Even while the Tomahawks and F-117A Stealth fighters were streaming toward Baghdad, the first blow of the war was struck in Iraq’s western desert, as Task Force NORMANDY—a pair of Special Operations MH-53J PAVE LOW helicopters guiding a force of eight AH-64A Apache helicopter gunships—was approaching air defense early-warning radar sites near the Saudi border. The destruction of these sites would blow a hole in Iraqi’s radar “fence” and buy time for ingressing F-111Fs, F-15Es, and Tornado GR-1s tasked to strike air defense and Scud targets in central and western Iraq. The closer these aircraft came to their targets before the Iraqi air defense radars and ground observers alerted their defenses, the greater the odds they would hit their targets successfully and return home. A lot of folks were depending on those soldiers in their Apaches, as well as the Air Force airmen in the PAVE LOWs, whose elaborate navigation and targeting sensors were leading the Apaches through the dark night.

When the time came, the Apaches launched their Hellfire missiles, and moments later we had our fence hole.

Meanwhile, as the world would soon see on CNN, thousands of guns and surface-to-air guided missiles defended the Iraqi capital city. Airfields ringing the city bristled with some of the most modern air defense interceptors, their pilots eager to get their first kill. The entire network of defenses was tied together with the ultrasophisticated French-built KARI command-and-control system. Though we didn’t know it yet, KARI was about to commit hari-kari, by getting in the way of a bunch of grimly determined airmen.

We truly didn’t know.

How soon would our strikes silence the command and control? How soon would they spark terror in the gunners, SAM operators, and fighter pilots? How many golden BBs (wildly fired stray bullets) would strike our aircraft? How good were our F-117s? Sure, we had all the test data, all the exercise results, and all the theory; but this was the first time this revolutionary aircraft would play in a big game. (Their debut in Panama had been against undefended targets where the goal was to confuse some sleeping soldiers.) Well, the F-117 team had left the practice fields behind them. Tonight they would receive the air warfare equivalent of a Super Bowl kickoff. Not only did they have to penetrate those intense defenses, they had to hit their targets without fail, since all the rest of the crews behind them were depending on the F-117As to devastate the Iraqi air defenses. They had to hit the system’s eyes and brain—radars, command bunkers, communications sites—with never-before-demanded accuracy, and with no collateral damage.

★ At 0100, when I joined our team in the front row of the TACC, almost everyone was there (except for those scheduled to come on the day shift at 0700), watching the growing numbers of radar returns displayed by the AWACS data link on the huge TV screens on the front wall.