Many people helped put this book together and kept it on track. First, I owe a debt of gratitude to Rush Limbaugh, who has encouraged me throughout this project to keep moving forward and who put me in contact with the right people. He and his wife, Kathryn, have been ministering angels through some very tough times in my family’s life.
This book started around Colonel Geno Redmon’s (ret) backyard fire pit. As my Young Tiger Squadron commander and mentor, Geno offered his advice on every story, and they are much better for it. Geno was the TACC vice commander at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois during Anaconda and Shock and Awe. I’m so glad whenever I picked up the phone, Geno’s voice was on the other end.
Major General Nick Williams (ret), my boss and director of mobility forces, read through each story in the Iraqi Freedom chapters and offered his insights into mobility operations as the senior leader of AMC’s operations in the region.
Lieutenant General Kurt Cichowski (ret) became a most trusted mentor after we met during Exercise Internal Look 2003. Ski was the Iraqi Freedom deputy DIRMOBFOR and sent me a number of PowerPoint briefings he gave on mobility operations to senior leaders after the war.
Admiral Mark “Cyrus” Vance (ret) gave me his valuable time while I wrote the Iraqi Freedom chapters. Cyrus’s insights on Iraqi Freedom’s North War as a customer were invaluable and are why a chapter bears his name.
Navy Captain Steve “Moose” Laukaitis (ret) and I met right before Operation Anaconda started. He has been gracious enough to read through the stories bearing his name and to give me vector checks on events in the two intense operations he and I were involved in.
Navy Captain Mike “Trigger” Saunders (ret) and I have known each other since his exchange tour with the Dirty Dozen F-15 squadron at Kadena Air Base in the early 1990s. Trigger was one of Cyrus’s Iraqi Freedom strike leads and gave me one of his mission briefing books over tacos in Orlando. I used the book to re-create many of the refueling missions in the North War.
Navy Captain Dave “Mongo” Koss was Moose’s strike lead on the USS Theodore Roosevelt in Iraqi Freedom. Mongo spent numerous hours with me on the phone and e-mailed tidbits to capture his Carrier Air Wing 8 missions over both Afghanistan and Iraq flying F-18 Hornets in VFA-87 War Party.
Colonel George “John Boy” Walton’s (ret) story appears as the first chapter for a reason. It was my crew’s first combat mission. John Boy spent many hours on the phone helping me capture the Desert Storm Wild Weasel story and used his lineup card, stored in his attic for twenty-five years, to re-create Drinks for PooBah’s Party.
Colonel Doug “Disco” Dildy (ret) gave me advice and thrust vectors based on his journey through the publishing world. Disco spent hours mentoring me via e-mail and phone calls on how to focus the stories for a bigger audience.
Lieutenant Colonel Stu Pugh (ret) spent hours informing me how he ran the King Khalid International Airport MPC and planned tanker missions during Desert Storm. In Iraqi Freedom, it was Stu’s group at the Air Force Studies and Analysis Agency that helped refine our refueling plans, making the tanker fleet almost as efficient as it was effective.
Major Dave Mason (ret) has been a motivating force throughout the writing of the manuscript. Dave spent numerous hours fine-tuning the stories while flying around the world as a United Airlines 767 captain.
Lieutenant Commander Dave “Hey Joe” Parsons (ret) escorted me during my first USS John F. Kennedy tour. Hey Joe offered his expertise while I navigated through writing this manuscript. A number of Hey Joe’s pictures appear in the sixteen pages of photos, a testament to his photography skills.
Hey Joe introduced me to Peter Chilelli, who took time and exercised a lot of patience in reviewing pictures and restoring some of the twenty-five-year-old 35mm color negatives and slides to something usable. Peter’s artwork can be found at peter-chilelli.pixels.com.
I spent many hours with my father, Robert Hasara, sitting in the carport and recounting all the stories you see here and many more that did not make it into Tanker Pilot’s pages. My dad has been my motivator, mentor, and cheerleader for this project ever since it was just a spark in my imagination.
My good friend Joe Medolo has called me every Thursday night for a decade to discuss stories and talk about what’s happening in the plastic model airplane world, my “Weekly New Hampshire Morale Call.” Thanks, Joe, for keeping me centered.
My wife, Valerie, is the reason this book takes combat experiences and finds motivational or moral lessons for success in them. I rewrote chapters to broaden the audience for Tanker Pilot by making each story applicable to everyday life.
Numerous others have been “Beta Readers” and given advice on how to improve my writing style and the Tanker Pilot stories. I thank all of you I haven’t mentioned specifically for helping with this project.
Lastly, I raise a toast to the Initial Cadre and graduates of the 509th Weapons School, the tanker center of excellence, located at Fairchild Air Force Base in Washington State. In the post-9/11 world, the school’s graduates’ worth cannot be measured. Desert Storm and Allied Force refueling operations did not benefit from refueling planners and operators educated at the graduate level. 509th Weapons School graduates have been invaluable in employing Air Force tankers supporting everything the US does on the world stage. They embody the motto of the US Air Force Weapons School: BUILD—TEACH—LEAD!