These days, Ed Fisher (callsign: “Tuna”) is twice-retired and living with his wife on Washington State’s Whidbey Island. His second career was as a lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School, from which he retired in 2021. His first career was much more exciting.
As Lt. Col. Fisher, he was a U.S. Air Force Wild Weasel Electronic Warfare Officer (EWO), who performed this duty during Operation Desert Storm. “Last In, First Out” is his diary from his days fighting combat missions there.
For the uninitiated, the First Gulf War came in two phases: Operation Desert Shield and then Operation Desert Storm. On August 2, 1990, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq invaded neighboring Kuwait for a number of reasons, none of which were enough for the United Nations to let Iraq keep it as a territory. The UN gave Iraq an ultimatum: withdraw from Kuwait by January 15, 1991, or face the consequences. Operation Desert Shield was a buildup of forces in Saudi Arabia from a Coalition of UN member states. Operation Desert Storm was the aforementioned consequences.
When the deadline passed and Iraq still hadn’t withdrawn, the U.S. and Coalition forces launched 42 consecutive days and nights of aerial bombing. The Coalition launched some 116,000 combat sorties during the air war, and 65,000 of those were conducted by the U.S. Air Force.
Flying Wild Weasel Missions in Desert Storm
“When war broke out with the start of the air campaign, we were still sitting in the Philippines,” Fisher wrote in “Last In, First Out.” We continued to train to fight as we watched CNN reports of our comrades actually doing the fighting. The frustration I and others felt was immense.”
“During the middle of the second week of the war the request came in: send six aircrews to augment forces already in place,” he continued. “We were to depart for Shaikh Isa Air Base, Bahrain, as soon as transportation could be found. We would leave our jets behind, as the problem was not aircraft losses but aircrews wearing out from the workload of sortie after sortie with no break.”
Upon arrival, Lt. Col. Fisher and other F-4G pilots and EWOs began flying “Wild Weasel” combat missions against Iraq. The Wild Weasel is a special kind of air mission. It’s a combat aircraft that is actively seeking to be targeted by the enemy’s air defenses, particularly radar-based surface-to-air missile installations. If it sounds crazy to you, that’s because it is kind of crazy. The Wild Weasel patch includes the abbreviation “YGBSM,” which means “You Gotta Be Sh*tting Me.”
But there’s a method to the madness: the aircraft carries anti-radiation missiles, so (hopefully) as soon as the SAM’s radar is turned on for targeting, it’s ready to get blown away before it can launch. The book is simply Fisher’s diary from the time period, reformatted to be read like a book. It’s a good read for anyone interested in air operations, Wild Weasels, the Air Force in general, or anyone curious what it was like to deploy in the days before wifi, texting, or email. Readers, even some who were Air Force pilots themselves, find the book to be interesting, engrossing, and heartfelt.
“Last In, First Out: A Desert Storm Diary” by Ed “Tuna” Fisher can be found on Amazon starting at $18.99 for paperback or on Kindle eReader for $4.99. Those with Kindle Unlimited subscriptions can read it for free.
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