McDonnell Douglas F-15E Strike Eagle

Nine out of three hundred and seventy-five, like, you know, we'll manage, right? In terms of the equipment lost there.

They added three F-15 Strike Eagles were destroyed early in the conflict due to friendly fire over Kuwait, and one was shot down over Iran on April 3rd.

Adding that roughly eight more F-15s were damaged in a recent salvo of ballistic missile fire in Jordan.

Uh, the F-15 that went down in Iran, as we know, there was a significant search and rescue operation that played out there that did lead to several more aircraft being destroyed.

The 3rd Infantry Division's 1st and 2nd Brigades attacked from the south and the northwest, encountering ineffective resistance over intact roads and bridges to attack their primary objective, namely Baghdad International Airport, although at the time it bore the name of the Iraqi leader himself.

Supporting the attack was an F-15E Strike Eagle, whose crew tragically mistook an American formation for an Iraqi one and bombed them, killing Sgt. 1st Class Randy Raine, Sgt. Todd Robbins, and Specialist Donald Oakes, as well as injuring five others.

The airport was not taken easily, it having been afforded very heavy protection from what the Iraqis had left in the city.

But by the end of the day, it was in US hands.

But the landing gear folks took care of all the wheels and tires for all sorts of places.

An example, the F-15E was at Seymour Johnson, and they were the boy.

And they were low on tires, and they were the only aircraft that used – the radial tire in the Air Force, as far as I know, all the services.

And they were made in France by Michelin.

absolutely so man uh just reading that intro i'm i'm super interested about what you're what you're bringing to the show man let me tell me a little bit about yourself what you did in in the military in the air force and then uh how your transition to civilian life went for you so far

yeah yeah no problem uh so uh i joined the air force on july 18th of uh 2000 you know before 9 11 there and then i actually uh i was a guy who had many many jobs at least for the first Part of my career there, I started out as a weapons loader there at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base on the Strike Eagles.

I did approximately five years of that, then five years of Air Force firefighting, doing the ARF stuff there at Charleston Air Force Base, and then I get to a point in my book there where basically I go home on leave, and I realize this whole war on terror, I was sitting on the sidelines, and I really wanted to get in the fight.

I caught the same cracks in the road, and I get to a point where I was like, I don't want to leave cracks.