As the 510th Fighter Squadron commander, I was used to leading missions. But this time I was the mission commander for some 40 men and their $30 million jets, and Yugoslavian military forces would be shooting at us. I wanted all the men to come back alive.

My crew chief, Sully (Senior Airman Dan Sullivan), climbed the ladder to the cockpit to strap me in. Before he got off the ladder, he paused and reached into his pocket. He pulled out his squadron coin. We all carried them. It’s tradition in Air Force flying units that if you get caught without your squadron coin, you had to buy a round of drinks. The inscription on our coins read, “If it bleeds, we can kill it.”

With a serious look on his face, Sully handed me his coin. But as I reached out to take it, he wouldn’t let go. He tugged on it to get my attention, looked me in the eyes and said sullenly, “Sir, If you don’t bring me back my coin, I’m gonna be pissed.”

I got choked up. Sully and I had a professional relationship, and we joked around a lot, but never before had things gotten that deep.

As my jet powered up, about 15 minutes away, I knew my children (11-year-old Christine and 7-year-old Robert) were sound asleep. I was also just as sure my wife, Jan, was not. She knew something our kids didn’t. I was going to war. Because she is also a lieutenant colonel and a pilot (and chief of 16th Air Force operations training), her professional insights added to her worries as a wife. She knew only too well the risks.

At first Jan wanted to know all the mission plans, but because she understands the threat so well, it would only make things worse. We eventually agreed that it was better for her not to know the details.

As we taxied down the runway that first night, a guy who was deployed from Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, was waving an American flag back and forth. That was another emotional moment. Then I said, “OK, it’s time to get our game faces on.”

Into enemy territory
After takeoff, we ran tests on our aircraft to make sure all systems were working. Then we refueled over the Adriatic. We never started out with much fuel, because that way we could take off with more weapons. Once we were in the air, air control systems would hook us up with tankers. Those guys did a great job.

We flew to a point near Albania, then made our push — the jump to the strike area.

My first emotion then was “I can’t believe we’re really going to do this.” But the four Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles, four 500-pound laser-guided bombs and two 2,000-pound laser-guided bombs attached to my plane provided more than enough reality check. I fumbled with my ejection seat. I wanted to be ready for anything.

In the last 15 minutes or so before we reached the target area, all my fear went away. I’ve been a competitive swimmer all my life, and I equate it to being an athlete in crunch time. You get more confident and more focused when the game is on the line. You start to feel invincible — you almost have to or you’d go crazy with worry.

When I took over as the 510th commander, one of my goals was to make the “Buzzards” — as our squadron is nicknamed — fully night-capable. In 1998 our airplanes were modified for the night-vision imaging system. We wore night-vision goggles. It’s awesome. The first time I used the system I wanted to stay in the Air Force forever. With night vision, you can see 40 to 50 miles away. It lowers your risk.

I was glad for it now.

We split into four-ship formations to attack our targets. We saw light anti-aircraft artillery fire from the enemy that first night, but nothing serious. Our target area was in Kosovo. We dropped our bombs, lased our targets to guide them in, and everyone in our four-ship attack hit their bullseye. Inside of five seconds we had 12 to 16 bombs dropped on an area that might equal the size of the base exchange, commissary and Burger King. All our training had paid off. This war was our graduation exercise.

When we flew back to Aviano, we were all still pretty hyped up. I’d promised I’d call Jan when I got back, and I could hear the relief in her voice. That morning at breakfast she told the kids that I’d flown on the bombing mission but had gotten home safely. She didn’t want them to hear about it at school or on TV.

It really scared Chrissy. She didn’t like the idea of me being out there with guys shooting at me. She didn’t want me getting shot down. She always wanted to know my whereabouts. Jan said Robert was more interested in “how many tanks Daddy bombed.” Then he immediately shared his strategy to end the war faster: “We need to bomb Milosevic’s house.” Heck, Robert probably would have gone with me if I’d have let him.

That was one of the unique aspects of this conflict. We were fighting a war from home. After flying a night mission, I’d usually make it home in time to see my kids off to school. Then I’d sleep from about 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. I’d wake up in time to meet them at the bus stop. Then we might go get an ice cream — a cappuccino for me.

We’d get home, they’d start homework, and I’d try to get some exercise. Then mom would come home from work, and one of us would drive them to swim lessons. They are both accomplished swimmers and each won multiple medals at the European Forces Swim League Championships in Munich this past season. They train with an Italian swim coach. I help out when I can, but a lot of times during the war, I just had to drop them off and head to work.

