THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 16, 1996 TAG: 9601160275
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: THE GULF WAR: FIVE YEARS LATER
SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
The execute orders from President Bush were surprisingly short, even strange:
``Eject the Iraqis from Kuwait and free Kuwait,'' is basically what Capt. Donald J. Santapaola remembers from five years ago.
``It was very blunt, very direct, right to the point,'' said Santapaola, now executive officer of Oceana Naval Air Station.
Five years ago, as commanding officer of Fighter Squadron 103 aboard the carrier Saratoga, the crews of his dozen F-14 Tomcats and 250 squadron members on the carrier played the Desert Shield waiting game for 5 1/2 months. They had arrived in the Red Sea shortly after Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990. They were still there the day Desert Storm kicked off.
``It was kind of a surrealistic moment. It seemed strange, weird. A junior officer asked me, `Are we really going to do this?'
``I said I had been on a couple of fire drills before but had never seen a 500,000-person fire drill.''
The first of his F-14s to fly that night escorted specially equipped F/A-18 Hornets and A-6 Intruders. All went well during the first few days; that is, everyone in Santapaola's squadron returned unharmed.
``We were well prepared,'' recalled Santapaola as he listed the cycles the air crews flew, from noon to midnight, or midnight to noon; four days on, two days off as they split the duties with the carrier John F. Kennedy.
``But we weren't prepared for losing a Tomcat,'' he said.
That happened two days after the air war began, when Lt. Devon Jones, the pilot, and Lt. Lawrence Slade, the radar intercept officer, were shot down by ground fire over Iraq.
Jones, who ejected and parachuted into the desolate portion of Iraqi desert, was rescued by two A-10 Thunderbolt attack planes that guided a helicopter to him.
The operation lasted eight hours and 18 minutes and involved the A-10s refueling four times while flying over enemy territory.
Slade's fate was unknown until more than a week later when the Pentagon officially listed him as a POW.
That was a difficult time, said Santapaola.
``It was the hardest thing I've ever done, especially when a plane is shot down and we didn't know if one was alive or not. You don't have a lot of time to commiserate about it. Everyone had to go to sleep and do the next day's mission.''
They learned what happened to Slade when he was paraded in front of Iraqi television.
``You don't want to see people paraded around on TV. But if he is one of yours, it's pretty good to see him,'' said Santapaola.
After six weeks of bombing and the 100-hour ground war, Slade was released.
Flying out of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on a medical evacuation plane toward Germany, Slade managed to use the pilot's radio to contact Santapaola aboard the Saratoga.
``It was 2 a.m. and I'm in my flight suit and flip-flops when he got on the radio and said hello to us. That was a special moment.''
Today, Jones and Slade still roam the same tarmac as Santapaola at Oceana. Slade is assigned to the fighter wing staff. Jones is on the staff of Air Wing 7. ILLUSTRATION: Capt. Donald J. Santapaola recalls President Bush's order as
``very blunt, very direct, right to the point.''
KEYWORDS: GULF WAR ANNIVERSARY by CNB