Brigadier General Mark Welsh (USAF) is the Commandant of Cadets at the
Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. On August 26, 1999, Gen. Welsh
spoke to the Corps of Cadets.
I received a partial transcript of that speech from an Army officer I
consider a friend. However, the photographic slides used by Gen. Welsh
are not available.
I edited this excerpt of Gen. Welsh’s speech (mostly for brevity) and
present it here for all those who may feel Desert Storm was a mere
exercise in impersonal electronics.
============================
The words of Brigadier General Mark Welsh:
...what's significant about that is over the years I've been asked to talk
about Desert Storm and not long ago I was asked to give a presentation
on my personal lessons learned from my experiences in combat.
Well, to put this list together I sat down and I spent about an hour and a
half making this list. I kept thinking, “What can I put on there? What
great lessons have I learned and want to pass on to future generations?”
When I finished I had about 15 items, just items about that long, and I
realized that none of them were lessons learned. Not one of them.
Every one of them was a person, or an event, or just a feeling I had but I
have never forgotten and never will. That's what I want to talk to you
about today.
It's important before I start for you to remember that combat, any kind of
combat, is different for everybody. You know aerial combat happens at
about a 1000 miles an hour of closure. It's hot fire, cold steel. It’s instant
death, big destruction, it happens like this and it's over.
Ground combat's not that way, as you can imagine. Those of you who've
heard infantry soldiers talk about it know it's kind of endless time, and
soaking fear, and big noises and darkness. It's a different game. And you
need different training to do it, and different types of people to handle it
well and to provide leadership in that environment. So it's different.
But it doesn't matter how many people you have standing beside you in
the trench, or how many people you have flying beside you in the
formation; combat, especially our first combat, is an intensely personal
experience. So, during the course of this Commandant's Leadership Series
over this year you're going to hear different people give different opinions
and different perspectives.
Today I'll tell you the things I remember.
First slide please, Fred. You don't have to see this picture very well. It's
an F-16 parked on a ramp with a helmet on the canopy rail.
One week before the Desert Storm air campaign actually started we were
flying missions called “Taco Bell”. We'd go fly up north up in northern
Saudi Arabia and practice dropping simulated bombs at night on targets in
the desert to see how well the army had camouflaged themselves against
our radar, to see if we could find them, and so we could all get qualified in
that for those of us who didn't do it full-time.
Then we'd all line up and however many airplanes we had, 6 or 8 or 10
F-15's (we'd do it at higher altitudes, the air-to-ground guys would do it at
lower altitudes), everyone would push it up to 500 knots at the same time
and we'd all run straight for the border. (Laughter). And we'd take a lift
through the signal intelligence gathering platforms and see how the Iraqi
radars and air defense systems reacted to this. And folks, we'd collect data
on this and that's how we helped put together the air campaign plan for
the first night of the war.
On this particular night when we were done with our “run for the border”
we hit a poststrike tanker heading back to base - which was about an hour
and ten minutes south in the United Arab Emirates almost 400 miles
away. We got gassed up by the tanker and climbed to 42,000 feet,
plugged into mid-afterburner (because we had a full tank of gas and we
could burn it up), put the auto-pilot on and leaned back in that 30 degree
tilt back seat and just kinda stared at nature.
It was a gorgeous night. The moon was big and full and directly overhead.
I remember thinking, “I can't believe how bright the desert moon is.”
Around the horizon, something I had never seen before and still haven't
seen to this day, was a halo - a beautiful, huge white halo that went all
the way around the moon - completely unbroken.
I talked to my wingman later and he said he did the same thing I did. We
just stared at that thing all the way home going, “I can't believe how
beautiful this is.” It's one of those moments you have flying airplanes.
And you don't forget. I'll never forget the halo.
I also won't forget that when I landed that night Major J.D. Collins, my
Assistant Operations Officer, met me at the bottom of the ladder and said,
"Boss, we lost an airplane."
You can't see the name on the canopy rail but it's Michael Chinberg.
Captain Mike Chinberg had joined us in the desert only two weeks earlier
because he'd stayed back in Utah to get married. He and his wife, April,
had been married two weeks when he told her that he had to go to the war
and join the boys. He'd just finished his three-ride local checkout and he
was on his second night ride. We think that somehow Mike got a light on
the ground confused with his flight lead's rotating beacon and he tried to
rejoin as he headed for the tanker.
Chins hit the ground going 675 miles an hour 60 degrees nose low,
inverted and full afterburner. He died relaxed. I don't think “dying
relaxed” was good news to his wife April when I called her and told her
after we had confirmed he was in that smoking hole. Or to his Mom and
Dad when I called them and told them. I won't forget those phone calls.
And I won't forget sitting here looking at this airplane with the helmet with
Chin's name on the visor cover, his name on the canopy, and his spare
G-suit hanging under the wing with his crew chief saluting the jet while
bagpipes, the bagpipe tape of Amazing Grace, played in the background
and every fighter pilot on base had these big stupid sunglasses on so
nobody would know that they were bawling their eyes out.
And I won't forget staring at this airplane thinking, how many more of
these are we going to have when the war starts?
The night before the war started the squadron commanders were told by
the wing commander that we were kicking it off tomorrow morning. So we
gathered our squadrons together at about 5 o'clock in the afternoon and to
give most of them the first briefing they've seen, the first real mission that
we were going to fly - which we had preplanned and only a small group
had seen.
Then I did what I thought was a real commanderly thing. I told them all
to go back to their rooms and before I gave them the tail number of the
morning, they had to hand a letter to me to their family. And in that letter
the game plan was to shed all of the emotional baggage you'd take with
you into combat. I didn't tell my wife this, I didn't hug my daughter, I
didn't do this, I didn't call my parents, etc.
And I told them they didn't fly until I got that letter. Which shut em all up
for the first time since I'd known them. As they headed out the door I was
feeling pretty proud of myself and patting myself on the back when my
ops officer Lt Col Adams came up to me and said, "what a great idea." I
nodded knowingly. Then he said, "By the way, you can give me your letter
before I give you your tail number in the morning."
