Launch to survive and defend the The radar just lit up.

At that point, we were in an hou long fight, just trying to kill whatever we could.

(SIREN BLARES) Come on, let's go, go, go Operations desk said standby, I won't be able to talk to you.

We're one minute to impact.

We had to basically dodge multiple pieces of, red hot shrapnel as they were fa through the sky as we're trying Rockets and explosion sound over Jerusalem and across Israel toni This was not just a show.

This was a mass wave designed to overwhelm defenses, destroy, kill and attack.

Reporting from the ground in Jer I can see the Iron Dome protecting the city.

There are explosions high in the atmosphere and people running fo It is a really dangerous game.

Iran was playing and why they took that chance?

You don't know.

It was very risk It really started like every other night.

Came in to shift, got turned ove We really didn't have anything.

And, all our jets are kind of just sitting on the ground.

It was Saturday, so we got a steak...it was steak So bring the steak back, sit on porch, do like we always do.

Nothing felt different through that period of time.

But then, kind of as the sun was starting to set, I heard the top three.

You guys need to go ahead and go like, right now.

So I'm sitting back, relaxing, having a good time.

He's like, Sato wants to launch the first two lines.

And I’m like...cool.

Oh that's me.

And so I get up and I I'm like, all right, I'll get my formation So I run out.

And this is, I'm running because I'm trying to find my fo This is when we start getting an idea that the scale that I expected in the most dangerous course of action of the enemy action was a 10 to 20% at best, estimation of what we were about to face.

I don't have enough missiles to 180 one-way drones.

I don't...For the ballistic miss We don't have capability inside as a fighter.

And when you start looking at cr missiles and everything else that's going to be used by Iran in this attack against I how do we handle that?

But we have a layered defense, and we have a game plan with our partners in the region.

So in a classic, whatever.

I decided to throw some war pain Painted my face.

I took some, like, camo paint from my survival pack and frickin put, like, a, like a Spartan thing on there It felt like, we're ready to go.

We're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna tear this up.

We’re absolutely dominate.

And I walked in with this crazy and they’re like, oh my God, I get the green light to take of And the sun had already set to d and then we're just off at it.

just another normal night missio just like any other.

Started our normal launching of and all of a sudden I see pilots coming out from their bui towards aircraft with their bags helmets, all that stuff.

At tha hit up Super on the radio and wa we got extra pilots coming out h And that was when everything sta kicking off and we had to scramb It comes over the radio that one of the jets that are hot cocked, need to go up.

Pilots are out there.

They're running out to the spot, throwing their stuff up into the Kind of progressively, as the night went on, they're calling for another line Calling for another line, calling for another line to get these jets up in the air.

They're like second alert crew, And I was like, okay, we're goin It's time.

I think that's when the adrenali kicking in.

Gunz, it's time to go.

I was lik what already?

It's only been 30 minutes.

And she's like, it's time to go.

The top three are looking at us.

And he's like, you're gonna go h And he pointed at a spot at the and then he said, go!

That was it.

That was our brief.

And we went.

(Jet engine roar) This... clearly began a new, in a way, on October 7th.

And when Hamas attacked Israel, everything changed in the region Everything.

First of all, people were so stunned.

And I remember people saying, oh that couldn't have happened because Israel was so good at th It never would have happened.

It couldn't possibly have happen As soon as that happened.

You knew the Israelis were gonna go into Gaza and go in hard.

For the first few weeks.

We're doing our defensive counte and this is when the one way att against us and coalition forces So you probably saw on the news 100, over 120, over 140, starting from the end of October going through January.

So we're starting to find out that we don't have the right tac for this problem set.

We started getting our first air to air kills.

At first, slow, but then kind of increasing in the amount So now we have a data point that can target something we didn't know we even could.

So we're talking about a threat that's on the edge of weapon cap and at the edge of our ability to detect and track it.

So you had had months and months of back and forth.

It was first, you know, Hamas is is it's clearly attacking.

Then Israel goes into Gaza.

Then you see Hezbollah respondin you see the Houthis in Yemen res It was almost impossible to keep (Large Explosion) And then January 28th happens.

And, that's pretty emotional.

You know, three Americans died i That location fell under our win It's hard not to feel personally responsible in a way.

