Buzz's Bedtime Stories

Buzz’s Bedtime Stories: Grenada and Operation Urgent Fury (A thread) Put some water in the kettle, brew up some tea, and settle in. 1) After my year at Air Force pilot training, I was assigned to fly C-141 Starlifters at Charleston AFB, SC. I was young, single, and the 141 was my first choice coming out of training. I was thrilled. I wanted to see the world and my dad was an airlifter and special operator. I wanted to follow his lead. On October 25, 1983, after only two operational missions as a copilot, I was put into an alert status to wait for a call. Something “real world” was happening. Very shortly thereafter, I was on my way to Pope AFB, NC, to fly the 82nd Airborne to the invasion of Grenada. President Ronald Reagan had ordered this swift military intervention because of a violent Cuban-Soviet-backed coup on the Caribbean island that threatened a group of American students who were trapped at the St. George Medical School. The Soviet Union was hoping to establish a MIG base within striking distance of Florida. I was stoked and ready to go! We departed Charleston and arrived at Pope AFB early in the night. Our briefing from the intelligence officer at Pope consisted primarily of our receiving a photocopied tourist map of the island. Our briefers confessed, “We don’t know the runway length at the Point Salines airfield where you will be landing and unloading the troops. The runway heading is 1-0-0. It’s under construction by the Soviets. There may or may not be trenches dug into the runway. We really have no idea what resistance you’ll find. Go for it.” That was the intelligence briefing: Here are some guns; there are your soldiers; there’s your jet; go. As we were boarding our aircraft and I was doing a preflight walk around, a crusty Army Sergeant Major in full combat gear and a subdued 82nd Airborne patch pulled me aside under the wing. “Lieutenant,” he growled, “just get me down there safely. I’ve got a silver bullet for the first commie bastard I see.” I smiled. This is real. As our flight approached the island, rain clouds developed. We went into holding, waiting for our call. The airfield was held and defended by the Cubans, and we looked down at tracer bullets streaking across it. An Air Force AC-130 was pounding anti-aircraft sites. Explosions and small fires blazed along the rolling hills nearby. We circled at 12,000 feet, just off the coast, waiting for the call to come in. American military aircraft of various types were stacked vertically like pancakes at 1,000 feet over the same point in the sky. Very little thought had been put into properly sequencing aircraft by operational priority. It was “first-come, first-served.” We, for example, had the warfighters and medical personnel, jets below us were carrying support and administrative personnel. Worse, we couldn’t communicate with one another. Navy aircraft were on one radio frequency, some Air Force aircraft were on another frequency, and yet even more Air Force aircraft were on a third. I hadn’t been an Air Force pilot long, but I knew this wasn’t intelligent aviation. The US military hadn’t done this sort of thing since Vietnam. At one point, I was #8 in the stack. Somewhere near the top of the “pancakes.” I was carrying the shooters. The Combat Control Team (military ATC, essentially) reached out. “Mover One Five (my call sign), we need you now. Come on in!” It was dark, and traffic separation was difficult. “I can’t come in. I’ve got 7 aircraft below me and in my way. We’re unable.” Various aircraft started intermittently flashing our lights. It was the only way to know. There was no radar coverage whatsoever.