Slide, please. Now if you haven't had the pleasure of sitting down and
thinking about your family, this was mine at the time - it still is, they just
changed sizes (laughter). If you haven't tried to tell your children that
you're sorry you won't be there to see their next ballet recital or watch
them play little league baseball, or high school football, or graduate from
college, or meet their future spouse, or get to know your grandkids, or if
you hadn't had the pleasure of telling your parents how important they
were to you, and trying to do it on a piece of paper at midnight, 9000
miles away from them, or try to tell your spouse how the sun rises and
sets in her eyes, then you haven't lived. I’d recommend it. I won't forget
writing that letter.
Next slide Fred. Next morning we got up at about 1:30 in the morning
because we had a 2:15 briefing. This is the base we were staying at, it's
called Al-Minhad. It's in the United Arab Emirates. It's about 2 miles long
and about a mile wide, the whole thing. You can see the main runway, a
parallel taxiway and on that side of the picture there's a road that ran the
whole length of the base. In the upper left corner is where the tents were
for the officers and the hootches and then about halfway down the field is
where the tent city was.
That next morning at 1:30, all my guys got up, met in the chow hall and
had breakfast. Then we jumped in cars to drive down for our mass
briefing which was down here at the lower left-hand corner of this slide.
And as we drove down that parallel road, two things happened. The first
was the folks from Col Tom Rackley's 421st fighter squadron lit their
afterburners as part of the first launch of the Gulf War - the night fighters
in the 421st. And at 20 second intervals as we traveled down that road,
they lifted off going this way one at a time. They accelerated about 400
miles an hour and pulled the nose up and went straight up to avoid SAMs
at the end of the runway, just pulled that afterburner and disappeared.
And I suddenly realized that was the first time I'd ever seen airplanes take
off with no lights on. Cause obviously we were darked out for combat. It
was pretty sobering.
We're halfway down this road and one of the guys in the car with me says,
"Boss look at this" and he points out the right side of the car.
Next slide, Fred. This is the tent city that was off the side of that road.
And on the right side of that road as we came to tent city I looked over
and saw thousands of people. The population of this tent city who wasn't
working that night had come out of their tents when that first afterburner
lit. They were standing along this road. They were in uniforms, they had
just gotten off work, they were wearing jeans, they were wearing cutoffs,
they were wearing underwear, pajamas, everything. And not one of them
was talking.
They were just watching these airplanes take off because they knew what
was going on. And the other thing that I noticed immediately was that all
of them were somehow in contact with the person next to them. Every
single one of them. They were holding hands or holding their arm or had
their arm around shoulders or on the back or they were just leaning on
each other. These are people that don't even know each other. But they're
all Americans. They're all warriors. And they're all part of the cause. And
as we rode down that road I will never ever forget their faces coming into
those headlights and fading out. It's burned in here.
Next slide Fred. Later that morning after our initial briefing for the first
mission of the war, we went to the life support trailer where all the flying
gear was for my squadron. All 24 airplanes were flying, so 24 of my guys
were going and I was lucky enough to be the mission commander for this
first one. Now anybody who's been in a fighter or any kind of flying
squadron knows that in life support, as you're getting ready to go, this is a
pretty raucous place. You're giving people grief, you're arguing at who's
better at whatever. Something's going on all the time. It's fun.
This morning, there wasn't a sound. Not a whisper. That's Col Andy Perona
right there on the right. USAFA class of 73. Guy next to him is Major J.D.
Collins, USAFA class of 75.
I got dressed listening to nothing but the whisper of zippers as people
pulled on flight gear. I walked out of the trailer down to the bottom of the
steps, left the door open so the light from the inside shined out just in a
little pool by these steps outside the trailer because the rest of the base
was blacked out and we were under the camouflaged netting and you
couldn't see anything outside this trailer. And as my guys came down the
steps I shook each one of their hands and just nodded at them. Nobody
said anything.
I watched as one by one they turned and disappeared into the black. As
each one left I wondered if he'd be coming back that afternoon. Cause we
didn't know. And then when the last one had gone, Master Sergeant Ray
Uris, who ran my life support shop and had been standing in the doorway
watching this, walked to the bottom of the steps, shook my hand, and
watched me disappear. I'll never forget watching their backs disappear in
the dark.
Next slide, Fred. In the background is an airplane that was flown by my
squadron weapons officer. His first name is Scott and I won't give you his
last name but he's USAFA ‘78. About the second week of the war we flew a
mission against the nuclear power plant south of Baghdad. I believe Col
Rackley may have been the mission commander for this, I don't
remember. Col Rackley, by the way, is also USAFA - class of ‘71, I think.
Scott was a leader for 12 airplanes on this mission, and this mission was
scary - easily the scariest thing we saw in the war. The Iraqis defended
the area south of Baghdad and they really defended the nuclear power
plant. From about 25 miles to the target until we got to the power plant, I
bet I saw 100 SAMs in the air.
I remember screaming and cussing to myself all the way to the target until
it came time to roll in and drop the bombs at which point your training
takes over and you kinda go quiet. Until you drop your bombs, and then
you start screaming and cussing again. (Laughter).
This was scary. Scott's wingman got hit as we came off target. An SA3
blew up, we don't know how close, right underneath his airplane and blew
off his fuel tanks, put about 113 holes in the airplane - 73 of them through
the engine bay and engine compartment, which isn't good in a single
engine F-16.
For the next 2 1/2 hours Scott escorted him as they tried to find an
emergency base to land at because the weather had rolled in. They went
to 5 different places and they couldn't get him on the ground.