We weren't overhead that location at that time.

And then you realize that it only takes one.

But on April 1st, Israel launches into Syria and killed a senior IRGC command an Iranian senior IRGC commander and another general as well.

Iran said this was a diplomatic.

this was a consulate, whether it was or not, it's unsu but that's when Iran promised re They would go directly after Isr If Iran really gets through, if Iran really damages Israel, then the concern was all out war (Jet engine noise) We were out there for a couple o real comm about anything having So we thought, all right, maybe nothin’, nothing's going down.

So we finish up on the tanker and then Irish and Sonic, you kn an incredible job just as a flig Now, they're not just running our formation.

They're also running the entire They were the mission commander for multiple assets.

Aircraft, people, ...nations.

So, they're busy.

I now have a four ship, which is my happy place.

That's, that's the that is the killing formation of an F-15.

You mean business if you have a four ship or greater.

I have a four ship of F-15s in the north lane, we'll call it And I have a four ship of F-16s getting established in the south and my formation.

We're going to end up in the the Meanwhile, we're seeing F-16s do the south lane begin shooting.

Obviously they got a drone swarm down there.

They're getting after it.

We finally get established in ou that we were supposed to be in.

And within.

Within just a minute.

Contact.

And Diesel’s saying, “drone ther Irish and Voodoo make fun of me because my, my, my TCC just beca there” and I just continually sa ‘drone there’ in most of all my And so I just.... “drone there!” Okay.

Where's there?

Because I can't see where “there at this point in time.

He’s like, ‘it's directly beneat And my instinctual reaction is to just roll left a little in and try to find it.

And I was like, oh, that's right I can't actually see them.

There's no moon.

It's completely You can see the Milky Way.

All the stars are out.

I'm on NOGs, my WSOs on NOGs.

We don't see it.

And, then I was like, all right, 2...you go find that thing?

I'm going to point east and sani and I point east... and I get a I get a second radar hit, I get then Sonic cues in her targeting She goes, that's the drone.

She goes, and the next radar track, that's a drone.

And then the radar gets another and another.

It fills.

It's all attack drones.

And that was my first feeling of dread that night.

This was... way more volume of an attack than I had expected.

So drones have really been a part of warfare since aviation The first drone weapon systems were designed during World War o and the first drone weapon syste combat were fielded in World War But it was really starting in th that drone warfare became a class of warfare unto itself.

This is one of many changes in w Kind of likening, one way attack vehicle born IEDs and roadside IEDs were in the early 2000, rig It was the newest, cheap way for the enemy to bring the fight And we just have to figure out w to get after solving that proble and then they move on to the nex in terms of, counter unmanned aerial system tactics.

This is obviously an emerging th you probably haven't really heard about it much, at least on the outside world or the normal until this year, when the usage has ramped up dramatically.

So the Shahed 136 is an Iranian designed drone that really exemp sort of the blurring lines betwe They're fairly large in terms of what they do.

They're powered by a piston driv two blade pusher prop, and they 1600 miles, which is significant but they're also fairly slow at around 115mph.

And they fly at fairly low altit And that makes them very difficu to detect and target.

You have to find it first.

Once you find it, you got to figure out what it is And that's something that this p threat so a low slow drone threat looks to our system a lot like a car.

So check.

Is that a car?

Nope.

It's not a car.

There's something airborne there From there, we have to make sure Once you've determined it's pointed in a hostile direction.

It's not manned.

It's not a car, it's not a helic It's not anything friendly.

Then you determine, is this some that's hostile in this setting?

And that chain of events leads u Yes.

Bad guy.

Shoot it.

Maybe the most dangerous thing about the Shahed 136 is how cheap they are.

Because they're so inexpensive.

At around $50,000 a pop, you can produce a lot of them.

And that gives you the ability to field them in large volumes.

For those saturation attacks, where you’re hoping to overwhelm an adversaries air defenses.

And because you can field so man it doesn't matter if they're easy to shoot down in some circu because with enough volume, you'll never be able to shoot do The idea of throwing up drones that aren't as sophisticated as and just letting them launch and not knowing where they end u is pretty terrifying.

