Good story from Mousse, an F18 pilot, flying off the Theodore Roosevelt, CVN 71.

Have a pretty good war story from last night.

Was fragged as the strike lead for last night's insertion of 1000 paratroopers into Northern Iraq. Our mission was to provide close air support for the guys as they were hitting the ground. Per any military operation, it didn't exactly go as planned.

The strike package consisted of a dozen F18s loaded to the gills. The cat shot was the heaviest I had ever been shot off the boat. I rallied the forces in eastern Turkey, waited for the C-17s (who were also loaded to the gill....with troops) and then took the strike group in country. The overall resistance was actually pretty spectacular to see with the night vision goggles and I can honestly say that I gained a hell of a lot of respect for the Army guys who were jumping at low altitude out of those perfectly good airplanes. And doing it into harm's way.

There was about as much "AAA" as I've seen since being out here going in their direction. That's where the Hunters come in. We were operating in the vicinity of the drop when we got the call from "higher authority" that our mission had changed and to contact the AWACS who was controlling the entire north of Iraq. He said we were retasked to take our strike group "a bit further south and prosecute two targets of interest." He passed the coordinates and target descriptions and asked us to meet a certain "time on target" (TOT).

Things happened extremely fast from that point. I gathered up an EA6B Prowler (electronic jammer) and three other Hunters to go "down South". I then quickly passed targets to each member and then pushed out to meet our TOT. The trek south took some 15 mins and it was clear that where we were going was more heavily defended than anywhere else (outside of Baghdad) that we had been before. The heavy flak and AAA was coming up from all directions and we were continually jinking to offset the threat.

Fortunately, no one was tagged prior to the release of their ordnance and the section of aircraft to my east reported that they were flowing back north. That's when the "fun" started. My section had ust released our ordnance on an SA-3 site in western Tikrit and was starting our turn back to the north when a "voice of God" as I like to call it, came up and said, "SAM Launch, vicinity of XXXX".

Hello! I looked down at my moving map and guess who was EXACTLY where that voice called the launch at? It only took about 3 nanoseconds for me to start defending and roll inverted to pick up the incoming threat. Sure as shit! there it was right below and left of my wingline. I made calls to my wingee who still hadn't gained sight of the incoming missile and talked his eyes onto the threat. As a side note, I have to admit that my voice sounds like a girl on the tape and it's obvious I'm sucking the seat cushion into my ass.

Just when I made a counter defensive maneuver I picked up another launch about 1000 meters from the first site that had shot. Great. Two missiles coming my way, two aircraft maneuvering like crazy within a mile of each other, and every Republican Guard in Tikrit getting a show above them of two guys shucking and jiving our way outta there.

The missiles fired went stupid at about the same time that I was really getting into it. I called out that they weren't guiding (obvious when they went pure vertical) and gave my wingman a heading to turn to so that we could leave this "hornet's nest". I was actually considering not looking out the cockpit anymore and just pressing straight ahead. But, on looking around (I couldn't help it), it was clear that we created quite a stir down there as every gun in the city was pointed up and firing. We managed to climb back up into the moronosphere and left the show behind!

In hindsight, it's amazing to me how quickly things went from the proverbial "milk run" to "hell in a handbasket"! I suppose I won't ever let my guard down again when flying above people who want to kill you. A lesson for all us.

After tanking for the third time of the night (one of 6 tanking evolutions over the 7 hour flight), I re-joined the forces and looked for more tasking. Each of us still had enough firepower on board to take out most small towns in America. We then were tasked to help out the guys we had really gone out there in the first place for: those 1000 "Armies of One". All of us were assigned to take out artillery pieces the rest of the night in direct support of the troops on the ground. Was a sight to behold seeing so much metal flying around the Iraqi countryside and knowing that it wasn't going to be used again about our troops.

I could ramble on for days, but will save it for later. Hope everything's great at home. Miss all of you and hope to see you all
before the year's out!

Mousse..! ..out.