Scott worked emergency tanker diverts - he was having tankers come to
them to get gas. He was phenomenal. He saved this guy’s life. Because
of all this he landed about 3 hours after the rest of us did. When I heard
he was on the ground I was in a debrief but I came out to see how things
had gone with his wingman. It was dark by this time as I walked to the
life support trailer. I came around the corner under this darkened out
camouflage netting and I ran into something. I realized that it was Scott.
He was standing, leaning against a bunch of sandbags, just holding on to
them, and shaking like a leaf. He couldn't walk, he couldn't talk, he
couldn't move anything.
All Scott could do was stand there and shake. The guy had nothing left. All
his adrenaline was gone. He gave everything he had, everything that he
could do that day.
As I'm trying to figure out what the heck to do with Scott, the door to this
life support trailer opens and a young life support technician named
Shawn, a 19 year old farmboy from Minnesota, comes out, sees what's
going on and says, "Boss, I know you got stuff to do. I'll take care of it." I
said, "Well, let me help you get him inside."
And this boy says, "Boss, you got stuff to do, I'll take care of it." So I left.
And I saw Shawn helping Scott up the steps in the life support trailer as I
went around the corner. About 5 hours later, about 2 in the morning, I left
the mission planning cell and I went to see how Scott was doing back in
his tent. Now this is January in the desert, folks. It’s cold outside. But as
I came up to the tent there was Shawn sitting in the sand in front of the
tent shaking like a leaf ‘cause he's only wearing bdu pants and the t-shirt
he had on in life support. And he's got a pistol in his hand. This was in the
first week of the war...we were worried about the terrorist threats, and you
know, guys coming and helping out the Iraqi cause.
Shawn had taken that to heart. And I said, "Shawn, what are you doing
here?" He said, "Sir, I was afraid the Major would wake up, he finally got
to sleep and if he wakes up I want to make sure I let him know
everything's okay."
You'll meet lots of Shawn's in the Air Force. And I'll never forget this one.
Next slide please. This is a Catholic priest, Father John Pearson. Father
John was our Squadron Chaplain. The first day of Desert Storm, as we
headed out to the airplanes after we walked out into the black I told you
about, I got to my jet and standing right in front of the nose of the jet is
Father John.
Now Father John was popular with us because he was the first guy to buy
you a whiskey, he was the first guy to light up a cigar, he was the first guy
to start the party, and the last guy to leave. (laughter)
And he would've been the first one, along with Father Pat I suspect, of
wading into Hell in his bvd's to pull you out if he had to. We knew Father
John real well. He fit in great with the fighter squadron. As I got to the
airplane, Father John just said, "Hey, I thought you might like a blessing
before you go." And I immediately hated myself because I consider myself
fairly comfortable in my religion and I'd never thought of that. Too many
other wrong priorities on my mind at the time.
So I knelt down on the cement right there in front of the jet and father
John gave me a blessing. Then I went over to preflight the airplane and,
as I'm getting ready to climb up the ladder, I notice all these guys
running, coming out of the darkness to get Father John to bless them.
(laughter). So he did. And when everybody came back safe from the first
sortie we kinda decided, “That's it. Father John has to bless everybody.
Can't change that!” (A lot of laughter) And it didn't matter if you were
Jewish or Baptist or Islamic - it just didn't matter. Father John gave the
blessing for the 4th fighter squadron.
The amazing thing was it didn't matter whether we flew at 2 in the
afternoon or 2 in the morning, we flew around the clock. And later on
talking to Tom Rackley who was commanding the 421st, I found out that
Father John did the same for his guys. I don't know how he did it. But he
did, and every time I landed from a combat sortie ... every single time ...
my canopy would open, I'd shake the hands of Sgt. Manny Via, my crew
chief, who was the first guy I shook hands with every day, then I'd climb
down the ladder and at the bottom of the ladder was Father John to bless
me and welcome me home.
Next slide please. When I came back from Desert Storm I ended up alone,
a single ship returning to Hill AFB. When I pulled up into the parking spot
here are all the folks who were waiting out front. Now my squadron had
been home for 3 days before I got there and down at the far end you'll
recognize Father John again (laughter). That's my wife Betty, and a couple
of my kids, and a couple of their friends who were with them.
I'd written Betty and told her about Father John and his blessings and you
want to know how cool she is? When my airplane stopped, and the canopy
came up, Manny Via climbed the ladder and shook my hand. I walked
down to the bottom of the ladder and Betty told father John, “You first.”
Father John walked over and blessed me and welcomed me home. And
then Betty and I did some serious groping (crazy screams and laughter).
A year and a half later, a year and a half later, Father John Pearson
dropped dead of a massive heart attack. Great story, huh? Too much
whiskey. Too many cigars, too many parties, I guess. A week after he
died, 16 of the 28 pilots who flew in my squadron in Desert Storm were at
his funeral at Stockton, California. They came from Korea. They came
from Europe. They came from Australia and they came from all over the
United States to tell his family about Father John, and to bless him, and to
ask God to walk him home. I'll never forget Father John Pearson.
Next slide, Fred. This is a place called Allamaya barracks in northwestern
Iraq. These are ammunition storage bunkers. They're not real significant.
Except there's a guy I want to tell you about who had something to do
with the holes in them.
His name's Ed, USAFA class of ‘86. Ed left for the desert with his wife Jill,
pregnant with her first child. This is a story repeated throughout Desert
Storm and all the services and throughout history in the military.
Obviously he couldn't go home for the birth. About 2 in the morning one
night, I got woke up in my hooch by my exec who said, "Come up to the
command post" which was about ten minutes away. So I get dressed and
go sprinting to the command post and it's my wife. And she says, "Mark,
I'm at the hospital in Ogden, Utah and Jill Rank is in labor and she's
having problems. Is there any way we can get Ed on the phone with her."
So we rousted Ed and brought him down to the command center. My wife
had worked out some arrangement with the hospital, so when Ed walked
in and I handed him the phone, he was talking to Jill who was in the
middle of a really bad labor.
And as he held the phone with one hand and talked to his wife, I sat in
front of him in a chair and I held his other hand - for about 2 1/2 hours.
