Kevin Miller - Raven One

Wilson called to Smoke. “Let’s make some noise south to north. Follow me after I come off.”

“Roger!”

To keep the insurgents’ heads down, Wilson commanded Smoke to take trail as he led them from the south over the narrow part of the city in another show of force. With airspeed increasing, he descended in a left-hand turn to begin his run. Approaching the city, he popped out chaff and flares and initiated jinking in three dimensions. From the secondary explosions he saw, Wilson figured they had just hit an even larger weapons cache than the one they had destroyed in the sedan. The throttles were at full power, showing 550 knots indicated, as Wilson flew over the city and pulled up to the left to watch Smoke begin his run.

Wilson made a call to Bowser . No answer.

After Smoke’s run, Wilson overflew the town again, higher and slower. He and Smoke were in a perfect wagon-wheel orbit, which would allow one of them to pounce on a pop-up contact while the other maintained a position to provide support.

“ Nail four-one, y’all up?” It was Bowser .

“Go ahead, Bowser !”

“We got a vee-hicle, a white SUV, movin’ outta town on Highway 82. Movin’ west now. Bad guys in there.”

Smoke called a tally. “ Nail four-two has a white SUV passing the northwest corner of the city on the highway.” Without warning, a bright flare separated from the SUV and climbed into the sky leaving a gray corkscrew trail of smoke.

“SAM at your left seven! Break left! Flares!” Smoke cried.

Wilson saw the launch and turned hard into it. He sensed, though, he was not the target because the missile veered low and behind him well before the rocket motor burned out. He expended some flares and kept an eye on the SUV, which continued to barrel west away from town.

Smoke called to Bowser. “ Bowser, Nail four-two, that guy just launched a MANPAD at Nail four-one. Request clearance to engage with twenty mike-mike.”

“You’re cleared, Nail four-two. Take that mo-fo out!”

“ Nail four-two’s in hot.”

Wilson watched Smoke roll in on the white truck. Although it sped away from the town, it was now completely in the open and stood out in contrast to the black asphalt road that stretched across the desert. Smoke extended a little to the south to get a better run in, and when he turned back, the SUV was still moving west at high speed. It was going to be a 90-degree crossing shot for Smoke, and Wilson took up a position in trail. Wilson selected GUN, and armed up.

Smoke bore in on the SUV and kept his eyes padlocked on it from two miles away. Wilson saw a car on the highway heading east and called it to Smoke.

“I’ve got it… Nail four-two’s in hot on the SUV,” replied Smoke.

“ Nail flight, Bowser. I’ve lost y’all. Engage at pilot discretion.”

“Roger, Bowser , engaging.”

Wilson watched Smoke in his strafing run. Once the eastbound vehicle passed the SUV, a faint white trail of vapor emerged from Smoke’s aircraft. Wilson saw the tracers as they flew toward the insurgent truck.

Dust kicked up along the highway 50 yards in front of the SUV, and one ricochet spun into the far field with a wild trajectory. Smoke had calculated too much lead and missed.

The bullet impacts stitched across the highway, however, and startled the driver. In what must have been a panicked state, the driver slammed on the brakes and turned south onto a side road. Wilson saw right away that the insurgents were trapped.

The dirt road ran between two partially flooded fields in flat farmland — about three miles west of Balad Ruz. Despite the fact he was driving an SUV, the driver couldn’t change course to turn left or right through the muddy fields. The only chance the insurgents had was for the driver to drive straight ahead and limit Wilson’s firing window by closing the range and making him aim steep.

Wilson watched the SUV come right at him, trailing a cloud of dust. Although the target was moving, all he had to do was aim short and walk the rounds up to the vehicle, or let it drive into the bullets. He felt as if he were rolling in on a strafe target run-in line, with Smoke, on a local training mission back home over the Dare County target range in eastern North Carolina. He keyed the mike.

“Lead’s in hot,” he said with a calm voice. Oh, yeah! he thought and rolled left.

His g-suit squeezed him and the horizon tilted as he overbanked and looked out of the top of his canopy at the SUV. He pulled his nose to a point on the road ahead of the vehicle. For Wilson, the situation was ideal: Against the landscape, the vehicle appeared to be a white dot moving toward him. The brown cloud of dust it kicked up behind was proof of the driver’s desperate attempt to avoid another strafing attack. Wilson stabilized in a shallow dive; pulled some power; placed his gunsight aim point, or “pipper,” in front of the SUV; and watched the range ring unwind on the reticle.

As the truck and the fighter drew closer, Wilson wondered if the insurgents could see him. A faint muzzle flash from the passenger side of the vehicle answered that question. Wilson squeezed the red trigger on the stick with his right index finger and held it for three… long… seconds .

A cloud of white gun gas formed above the nose of the aircraft as 20-millimeter rounds flew out of the six-barrel cannon. The deep BURRRRRRRRP sounded similar to the noise of a large chain saw. Wilson noted the tracers explode away from his aircraft at supersonic speeds, but he kept his concentration on the green pipper, the “death dot,” in front of the white truck. His hand clenched the stick hard as he pushed forward a hair to keep a tight bullet grouping; he released some pressure to “walk” the rounds up and then back down the road. The first rounds of the bullet stream kicked up the dirt in front of the truck. They were followed by bright impact flashes that ripped open the vehicle and churned the dirt around it into a brown cloud. Approaching 500 feet, Wilson yanked the stick up and rolled left, looking down to check his work.

Below he saw the burning truck. Peppered with huge holes and missing jagged chunks of its body, the vehicle had emerged from the confusion of dirt and metal and careened into a field, splashing water as it came to a halt. The road behind it was pockmarked with bullet impacts. As Wilson whizzed past the smoking vehicle, and as it receded into the distance, he saw no further motion on the dirt road.

“Good grief! You Winchester now?” Smoke asked on aux. He then added, “I can see your nose glowing from here! Sierra Hotel!”

Wilson ignored him and called to their JTAC. “ Bowser , the white SUV is neutralized and burning approximately three miles west of your position. We’ve got one JDAM and a few bullets left for you.”

“Way t’ go , Nail ! Those a-holes been screwin’ with us for days! Nice shootin’, sir!”

“Roger that, Bowser. Happy to help. We’ll orbit high for now. Have ‘bout twenty mikes left. Where you from, Bowser ?”

“Hardeeville, South Carolina, sir! Goin’ home in two weeks, too. In time for the Super Bowl!”

“I know Hardeeville… You guys okay down there?”

“Yes, sir, we’re good. Happens ever’ now and again. An’ next time you’re in Hardeeville, we got some good home cookin’ restaurants, too. Not just that fast food on the highway.”

“Roger that, and safe trip home, soldier. You’re a damn good JTAC,” Wilson replied.

“Thanks, sir. Great hits today.”

One hour later, Wilson and Smoke were headed back to the ship, having tanked a third time. Wilson made mission reports to the CAOC in Qatar and to the ship via E-2 radio relay. Nail 41 flight had completed an eventful Iraqi Freedom patrol, and the ship would want to hear all about it ASAP.