chow hall (I know that it's not the 'politically correct' modern name, but this is my damn story...) announced that the dining hours would be reduced and that there would be no more midnight meal, as they had been tasked with their secondary wartime roles. This didn't go over well with our Wing Commander. Apparently the chow hall and its services personnel double as the morgue during wartime. "My people are hungry, not dead," he said as he assured the SVS commander that there would be four full meals a day and "Any time of the day or night that one of my people is hungry, there WILL be something for them to eat, even if it's just an MRE." Anything for his people, I'd have followed him anywhere.
Once again we were in and out of our chem gear and masks quite often during the day and night. Several SCUD's had hit Israel for the first time, and we were concerned about them retaliating, quite possibly with nuclear weapons as a response to a major chemical attack. An Israeli response, especially one possibly involving nuclear weapons, had the potential to break up the Allied coalition and put us in a sticky situation with our host nations. I had dinner with a couple of the pilots one night as we discussed it and the fact the prevailing winds pretty much headed our way. "If they did something like that to us and we had to evacuate back to Spain, I know where we could jettison a lot of bombs on the way home..." Fortunately cooler heads prevailed and the Israelis stayed out.
The jets were flying well, so my main job was decon. We prepositioned ourselves over at the Qatari parachute shop, which gave us a good place to wait prior to our runs out to EOR. We usually went out an hour before the acft were due back, giving us time to get suited up and to have our equipment ready. Now that I knew what to expect when I checked the swab, the inspections went quickly. Spirits were high and things were going well. After just two days, the war had settled into a routine. President Bush asked the American public to not get too confident, that there was a long way to go, but perhaps this whole thing was going to turn our easier than we'd expected. Time would tell.
It seemed from our perspective that the only Iraqi target that hadn't been hit in the first 48 hours was CNN's Peter Arnett.
These are 'unedited' chapters that I'm posting as I write. Some day I'll work them all in together...
