Dam Happy
We launched in the dark at some ungodly hour. We got up and hit the tanker and they snapped us immediately to go work with some SOF guys on the ground at a dam. It was still dark, but the sun was just coming up. Just before dawn, it was about time to take off the NVGs. The special forces had just gotten to the dam. They were taking mortar rounds from an island in the lake above the dam and heavy machine-gun fire from below. The forward air controller was calm and cool as could be even though he was pinned down by ground fire. He tried to talk our eyes onto the island, but the lake had half a dozen or more islands. We circled and circled and couldn't find it. Every time we flew over the lake, the Iraqis would quit firing. After ten minutes of circling without any luck, I asked the controller if he had a laser marker. He got the laser up there and marked the island. We found it right away. I had two GBU-12s and one JDAM and my wingman had only two GBU-12s left. My wingman put a GBU-12 down on the island and hit it. I put one on top of it. The mortar fire stopped. Then we turned our attention to a couple of concrete buildings below the dam where the heavy machine-gun fire was coming from. We could see the tracers. An SA-8 had launched against an F-15E from the same location previously, so we were hesitant to stick our noses down there really low. We each put our remaining GBU-12s into two separate buildings. The bombs silenced the gunfire. I could tell from the radio calls that our guys were very happy not to be under fire anymore.
     — Maj. Jerome Dyck

Earplugs And An Alarm Clock
With seventy-two people in a tent and jets taking off all night, I slept with earplugs and hung an alarm clock next to my head.
     — Amn. Roderick King

Keepsakes
They sold American flags at the base exchange. We'd give the flags to the pilots, who would take them on a mission for us. The pilots would sign and date them and put a short mission description on them when they got back.
     — Amn. Shelly Lagania

Knock Knock
Our mission was a combined effort between special forces on the ground and coalition airpower on top. Special forces troops performed search and reconnaissance in western Iraq. They knocked on doors and looked in garages. They did this before the war officially kicked off, but not in any great numbers. The intel prep of the battlefield had been going on for years. Our job wasn't a normal job for a fighter pilot. We were out there in our F-16s drilling around looking for Scud missiles in what we called nontraditional ISR. We had fairly liberal rules of engagement. We were cleared to drop on any Scud-related piece of equipment if we were deconflicted from special operations units in the west.
     — Col. John Mooney

Low On Gas, Part I
My most vivid memory of the war has to be a pleading radio call, "Can you meet me here with gas?" We gave until it hurt. We led the fighters toward a divert field until they felt comfortable that they could get back to the boat.
     — Lt. Hartley Postlethwaite