Eye on the enemy: Soldiers with UAV units played key role in targeting Iraqi units

Herald/Review

FORT HUACHUCA - The video from unmanned aerial vehicles can be mesmerizing, so much so it is almost as addictive as playing a video game.

But Capt. Hilton Nunez and Staff Sgt. Frank Konarik, two soldiers involved in the operation of Hunter and Shadow systems over Iraq, were not playing a video game where the characters and equipment could be blown away only to be resurrected later.

The information streaming in real time on their and other video screens were of Iraqi forces and equipment that when destroyed by American forces would not come back to life.

Both Company E, 305th Military Intelligence Battalion soldiers said UAV assets were the hottest commodity wanted by combat commanders.

At one point, a struggle over who would control the UAVs led to the commander of V Corps to take personal control of how the pilotless planes would be used, Nunez said.

Since the V Corps general was in charge of the overall battle plan that was constantly changing in the fast-moving combat situations and because the number of Army UAVs was limited, he had to make the final decisions how the pilotless aircraft would be used.

Many times a combat commander did not want to move unless he had UAV support, Konarik said.

Hunters flying before war started

Even before the main U.S. forces crossed into Iraq on March 19, 2003, the Hunters were being flown in Iraq near its border with Kuwait, said Nunez, who is now the officer in charge of UAV training.

"Our first mission was doing a lot of recon over southern Iraq," he said.

What was found during those reconnaissance missions was used to modify the war plan, said Nunez, whose main job was to provide unmanned aerial vehicle support to V Corps.

When the decision was made to send the main fighting forces into Iraq, the Hunters under his control drove out of Kuwait, heading for an Iraqi airfield, identified as where the pilotless planes would be flown from.

The airfield was supposed to have been secured by time the soldiers involved in the Hunter operation arrived.

"We drove through four days of (enemy) fire, ambushes and sandstorms," he said.

The three routes of travel had so much traffic and were occasionally being attacked that the convoy he was with drove on a one-lane oil pipeline road that had 5-foot drop-offs on either side.

When the unit finally arrived at the designated airfield, which had not been fully secured by U.S. forces, Nunez said it was important to put a UAV in the air as soon as possible. At the time, he was the commander of Company A of the 224th Military Intelligence Battalion out of Hunter Army Airfield, Ala.

An Army aviator who flies fixed wing and helicopters, the captain said prior to being deployed to the Middle East the unmanned aerial vehicle unit went through training at Fort Polk, La.

Missions begin inside of Iraq

The pre-training and flying missions before the war allowed Nunez's soldiers to take an hour to put together and launch a Hunter on a 16-hour flight.

The aircraft immediately sent back video "of high pay-off targets." Some of those targets included Iraqi missiles and long range artillery, the captain said.

Combat commanders were concerned about the Iraqi irregulars, the Hussein loyalists and other supporters of the Ba'athist regime who blended into the population, Nunez said.

On many occasions, the Hunters flown by young privates first class and specialists located where potential enemy forces were storing ammunition and arms.

The irregular forces did not know "we had eyes in the sky watching them," the captain said.

Flying high, the Hunters were hard to see and hear in the target rich environment.

As the war progressed the chain of control was reduced so that those flying the Hunter missions could directly talk with Air Force pilots and lead them to a specific target, Nunez said.

The Air Force also was flying its Predator and Global Hawk pilotless planes over Iraq.

The young soldiers, initially trained at Fort Huachuca, also guided Army helicopter gunships to targets.

One UAV lost to enemy

Having eight Hunters under his control, Nunez said he lost only one of them to a combination of weather and enemy fire. The Iraqi forces would not have known about the location of the Hunter in question if it had not had to be flown at a lower altitude because of icing conditions.

Because the mission over Baghdad was important and to keep the wings from icing up - the Hunters have no de-icing capability while in flight - the aircraft was forced to fly below 5,000 feet.

A CNN television crew began filming the plane as it flew over a part of Baghdad. The live transmissions were seen by U.S. forces and Iraqis, Nunez said.

The television reporter kept wondering what type of plane was being filmed, he said.

A wag in the Hunter unit said something like, "Hey we're on CNN," just before the plane was shot down by the Iraqis, Nunez said.

The aftermath of the incident was the Iraqis making a big deal of the Hunter's demise by taking members of the international press corps to see the wreckage. According to press reports, the Iraqis indicated that using pilotless planes showed the United States was afraid of their air defenses.

