Kevin Miller - Raven One

The apprehension left him at once, replaced by quiet confidence and assurance. There was no need to dread this mission; he would prosecute the assigned targets with aggressive energy. He was ready.

Wilson ambled along the length of the hangar bay and took in the scene: sailors and marines working on airplanes, yellow shirt directors talking in a group by Elevator 2, two young sailors in dungarees walking forward and nodding to him with respect as they would on any other day. Yep, to most everyone aboard, this was just another late afternoon at sea.

Hoping to view the sunset through the Elevator 4 opening, Wilson continued aft through the jumble of parked aircraft, each separated by mere inches from its neighbor. The tight spacing sometimes required him to lower his head or contort his body to squeeze past. Coming around the tail of an S-3, Wilson froze. Ahead of him, about 20 yards away, he saw a lone aviator in a flight suit. Standing motionless at the edge of El 4 and looking out to sea, with arms folded, was his CO… Cajun Lassiter.

He did not want to disturb Cajun, but decided to observe him for a few moments. Redness from the sunset reflected off Cajun’s pensive face as he looked to the west, eyes squinting from the light. Wilson walked to the starboard side of the bay well behind Cajun, who was now silhouetted against the radiant setting of a red sun over a gray mountain range of clouds. Beautiful streaks of light broke through the clouds and illuminated distant patches of ocean. Though Wilson rejected an impulse to join Cajun — because he especially wanted to stay and take in the beautiful scene — Wilson realized that he himself could be discovered. Knowing Cajun would be embarrassed if caught in a quiet moment, even by Wilson, he headed aft to a starboard-side hatch by the jet shop. Wilson had to stop, though, to take one more look at the Raven skipper — who remained a statue — before he proceeded to the ready room where Cajun himself would arrive shortly.

Ready Seven was standing room only as the aircrew assigned to strike package 1A met to brief. The aviators, most from other air wing squadrons, studied a stapled “kneeboard package” of briefing cards that contained the aircraft lineup, frequency plan, navigation plan, drawings of target area tactics and aimpoint photos. Some talked among themselves as they sat in the high-backed chairs. Others clicked open their ballpoint pens to write notes in the margins.

Cajun stood at the front of the room with a projector screen behind him. He looked at the clock: one minute to go.

“A’tenshun on deck !” one of the lieutenants sang out, and all rose as CAG Swoboda entered from the back.

“Seats,” said CAG as he strode to the front of the ready room, nodded a greeting to Cajun, and took his seat in the front row next to Wilson. Cajun handed Swoboda a kneeboard package and asked the room if anyone else needed one. With 20 seconds to go, he reminded all to synchronize watches with the SINS clock.

At 1900, six bells sounded over the 1MC, and Cajun began:

“CAG, welcome to strike 1A, a strike designed to degrade and attrite the IRGC maritime forces in support of national tasking. We’ve got two groups of strikers — accompanied by dedicated sweep, defense suppression and jamming packages — going into Bandar Abbas. Launch time is 2200. We’ll tank overhead from two dedicated Redeye s. We will push out along this route, with my flight, Hammer one-one, in the lead.” As Cajun spoke, Dutch advanced slides on the projector. The “snapshots” of key events during the strike gave the aircrew a sense of the plan.

After the overview, Cajun turned the brief over to the Aerographer’s Mate from the ship’s meteorology office for the weather forecast. The clear weather Wilson had seen from the hangar bay was to hold, with probable low-scattered clouds in the vicinity of Hormuz, and a partial moon rising just before recovery time. Next, the Intel officer, the spy , gave the rundown on the Iranian order of battle. It appeared the MiG-35s could not be found in Shiraz and may have been dispersed nearby. Wilson again thought of Hariri. Those eyes .

Once the spy finished, Cajun resumed his brief and, for the next hour, led the aviators through the step-by-step details of the roll call, the launch sequence plan, the tanking plan, navigation, target area formations, off target egress and return-to-force procedures. And contingencies: dozens of them from unexpected weather conditions to communication backups, from search and rescue procedures for a down plane to go/no-go criteria. Cajun reinforced the “snapshots” from earlier so each aircrew would have a good idea of where their formation was supposed to be at a given time and in relation to the others. The cadence of the brief was familiar to the aviators and offered no surprises. They had practiced power-projection strikes many times during stateside work-up training off the Virginia Capes, and after months of flying from the ship, things like in-flight refueling, formations, and weapons carriage were easy. Even night operations around the ship, which were particularly dangerous, were also routine. However, a large power-projection strike package into a well-defended target area was not routine, and the aviators paid close attention as Cajun led them through the actions to take if they confronted their worst nightmares. After answering a few questions, Cajun offered CAG a chance to address the group.

CAG Swoboda stood and turned to the group.

“Skipper, good brief, thanks. Ladies and gentlemen, Bandar Abbas is the first of several heavily defended targets we’re going to hit tonight along the Iranian coast, and because it’s the Pasdaran HQ, we want to ensure we hit hard and with precision. Any element of surprise will be expended on this strike. We’ve got a smart suppression plan with exposed DMPIs and standoff precision weapons. In your element brief, talk contingencies: your backup delivery, comm degrades, the jamming plan if you get a pop-up emitter you didn’t expect. We have to do some serious damage on this strike because the others build on it. So, continue to brief it in detail, fly the brief, and use those blocking and tackling skills we’ve practiced all cruise. Fly solid formations, know and use the code words, do combat checklists early and double check ‘em. And study the targets and how you’ll use funneling features to find them. If they send up fighters, shoot them down. But if you accept a commit, know what you are flying over. Be aggressive and be smart. That’s all I’ve got. See you out there.”

The room jumped to attention as CAG walked down the aisle to the door. “Seats,” he said as he left, his Ops Officer “Bucket” following him out. The room then broke up into groups. Some talked in a corner and others left for other ready rooms where they would go over their formation tasking in detail in their element briefs. A few flight leads sought Cajun to clarify a point. Within five minutes only the Hammer and Iron formations remained. Cajun took the floor again to brief the target areas and how they would attack them.

The Hammer division, also led by Cajun, consisted of Olive, Wilson, and Dutch, and would hit several aimpoints around the harbor. A wharf, where imagery showed the Pasdaran berthing and servicing their boghammars, was the primary target. Each pilot was assigned a particular aimpoint in order to deliver their GPS precision-guided weapons. To get to the release points, they had to fly past two inhabited islands, one of which they figured to have a SAM site. They knew for sure both islands housed AAA in all calibers. The Sweeps would clear the skies ahead of them of any airborne threat. Then the suppression aircraft, call signs Tron and Zap , would take out the surface-to-air missile sites allowing the four Hammers and the Irons unencumbered access to the target area. After release, both formations would flow south and away from the threat.