Letters from the Gulf War '90-91

I wasn’t sure where to put these (please don’t tell me I’m ‘historic’ already) but thought that some might find them interesting. My parents just sent these letters to me, that I had sent to them, during my Gulf War deployment to Qatar. It seems a little strange to read them today, almost as if they were written by someone else. It also seems a little strange to remember a time before e-mail and internet connections around the world – looking back to when our world revolved around the BBC World Service, VOA, and waiting and hoping for the next mail flight to arrive…

For more info on our deployment from Torrejon to Doha, plus stories, and over 250 pics, I invite you to visit our website at: http://www.lucky-devils.net And I invite you to read my own story “The Call” (as far as I’ve written it…) at http://www.lucky-devils.net/thecall.html

Mike Kopack

October 6th 1990

Hi Everyone!

What’s up on the home front? Here everything has settled down to a constant routine and truthfully there isn’t much to write about. Today is Saturday, and for me, a day off. Normally we all get Fridays off (Islamic holy day) but yesterday I volunteered to help Transit Alert’s weekend duty. I went in at 7pm and we were very busy until they let me go at 2:30. During that time we recovered, serviced, and launched 2 US C-130’s, a C-21 (Lear Jet) a CC-137 (Canadian 707), and about 4-5 CC-130’s. Tomorrow the CF-18’s should be in. The pilots are from all the squadrons in Germany, but all of the maintenance is 409 Sqdn. Our ramp is going to be pretty full here with the Qatari AF’s Alpha Jets and F.1’s (all in hangars) our 24 F-16’s (614TFS/AMU), 18 CF-18’s and the rumor is 8 French AF F.1’s (although we’re all hoping for Mirage 2000’s). During the past week I’ve also learned how to launch A-10’s (2 from MB) and RAF Jaguars (nice in tan paint)(Prehistoric nightmare of an airplane) The F-15D from Langley that was lost was practicing low level intercepts against the Jag’s. The Canadians are really helping us out by bringing in a lot of stuff including ground troops for air base defense. On the American side we’ve got 88 AF SP’s from Comiso Italy who haven’t spent much time around a flightline before, se we feel a lot better with the troops here.

The weather here is starting to get…reasonable. The last few days we’ve had highs about 95 and lows down in the low to mid 70’s with the humidity starting to come down. So, what we’ve got here is perfect beach weather. Unfortunately along with the cooler weather it’s also getting windy. Today we’ve got winds about 25mph with higher gusts. Twenty-five mph winds plus fine dusty sand equal…I’ve got sand in my hair, ears, eyes, nose, and mouth. A couple of days ago we got some more rope, so we “strormproofed” (hopefully) our tent.

What’s up with Syracuse football? Two ties in two weeks? I don’t know if they’ve played any games since then, our news here runs about a week or more behind. Occasionally we get a couple of 3-4 day old NY Times or Boston Globes, these we guard with our lives and could probably sell for $5 a piece. Mail here is really slow – running about a week from Spain and at least 2 from the States. So far I’ve gotten 2 Insights and my pay statement from 15 September (yesterday).

So far we are eeking out our simple day to day existence, which mostly consists of an MRE for lunch, off to work at 3:00, chowhall for dinner (almost better with another MRE), back to work until 11 or 12, sit in the rec tent and watch a movie or two, sleep, and MRE for lunch, etc…

Our morale is still good (it’d be better with a cold beer – we’ve heard that the Emir said it would be Ok) but I can see people wearing down, just in the time I’ve been here – just from boredom and a lot of stupid rules.

Take care, we’ll talk to you later –
Mike

From:
Sgt. Michael P. Kopack
401st TFW (P) 401st EMS
APO New York 09869