He continues to tell me "Actually, we haven’t done much engine work. All the jets have flown really well. Just been doing a lot of scheduled inspections due to the numerous flying missions." One of the guys begin to talk about a movie he had viewed the night before entitled "Shot Through the Heart" which is a true story about the Serbians and their aggression on the Albanians, released in ’98. One highlight of the movie he notes is "there were some Albanians discussing whether or not they should leave their homes due to the Serbs infiltration, and one Albanian says ‘well, you know the UN is not going to let this go on too much longer’." Long lives the UN!! They thought this was quite funny. Then grouch-box, MSgt Heider comes along and say "And they all died and we lived happily every after…..I need to go get more doughnuts for dayshift".

9 Apr, 0900, I head out to the flight line to check on the troops. I ride with the Super, "VZ". "Not much going on today, due to weather, jets were down last night, just doing a lot of little stuff…very quiet morning" he says..."We had a couple of jets that came in this morning with Code 2s, that’s about it."

A couple of troops from AGE (aerospace ground equipment) are out repairing one of our jammers, or bomb lift. Bombs are sitting around, waiting to be loaded. One guy eagerly awaits the return of his jet that’s been at Falcon Up for five months… "It’s finally coming home," he says. I catch Rosie and Max getting ready to put an ECS Turbine into an F-16. She’s excited that she has a new one… explains that "they’ve ‘upped’ our supplies, so we don’t have to ‘can’ too many jets now…yeah!" she says. Rosie begins to give me her side of the story: "We do this everyday…we train, train, and train…and now it’s for real, we’re using what we trained for and it’s a team effort…no more training…this is war. We don’t get too tired because were pumped about what we’re doing. Some of us don’t even want to leave the flight line." Rosie is pretty excited about her pictures and collecting any news media that has the 510 FS featured in it pertaining to the war. They’re getting ready to install the ECS Turbine…I guess that’s the last time we’ll get to see it looking brand new.

Max, the new guy on the job, came straight from high school to the Air Force. He’s been at Aviano for 3 months, and getting ready to install his first Turbine. He talks about how all of his high school buddies said they were going to go to college, but are still back home partying and getting drunk, while he’s here working on a multi-million dollar aircraft. He knows his job, but is still learning where all the parts go. He says "It feels really neat to talk to friends back home..they ask questions like ‘are you OK?…are they going to bomb Aviano?…etc" Rosie also feels really proud to be at Aviano right now… "Like we’re the meat and potatoes of the AF right now".

Rosie ends here "Buzzard Pride" speech with: "Do you know what it means when a pilot tips his wings? He rocks his aircraft from side to side as he takes off. He’s saying ‘thanks’ to the ground crew for getting him off. It really makes me feel good about my job when he tips his wings to us."