1. Horner, Chuck. 2. Persian Gulf War, 1991—Biography. 3. Persian Gulf War, 1991—United States.
4. Persian Gulf War, 1991—Aerial operations, American. I. Horner, Chuck. II. Title.
DS79.724.U6 H-53339 CIP Rev.
956.7044’2’092—dc21

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Dedication

DEDICATION

Normally, a book like this would be dedicated to those who paid the ultimate price in the desert; but here a different view is in order. Those of us who deployed were proud to be there; it was an honor to be allowed to participate in the effort to free Kuwait. At the same time, we felt gratitude for the troops who didn’t deploy and were supporting us with spare parts and doing the other things that needed to be done back home or at their bases overseas. We were also extremely grateful to the reservists who were activated to man our home bases—guarding the gate, or working in the hospitals, or taking care of our families. Most of all, we felt a deep sense of gratitude to the people who supported us so vigorously with mail, cookies, and encouragement. They didn’t fully understand why we were in the desert; they sure were concerned about a war and its attendant casualties; but they gave us their love and prayers without reservations.

Introduction

INTRODUCTION

Ionce observed that fighter pilots are little boys who never really get past the stage of buzzing past little girls on their bikes. I still believe this to be true. But then how does one deal with a general of fighter pilots? All the more so, how does one deal with a professional warrior who has the most elegant and subtle intellectual disguise this side of Jeff Daniels in Dumb and Dumber?

Well, okay, you need a few things right off. To fly an F-16 fighter plane, you have to have the skills of a concert pianist—in fact, you need to know how to play two pianos at once, since all the buttons you use to fight the airplane (that’s why it’s called a fighter) and all the buttons that work the radar, guns, and missiles are located on the stick and throttle quadrant so that you can kill people without having to look down. So, there you are, flying an aircraft that looks and evidently acts like a Chevy Corvette (but in three dimensions), head up, eyes out of the cockpit, looking for some Bad Guy to give a Slammer (AIM-120 AMRAAM missile) to. . . . Well, just flying the damned airplane isn’t all that easy—which is why, as anyone can tell you, one of the differences between a fighter pilot and an ape is that it doesn’t cost $1,000,000 to train an ape.