At the base, everything was quiet. He wondered where everyone had gone, but then he noticed lights in the mission planning room. When he got there, the room was crowded. Everybody was there, from General Turki, the base commander, on down; and everybody was talking, trying to brief Turki on the details of the mission they’d been tasked to fly.

Sultan walked across the room to the general, saluted, and asked, “What is going on?”

His squadron commander answered, “We are going to war.”

Sultan then asked, “Is it real?”

The general slowly and sadly answered, “Yes, this is real.”

The aircrews were now assembled, and now it was time for the mission commanders—like Sultan—to lead them. The young lieutenant colonel was one of the oldest fliers in this young squadron in this young Air Force, and now it was time for him to take charge.

Sultan walked to the mission planning table, where the crews were poring over maps and intelligence plots of Iraqi air defense guns and surface-to-air missile sites. At that point, Lieutenant Mohammed Raja, Sultan’s weapons system officer, gave him some disturbing yet exciting news: “Colonel Sultan, sir, I think it’s our time!”

Sultan looked at him. “Are you sure?” he asked, and Mohammed nodded yes.

As they turned to leave, General Turki stopped them. All the pilots at Dhahran’s King Abdullah Aziz Air Base respected Turki. Not only was he a superb aviator, he listened when they needed to get anything off their chests, he chewed them out when they made a mistake, and he praised them when they shined. Because the aircrews loved their commander, they wanted to please him; and because he was one of them, he loved them in return.

Now they had to go on the RSAF mission of war.

Colonel Assura, the chief of logistics, who was standing beside Turki, took Sultan’s hand. “I wish you good luck,” he said.

Then Turki put an arm around him. “Just go for it,” he said. “Good luck. I wish I was with you.”

Moments later, Sultan had assembled the crews in the personal equipment shop. There they donned their survival vests and G suits. Once they were suited up and gathered close around him, he could sense their eagerness and fear. “I know you are used to having a briefing before we fly,” he told them. “Tonight this is war. We will fly off the plan. Don’t change anything. We have been planning this strike for six months. Just follow the plan and you’ll be all right.”