Veterans "oral" histories

[427TJ]

Here's a cool photo I took of four F-16 Fighting Falcons (also called "Viper") during Desert Storm. What makes this photo unique, at least until Desert Storm had gotten underway, was the fact that those are live bombs and missiles. Practice ordinance is usually painted blue but the real stuff is olive green as these are. These are cluster bombs and shortly after I took this photo people died. That's what went through my mind all during Desert Storm. No, I wasn't having any nightmares about it but it was sobering to look at those fighters with live ordinance underwing and realize that someone's going to die within the hour. These F-16s were normally based at Torrejon AB in Spain as denoted by the "TJ" tail codes.

It was easy to fight a war from 30,000 feet. The real men were down below slugging it out in the sand.