Dan Hampton - Viper Pilot

“RAMROD, RAMROD… THIS IS WICKED 23.” I FIGURED I might as well give them the good news.

“WICKED… stand by for update.”

A flash caught my eyes and I looked to the right and slightly high as my wingman swooped down from the south, crossed overhead, and slid into position off my left wing. Waggling my wings to bring him in close, I punched up the steerpoint for the nearest refueling track.

I looked over at the other fighter and the pilot’s helmeted head. He had his visor down and his sleeves rolled up. I grinned. Just a chip off the old block. Giving him a quick sign with my thumb and forefinger, I saw him nod and begin the Battle Damage check.

“WICKED… this is RAMROD… vehicles and armored units at passed coordinates are possible RPG units… repeat… RPG units.”

RPG. Republican Guard tanks and mechanized infantry. That would’ve been nice to know. Saddam’s elite force. Elite compared to the other Iraqis—or Iranians or the French—but certainly not to us. They were still all going to die, they’d just die better-dressed. However, Republican Guards also had their own attached air-defense units, as I’d seen up close and personal. Shaking my head, I watched Notso slide beneath me and appear on the other side as he looked my jet over for holes, leaks, and missing parts.

“WICKED… exercise extreme caution.”

Gee, thanks. I wondered what he thought I’d been doing for the last ten minutes.

“WICKED… how do you hear?”

I took another deep breath. If I answered now, I’d say something unprofessional, snide, and completely called for. So I waited until Notso finished his battle-damage check and flashed me a thumbs-up. Kicking the rudder, I watched him peel away, giving me a glimpse of the bombs and missiles slung under his wings.

Keying the mike, I managed to sound bored and said, “RAMROD… WICKED 23… armed recon complete. RPG units confirmed… armor, mechanized infantry, and air defense.”

“WICKED… can you estimate numbers?”

I saw it in my mind’s eye. The road. Hundreds of vehicles pulled off to the side as far as I could see. The flashes from the guns.

“RAMROD… division-strength. Several hundred vehicles… all southbound on Highway Eight.”

“WICKED… can you say type of vehicles?”

“The shooting type.”

“Say again?”

This went on for a few minutes while we headed back to the tanker to refuel. They plainly wanted more information, but from the few seconds I’d had to make an assessment and survive, that was all there was. Then he said it.

“Ah, WICKED… we’d like a second pass over the target.”

Now, second passes are always dangerous, because whatever you flew over and attacked is now fully aware, awake, and angry. But we do it when we have to. In critical situations, like close air-support or search-and-rescue, no one would hesitate, but this wasn’t one of those situations. Besides, I had no more chaff or flares or decoys. And I wasn’t sending Notso down there. The boy had a long life ahead of him and it wouldn’t be fair to all the women who hadn’t met him yet.

“RAMROD… does JEREMIAH direct this?”

There was too long of a pause. Finally, he came back with, “Ah… negative WICKED. This is a RAMROD request.”

You’ve gotta be shitting me.

I wasn’t going back down there simply so those bozos could fill in a few missing spaces on whatever form they were working up. I’d seen everything that needed to be seen. And I told him that. And that we were heading to air-refuel, then going home.

As it turned out, those Iraqis on the road were not simply relocating, and they definitely weren’t just a patrol. They were, in fact, armored and mechanized infantry units from the Medina and Nebuchadnezzar units of the Republican Guard. They were moving south to counterattack the American advance at the Karbala Gap. The Iraqi High Command had concluded that the American advance was stalled and, in fact, the 3rd Infantry Division had slowed about fifty miles south of Baghdad due to continuous harassment. North of Nasiriyah, the Marines were heavily engaged and very slowly fighting their way up the Tigris River.

With the sandstorm as cover, Saddam ordered the Guards to move out of their positions in Baghdad and head south to fight. Unknown to me, another RPG brigade was also moving southeast out of Baghdad to strike at the Marines.

U.S. airpower had literally beaten the fight from the Iraqi frontline combat forces, but Saddam’s generals reasoned that the current bad weather would impede American air support. And without air support, the Iraqis felt equal to confronting the American Army and Marines. They’d obviously forgotten the First Gulf War. It also slipped their minds that American fighter jets would attack in any weather. We didn’t like it, but it certainly didn’t stop us. So, as with so many battle plans, it was gutsy from one point of view and utterly stupid from the other.

About fifty miles past the refueling track, we crossed the border into Saudi Arabia and I actually started to relax a little and slow down mentally. A fighter pilot gets accustomed to thinking at 500 miles per hour, and, as anyone who’s ever lived with one can attest, this is really annoying. But it’s an occupational hazard. My brain began settling back to relatively normal levels, and I could feel the muscles in my back stretching out a bit.

Removing my helmet, I ran my fingers through my sweaty hair and poured water on my head. As I scratched my scalp and took a long drink of warm plastic-tasting water, I noticed something strange. My thumb and forefinger were twitching slightly. Very slightly, but twitching nonetheless.

Now, I’d had more close calls in my career than I could count, and I’d been seeing the Elephant on and off since 1991 without flinching. I stared at my hand a few more seconds, snorted once, and tugged at my glove.

But I knew that I’d just come closer to Death today than ever before. I hadn’t attacked anything or done anything heroic. This mission would never get written up, nor did I ever mention it. But I just knew.

I knew that I’d found a place where even the Elephant doesn’t go.

April 6, 2003

1104 local time, north of Baghdad

“DAMN IT!”

One eye burned as bits of dust floated under the visor and hit my eyelid. Rolling over until completely inverted, I pumped the stick forward and snapped the F-16 upright. Keying the mike, I squinted over the wingtip. “ELI Three and Four… defending Triple-A over Baghdad.”

Dirty-white smudges suddenly appeared where we’d been, so I shoved the power up, climbed a few thousand feet, and pulled away from downtown. The newly christened George Bush Airport (formerly Saddam International) passed behind me to the left as we hit the western suburbs of Saddam’s battered capital city. Bunting over, this time blinking fast to keep out the specks, I stared back down at Baghdad. Saddam’s capital was a bit beat-up; the pea-green Tigris River was visible beneath the brown smudges hanging over downtown. Like black commas, hundreds of smoke trails rose over the buildings and streets. Tracers arced and sporadic explosions blew more debris into the dirty air. Apparently, the Iraqis still had some fight left down there, even after the arrival of the Army and Marines.

Today was a motorcycle-gang mission. Basically, we roamed around different killboxes and looked for a fight. The threat was unknown, the weapons were our choice, and our only objective was to kill whatever the Iraqis had left.

On this day, we had two four-ships of F-16CJs—ELI 31 and LAPEL 77. I led the second element of ELI and we’d split up the area around Baghdad. ELI One, Zing Manning, was southeast of the city somewhere, beating up the Iraqi defenders along the Tigris River and dodging F/A-18s. Hornets had been everywhere the past few days as the 1st Marines fought their way into the capital from the east.