I was still kind of thinking lik I don't really know if this is g This seems like, uh kind of a crazy escalation for t to do what we thought they might As soon as I got off the tanker, sitting off the wing watching my two refuel and just listening up to the comm that's going on on the fight frequency.

I hear from the commander, “dron Fox three.

And so, that was my first indica this is happening, and this is h Throw the master arm switch, take the first shot.

And I had a particular missile cued up on the jet.

That thing come off and like it just lit up the night.

I'm talking massive plume of, li Everything turned bright and thi shoots off and it's kind of stun The first time.

And that was the first time I've shot an AMRAAM in anger.

It was a little bit surreal.

It's like, oh, okay, that just h So from there, we're kind of lik all right, maybe it is happening kind of th And then within five minutes on scope popped up a.... track a thousand feet off the gr Boards gets the first lock and.. boy, he does exactly what he was After getting the ID and King and I were flying together, we were on the tanker and it was that was probably it.

We just mi I'm going to do this and I'm goi in my formation, and I'm by far the least experienced, I'm going to give someone else a to tell me not to before I do it So I was like, hey, we're target No one said anything.

I was like, all right, we get a little closer.

Let it ride.

Yep.

There goes the missile.

All right, boys, here we go.

And that just kicked about 45 mi all of the missiles that we could off at that four ship before we had to come home out o and try and get some more to go I would just say, “drone there” Missile would come off the rail drone destroyed.

Next.

Eight engagements and then it wa wow, that happened fast.

I mean, it felt very just method It was drone there.

Shoot.

Weapon comes off.

Kill.

Drone there.

Shoot.

Weapon comes off, kill, turn around.

Another drone, kill.

Biggest thing was deconfliction and where our number 2 was.

because these missiles, you know they are very capable.

And, depending on which one we s they can bite off.

Is what we kind of say on a juicier target.

Which another Strike Eagle jet.. with really hot afterburners is definitely a juicier target.

I can't emphasize the uh.. how dangerous this mission set is.

At times I'm 1000ft above the gr Min.

safe altitude was 4000ft.

I'm 3000ft below the altitude that's going to keep me alive because I can't see the ground.

There's not enough ambient light We shot all of our missiles, and then we were like, well, what do you want to do?

We got a bomb on board.

You want to try and bomb one of these drones?

We’re like, yeah, let's do that.

30 plus years of total combined It just seemed like we had the ability to try it.

We had talked through the tactic of how that could work.

And the weapon technically had t capability to do it through trig So stay in school, learn Trig.

A little SOHCAHTOA never hurt an It was a function of very rapidly deciding to do it, continuing to track the drone, w there is a massive tactical chan of what needs to happen with the between those two types of weapo And so I was aggressively maneuv to get to the place where I coul Meanwhile, Diesel was tracking this very tiny, small point targ I'm talkin’ a couple of pixels o You know, you're, you're putting on that couple of pixels and he' gotta track it with his thumb.

We are out in the middle of nowh It is a big wide desert.

So we take a lot of time before we do this to just clear the are and make sure that there's no ci in the area, there's no infrastr in the area, there's no roads.

And then we end up, releasing a bomb on this, drone and trying to laze it in, and it it looked like it worked.

It was great.

We were really exc This big explosion.

And then here comes the drone ri I wish it would have shacked it and taken it out.

It would have been more legendar if that was the case and we miss Okay, not going to do that again In fact, Irish said that over th He was like, “you guys aren't do which we didn't.

So there you go.

So the idea of trying to hit one of these drones with a bomb might sound absolutely insane, but there is historical preceden In fact, the Strike Eagles first ever air to air kill was scored with a 2,000 pound laser guided bomb.

A Strike Eagle was coming up on a group of Iraqi HIND attack helicopters that were depositing around a special operations grou and they knew that they were a b too far out at their low altitude to hit that helicopter with a Sidewinder missile.

So instead they decided to gain altitude and lob a 2,000 pound b hoping to hit the helicopter on while it was deploying troops.

But as soon as they released the weapon, the helicopter took and they assumed it was a missed But that weapon systems officer the laser designator on the heli and they managed to hit that hel while it was airborne and scored the Strike Eagles first air to air kill.

Between all the other airplanes It didn't work, so we stopped do We got, a a close miss, dependin on who you ask, for that portion But that was really cool.

