One of our purposes is to attract readers at all levels in the Air Force. Thus we discussed an Air Force tenet of airpower that—on various days—was followed, could have been better employed, or was ignored. We also hope that our honest attempt to provide an accurate, albeit tactical, perspective on the effects that higher-headquarters direction had on our tactical level of combat will be of interest to that wider audience. We refrained from second-guessing those whose decision-making processes and environments we did not observe. Finally, we did attempt to present our narratives in a storytelling style that students of airpower history (and perhaps the occupants of a fighter-pilot bar) might find interesting.

Even before the end of the air campaign, we felt that documenting our experiences would be valuable. A-10 pilots contributed to several significant and unique Air Force accomplishments during OAF: (1) this operation marked the first time that an airborne forward air controller (AFAC) aircraft led a largeforce mission package into combat; (2) it also included the first major air campaign in which no friendly aircrews were killed or taken prisoner—A-10 aircrews led the packages that rescued the only two pilots shot down; (3) although the official battle damage assessment (BDA) is incomplete, A-10s most likely destroyed more field-deployed Serb weaponry than any other allied weapon system; and (4) the two-ship AFAC’s first combat test in a 360-degree threat environment was a great success—none of the fighters controlled by A-10 AFACs were lost, only two A-10s received any battle damage, and there were no known collateral civilian casualties.