To Nunez and Konarik, using UAVs is the smart way to fight a war, locating targets and then calling in the air support needed without putting pilots in additional danger.

Republican Guards' Baghdad trip stopped

Another example of the value of the Hunters was stopping the Republican Guards from making it to Baghdad to reconstitute forces to defend the city, Nunez said.

When a Republican Guard unit was spotted by the UAVs during the day or night moving in a direction to Baghdad, those avenues were denied to them by Army, Marine and Air Force units on the ground and in the air, he said.

If the Republican Guard units had been allowed to make it to Baghdad, the captain believes the fight for the city would have been much harder and bloodier.

Shadow appears over Iraq

While Nunez was already working in Iraq, Konarik would not move into Iraq until nearly a month later.

His unit, part of the 4th Infantry Division, was supposed to enter Iraq through Turkey. When the Turkish government denied U.S. forces access to Iraq through their nation, the division went to Kuwait.

"We entered Kuwait on March 28th and entered Iraq on April 10th," said Konarik, who now is a Shadow instructor. During the war, he was assigned to Company B, 104th Military Intelligence Battalion from Fort Hood, Texas.

Before deploying, Konarik was part of the Shadow test platoon at Fort Hood where the system was put through it paces before being deployed.

The unit was in a four-day convoy to Baghdad. Once Konarik's unit got to the main airfield in Baghdad - the former Saddam Hussein International Airport - "we launched our first combat mission."

Like the Hunter, the Shadow can be put together, fueled and launched in less than an hour. The Hunter, which is a larger two-engine aircraft, was used more for strategic targeting. The Shadow, a smaller single-engine plane, was used to support tactical operations.

The first mission was flown over Tikrit "right in the heart of the Sunni Triangle," Konarik said.

After that, there were no breaks.

"We flew 24-7," Konarik said.

In addition to flying and maintaining the airplane, the Shadow soldiers performed perimeter guard duty around their camp, Konarik said.

As major fixed battles ended, there still was a concern about insurgents, something that remains to this day.

Some of the Shadow missions flew over ground convoys. The convoy protection missions usually were for smaller groups - those of three or four vehicles - that did not have the firepower in case they were ambushed, Konarik said.

"We would fly cover for them," he said.

The Shadow could see more, and the information to change a route could be rapidly given if an ambush was seen being set up, said Konarik, who was awarded a Bronze Star Medal for his leadership.

On more than one occasion, Shadows would transmit video of people looting buildings. If U.S. forces on patrol were nearby, they were rapidly sent to the area of disturbances.

UAVs help spot troublemakers

Nunez told a story about a group of Hussein loyalist who were using a soccer field to store war supplies.

"They didn't know we had them on camera," he said.

In real-time video, the U.S. forces watched what the Iraqis were doing. As the offloading continued, air assets were called in for an attack.

Caught unaware, the Iraqis were badly mauled as they ran for cover. All of that was captured on the video that was immediately transmitted to the combat decision-makers.

But there was a lull in the operation because the Air Force planes had to depart the scene to refuel. That gave enough time for the Iraqis to think the attack was over.

As the Hunter continued to watch, the enemy returned unloading what was not destroyed. Then another attack began.

"They just didn't understand we knew what they were doing all the time," he said.

Baby wipes become an important maintenance item

The pilotless planes were successful because of the dedicated work of the soldiers to keep them flying and repaired, both soldiers said.

The sand created many problems.

Through GI ingenuity, they found ways to keep the parts clean.

Being far away from a depot where the aircraft could be fixed and have some deep cleaning, the most crucial field cleaning agent was "baby wipes that were worth more than gold," Nunez said.

A mission was never canceled due to maintenance problems, he added.

As part of the Army's new intelligence training strategy on post, soldiers like Nunez and Konarik have been brought back to instruct those who will be flying Hunter and Shadow missions, many of whom will deploy to Iraq directly from the Arizona post.

The Intelligence Center is using a cohort concept to create UAV platoons of new soldiers and those assigned to other installations to make them a team before deploying. Nunez and Konarik are part of the program to impart what is happening in a real-world situation, so the new platoons will be better prepared when they go to Iraq.

The videos of what happened in Iraq are important teaching tools.

There were times the video stream almost seemed like a Hollywood production.

"We should have been eating popcorn," Nunez said.

While the videos are mesmerizing and addictive, Nunez and Konarik said that what they show is reality, not a game or movie.

HERALD/REVIEW senior reporter Bill Hess can be reached at 515-4615 or by e-mail at

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