(Intense music) We were walking out, and that's when the first, first shots were And I think that was by some F-1 We're like, oh, so this is this is happening, happening.

And about the time it took from us to like, learn that information to get al to walk, to actually step, to st getting to the Jets and getting The missiles were just flying off the rails at that point.

So we immediately start heading down, to what was a very, very b They said, hey, we have one miss between like three jets and 90 K If you have missiles, I need you to come down here.

We'll be right there.

We'll be right there.

Another horde of drones was comi I need to use her missiles right So I call her down into the lane And as soon as she turns hot down in the lane, we start directively targeting to her to very specific points and drones.

And she just starts shooting awa She takes three out in that firs We put our butts on the line, be we would have been landing somew except for the base we came from In a country I really did not wa I just remember feeling a lot of relief when we hooked up and we started getting gas, and I was like, okay, we're good So after we had finished shootin I had one hung missile.

My wingman had two hung missiles We started flowing back out to g home, and I see a light on the h I'm not quite sure what it is.

There are some some factor threats that are in the general vicinity, but none that really would be a factor to us.

And then I see it burn out right about co-altitude with us.

It was like, Holy crap, we're ou I don't want to take any more ga I think the best thing we can do is try and get home as quick as We were very far to the north.

And so as we're coming back home with our two ship, I start picking up flashes in my NVGs out to the left.

We lean away from that threat.

And then I see another one on the horizon.

Another another orange dot.

And then that burns out and anot And then all of a sudden, the sky is lighting up with thes orange boosters on the horizon.

It's about that time that I hear the comm from the backseat.

He goes, “dude, look up.” Rowdy and I are both looking bac And, it just looked like Iran was glowing red.

And I try and count these missil because I'm initially thinking, is going to want to know about t And I start counting one, two, t four, five, six, seven, eight, and I get to 13.

And I had to stop because they were coming up so quick.

The missiles, most of them are i And as it turns out, just based we were in the geometry of the s the intercepts were happening di my two ship.

“Bud” Leitzke, keys, the radio.

As we're now watching all of the and missiles fly at each other, and they get to about here, and he keys the radio and goes, I do not want to be here right n You can see all these, like, flaming pieces of debris that ar just bright green, in your, night vision goggles, coming dow in front of the jet, around the It's a 360 degree umbrella of bu falling around the airplanes.

And as you're flying...and there's no clear way out.

You're recognizing.

All right, we're going to fly through all of this.

We didn’t just fence out.

This i We're not just about to land and go home and eat dinner, you know But you did just see 70,000ft ab Probably something explode into a million pieces.

And gravity's obviously going to take that in your flight path.

So there wasn't really a whole l we could do to avoid it.

It's just like You don't really process how the night was until about si And it took me a lot of time because I was genuinely scared when I was seeing flaming balls from space that were falling at What I can only estimate 15 to 2 in front of the jet of of my jet and using avoiding action to maneuver my jet away from it.

This was the new existential experience for me, b it's a country attacking another and they haven't done that in over 45 years., directly.

I don't know what the U.S.

and the coalition is going to do I don't know what Iran is target They're they're shooting towards where I've got the 494th and the And quite frankly, I didn't know what the world ord was going to look like when I la I didn't really have time to pro I just shot every missile on the and we cleaned off the entire fo because there was a lot of other going on that night.

That...that just added to the cr of what, 13th April was.

We pull up, and like the I would say like the look on eve face when we pull up, like we have no missiles, we hav shot all missiles on our airplan You also dropped a bomb, like this is crazy.

And so but but they're also enga They're like, cool.

So that's the scenario I need to put fuel and weapons o airplane and then just jump into Now, an integrated combat turn is as close as you'll get to a formula one pitstop in the military world.

As you're likely to find.

The idea is to recover an aircra refuel it, rearm it, inspect it, maybe even give it some light ma and turn it around and get it right back into the fight.

As quickly as you possibly can.

Well you're catching a jet, you're refueling a jet.

You're putting new missiles on j Home station.

If you ever sit ou and watch a fuel truck, they take way longer than 30 min I can tell you that.

Normally for an ICT, one engine That night, it was just everythi was happening so fast.