Which is something neither of us has ever admitted publicly before
(laughter).
I could see the happiness in his eyes every time he said she talked back to
him and said anything. I could see the worry and the pain in his eyes
every time another contraction started and he heard her flinch or gasp or
scream. And I felt him squeeze my hands every time he could tell she was
really in pain. And I saw him smile when he heard his son Nate cry for the
first time, from 9000 miles away.
Twelve hours after Ed hung up that phone, he was the cell leader for 12
F-16s that hit those bunkers at Allamaya barracks. It was the best battle
damage assessment we had in our squadron during the war. They hit
every target and a lot of them, as you saw on that photo, dang near dead
center. Ed went from caring, concerned, loving, father and husband, to
cold-blooded, calculated killing-machine in 12 hours. Only in combat folks.
I'll never forget watching the transformation.
Next slide Fred. One of the most important things about combat is sound.
Anybody who's been there will tell you that things you hear are the things
you remember the longest. Now I want to tell you about two things I
heard that I'll never forget.
The first one was during one of our missions up north in the Baghdad area,
a pilot and an F-16 from another unit who was part of the strike package
we were in was hit by a surface to air missile. His radios were damaged
and he could only talk on the radio on the strike frequency, so we listened
to him and his flight lead talk about his airplane falling apart as he tried to
make it to the border so rescue could get to him. He'd come on every now
and then and talk about the oil pressure dropping and vibrations
increasing, and his flight lead would encourage him to stick with him, we
can get there, we can get there. This went on for about 14 to 15 minutes.
Until finally he said, "oil pressure just went to zero." Then, "my engine
quit." Finally, "that's all I got. I'm outta here."
Now we couldn't see him. I'm not exactly sure where they were. But there
wasn't another sound on that radio for another 14 or 15 minutes. And then
there was a kind of pregnant pause, and then the last call we heard was,
"Tell my wife I love her." I'll never forget those 14 minutes.
The other thing I heard was when the ground war actually started and an
F-16 pilot by the name of Billy Andrews, who won the Air Force Cross for
his actions that day, was shot down in the middle of the retreating
Republican Guard, and I mean right in the middle of them. A call went out
from AWACS, "Is there anybody around with ordinance and fuel who could
get to where he was located in case we needed him for SARCAP." And a lot
of people responded but the first one that I really paid attention to was the
voice of an Army Chinook helicopter pilot, who came on the radio and said,
"look, I've got this much gas, here's my location, I can be here in that
many minutes, give me his coordinates. I can pick him up."
Now everybody knew where the Republican Guard was and everybody
knew he was right in the middle of them. And you gotta remember a
Chinook is about the size of a double decker London bus with props on it.
And it doesn't have guns on it. I don't know how you feel about women in
the military, but I guarantee you I would follow her into combat. And I'll
never forget her voice.
Next slide please Fred. Last two things I'm going to mention: This is the
highway of death. You guys have seen it, in pictures before. This road
leads north out of Basra, it's a retreat route of the Republican Guard and
they got cut off right about where the black smoke went over the
Euphrates River valley. Everywhere from there south it looked like this.
Not a new picture. I'll tell you what's significant about it. I killed people
here. Me. This combat is an intensely personal thing, folks, I think I
mentioned that. I've killed people before during this war, but this time I
saw them. I saw the vehicles moving before the bombs hit. I saw people
getting out and running and then I aimed at them with CBU. I dropped
hundreds of bomblets on their heads to make sure they wouldn't get away.
War is a horrible, horrible, horrible thing. There is nothing good about it.
But it is sometimes necessary. And so somebody better be good at it. I
am. Trapper Carpenter is. Corkie Vonkessel is. I guarantee General
Oelstrom is. He didn't get to be a 3-star general and do the things he's
done by not being good at this business. You better be.
Next slide please Fred. And I won't forget this. Before I got back to the US,
as I was flying in Tom Rackley's squadron on the way to east coast of the
united states, we checked in on the first US air traffic control site that we
had talked to on the entire route and Col Rackley checked in with
something along the lines of, “Boston Control, this is widow flight, 24
F-16s coming home."
And the air traffic controller responded "welcome home, widow." And then
at regular intervals for the next 5 or 10 minutes, every airliner on that
frequency checked in and said something. "Welcome back." "Good job."
"Great to have you home." "God bless you." Whatever. About 10 minutes
after that I got my first glimpse of the US coastline. It was the coast of
Massachusetts. And I sat in my cockpit and I sang “America the Beautiful”
to myself. I'll never forget how bad it sounded. (Laughter). Or how proud
I was when it was over.
Take a look at this flag, folks. Those white stripes indicate the integrity
that you represent here at the Air Force Academy and that you better
carry with you into our Air Force. Those stars are the courage of all the
people who have gone before you and that belongs to you now. That red is
for Mike Chinberg and for the millions more like him who died serving their
country. And in the not too distant future, one of you is going to be
standing up here talking about your experiences in combat to the classes
of 2015, or 16, or 17. And you're going to be talking about USAFA class of
2000, 2001, 2002, and 2003.
This is who you are. And this is what you face in the United States Air
Force. If you're not ready for it, let me know and I'll help you find another
career field. You are damn good. You need to get better. All these people I
just talked about are counting on it.
Slide off Fred. Okay. That's who I remember from Desert Storm. No
technical marvels, no big precision weapons. Just people, and feelings, and
sounds. And I promise you that's what you're going to remember. And
your chance is coming sooner than you might like. I guarantee you.
=============
All,
Desert Storm was not a pinball game. It was life and death. I ask all of
you to remember these military men and women who continue to ensure
our right to speak our minds, to disagree with our leaders, to disagree with
each other, to be safe in our homes and to struggle to achieve and secure
the dream of our Founding Fathers. In the words of Gen. Mark Welsh, “...
They're all Americans. They're all warriors. And they're all part of the
cause.”
