28 Apr 99, 1345

Boss and fellow pilots are returning from a mission….showing video footage of damage done. Tanks and radio towers destroyed. First time in OAF that a Buzzard has used up all ammunition on his plane, and first time tank kill. Boss used everything, bombs, missiles, and guns to destroy tanks….don’t care how we get’em, just get’em…and it worked…mission accomplished…tanks destroyed.

Here’s Buzzard One’s story of the first tank kill: "I was FAC-A Mission Commander this day. We searched the entire Kosovo area looking for military vehicles. Weather in most places was marginal. Broken to overcast skies 10 – 15, 000 foot ceilings. I had two good recent Intel provided photos of search areas that showed armored vehicles in tree lines. Finally on the third time through the area, the clouds broke and I could use the targeting pod to search the tree lines. On the second pass AAA of a medium caliber came up from a nearby burned out city, they had heard us and now they saw us. We departed the area and looped around and this time approached from the south. The weather was still good enough to see the target area so I dropped a single GBU-12 and steered the jet toward the break in the clouds. I had to descend to keep the target area in view of the pod. I located the tank, and the GBU impacted directly on the front hatch and destroyed the tank. This proved that the USAF is capable of locating, fixing, and destroying nearly any target anywhere in the world. The key to the whole process is the current picture provided by the Intel community."

After viewing the video footage, the pilots are discussing the entire mission that went on that morning in their usual ‘wake up call’ to the Serbians. Some of them are talking about how ‘juicy’ some targets looked to them, but they weren’t tasked to hit those, so, reluctantly, they left those alone. Another pilot talks about when they were on their way into the target area, they couldn’t see well enough to hit one of their targets due to clouds, so on the way out, Boomer saves 2 bombs, sneaks up behind the target, and hits it!!!

….Home run for the team…bring’em on in boys.