Those minutes waiting for the war to start, waiting for our plan to unfold, were the worst minutes of my life.

We talked in low voices, as though we were afraid someone would notice us. At one point, Buster Glosson asked me, “How many aircraft are we going to lose before this is all over?”—a question that touched the heart of our collective anxiety.

There had been a number of estimates, ranging from a hundred to three hundred-plus. I checked with my guts, then wrote “42” on a piece of paper, folded it, and passed it to Buster.

My number turned out to be a good guess. But I had meant 42 USAF only, so I can’t take much credit for accuracy.

Actual losses were USAF 14, USN 6, USMC 7, RSAF 2, RAF 7, Italy 1, and Kuwait 1, for a total of 38.

Buster’s question hit us all where we were raw, because we were about to embark on actions that would take many lives. We would send our own friends and allies on missions from which they would never return. The death of friends and enemies alike hung over our heads.

I knew how tough it was to climb the ladder into your jet and fly to where folks were doing their best to kill you, even as you tried your best to wreck their homeland. And yet, as tough as that was, as terrifying as that was, there is a real up-close personal involvement that justifies what you do. When you fly over an enemy target, and the red golf balls are streaming up, and the black mushrooms with orange centers burst all around you, and the SAM missiles streaking toward you once in a while quit moving (meaning, they are homing in on you), and you hear MiG calls in your headset (meaning that those hard-to-see supersonic jets are trying to launch a missile at your jet), when all of that is going on, you develop a personal relationship with the enemy. Then you don’t mind killing him; in fact, it seems like a good idea.

No, that doesn’t justify killing the enemy, nor does it soften your concern about their attempts to kill you, but there is balance, there is some sort of justification for the horrible things you do. Sitting in the TACC, setting the killing in motion, you carry a lot more responsibility, a lot more feeling of dread. It was a burden I’d been carrying around since I’d signed the orders that would start all of this carnage in motion. It was the understanding that someday I would probably have to explain my actions to God, and there was no suitable explanation. When men are imperfect—and God knows we are—then there better be a forgiving God.

Well, it was time to suck it up and go to work. And that’s just what we all did.