“See that big fire?” Mohammed answered, meaning the SAMs and tracers rising from the airfield ahead. “That’s it.”

It’s a beautiful thing when your WSO is cool, while you are thinking you’ll never see your wife and children again.

Sultan then realized that it was time to pay more attention to what he’d been sent out to do. At the same instant, it occurred to him that he was likely to die. Thinking he’d better let Mohammed have a vote, he asked, “Mohammed, we can turn back. It’s up to you. Will you go with me?”

The taciturn Mohammed replied simply, “I’ll go.”

Then Sultan repeated the Islamic prayer uttered by those about to die.

As they neared the target, Mohammed got a perfect placement of the crosshairs on the runway that was their target.

Meanwhile, Sultan had grown concerned that the terrain-following autopilot might give a fly-up command because of all the debris being thrown up in front of them. He toggled off the automatic flight system and began to hand-fly the aircraft, easing it down to below 100 feet.

His preplanned attack had him flying across the runway, so bombing errors would be canceled out by the long string of bomblets carried in the JP-233 dispenser. However, since the other Tornadoes tasked to cut the runway would not be coming, he made an instant decision to fly down the runway to ensure it was rendered inoperable for its entire length. Even though this change in plan would expose their aircraft to the maximum gauntlet of enemy fire, he knew he had to do what he had to do.

Slamming his jet around in the night at hundreds of miles per hour, only tens of feet above the ground, he lined up on the long runway now located somewhere in the holocaust of bullets and rockets shooting into the sky. He pressed down with his right thumb on the red button on top of the stick, and the fire-control computer initiated the process that would dispense the runway-cratering bomb over the target.

The jet flashed into the bright streaks from the bullets and rockets meant to kill them, and Sultan spent his longest six seconds, flying down the Iraqi runway.

Then they were streaking back into the darkness and Sultan was about to sigh with relief, when he heard a loud thump, and the aircraft made a shudder. He froze, certain they had been hit by the antiaircraft fire. He nervously checked his dials and lights to see where the problem was. Are we on fire? Are we streaming precious fuel? Is this the end just when I’ve cheated death?

He shouted to Mohammed on the interphone, “We’ve been hit!”

“No, no,” Mohammed answered with his usual cool, “that’s just the empty weapons dispenser.” The dispenser automatically jettisoned when all the bombs were gone. Then he implored his fearless leader, “Please turn back, or else we are going to Baghdad!”