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to pay.
        Mission Planning for the flight, a standard training profile with the inclusion of chemical gear practice, didn’t take long. We’d wear our plastic bags to and from the plane, all right.
        We were waiting to fly when the messages started coming in. Iraq was invading Kuwait. At the time, the thirteen of us sitting in the ready room didn’t think much of it. Our concerns were centered on the flight and the mission ahead.
        The invasion of Kuwait progressed rapidly. Most of their units were caught in garrison, having been pulled back from defensive postures. No Arab nation believed an Arab would attack another Arab nation. In the end, Kuwait didn’t mount much of a defense at all. Iraq would have its prize in less than three days. That day, the thirteen of us departed on time, plastic bags and all.
        Five days later, early in the morning on Tuesday, August 7, some of us would be sitting in the same ready room waiting to fly. Over the weekend a lot had transpired. The fourth largest army in the world, the Iraqi war machine, had just stepped on a nuisance; and they had crushed it in less than three days.
        King Fahd of Saudi Arabia feared the next step might take Iraqi forces into Saudi Arabia; and on Saturday, August 4, he had called for U.S. military advice. Our intelligence indications supported his fears; Iraqi forces were setting up in a defensive posture along the Kuwait-Saudi Arabia border. President Bush had already agreed to send forces to the Gulf; the only thing he needed to do it was to get the approval of King Fahd. The matter was a delicate one, handled aptly by a delegation headed by Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney that included a number of high-level VIPs and General H. Norman Schwarzkopf.
        By Monday afternoon Germany time, the United States was committed to the defense of Saudi Arabia, which would lead to Operation Desert Shield and ultimately to Operation Desert Storm.
        This day we didn’t fly though we did follow the incoming messages rather closely.
        U.S. and allied troops began arriving with regularity in Saudi Arabia. Within a week, five fighter squadrons and a brigade of the 82nd Airborne were poised for defense. For those of us at the tiny air base in Germany, the waiting game had begun only we didn’t know it yet.
        Over that next week, I watched three of our team go. They were Farsi and Arabic language specialists. Things were heating up in the Gulf; but for those of us that remained it was business as usual—well, almost business as usual. For a time we didn’t fly. For a time afterward we flew less and less. I thought about those in the Gulf a lot. The desert sands seemed somewhat closer though still very far away.
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
September 1990
     
     
     
    September was pretty uneventful. The days faded one into the other and are gone from my memory. Katie and I managed to get away for a few days, taking a long drive out into the German countryside. The castles along the Rhine River are strikingly beautiful and somewhat eerie in their majesty.
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
October 1990
     
     
     
    Flight bag in hand, I entered ops and looked around. It was rather deserted for the middle of the morning.
        “All flights have been cancelled for today,” warned the Watch Officer from behind his desk, “you should check in with the chief.”
        “Check in with the chief?” I asked. The Watch Officer shrugged his shoulders. Needless to say, I double-timed it to the DO’s office.
        “Morning, Chief, what’s up?” I asked.
        “Ah shit, guess no one got hold of the crew that was flying today!” There was something about the way the old chief said it that made me chuckle. He was the only chief I knew who flew every chance he got. The major looked up from his desk. He didn’t say anything; he just sort of smiled. To him, it was just old Jimmie being