Bent Corner

I was going through some old pictures of my Air Force days and found this. It’s of aircraft B-52G 0248. It’s probably too small to see, but the nose art shows that this aircraft had the nickname of “In Harms Way”. There is a story that goes along with the nickname. Then again, don’t most nicknames have a story? This is the B-52G that was accidentally hit with an AGM-88 HARM anti-radiation missile fired from an F-4G Wild Weasel on the first night of operation DESERT STORM. The B-52’s tail gunner mistakenly locked his anti-aircraft radar on the Wild Weasel thinking it was an Iraqi MIG. The Wild Weasel immediately detected the B-52 tail gun radar locking on to him and misidentified the radar signature as that of an Iraqi anti aircraft artillery (AAA) site. The Wild Weasel crew fired a HARM missile and watched in horror as it headed not towards the non existent Iraqi AAA site, but to the very B-52 is was trying to protect.

Luckily the missile failed to hit the plane, but instead detonated directly behind the bomber. These missiles are designed to hit nonmoving ground targets, not moving airplanes. The resulting shrapnel and missile debris caused an excessive amount of damage to the tail section of the B-52. It ripped off everything aft of the vertical stabilizer. This included much of the tail gun system, the aft electronic warfare suite, and the drag chute. The B-52 was able to land safely on the island of Diego Garcia at Jedda, Saudi Arabia.

It was then sent from Diego Garcia to Anderson Air Force Base on Guam for repair. I was in on the repair of this aircraft shortly after is was damaged. During the first Iraqi war, I was assigned to a squadron that was responsible for repairing B-52’s being used in Iraq being flown from Diego Garcia. I spent four months back on Guam. I had been stationed there prior for almost three years. I could have been sent to places far worse then Guam. I could have gone to Saudi. I could have spent four months on Diego Garcia. I spent two weeks there once and that was long enough for me. As it was, I loved Guam.

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Holy smokes. They actually did it. Not that I’m surprised. I always knew once the invasion of Iraq started that, Saddam Hussein would end up dead.

Not that I feel even the smallest amount of sympathy for him. The guy was one of the biggest assholes of the 20th century. A century chalk full of raging assholes. Not only did he kill a massive amount of people over the years, he was an extreme troublemaker in a part of the world that didn’t need any more trouble. He waged an 8-year war against Iran. When saddled with huge debts because of the 8-year Iraq-Iran war, he decided to just invade Kuwait. This was one way of erasing the $14 billion he had borrowed from Kuwait to help finance the war with Iran. Being that the rest of the world enjoyed buying oil from Kuwait, many countries, including the United States had a huge problem with this. The United States put together a massive military invasion that we affectionately called OPERATION DESERT STORM.

It also resulted in a never ending, continuous American military presence in the region. Mainly in the country of Saudi Arabia. This was to ensure that Saddam Hussein didn’t continue to pose a threat to his oil rich neighbors.

The oil must flow.

The United States military presence also ensured Saddam didn’t kill anymore of his own people in the north and in the south of Iraq. Something that he was famous for doing.

One of the difficulties with permanently basing thousands of American troops in Saudi Arabia is that some Muslims had a real problem with this. Muslims that were real old-school serious about their Islamic faith. Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of the Islamic faith. To some Muslims, basing American troops in the land of Mecca was more then a little sacrilegious. They felt as though it was desecrating the land of the Prophet Muhammad.

If only there was a way of knowing this. Remember, this was before the advent of Google or Ask Jeeves. It wasn’t as though somebody could have just “looked it up”.

One of these old-school serious Muslims to have a problem with American troops based in the birthplace of Islam was some really tall prick named Usama bin Laden.

In fact, he was so unhappy with American troops being in Saudi Arabia that bin Laden directed his people to commit the worst terror attack in history against the United States. Something we now refer to as 9-11.

Though it’s more then a little morbid, I have no problem waking up this morning to find out there is one less asshole in the world.

I guess it always does happen in threes. James Brown, Gerald Ford, and Saddam Hussein.