But when September became October, he was needed back home at Seymour Johnson AFB. So he left Thumrait and went home to train new crew members and spend Christmas with his wife and four young children. Or so he thought.

In December, when the wing was moved up to Al Kharj and a second squadron of F-15Es was deployed into the theater, Tom was at the top of the list to rejoin the unit. Later in December, the call came.

Leaving quickly, he discovered, was a hell of a lot easier than leaving slowly. In August, he just said goodbye and raced off. This time there were days to take last looks at his wife and children. This time there were hundreds of awkward moments when “we don’t talk about it,” until the actual leave-taking finally brought painful release.

Al Kharj—known to Americans as Al’s Garage—was a desolate place. The recently erected neat and orderly tent city did not improve its charm. But when Griffith arrived, he at least had the advantage of experience. The truly new guys, fresh from warm beds, Little League baseball with their kids, and Friday-night beer call, had to endure the barbs and hazing of the old heads, who’d suffered through the desert summer and fall. But not Tom Griffith.

Then December became January, and Griffith, like every aircrew member facing his first combat sortie, had to come to grips with a question that lay heavy in his heart. It was not, Am I going to die? but much more terrible, How am I going to do? Will I screw the pooch? Christ, I hope I don’t screw up!

On Tom’s first mission, he and his pilot, Colonel Dave Eberly, the wing DO, hit a radio transmission tower used by the Iraqi air defense system. It wasn’t pretty, but the strike went okay, and the Iraqi bullets missed them. Other F-15Es hit a nearby airfield, and he watched the seeming miracle of their escape from the waves of tracers thrown against them. Though the naysayers had predicted drastic losses, all the F-15Es came home that night.

After that the confidence swelled their hearts. “Hot shit! We did it! Everybody came back!”

Relief and confidence made everyone bolder . . . which instantly evaporated when one of the jets was lost following an attack on Basra. He was shaken again when a Wild Weasel tasked to support Griffith’s second mission was unable to find the tanker. It tried to land at fog-shrouded King Khalid Military City, but ran out of fuel and ideas. The crew ejected safely.

Though the losses put a chill in the aircrews, their worst fears had still not been realized. Thus, when a rushed, all-out strike was called against the Scuds in western Iraq, Griffith took in stride the inevitable confusion that accompanied this last-minute change in the ATO, and went about the job of planning his attack while briefing with Dave Eberly.