Let’s ALL be part of the cause.
Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. On August 26, 1999, Gen. Welsh
spoke to the Corps of Cadets.
I received a partial transcript of that speech from an Army officer I
consider a friend. However, the photographic slides used by Gen. Welsh
are not available.
I edited this excerpt of Gen. Welsh’s speech (mostly for brevity) and
present it here for all those who may feel Desert Storm was a mere
exercise in impersonal electronics.
============================
The words of Brigadier General Mark Welsh:
...what's significant about that is over the years I've been asked to talk
about Desert Storm and not long ago I was asked to give a presentation
on my personal lessons learned from my experiences in combat.
Well, to put this list together I sat down and I spent about an hour and a
half making this list. I kept thinking, “What can I put on there? What
great lessons have I learned and want to pass on to future generations?”
When I finished I had about 15 items, just items about that long, and I
realized that none of them were lessons learned. Not one of them.
Every one of them was a person, or an event, or just a feeling I had but I
have never forgotten and never will. That's what I want to talk to you
about today.
It's important before I start for you to remember that combat, any kind of
combat, is different for everybody. You know aerial combat happens at
about a 1000 miles an hour of closure. It's hot fire, cold steel. It’s instant
death, big destruction, it happens like this and it's over.
Ground combat's not that way, as you can imagine. Those of you who've
heard infantry soldiers talk about it know it's kind of endless time, and
soaking fear, and big noises and darkness. It's a different game. And you
need different training to do it, and different types of people to handle it
well and to provide leadership in that environment. So it's different.
But it doesn't matter how many people you have standing beside you in
the trench, or how many people you have flying beside you in the
formation; combat, especially our first combat, is an intensely personal
experience. So, during the course of this Commandant's Leadership Series
over this year you're going to hear different people give different opinions
and different perspectives.
Today I'll tell you the things I remember.
First slide please, Fred. You don't have to see this picture very well. It's
an F-16 parked on a ramp with a helmet on the canopy rail.
One week before the Desert Storm air campaign actually started we were
flying missions called “Taco Bell”. We'd go fly up north up in northern
Saudi Arabia and practice dropping simulated bombs at night on targets in
the desert to see how well the army had camouflaged themselves against
our radar, to see if we could find them, and so we could all get qualified in
that for those of us who didn't do it full-time.
Then we'd all line up and however many airplanes we had, 6 or 8 or 10
F-15's (we'd do it at higher altitudes, the air-to-ground guys would do it at
lower altitudes), everyone would push it up to 500 knots at the same time
and we'd all run straight for the border. (Laughter). And we'd take a lift
through the signal intelligence gathering platforms and see how the Iraqi
radars and air defense systems reacted to this. And folks, we'd collect data
on this and that's how we helped put together the air campaign plan for
the first night of the war.
On this particular night when we were done with our “run for the border”
we hit a poststrike tanker heading back to base - which was about an hour
and ten minutes south in the United Arab Emirates almost 400 miles
away. We got gassed up by the tanker and climbed to 42,000 feet,
plugged into mid-afterburner (because we had a full tank of gas and we
could burn it up), put the auto-pilot on and leaned back in that 30 degree
tilt back seat and just kinda stared at nature.
It was a gorgeous night. The moon was big and full and directly overhead.
I remember thinking, “I can't believe how bright the desert moon is.”
Around the horizon, something I had never seen before and still haven't
seen to this day, was a halo - a beautiful, huge white halo that went all
the way around the moon - completely unbroken.
I talked to my wingman later and he said he did the same thing I did. We
just stared at that thing all the way home going, “I can't believe how
beautiful this is.” It's one of those moments you have flying airplanes.
And you don't forget. I'll never forget the halo.
I also won't forget that when I landed that night Major J.D. Collins, my
Assistant Operations Officer, met me at the bottom of the ladder and said,
"Boss, we lost an airplane."
You can't see the name on the canopy rail but it's Michael Chinberg.
Captain Mike Chinberg had joined us in the desert only two weeks earlier
because he'd stayed back in Utah to get married. He and his wife, April,
had been married two weeks when he told her that he had to go to the war
and join the boys. He'd just finished his three-ride local checkout and he
was on his second night ride. We think that somehow Mike got a light on
the ground confused with his flight lead's rotating beacon and he tried to
rejoin as he headed for the tanker.
Chins hit the ground going 675 miles an hour 60 degrees nose low,
inverted and full afterburner. He died relaxed. I don't think “dying
relaxed” was good news to his wife April when I called her and told her
after we had confirmed he was in that smoking hole. Or to his Mom and
Dad when I called them and told them. I won't forget those phone calls.
And I won't forget sitting here looking at this airplane with the helmet with
Chin's name on the visor cover, his name on the canopy, and his spare
G-suit hanging under the wing with his crew chief saluting the jet while
bagpipes, the bagpipe tape of Amazing Grace, played in the background
and every fighter pilot on base had these big stupid sunglasses on so
nobody would know that they were bawling their eyes out.
And I won't forget staring at this airplane thinking, how many more of
these are we going to have when the war starts?
The night before the war started the squadron commanders were told by
the wing commander that we were kicking it off tomorrow morning. So we
gathered our squadrons together at about 5 o'clock in the afternoon and to
give most of them the first briefing they've seen, the first real mission that
we were going to fly - which we had preplanned and only a small group
had seen.
Then I did what I thought was a real commanderly thing. I told them all
to go back to their rooms and before I gave them the tail number of the
morning, they had to hand a letter to me to their family. And in that letter
the game plan was to shed all of the emotional baggage you'd take with
you into combat. I didn't tell my wife this, I didn't hug my daughter, I
didn't do this, I didn't call my parents, etc.
And I told them they didn't fly until I got that letter. Which shut em all up
for the first time since I'd known them. As they headed out the door I was
feeling pretty proud of myself and patting myself on the back when my
ops officer Lt Col Adams came up to me and said, "what a great idea." I
nodded knowingly. Then he said, "By the way, you can give me your letter
before I give you your tail number in the morning."
