Book Review: HORNETS OVER KUWAIT
Reviewed by Barry Isaacson

There are many excellent first-hand accounts of the air war in the Gulf, each distinguished by the unique perspective and distinctive personality of its author. In Every Man a Tiger (Putnam's, 1999), General Chuck Horner, the Commander of the air campaign (with literary assistance from Tom Clancy) provides a brainy, invaluable top-down account of the logistical and operational challenges posed by a breathtakingly complex military campaign which ultimately triumphed in both departments. Vipers in the Storm (McGraw-Hill, 1999) by Capt. Keith Rosenkranz represents the point of view of an even-tempered U.S. Air Force F-16 pilot with thirty combat missions under his belt and in Tornado Down (Michael Joseph, 1992), Royal Air Force veterans John Peters and John Niccol describe with classic British understatement the Tornado's high-risk, low-level bombing mission in Desert Storm.

Hornets over Kuwait by Marine Lt. Col. Jay A. Stout earns its place in this distinguished bibliography by supplying a lucid, articulate depiction of the life of a Marine combat pilot flying the F/A-18A throughout the Gulf War. Lt. Col. Stout - a Captain during Desert Storm - is quite a character. In fact his is the most colorful personality to have emerged from all the first-person aviator accounts of the air war that I have read; this is no small statement, as fighter pilots are not generally noted for their diffidence. Looking appropriately like Robert Duvall in The Great Santini in the photograph on the back cover of his book, Lt. Col. Stout (call-sign "Guinness", needless to say) shares his robust appreciation of the fighting men whose protection he takes very seriously indeed ("I love Marines") and his regard for several of his commanding officers ("boobs, or goofs") is scarcely more complimentary than his opinion of female combat aviators ("unagressive to the point of timidity"). Words are not minced here. The United States military has not escaped the onslaught of political correctness post-Tailhook and there may even be merit in this, but it is partly Lt. Col. Stout's total indifference to such sensitivities which makes his book a terrific read.

Hornets over Kuwait begins with a graceful acknowledgement of the fact that for all their courage and discipline, the lack of meaningful opposition from Saddam's armed forces prevents the veterans of Desert Storm from being able to compare their experiences of warfare with those of their predecessors in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. A description of the initial deployment follows as Guinness draws the short straw and finds himself cast as the logistics officer responsible for transporting his squadron, the VMFA-451 "Warlords", with all their "stuff", from Beaufort, South Carolina to the desert of Bahrain. This involved organizing toilet paper inventories, mass immunizations and a last-minute trip to the Wal-Mart on the base for shaving cream and two hundred rounds of pistol ammunition in case he got shot down. Finally:

"…dealing with my mother (I love her dearly) was awful. She shrieked, screamed, cried, begged and pleaded for me not to go. I dreaded hearing the phone ring, fearing it might be her again."

Lt. Col. Stout ultimately disentangled himself from his mother on 20 August 1990 when the Warlords shipped out.

Arriving in Bahrain, our reluctant logistician is responsible for imposing order upon chaos as troops are housed uncomfortably in makeshift tents and the only way to evacuate one's bowels is in a "porcelain slit trench". Women were included in a Marine deployment for the first time and this is one of several subjects about which Lt. Col. Stout is so spectacularly and bracingly politically incorrect that one worries for his future in the Armed Services. He was still a serving officer when this book was published (1997) but perhaps it is necessary to look no further than this passage, and others like it, for reasons why he is unlikely to run for congress as a General:

"Women got pregnant. Male officers had sex with enlisted females. Some females weren't physically or emotionally capable of performing their duties… There were women who couldn't perform during their menstrual cycle. Fights occurred over women. Time and attention was wasted by males in pursuit of females. Prostitution was suspected. Rumors got back to families in the States, which caused tremendous heartache."