They had to get it right back up So dual engine running ICT, which was the first one I've eve three different entities working You know, you got your crew chie sure that they're on comms with the air crew, making sure that the jets still good to go.

You got POL fuelin’ the truck while you got another crew chief making sure everything's safe th and then you got weapons moving So it looks like a bunch of ants trying to protect the fortress.

Just knowing when to get out of so other people can work is also a very important st especially in ICTs.

They did it in record time, turn a Strike Eagle around in 32 minu That is basically how long it ta to refuel the Strike Eagle.

Meaning, everything was done in of time it took to get the fuel into that aircraft, and to do that in the middle of debris falling all around you is an absolutely heroic effort.

And then they start basically ha loading the next, missiles.

And it was right at about that m that I kind of see a flash up above me on the right side, and I'm like, VOODOO, what was t And we look up.

And then there's just a lot of e a lot of debris coming down and FIFA in my back seat, he's l yo, what the hell is that?

It's like, what?

We look over to our right and it all the air defense systems goin One of the weapons guys kind of pointed off in the distance.

And so we all kind of like turn and look and you could see the Patriot sy all the stuff that was supposed to be defending our base.

It was going off and blowing up the drones and stuff in the sky.

The base goes into alarm red, and so there's a good amount of that just run, right.

That's the training.

Is go to t when you hear alarm red.

Oh, it's an alarm red.

Everyone's run into the bunkers like I got one and a half engine right now.

We are not going anyw There's the fight or flight.

Rig And I'd say that everybody on th that night wanted to fight.

So these guys have totally disregarded their safety specifically because the mission And they were out there and they and they did it anyway, because what they knew was the right thi And then we hear over the radio, Voodoo, “you will arm up, take off, and you will defen Now we're all super amped up on that kind of thing, because he just quashed any idea like, we're getting out of here for our own safety.

It's like we're doing the job we were sent here to do, and that is to protect the people that we can.

We had two jets coming in, broke two jets on the ICT pad.

The other flight line expeditors We're kind of having to cover fo And they were all over the place So Sierra Ramp had no leadership out there, if you will.

I asked captain, do you need somebody out at Sierra Ramp?

He said, yes.

We went out to where we parked t We found one with keys in the vehicle, and I took it and we just took off.

And we don't know who's it is.

He hops in the driver's seat.

I hop in the passenger seat, and I'm pretty sure you could se clutch smoke from all the way wh we were at the bunker all the wa Sierra, just like a mile and a h So that truck is probably on its Myself and Sonic go into the bun You can hear the explosions over And at this point, someone has a and I asked him if that was call So yeah, it's calling top three.

So I grab the phone.

Is there an aircraft?

And he said, yes.

And I was like, can maintenance So I go back into the bunker.

I'm like, Sonic, we, I gotta go.

We're not asking for permission We are leaving now.

I see Blood and Batman.

They're off the deck.

It looks like they're racing these missiles and these This ADA down the runway, and they break off to the right, and he pulls out afterburner a l bit early, and it just goes dark And there's a missile that goes right under them.

I was like, I think Batman just We have our red flashing beacons And so I finally see the flashing pull off and away I was like, oh no , they’re fin They’re right there.. Sweet!

Now it's our turn.

So we smack it into, Max afterbu We get off the deck, get the gea in, and again, it's the same thi You're looking left and right an chasing and being chased by this All this defense going on, it was 26 minutes from walking o the door to the gear in the well So it was really, really quick.

And it was not the intention for us to go fast.

We were walking out to that jet to take off normal, normal.

I look over to my left.

I see jets taking off.

I see another massive base defense launch out towards the e While the jets taking off, I see crack their power and stay low until they could make sure they the ones being targeted.

I could see them snap back and quick, climb off to the... off into the distance, and mysel and Sonic get to the jet.

We got them started up and did o You know, just quick little righ So they got their green light.

Get the minimum essential items.

We need to just at least take of I was like, brother, go back to the bunker.

You're good.

Like we're going to be good.

And he said, nope, I'm not leavi I'm not unplugging into your tax because if something happens to in that airplane, I'm going to g That was Senior Airman Freer From there we sent them off to EOR to go get armed up.

Within 20 minutes from takeoff.

I'm out of missiles the second t and I have another hung missile I encountered, a wave of confirmed at least 20 one-way at I'm able to engage two.

