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Jim.
        As I started to work, I glanced at my watch. The first wave would be over Iraq for a long time. I knew that soon we’d be at the very edge of our box making sure we could support them one hundred percent as they went in deep. In fact, we probably would be over Iraqi airspace as we had been before but we’d still log our O-2s—combat support—as we had before. Our “official” O-1 flights over the heart of Iraq were only a few scant weeks away, but at the time none of us knew this.
        Time rips by when one is working so intensely. We only registered its passing when the pilot whipped the Lady through a well-practiced combat turn. It was right then, when we felt our hearts leap into our mouths and we either clung to our seats or attempted to continue working through the turn, that we knew time had slipped by.
        Then just as abruptly, the wings were level. We were facing the environment working up a frenzy, fingers pounding madly at the controls in front of us and giving it all we had, “giving it hell,” as Jim said. It was a definite emotional high.
        “MCC, MCS,” Chris called out.
        “Go ahead, MCS.”
        “Sir, I’m happy to report that the first wave has successfully reached its target and is, as we speak, working over target!”
        A cheer went up from the mission crew, breaking the tension we’d all been feeling. I found myself screaming, “Yes!” into my headset.
        “It’s not over yet,” cautioned Jim. “Let’s make sure they get home safe.”
        “Roger that, MCC,” Chris said.
        I turned back to my keyboard and my displays. The inevitable emotional slump came when the first wave at long last began its egress, and we took that first real breath. The smell of jet fuel was all around us, clinging to everything as it tends to do in an EC-130. We sucked it in real slow, only to find that the second wave had started their ingress.
        We could no longer think about that first wave or their special target. Now we had to focus on the second wave. They were bound for several Iraqi airfields; and so when we went back to work, the intensity level jumped back off the scale.
        Minutes slipped away one by one. Hours followed. After we landed, we were tired and spent as he headed for debrief. Later, I could have easily gone back to the PME, crawled into my military issue sleeping bag, zipped it up tight and gone to sleep. But I would’ve awakened in the middle of the night again to find a darkened and cold room filled with sleeping crewers.
        The big board said we were flying the afternoon line tomorrow with a 12:00 alert. We were all due for a little R&R, and we aimed to take it. Cowboy was, after all, buying the first case of bravos.
        The rest of us did eventually chip in for two more. For thirteen tired crew dogs, that was just about right.
        

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
Saturday, 26 January 1991
     
     
     
    I had my first real break since the start of the war. I blew off a lot of steam. It felt good.
        During the festivities it was someone’s bright idea that our crew all get “crew” cuts—well, marine high-and-tights, actually. We became Tennessee Jim’s “crew” crew. Little did we know we would start a crew war. Captain Willie’s crew raced out to the Base Exchange during their off time. Who would’ve guessed that they would’ve had a fresh supply of Dick Tracy dusters? They had their dusters, we had our crew cuts. Pretty corny, I know, but it was a way to clear the air. I wondered what the other crews would do now.
        Although the air war was still going strong and the push was on to force Saddam to withdraw from Kuwait, everything seemed to slow down. Perhaps it was that the disorientation and newness of war were finally fading away. We’d certainly come a long way from those frightened souls who’d trembled in the darkness on the flight line in a wet ditch while an