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GPS Necessity
Handheld GPS sets were a necessity. We could program coordinates of the known threats and pick evasion points. If we had to put down in the desert and found ourselves on the ground, we knew where we were and could be told where to go. We were fat fingering each one at first, but then we got a program and a patch cord so we could download information from laptops.
— SSgt. Clint Ervin
 The U-2 Diet
Tube foods range from main course meals like turkey a la king, beef and gravy, and spaghetti to smaller meals like clam chowder. We have tube desserts, such as apple or cherry pie and chocolate or butterscotch pudding. On long missions, we carry six to eight quarts of water and anywhere up to eight of these tube foods. We pop them in a little heater in the cockpit, so we can get a nice warm meal throughout the flight. A lot of guys will pace their eating, like one an hour, to give them something to do if they are not already busy. On a busy combat mission, we might not eat any of them. On slower missions, we might eat them all before the halfway point.
— Maj. Tom Parent
Living Conditions
We lived in a tent city, with twelve guys to a tent for the pilots. Some of the maintenance personnel stayed in large seventy-two-person tents. We did have hot food and showers, though.
— Lt. Col. Deane Pennington
Jointness
Technology allows many more people to be in the air and increases the situational awareness of all the players. Iraqi Freedom had an incredible amount of connectivity with the other players and joint service cooperation.
— Capt. Quentin Esser
Biggest Threats
Triple-A was the biggest threat. SAMs were easy to see, but we did not see nearly as many SAMs as we expected. We had to step around those areas where triple-A was heavy. We eventually got immune to it to some extent. We know how to avoid it.
— Capt. Jason Charrier
 DEAD And SEAD
Rather than shooting HARMs, we put iron on targets for the DEAD mission. We got information from a number of off-board sources. We did time-sensitive targeting, getting updates from the CAOC. We often coordinated with the EA-6Bs. We started going in as our own SEAD and DEAD. As the war progressed, we had air superiority, but the SAMs were still a factor. We started to go back and retarget them.
— Capt. Frank Bryant
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