Lost Without Air Support
The Army needed us fairly far north. We found a unit in trouble. They were being fired upon from all sides. We could see the GIs on the ground returning fire. Our forces didn't have a map, and they didn't have laser designators. So, they had a real hard time with directions. We could see their position from the air. They had decent ground cover, but the Iraqis were around them moving in vehicles, shooting at them with mortars, and throwing grenades. We had to get fairly low, around 200 feet at times. We used flares to make sure exactly where we wanted to drop. We made several low passes and did a lot of strafing. We hit some vehicles, which scattered the enemy. We dropped laser-guided bombs, guiding them with our targeting pods and sometimes just rolling in and dropping them as dumb iron bombs to help those guys out. They lasted the whole day. I think they were able to move out later that night. Without air support, they would have been lost.
     — Maj. Mike Popovich

Three Pairs Roaming
We worked with Marine, Air Force, and Army forward air controllers. We were given the coordinates and just typed that into the computer. JDAM performed great. It's very easy to use. The feedback from the forward air controllers was usually "direct hit." We usually programmed the bomb in flight as we were doing time-sensitive targeting. We rarely took off with a predetermined strike mission. For SEAD missions, we did a bit of both, that is hitting preplanned targets and receiving new target information in flight. The first week we flew as part of a package; after that we had three pairs of F-16s airborne roaming around. The aircraft were responsible for an area between Tikrit and Najaf. We averaged eight- to nine-hour missions.
     — Capt. Brandon Roth

Three Man
We tend to load ordnance with the people we train with. We can load with anybody, but we prefer to keep crews intact. We know each other and how everyone else works. A load crew consists of three people. The One Man is the lead. He makes sure the TOD is followed and the jet is ready.

The Two Man controls and maintains the tools, making sure the bomb racks and launchers are ready to go on the jet. The Three Man drives the jammer and checks the munition before it's loaded.
     — SrA. Katie Bowling

Workhorse
We have nine C-141B models. We had ten for a majority of our time over there, but only three had defensive systems. Only those three could go into the AOR. Tail number 40619, one of the three, was flown on ninety of our 151 total missions. She was a real workhorse. She required just a little attention from us, though. We would pat her on the nose when we went out for good luck.
     — Lt. Col. Jim McGann

Mission Success
VQ-1 and VQ-2 were conducting twenty-four-hour operations. We had enough assets in theater to keep two EP-3s in the air at the same time. We were flying 250 to 300 hours a month. Maintenance worked very hard. We didn't miss a mission the first three weeks of the war. None were ever delayed because of the mission system. We had parts there. The supply system made it happen.
     — Lt. (j.g.) Nicholas Boyter