My first exposure to Air Force combat scenario came during my deployment with the Lucky Devils to Aviano AB, Italy during February of 1990. I had still been completing phased inspection training (after having been assigned to the flightline at MacDill) when my assigned unit, the 613th TFS Squids, deployed to Incerlik AB, Turkey, in the fall of 89, so supervision sent me to Italy on the next rotation. While seeing Turkey would have been interesting, personally, having heard about each location, I think that things worked out for the best.
We deployed to Aviano, in ‘northeast’ Italy, north of Venice, for five weeks. During that time we held two four to five day exercises, each of which would start on a Monday morning and continue through Thursday or Friday (so as to not interrupt a weekend – this was the Air Force after all…) when we would practice our own little corner of a cold war turned hot – a battle in central Europe. We surmised that the Soviets and Warsaw Pact forces were flooding across the Fulda Gap and were pressing into West Germany, and we at Aviano, one of the few major bases on what would be the southern flank, were ideally located to fly interdiction missions into the enemy’s rear positions and vital supply routes.
In this scenario all of our aircraft had to be available at all times, there was no time for phased inspections or scheduled maintenance. This allowed most of us support personnel to shift to secondary or ‘wartime’ rolls.
For those of us in Phase these included, but were not in any way limited to (as we were to learn):
- Bomb buildup: If you drop bombs, someone has to build them. This primarily consisted of building and attaching tail and fin kits to our large assortment of ‘dumb’ bombs. Now that I think of it, I hope that the tails and fins were the largest part of the job and that our guys weren’t installing fuses… I never made it over to bomb buildup, and no, I didn’t mind.
- Fuel tank buildup: If our pilots had to fight into and out of a target area, one of the first things they’d do is to ‘punch tanks’ for better maneuverability. The tank crew made sure that there was a ready supply of new 370-gallon wing tanks.
- ABDR (aircraft battle damage repair): A cross section of maintenance specialties from structures to egress to electronics practiced at the art of making repairs ranging from relatively minor up to ‘she has to make just one last flight’.
- …and finally the roll that was selected for me – Aircraft Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Decontamination: In a desperate battle for central Europe it is possible, probably even likely, that weapons of mass destruction would be employed in attempt to gain an advantage – just as they had been seventy years earlier in the trenches of the Western Front during World War I.
NBC Aircraft Decon Training consisted of a one-day course held at Aviano. The first half of the day gave us a good background on the nature of the threat, particularly from chemical and nuclear weapons. We went over the history, the methods of employment, the detection, the types of agents we would likely face, their effects and the protective measures that would (might) be effective against them. When it comes to chemicals, lets just say that there is some really nasty ‘stuff’ out there that even in the tiniest amounts can kill you in the most horrible of ways. With nukes, we felt that if our aircraft came back contaminated we would probably stand a good chance of being able to clean them effectively. On the other hand, if our entire base ended up inside of a blast crater – which was always a real possibility, as the Soviets liked to think big – well…
The second part of the course consisted of cleaning and decontamination methods – how to neutralize and remove agents from the aircraft, basically, plenty of hot water and bleach based soap. There were two different types of aircraft decontamination washes:
- Whole aircraft washes: “Which we won’t be doing. The aircraft will only be on the ground long enough to refuel and rearm.”
- A limited wash, where only where access is required to immediately turn the aircraft for another mission – basically the cockpit area, the servicing panels, the weapons hardpoints, and then on to the next jet.
The next day we suited up, wearing our chemical gear ‘poopie suits’ over our BDU’s with double gloves and rubber booties – on top of which we layered an oversized set of heavy raingear. After those went our M-17 gas masks and then as a finishing touch, we were sealed into all of our gear with duct tape (with which, of course, you can repair anything.) With all of this usually wet, cold, ill fitting gear we waddled around, not being able to feel very much with our hands, bend our limbs very far, move very quickly, or see very much – all things that can be very important when in close proximity to a running aircraft.
Fortunately - for our own sakes - during the exercises, the Air Force provided us with a simulated bunker at the end of the runway (which was a small area roped off on the ground) where we used simulated water from a pump that wouldn’t run to simulate washing aircraft that never even taxied by…
Because these exercises simulated ‘the Big One’ with the battle in Europe, it was our Wing’s mission to keep the aircraft flying:
- Until we won,
- Until we were out of flyable aircraft,
- Or until we lost – or were ‘invaded’ or nuked (and it wouldn’t matter.)
We had a million questions:
- When the flying stops, even temporarily, when do we accomplish the ‘whole aircraft’ decons? Who does them? (What? The six of us? 24 aircraft?) In what location? With what equipment and supplies?
- What is this ‘soap’ and where do we get more when we run out? The same for water, and other supplies…
- We had been told to pool, or confine, the contaminated wash water so it too could be decontaminated – with what and by whom?