Slide, please. Now if you haven't had the pleasure of sitting down and
thinking about your family, this was mine at the time - it still is, they just
changed sizes (laughter). If you haven't tried to tell your children that
you're sorry you won't be there to see their next ballet recital or watch
them play little league baseball, or high school football, or graduate from
college, or meet their future spouse, or get to know your grandkids, or if
you hadn't had the pleasure of telling your parents how important they
were to you, and trying to do it on a piece of paper at midnight, 9000
miles away from them, or try to tell your spouse how the sun rises and
sets in her eyes, then you haven't lived. I’d recommend it. I won't forget
writing that letter.
Next slide Fred. Next morning we got up at about 1:30 in the morning
because we had a 2:15 briefing. This is the base we were staying at, it's
called Al-Minhad. It's in the United Arab Emirates. It's about 2 miles long
and about a mile wide, the whole thing. You can see the main runway, a
parallel taxiway and on that side of the picture there's a road that ran the
whole length of the base. In the upper left corner is where the tents were
for the officers and the hootches and then about halfway down the field is
where the tent city was.
That next morning at 1:30, all my guys got up, met in the chow hall and
had breakfast. Then we jumped in cars to drive down for our mass
briefing which was down here at the lower left-hand corner of this slide.
And as we drove down that parallel road, two things happened. The first
was the folks from Col Tom Rackley's 421st fighter squadron lit their
afterburners as part of the first launch of the Gulf War - the night fighters
in the 421st. And at 20 second intervals as we traveled down that road,
they lifted off going this way one at a time. They accelerated about 400
miles an hour and pulled the nose up and went straight up to avoid SAMs
at the end of the runway, just pulled that afterburner and disappeared.
And I suddenly realized that was the first time I'd ever seen airplanes take
off with no lights on. Cause obviously we were darked out for combat. It
was pretty sobering.
We're halfway down this road and one of the guys in the car with me says,
"Boss look at this" and he points out the right side of the car.
Next slide, Fred. This is the tent city that was off the side of that road.
And on the right side of that road as we came to tent city I looked over
and saw thousands of people. The population of this tent city who wasn't
working that night had come out of their tents when that first afterburner
lit. They were standing along this road. They were in uniforms, they had
just gotten off work, they were wearing jeans, they were wearing cutoffs,
they were wearing underwear, pajamas, everything. And not one of them
was talking.
They were just watching these airplanes take off because they knew what
was going on. And the other thing that I noticed immediately was that all
of them were somehow in contact with the person next to them. Every
single one of them. They were holding hands or holding their arm or had
their arm around shoulders or on the back or they were just leaning on
each other. These are people that don't even know each other. But they're
all Americans. They're all warriors. And they're all part of the cause. And
as we rode down that road I will never ever forget their faces coming into
those headlights and fading out. It's burned in here.
Next slide Fred. Later that morning after our initial briefing for the first
mission of the war, we went to the life support trailer where all the flying
gear was for my squadron. All 24 airplanes were flying, so 24 of my guys
were going and I was lucky enough to be the mission commander for this
first one. Now anybody who's been in a fighter or any kind of flying
squadron knows that in life support, as you're getting ready to go, this is a
pretty raucous place. You're giving people grief, you're arguing at who's
better at whatever. Something's going on all the time. It's fun.
This morning, there wasn't a sound. Not a whisper. That's Col Andy Perona
right there on the right. USAFA class of 73. Guy next to him is Major J.D.
Collins, USAFA class of 75.
I got dressed listening to nothing but the whisper of zippers as people
pulled on flight gear. I walked out of the trailer down to the bottom of the
steps, left the door open so the light from the inside shined out just in a
little pool by these steps outside the trailer because the rest of the base
was blacked out and we were under the camouflaged netting and you
couldn't see anything outside this trailer. And as my guys came down the
steps I shook each one of their hands and just nodded at them. Nobody
said anything.
I watched as one by one they turned and disappeared into the black. As
each one left I wondered if he'd be coming back that afternoon. Cause we
didn't know. And then when the last one had gone, Master Sergeant Ray
Uris, who ran my life support shop and had been standing in the doorway
watching this, walked to the bottom of the steps, shook my hand, and
watched me disappear. I'll never forget watching their backs disappear in
the dark.
Next slide, Fred. In the background is an airplane that was flown by my
squadron weapons officer. His first name is Scott and I won't give you his
last name but he's USAFA ‘78. About the second week of the war we flew a
mission against the nuclear power plant south of Baghdad. I believe Col
Rackley may have been the mission commander for this, I don't
remember. Col Rackley, by the way, is also USAFA - class of ‘71, I think.
Scott was a leader for 12 airplanes on this mission, and this mission was
scary - easily the scariest thing we saw in the war. The Iraqis defended
the area south of Baghdad and they really defended the nuclear power
plant. From about 25 miles to the target until we got to the power plant, I
bet I saw 100 SAMs in the air.
I remember screaming and cussing to myself all the way to the target until
it came time to roll in and drop the bombs at which point your training
takes over and you kinda go quiet. Until you drop your bombs, and then
you start screaming and cussing again. (Laughter).
This was scary. Scott's wingman got hit as we came off target. An SA3
blew up, we don't know how close, right underneath his airplane and blew
off his fuel tanks, put about 113 holes in the airplane - 73 of them through
the engine bay and engine compartment, which isn't good in a single
engine F-16.
For the next 2 1/2 hours Scott escorted him as they tried to find an
emergency base to land at because the weather had rolled in. They went
to 5 different places and they couldn't get him on the ground.
Scott worked emergency tanker diverts - he was having tankers come to
them to get gas. He was phenomenal. He saved this guy’s life. Because
of all this he landed about 3 hours after the rest of us did. When I heard
he was on the ground I was in a debrief but I came out to see how things
had gone with his wingman. It was dark by this time as I walked to the
life support trailer. I came around the corner under this darkened out
camouflage netting and I ran into something. I realized that it was Scott.