We're starting to have, fairly substantial system malfunctions.

We're out of options, and it's just myself and Sonic.

I'm pulling back.

I'm retrograding forces.

I'm restructuring what we call a I need to bring people back.

We need to do everything in our Or at least try to get another k I attempt a strafing pass, which very dangerous maneuver, especially at night.

It's actually killed quite a few Eagle aviators in the past.

I can't see it.

So she's cueing the targeting po and I can see the laser through my night vision goggles.

And she's manually tracking this Just trying to keep the laser on because it's an air to ground ta We are inventing, procedures, if and we roll in, shoot about 200 rounds of 20 Mike Mike But I was terrified.

I was a black hole.

Can't see anything.

All I see is a laser in my night goggles and my altitude, and I recover the aircraft, and I was like, Sonic, I don't.

We're going to die if we keep doing stuff like that.

If there's any moment that night that actually made me stop, we're trying to land and there's nobody in the tower, so we can't, nobody's talking to And so they're kind of trying to we're just going to land on the despite, no clearance to do it.

As we're doing that, we're talki our operations desk that runs ju He said, standby.

I won't be abl We're one minute to impact.

And were just like, what is goin Because we've been completely lo We've been in our own little wor shooting drones down, not realiz what exactly was happening.

And the entire comm chain went q And we're all just kind of looki out, waiting, watching.

This is something that I was not 100% mentally prepared for.

The I was prepared for that.

Coming back in your base is unde and you have extremely low gas, and you just have to land or mak a decision to go somewhere else That's a, that's a gut check.

And that is, a gut check.

That I was luckily able to make in that moment of, we're going to sit here for abou ten minutes and we're going to then just land at our own risk i to, to put the jets back on the because we're not ejecting out h 45 seconds goes by.

A minute goes by, two minutes go Okay.

I think we're okay.

And of course, like, once we lan It was on international media, like it was all over the place.

Plus multiple messages from my w asking if I was okay.

We slow down and we just look we and now I can see the Iron Dome.

And that was heartbreaking.

In that moment.

I remember, talking with her.

Did we do enough?

I had no idea if we were success Did we?

Did we do everything?

Should I have tried more gunning passes?

Should I have tried to do more?

Did I fail in my mission command Where did we mess up that base defenses are going off still, to So we we we just orbit and watch for probably 30 minute Just waiting, probably not really wanting to l because now you have to face the I think we landed at 3 or 4 in the morning.

And it wasn't until we landed an on the ground that we were final oh, holy shit, that just happene As the sun came up, it looked like a ball of yarn of like missile trails.

So as all that smoke had kind of as it got hotter and hotter, it was just like roadways and in things of just all these smoke t And it was for miles and miles i the sun was coming up straight i So FIFA and I are like, that's a So you could see you could get d feedback as to the work you did.

I remember getting back it felt forever, and then we landed and I think I could have just sa on the ground for a little bit, I mean, just looking at the jet, bare it was, just with that one missile left on the rails, I it's like, dude, we just did tha Yeah.

Leaving the ground with eight missiles and looking back and just seeing one and like, oh, that's so lit.

That one wasn’t our fault.

That Yeah.

Didn't want to cooperate t It was it was amazing.

Nobody ever goes the extra mile for an intel It's always the heart.

My friends are out there.

My, my brothers and sisters in arms.

Right?

They they've they've trained wit They’ve fought with me.

I've ha lunches and dinners with them.

I've been to the gym with them.

We’ve, we've had arguments and w and we've had things happen at h And like, we've become very clos This is.... not even a question of what need It it needs to be done.

I don't think I really processed wow, I just shot every missile off of a Strike Eagle.

And oh, by the way, they always growing up that you were never g to load eight missiles onto a St because that's not our primary m And here we are.

And we shot them all off on the first night.

300 weapons were fired at a targ Six of them hit.

No one died.

We got to be part of a thing that was meaningful and had an i and prevented an escalation.

It's only when I got back that, we got a call from from somebody that was actually in Israel, and “thank you guys for your help.

You have no idea how much you he and how many lives that you ended up saving.” And that's kind of when it hit me of like, this is way, way bigger than me just shooting missiles at drones This is defense of our coalition