- How were we all roped into this train wreck?
Our instructors response to our questions was: “Don’t worry, this stuff is so important that if you ever have to do it for real, there will be someone there to tell you exactly what to do.”
By the end of our deployment, still never having decontaminated a real running aircraft, I was pretty confident that if we could simulate our way through a real war like we could these exercises, we’d be all right. But if we ever had to do the real thing, we were all in trouble.
Such was life in the “Four-oh-worst” Tac Fighter Wing. Scott, I can still hear you saying over and over “God, I hope we never have to go to war with this unit.”
Back in the Gulf at the beginning of each shift the phase guys would get together for a quick, informal, ‘Roll Call’ where we’d lay out what was going on for the day – if we had a jet, what it’s status was and who was going to do what tasks – if not where we’d be hiding (in case someone was looking) and how early we could go home. Once a week or so we would have a more formal ‘stand-up’ briefing with the EMS Commander, Capt. Beatty, and the members of our ‘Branch’ (Phase, Wheel and Tire Shop, and Transit Alert.) Many plans had already been put into place to make our unit ready for battle, so I wasn’t surprised when our commander announced that EMS had been tasked with organizing a decontamination team to cover the aircraft. Our branch chief asked who would organize the team.
“Sgt. Kopack. He’s been through all of the training.”
…damn…
Later the six or seven of us that made up the ‘day shift’ decon team got together:
“Ok, who remembers any of this from training?”
We, of course, had all the same questions that we’d had back at Aviano eight months before – but this time our instructor was a thousand miles away – well out of range for our questions… Our supervision wasn’t much help, they had thought that we were completely trained and ready to go. So we talked to the people that we were able to, including the vehicle & personnel decon guys in tent city and our counterparts in the QEAF, and we started to develop a plan.
Over the next several days we were told that our truck was ready to be picked up, so a group of us, being a slow day, walked over to the motor pool to see what we had. With a truck, you could ‘go places’, even if it was just out to the Qatari gate to pick up a delivered pizza.
“Hey, were the Decon Team, we’re supposed to pick up a truck?”
“Just a minute, I’ll have them bring it around.”
From behind the building lumbered this desert tan, dump-truck looking, deuce-and-a-half sized behemoth, which rolled to a stop before us.
“Ok, who’s in charge?” asked the driver as he jumped down from the idling truck. Everyone looked at me…
I climbed up into the seat, feeling like Captain Kirk on the Enterprise, with the Transportation Squadron Airman standing on the step next to me. He asked loudly over the idling engine “Have you ever driven a truck with air brakes before?”
After a quick scan of the dashboard I replied, “I don’t even know how to start this thing…”
(As a quick reminder, I should mention again that my ‘normal’ car back in the States was an MGB, and that all I regularly drove in Spain were borrowed Renault 5’s and Austin Mini’s and that I still didn’t have a military driver’s license… I know, just don’t hit anything…)
So after about 90 seconds of orientation we were off, a couple of us in the front and the rest hanging on up in the back, driving down the narrow roads of the base, at least mostly in one lane, trying not to ‘take out’ either oncoming cars, or roadside street signs.
Things smoothed out a lot for the driver (although probably not for the passengers) when we left the road and headed out across the (hopefully) hard packed sand towards the end of the runway. The Doha International Airport shares a 15,000 foot runway with the military airbase, and from the bases main ramp area it’s quite a drive going cross-country (although much shorter than taking the perimeter road/track).
When we arrived in one piece at EOR, we parked the truck in a spot away from the runway that we’d picked to do our inspections and washes. We were at the south end of the runway away from the city and the harbor and it felt remote. We were probably a quarter mile from the base’s perimeter wall in one direction, and a half-mile to a mile from anything else. The terrain was rocky, hardpacked sand with wiry scrub interspersed with really no ‘cover’ – with all of us wearing our ‘woodland’ camouflage BDU’s, consisting of mostly greens and black, I felt really exposed. You’d have almost thought that I was in the Army thinking like that…
Our truck seemed to be fairly well equipped for our mission, and what it didn’t have I was confident that we could ‘acquire’. The forward part of the bed was equipped with a tank holding a couple of hundred gallons of water, we had an industrial type pressure washer, and a pile of poles with scrubbing heads – some of which we’d convert into ‘chemical detection swabs’ using duct tape.
Over the next few weeks we received our ‘brick’ (radio) and ‘Decon 1’ was officially born. When we had the opportunity we’d get the guys together for planning and a little practice.
There were still a lot of questions that we would need to come up with answers to, but as we were driving back to the ramp area one day I was thinking to myself, “You know Mike, we might just be able to pull this off. And if we don’t screw it up too badly you might come out of it looking pretty good…” “…AND we might not all die…”
These following are 'unedited' chapters that I'm posting as I write. Some day I'll work them all in together...