He was standing, leaning against a bunch of sandbags, just holding on to
them, and shaking like a leaf. He couldn't walk, he couldn't talk, he
couldn't move anything.
All Scott could do was stand there and shake. The guy had nothing left. All
his adrenaline was gone. He gave everything he had, everything that he
could do that day.
As I'm trying to figure out what the heck to do with Scott, the door to this
life support trailer opens and a young life support technician named
Shawn, a 19 year old farmboy from Minnesota, comes out, sees what's
going on and says, "Boss, I know you got stuff to do. I'll take care of it." I
said, "Well, let me help you get him inside."
And this boy says, "Boss, you got stuff to do, I'll take care of it." So I left.
And I saw Shawn helping Scott up the steps in the life support trailer as I
went around the corner. About 5 hours later, about 2 in the morning, I left
the mission planning cell and I went to see how Scott was doing back in
his tent. Now this is January in the desert, folks. It’s cold outside. But as
I came up to the tent there was Shawn sitting in the sand in front of the
tent shaking like a leaf ‘cause he's only wearing bdu pants and the t-shirt
he had on in life support. And he's got a pistol in his hand. This was in the
first week of the war...we were worried about the terrorist threats, and you
know, guys coming and helping out the Iraqi cause.
Shawn had taken that to heart. And I said, "Shawn, what are you doing
here?" He said, "Sir, I was afraid the Major would wake up, he finally got
to sleep and if he wakes up I want to make sure I let him know
everything's okay."
You'll meet lots of Shawn's in the Air Force. And I'll never forget this one.
Next slide please. This is a Catholic priest, Father John Pearson. Father
John was our Squadron Chaplain. The first day of Desert Storm, as we
headed out to the airplanes after we walked out into the black I told you
about, I got to my jet and standing right in front of the nose of the jet is
Father John.
Now Father John was popular with us because he was the first guy to buy
you a whiskey, he was the first guy to light up a cigar, he was the first guy
to start the party, and the last guy to leave. (laughter)
And he would've been the first one, along with Father Pat I suspect, of
wading into Hell in his bvd's to pull you out if he had to. We knew Father
John real well. He fit in great with the fighter squadron. As I got to the
airplane, Father John just said, "Hey, I thought you might like a blessing
before you go." And I immediately hated myself because I consider myself
fairly comfortable in my religion and I'd never thought of that. Too many
other wrong priorities on my mind at the time.
So I knelt down on the cement right there in front of the jet and father
John gave me a blessing. Then I went over to preflight the airplane and,
as I'm getting ready to climb up the ladder, I notice all these guys
running, coming out of the darkness to get Father John to bless them.
(laughter). So he did. And when everybody came back safe from the first
sortie we kinda decided, “That's it. Father John has to bless everybody.
Can't change that!” (A lot of laughter) And it didn't matter if you were
Jewish or Baptist or Islamic - it just didn't matter. Father John gave the
blessing for the 4th fighter squadron.
The amazing thing was it didn't matter whether we flew at 2 in the
afternoon or 2 in the morning, we flew around the clock. And later on
talking to Tom Rackley who was commanding the 421st, I found out that
Father John did the same for his guys. I don't know how he did it. But he
did, and every time I landed from a combat sortie ... every single time ...
my canopy would open, I'd shake the hands of Sgt. Manny Via, my crew
chief, who was the first guy I shook hands with every day, then I'd climb
down the ladder and at the bottom of the ladder was Father John to bless
me and welcome me home.
Next slide please. When I came back from Desert Storm I ended up alone,
a single ship returning to Hill AFB. When I pulled up into the parking spot
here are all the folks who were waiting out front. Now my squadron had
been home for 3 days before I got there and down at the far end you'll
recognize Father John again (laughter). That's my wife Betty, and a couple
of my kids, and a couple of their friends who were with them.
I'd written Betty and told her about Father John and his blessings and you
want to know how cool she is? When my airplane stopped, and the canopy
came up, Manny Via climbed the ladder and shook my hand. I walked
down to the bottom of the ladder and Betty told father John, “You first.”
Father John walked over and blessed me and welcomed me home. And
then Betty and I did some serious groping (crazy screams and laughter).
A year and a half later, a year and a half later, Father John Pearson
dropped dead of a massive heart attack. Great story, huh? Too much
whiskey. Too many cigars, too many parties, I guess. A week after he
died, 16 of the 28 pilots who flew in my squadron in Desert Storm were at
his funeral at Stockton, California. They came from Korea. They came
from Europe. They came from Australia and they came from all over the
United States to tell his family about Father John, and to bless him, and to
ask God to walk him home. I'll never forget Father John Pearson.
Next slide, Fred. This is a place called Allamaya barracks in northwestern
Iraq. These are ammunition storage bunkers. They're not real significant.
Except there's a guy I want to tell you about who had something to do
with the holes in them.
His name's Ed, USAFA class of ‘86. Ed left for the desert with his wife Jill,
pregnant with her first child. This is a story repeated throughout Desert
Storm and all the services and throughout history in the military.
Obviously he couldn't go home for the birth. About 2 in the morning one
night, I got woke up in my hooch by my exec who said, "Come up to the
command post" which was about ten minutes away. So I get dressed and
go sprinting to the command post and it's my wife. And she says, "Mark,
I'm at the hospital in Ogden, Utah and Jill Rank is in labor and she's
having problems. Is there any way we can get Ed on the phone with her."
So we rousted Ed and brought him down to the command center. My wife
had worked out some arrangement with the hospital, so when Ed walked
in and I handed him the phone, he was talking to Jill who was in the
middle of a really bad labor.
And as he held the phone with one hand and talked to his wife, I sat in
front of him in a chair and I held his other hand - for about 2 1/2 hours.