A prayer from Lino
Oddly enough, I also had extended family in the area. Though I grew up in Ann Arbor, Mich., I have Italian roots. I have six Italian relatives, all my mom’s cousins, who live in Bannia, about 20 minutes drive from Aviano. My grandpa was actually an altar boy at the church in Bannia.

When we first arrived at Aviano in 1996, my mom had written her cousins a letter to let them know we’d be here. I had to laugh when two days after we arrived, they showed up at the main gate to see us. They are great people and love the kids.

One of the cousins, Lino Bertelo, who we call Uncle Lino, is 69 and barely speaks a word of English. He built his own home when he was 45 and has a small vineyard that he toils in daily. We’d often visit and share a glass of his homemade wine. His vineyard happened to be right in the flight path of the aircraft from Aviano. So sometimes during the war when he was working in his fields, he told me he would look up as the planes flew over and wonder, “Maybe that’s David. Go David! But, please, come back.” Then he would say a prayer for me. He worried about my safety.

But it’s the Serbs who should have worried.

As the war went on, we became more and more confident. In the beginning, we encountered a lot of enemy aircraft. But they didn’t have a chance. Every time one came near, we’d have several fighters commit to them. They were outmatched and overwhelmed. Our favorite ords, “Cleared for takeoff,” became their most dreaded.

The same went for their anti-aircraft ground fire. Yugoslav forces learned to detect us a little better, but it was a catch-22 for them. We dared the Serbs to shoot as us. It just made it easier for us to target them. I’m not saying we liked to be shot at, but NATO only lost two airplanes and had no fatalities during the entire 78-day air war. And when one of our guys was shot down, a rescue team had him so fast he almost made it back sooner than if he had flown home himself.

That doesn’t mean combat was a piece of cake. Quite a few missions got hairy. One night we headed to an ammo supply depot in Belgrade. We had enemy anti-aircraft fire all around us. Suddenly, there was a big flash of light near me. I thought my wingman’s plane had exploded. But when I asked him if he was all right, he said, “I think so.” He thought he was hit, but there was no damage to his aircraft. We think some of the triple A hit a bomb he had just released, and the triple A exploded on impact.

But while we were having close calls, the Yugoslavs were living a real life nightmare (NATO dropped 23,000 bombs and missiles with only 20 going astray and causing collateral damage). I have a video of one of my bombing runs where I dropped a bomb, lased the enemy target — a helicopter — and watched the bomb hit it in a fiery explosion. That’s now my favorite home movie.

Flexing our muscle
I think, first and foremost, our training led to our success over Yugoslavia. Never before in history had a war been won strictly with air power and no ground troops. You also have to give a lot of credit to our systems. The performance of the aircraft was outstanding.

Never in 40 combat missions did I have to change airplanes. I never had to abort a mission because of a system failure. You can perform even better when you have confidence in your machine. The ability to produce so many combat ready aircraft day after day is remarkable and a credit to maintenance guys like Sully. But it’s the whole team that makes it work — from supply and fuels to admin, services and the cops. Not to mention, the base picked up more than 4,000 extra people, and transportation and civil engineering performed miracles.

Having maintenance and support systems in place were a major advantage of fighting a war at home. On the flip side, fighting from home is hard emotionally. Some families struggled with sending daddy to war every day. Jan told me the ladies as a whole didn’t get a lot of sleep when their guys were flying night combat missions. There was a lot of praying, a lot of crying and a lot of comforting each other on the phone.

There’s a lot of emotional baggage of having to say goodbye to a loved one every day when you know he’s going into combat. It was hard on the wives. We (pilots) tried to keep things normal, but the fact was we weren’t around much. And when we were around, it was mostly to sleep, eat, shower and shave. Our wives took over the honey-do list, so we could focus on the war.

For Jan and me, the challenges of the war changed our relationship. We grew in a good way. We have gained understanding and tend to appreciate each other more. We suffered hardships, but it’s tough to complain when you compare your situation to that of those we were fighting to protect. The Kosovo refugees are the ones who really suffered. We couldn’t and wouldn’t stand by and watch ethnic cleansing by a mad dictator.

I think Milosevic finally got the message.

Note: Lt. Col. Dave Nichols relinquished command of the 510th shortly after the 78-day air war ended. He is attending the yearlong Senior Service School at the Marshall Center for European Studies in Garmisch, Germany.