Never is Lt. Col. Stout's criticism mean-spirited, however, and his unsparing attitude towards those aspects of the campaign that drove him mad, such as the deployment of women, the presence of superior officers who could barely taxi their fighters in the tight confines of Shaikh Isa air base, let alone fly them in combat, and the very idea that the Harrier is an effective tactical air asset, only makes his appreciation of the many positive aspects of the air war, such as a generous tribute to the USAF's air transport capabilities, more powerful in its obvious sincerity.

At the heart of the book is a marvelous evocation of the Marine air mission in Desert Storm and this serves as a valuable counterpoint to the notion that air power is only about putting missiles on enemy fighters and bombs on buildings. The Marine aviator's role is to fly Close Air Support (CAS) of Marines in theater. This involves a level of personal devotion to these young ground troops that is described by Lt. Col. Stout with humor and passion. The culture of Marine combat aviation is blue-collar rather than TOP GUN glamorous and although neither Lt. Col. Stout nor the F/A-18 is anything less than formidable in its Combat Air Patrol (CAP) mission, one gets the impression that he wears his ground-pounding image with pride.

Stout's robustness should not imply any lack of sophistication, however. Hornets over Kuwait contains an articulate and balanced assessment of the F/A-18's capabilities, which include exceptional physical endurance, superb stability in slow flight and a fearsome capacity to deliver ordnance accurately and in high quantities both against aircraft and ground targets. The dominant role of CAS in the Marine Hornet's mission enables the author to describe tactical aspects of the air war in the Gulf that do not feature prominently in Air Force or Navy memoirs. These include low-altitude use of the FLIR (Forward Looking Infra-Red) targeting technology, which, for the first time in combat, and in conjunction with the Hornet's powerful radar, allowed fighter pilots to select and target objects as small as tanks with great accuracy and at night. The reader will also find a fascinating account of the art of FAC (Forward Air Controlled) strikes in which targets are identified by a slow-flying aircraft often under attack from local enemy air defences or specialists on the ground performing the same service. On many occasions weapons delivered from low altitude such as the Mk-20 cluster bomb munition, "dudded" or failed to go off, and Lt. Col. Stout is characteristically frank about this under-reported aspect of the air war. The Marine air mission also involved the use of the Hornet's 20mm gun, and this is where one suspects the realization of certain boyhood fantasies as, with pathetically minimal resistance from the Iraqis, Stout and his squadron raked "soft" ground targets with withering gunfire in repeated strafing runs from five hundred feet. Finally, defensive tactics and strategy are vividly described here. There is no doubt that the Iraqi AAA and SAM threats give the lie to any notion that Desert Storm was a chicken run for allied aviators. The missiles in particular could be deadly when their operators had the nerve to switch on the targeting radar. Here is how Lt. Col. Stout responded to his first encounter with a SAM:

"For an instant I felt indignant. These guys were shooting at me. Not an airfield. Not a city. Or even a gaggle of airplanes. Me. Then I honestly had my feelings hurt. I was really a pretty nice guy, not the sort of person you'd want to kill."

Indeed one of the most authentically fascinating aspects of this book is Lt. Col. Stout's attitude towards his vocation as a warrior. In his equally commendable memoir Vipers in the Storm, Captain Keith Rosenkranz of the US Air Force agonizes over killing the driver of an enemy truck delivering supplies to the Republican Guard. Captain Rosenkranz is all the more admirable for the candid misgivings which accompany his obvious courage in battle but it is difficult not to be entertained by the suspicion that Lt. Col. Stout, in yet another all-out assault on political correctness, is a warrior who relished the war and who rained destruction from his F/A-18 with grim satisfaction. He is no bully or sadist, however, and both pilots deplore the wanton, if necessary destruction of retreating enemy forces on the so-called Highway of Death as they fled from Kuwait City in stolen Mercedes and with everything they could plunder.

Jay Stout's book should be indispensable to all students of military aviation. As an informal self-portrait of a fighter pilot at war, it is vivid, truthful and often very funny. Combat flight simulator pilots - particularly those who fly Jane's excellent F/A-18 - will find the description of this jet's mission, systems and performance (as well as the appendix and the eloquent harangue against the Harrier) compelling. I can recommend it without reservation.

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