Which is something neither of us has ever admitted publicly before
(laughter).
I could see the happiness in his eyes every time he said she talked back to
him and said anything. I could see the worry and the pain in his eyes
every time another contraction started and he heard her flinch or gasp or
scream. And I felt him squeeze my hands every time he could tell she was
really in pain. And I saw him smile when he heard his son Nate cry for the
first time, from 9000 miles away.
Twelve hours after Ed hung up that phone, he was the cell leader for 12
F-16s that hit those bunkers at Allamaya barracks. It was the best battle
damage assessment we had in our squadron during the war. They hit
every target and a lot of them, as you saw on that photo, dang near dead
center. Ed went from caring, concerned, loving, father and husband, to
cold-blooded, calculated killing-machine in 12 hours. Only in combat folks.
I'll never forget watching the transformation.
Next slide Fred. One of the most important things about combat is sound.
Anybody who's been there will tell you that things you hear are the things
you remember the longest. Now I want to tell you about two things I
heard that I'll never forget.
The first one was during one of our missions up north in the Baghdad area,
a pilot and an F-16 from another unit who was part of the strike package
we were in was hit by a surface to air missile. His radios were damaged
and he could only talk on the radio on the strike frequency, so we listened
to him and his flight lead talk about his airplane falling apart as he tried to
make it to the border so rescue could get to him. He'd come on every now
and then and talk about the oil pressure dropping and vibrations
increasing, and his flight lead would encourage him to stick with him, we
can get there, we can get there. This went on for about 14 to 15 minutes.
Until finally he said, "oil pressure just went to zero." Then, "my engine
quit." Finally, "that's all I got. I'm outta here."
Now we couldn't see him. I'm not exactly sure where they were. But there
wasn't another sound on that radio for another 14 or 15 minutes. And then
there was a kind of pregnant pause, and then the last call we heard was,
"Tell my wife I love her." I'll never forget those 14 minutes.
The other thing I heard was when the ground war actually started and an
F-16 pilot by the name of Billy Andrews, who won the Air Force Cross for
his actions that day, was shot down in the middle of the retreating
Republican Guard, and I mean right in the middle of them. A call went out
from AWACS, "Is there anybody around with ordinance and fuel who could
get to where he was located in case we needed him for SARCAP." And a lot
of people responded but the first one that I really paid attention to was the
voice of an Army Chinook helicopter pilot, who came on the radio and said,
"look, I've got this much gas, here's my location, I can be here in that
many minutes, give me his coordinates. I can pick him up."
Now everybody knew where the Republican Guard was and everybody
knew he was right in the middle of them. And you gotta remember a
Chinook is about the size of a double decker London bus with props on it.
And it doesn't have guns on it. I don't know how you feel about women in
the military, but I guarantee you I would follow her into combat. And I'll
never forget her voice.
Next slide please Fred. Last two things I'm going to mention: This is the
highway of death. You guys have seen it, in pictures before. This road
leads north out of Basra, it's a retreat route of the Republican Guard and
they got cut off right about where the black smoke went over the
Euphrates River valley. Everywhere from there south it looked like this.
Not a new picture. I'll tell you what's significant about it. I killed people
here. Me. This combat is an intensely personal thing, folks, I think I
mentioned that. I've killed people before during this war, but this time I
saw them. I saw the vehicles moving before the bombs hit. I saw people
getting out and running and then I aimed at them with CBU. I dropped
hundreds of bomblets on their heads to make sure they wouldn't get away.
War is a horrible, horrible, horrible thing. There is nothing good about it.
But it is sometimes necessary. And so somebody better be good at it. I
am. Trapper Carpenter is. Corkie Vonkessel is. I guarantee General
Oelstrom is. He didn't get to be a 3-star general and do the things he's
done by not being good at this business. You better be.
Next slide please Fred. And I won't forget this. Before I got back to the US,
as I was flying in Tom Rackley's squadron on the way to east coast of the
united states, we checked in on the first US air traffic control site that we
had talked to on the entire route and Col Rackley checked in with
something along the lines of, “Boston Control, this is widow flight, 24
F-16s coming home."
And the air traffic controller responded "welcome home, widow." And then
at regular intervals for the next 5 or 10 minutes, every airliner on that
frequency checked in and said something. "Welcome back." "Good job."
"Great to have you home." "God bless you." Whatever. About 10 minutes
after that I got my first glimpse of the US coastline. It was the coast of
Massachusetts. And I sat in my cockpit and I sang “America the Beautiful”
to myself. I'll never forget how bad it sounded. (Laughter). Or how proud
I was when it was over.
Take a look at this flag, folks. Those white stripes indicate the integrity
that you represent here at the Air Force Academy and that you better
carry with you into our Air Force. Those stars are the courage of all the
people who have gone before you and that belongs to you now. That red is
for Mike Chinberg and for the millions more like him who died serving their
country. And in the not too distant future, one of you is going to be
standing up here talking about your experiences in combat to the classes
of 2015, or 16, or 17. And you're going to be talking about USAFA class of
2000, 2001, 2002, and 2003.
This is who you are. And this is what you face in the United States Air
Force. If you're not ready for it, let me know and I'll help you find another
career field. You are damn good. You need to get better. All these people I
just talked about are counting on it.
Slide off Fred. Okay. That's who I remember from Desert Storm. No
technical marvels, no big precision weapons. Just people, and feelings, and
sounds. And I promise you that's what you're going to remember. And
your chance is coming sooner than you might like. I guarantee you.
=============
All,
Desert Storm was not a pinball game. It was life and death. I ask all of
you to remember these military men and women who continue to ensure
our right to speak our minds, to disagree with our leaders, to disagree with
each other, to be safe in our homes and to struggle to achieve and secure
the dream of our Founding Fathers. In the words of Gen. Mark Welsh, “...
They're all Americans. They're all warriors. And they're all part of the
cause.”
Let’s ALL be part of the cause.