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U.S. planes still patrol and bullets still fly
It seldom makes the news, but U.S. isn't done keeping watch in the Gulf
Wednesday, January 17, 2001
By DAVID FISHER and GORDY HOLT
Ten years ago today, Navy pilot Tom Tack's warplane hurtled through the skies over Iraq.
"I saw more bullets than I had ever seen before, more than I have ever seen since, and more than I ever care to see again," Tack recalls.
Where are they today?
The Foster is steaming away from its Everett Naval Station home port, headed for its latest six-month mission: Containing Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
Tack is in his home hangar at Whidbey Island Naval Air Station, getting the EA-6B Prowler squadron he commands ready for its next mission: Containing Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
One of the central ironies of the Gulf War -- the shortest in American history -- is that it has not ended. In fact, for thousands of the active-duty military people who fought the war or who have joined up since, the war has become -- in many ways -- a profession.
It's no small task. According to the U.S. European Command, "Operation Northern Watch" alone keeps 45 aircraft and more than 1,400 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines in Turkey, year-around, to keep the Iraqi air force bottled up and away from its northern neighbors.
Pacific Northwest people are generally a part of it. As the Foster heads for more Middle East duty, the USS Camden, an oiler based in Bremerton, and the USS Abraham Lincoln, a carrier based in Everett, are returning home. The USS Ford, a frigate, is due to leave for the Middle East in the fall.
Two Whidbey squadrons -- Electronic Attack Squadrons VAQ-128 and VAQ-130, each with four planes and about 185 pilots and support crew -- are in the Gulf region. A third, VAQ-139, is returning home on the Lincoln next month. Two others, VAQ-133 and VAQ-131, are due to depart later this year.
It's an oddly forgotten war.
Pentagon Web sites list page after page of hostile incidents U.S. planes have faced in the skies over Saddam's territory, everything from getting "lit up" by radar to having to dodge missiles and anti-aircraft fire.
For three months last summer, while Tack's squadron VAQ-134 flew missions over northern Iraq from an Air Force base in Turkey, shooting incidents erupted virtually every day.
Tack's own father was unaware of the active shooting. After a decade, if no one's hit, it's not news.
"I don't want to get lulled into a sense of 'This is the same old thing all over again. Here we go, I've patrolled it 126 times before, I'll patrol it the 127th' and then get bagged by the lucky shot or the stray bullet that takes you down," Tack said.
The 1990s may have started with a hot war that was geared -- at least at first -- toward all-out military victory, Tack noted, but it has become a decade of limited engagements. Bosnia. Kosovo. Somalia.
And, always, Iraq.
"In some respects, we play for the tie," Tack said. "We maintain the status quo. And that's a good thing, you know. We haven't allowed him to build up his military and to threaten his neighbors.
"But, at the same time, I guess everybody wonders . . . I think, probably, every American wonders, when it's going to end."
Not in time to keep the Foster and its 350-member crew at home.
Most everyone who turned out for the ship's departure from Naval Station Everett last week was aware of what happened last year to the USS Cole, the destroyer that was hit by a terrorist blast in a Yemeni port, killing 17 sailors. In any case, the pain of departure, regardless of the war, and regardless of whether the public is paying attention, is never easy.
Tina Duesler of Marysville couldn't stop crying as she and her three sons, Zach, 2, Eric, 7, and Ronnie, 9, hugged and squeezed their father for a last time. Chief Boatswain's Mate Chuck Duesler, a Utica, N.Y., native, was on his way to a third tour of the Middle East.
Worried?
"Of course. We always are," he said. "But it's what we prepare for."
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTERS
Offshore, the USS Paul F. Foster launched the first shots fired into Iraqi land bases as the war against Saddam Hussein got under way.
Every day for 10 years, American and allied planes have patrolled over northern and southern Iraq, enforcing United Nations-sanctioned "no-fly" zones, while American and allied ships have patrolled the seas nearby. 
Chief Boatswain's Mate Charles Duesler, holding his son Zach, 2, comforts the rest of his family -- Eric, 7; Ronnie, 9; and his wife, Tina -- while saying goodbye in Everett before boarding the ship, the USS Paul F. Foster, for a six-month deployment in the Persian Gulf. Ten years ago, during Operation Desert Storm, virtually all of the state's military bases played a key role. Renee C. Byer / Seattle Post-Intelligencer
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Tack, 40, and Lt. Cmdr. Pat Ryan, a fellow Gulf War vet in Tack's squadron, say they understand. Complacency is the biggest battle they fight in their own heads in a war that is numbingly unchanged, yet still dangerous.
Ginger Lawrence, 19, waves goodbye to friend Adam Bruce Sinclair, 19, as he leaves aboard the USS Paul F. Foster, at right, for a six-month deployment to the Persian Gulf. Ginger's mom, Rita, left, said: "It's sad to see such young, beautiful and focused people leave." Renee C. Byer / Seattle Post-Intelligencer
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