I found myself back at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia
for my second deployment in mid-2002 shortly before the start of Operation
Iraqi Freedom. This would be the first and only time that I would repeat a base
for a deployment. It seems that burying my boots in Boot Hill 4 years earlier
didn’t work as it was supposed to! I would spend 147 days in Saudi Arabia during this
deployment from August of 2002 to January of 2003.
Personnel landing at PSAB are immediately struck by the vastness
of the place. If there is one thing that the Saudis have plenty of (besides
oil) it would be flat real estate. The base was approximately 25 by 40 miles.
Just the mention of the name can send shivers up and down the spine of anyone
who has been threatened with a deployment here. The name Prince Sultan Air
Base, Saudi Arabia. It invokes thoughts of intense heat, dust, sand, and
scorpions. You’re not in hell, but you sure can feel the heat from there. With
15 knots of wind, the daily 115-degree temperatures feels like you are in a
giant hair dryer. Highs reach into the 110’s routinely. Those of us “lucky”
enough to work outside for hours on end coped by drinking as much water as we
could. Bottled water was available to everyone in mass quantities. To keep from
dehydrating members of the 363rd Air Expeditionary Wing were told to drink a
bottle of water every hour; one bottle equaling a half-liter. During periods of
exercise or intense labor that amount was to be doubled. Another
problem to deal with was the sand. The country is, for the most part,
completely covered in sand. When the wind picks up it takes the sand with it.
Even when the wind isn’t blowing, the sand gets kicked into the air by walking,
driving and other daily activities. This sand gets into everything! Other
hazards we dealt with were the critters that make their home
in the desert. The desert is home to such wildlife as scorpions, spiders, and
snakes. Generally, all these creatures will leave humans alone unless they are
cornered. This is the problem. The curious found themselves the victim of a
nasty camel spider bite or worse. The camel spider is not deadly, but it is
aggressive, and its bite is very painful. Almost all of the snakes that live in
the region are venomous. Of note was the carpet viper. This snake was known to
be seen in and about the living areas and workspaces. Again, this animal will
run rather than fight but if cornered it will strike.
Back at home station in Italy, over a span of a few days in
early March of 2003, Aviano Air Base was preparing for something big. I mean
real big. Then, it started- March 26, a fleet of seventeen C-17s would start
night one of five where they delivered more than 400 vehicles, more than 2,000
people, and more than 3,000 tons of equipment with 62 airlift missions. All
arrived on time, all without mishap and with great precision. It was by any
measure a landmark moment for airlift operations and the C-17 Globemaster III.
The nighttime airdrop of troops and equipment behind enemy lines into northern
Iraq was the largest combat airdrop since the invasion of Panama in December
1989 and a first for the C-17. I remember watching that first evening as 15
C-17s took off from this base in Northern Italy one after another, not knowing
the scope of what just took place until they all landed some eight hours later.
And then we were busy as can be! I was working in our control center. We had
every fuel truck out, 25+ in total, at about 3am when the aircraft came back.
Each aircraft was taking, on average, three trucks of fuel, totaling about
15,000 gallons of jet fuel. We were driving these big green refuelers
everywhere on the ramp, in the grass, over the taxiways to get the mission done
and get the aircraft ready to turn for nights two, three, four, and five.
Though the nights following that first were with less and less aircraft, just
seeing so many wide-body aircraft taking off one after another was an amazing
sight.
One of the operations pilots recalled the following as he was in
the lead aircraft of the formation of 15 C-17s that first night. As the jet
taxied down the ramp, he says he looked out the window and noticed something
amazing happening on the ramp at Aviano. Even though the air and ground crews
tried to maintain a low-profile days before the launch, the base woke up that
day to thousands of Army troops and 17 aircraft on the ramp. People knew
something big was about to happen. “There were four airplanes behind me and 10
others lining up at the taxiway,” said Colonel Allardice. “To see this huge
formation on the ground with people everywhere … there were people on the
rooftops, lining the streets, with American flags waving. They understood
something big was happening, and that they were part of some very large
historic moment. This was so large and so many people had a part in this
operation, they all felt they were part of it. That’s what you want. You want
every Airman to know they are connected to the mission.” The operation, the
largest airborne operation since 1989, constituted 62 missions, transporting
2,146 passengers and 2,433.7 tons of cargo.
One of my favorite parts about reminiscing about the different
bases I have been at is looking into some of the major history of that
location. Aviano played a great part in events that lead us to today. Our
current Chief of Staff of the Air Force, General David Lee Goldfein could have
been involved in a totally different outcome had it not been for Air Force
Special Operations Airmen from this base in Northern Italy. David Lee Goldfein
is a four-star general in the United States Air Force who currently serves as
the Chief of Staff of the Air Force. Before, he served as Vice Chief of Staff
of the Air Force and was previously Director of the Joint Staff, a position
within the Joint Chiefs of Staff who assists the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff. On April 26, 2016, it was announced that General Goldfein was
nominated to succeed General Mark Welsh as the 21st Chief of Staff of the
United States Air Force. His confirmation hearing took place on June 16, and he
succeeded Welsh on July 1st, two days after his confirmation.
As commander of the 555th Fighter Squadron at Aviano Air Base,
then Lt. Col. David Goldfein led his squadron flying an F-16 fighter in
Operation Allied Force. During that operation, on May 2nd, 1999, Goldfein’s
F-16J was shot down over western Serbia by a S-125 surface-to-air missile fired
by the 3rd Battery of the 250th Air Defense Missile Brigade of the Yugoslav Air
Force. Shortly after midnight, Goldfein found himself in a small, unenviable
club: He became just the second U.S. pilot in Operation Allied Force to be shot
down. Col Goldfein successfully ejected and was subsequently rescued by NATO
helicopters. In 2010, Goldfein said in an Air Force news release that he still
stays in touch with the air crew. Each year, he sends them a bottle of fine
single-malt Scotch liquor, and they save the last of it to drink together with
Goldfein when he is able to meet and replace it with a new one. The only other
manned aircraft shot down during the air war against Milosevic was an F-117
stealth fighter — the only one ever shot down in combat. It was hit with a
missile on March 27, 1999. The pilot, Lt. Col. Dale Zelko, also survived and
later befriended the man who shot his aircraft down.
I was promoted to Staff Sergeant on January 1st, 2002 and worked
in distribution, storage and the control center during my time at in Italy. I
volunteered to go to Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota under the
Voluntary Stabilized Tour Program and departed for the frozen north in May of
2004. I would call Grand Forks, North Dakota home for the next five years. Our
state tree was the telephone pole; the state bird was the vicious mosquito!!
The journey continues…..
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